Rapid Fire!
Fast Play World War Two Wargames Rules
Wargame Rules Review

Rapid Fire! is advertised as a set of “fast play” World War Two wargames rules. To achieve this goal, the detailed charts and tables of previous World War Two rules have been dropped in favour of more streamlined game rules. The anti-armour rules, in particular, are a real time-saver, allowing the player to shoot at enemy vehicles without having to worry about the angle of the shot, the exact hit location on the target, the type of vertical, angled or sloped armour encountered in that particular hit location, the possibility of a glancing blow harmlessly bouncing off the armour, or the likelihood of an invalid hit against any part of the target vehicle which might be obscured by terrain.
Artillery, aircraft, glider, and naval rules have been similarly simplified to make them easier to memorize and actually use in a game.
Contents
- Title: Rapid Fire!
- Period: World War Two
- Type: Tactical Wargame
- Time Scale: none given (approximately 1.5 minutes per turn)
- Ground Scale: none given (1:656 based on 3″ grenade throwing range)
- Troop Scale: 1 figure = 15 men, 1 model = 5 guns or vehicles
- Basing: single figures and multi-figure bases
- Casualty rate per minute at 100 meters range: (unmodified)
- Rifleman (Bolt Action): 0.19 hits
- Rifleman (Garand): 0.19 hits
- Rifleman (StG 44): 0.24 hits
- Light Machine Gun (Bren): 0.69 hits
- Light Machine Gun (MG 42): 1.28 hits
- Medium Machine Gun (tripod MG 42, Vickers): 1.28 hits
- Heavy Machine Gun (.50 cal. M2 Browning): 1.49 hits
- Armour penetration benchmarks
- Sherman vs. Lingèvres Panther: 11 % per game turn
- Author: Colin Rumford & Richard Marsh
- Format: 120-page rule book
- Language: English
- Publisher: Rapid Fire Publications, York, England
- Published: 2005
Chapters
- Introduction
- Orders of Battle
- British Armoured Brigade
- British Infantry Brigade
- German Infantry Regiment Kampfgruppe
- German Panzer Grenadier Regiment Kampfgruppe
- American Armored Combat Command
- American Regimental Combat Team
- Russian Tank Brigade Forward Detachment
- Basic Rules
- Order of Play
- Morale
- Observation
- Smoke
- Heroic Actions
- Movement
- Reserved Fire
- Close Assault
- Firing
- Final Movement
- A Battalion-Level Scenario played with the Basic Rules
- Lingèvres – Normandy, 14th June 1944
- Advanced Rules
- Command and Control
- Resupply, Repairs and Medical Support
- Engineering and River Crossing
- Specialist Small Arms
- Aircraft
- Fighting in Built-Up Areas
- Paratroop and Glider Landings
- Amphibious Landings
- Naval Combat
- Terrain, Climate and Darkness
- A Brigade-Level Scenario played with the Advanced Rules
- Operation Martlet – Normandy, 26th June 1944
- End Pieces
Quick Reference Chart
- Rapid Fire! Playsheet
- Casualty Calculator
Evaluation
Rapid Fire! is a game, not a simulation of World War Two ground warfare.
The anti-tank rules have been simplified to such an extend that Rapid Fire! does not even differentiate between the frontal armour and the much weaker side armour of a potential target. While this lack of differentiation may not matter in the case of lightly armoured vehicles which had thin armour all around, it will make a great difference to the Allied player who now has an even slimmer chance of destroying enemy heavy tanks with a well-aimed flank shot at close range. Even if the Allied player manages to manoeuvre behind an enemy Panther or Tiger tank, the probability of scoring an effective hit increases by only 16 % per turn. And, this tiny bonus will be negated if the firer or the target is moving when the shot is fired.
Using Rapid Fire! rules, the British player has a slim 11 % chance of destroying the Panther parked on D13 between La Senaudière and Lingèvres on 14th June 1944. Allied players may want to think twice about using Rapid Fire! for their games.
Rapid Fire! has the British M5 Half-Track Personnel Carrier incorrectly armed with the .50 Caliber M2 Browning Machine Gun. The British Motor Battalion did not have any .50 cal. heavy machine guns in its 1944 order of battle. There were 86 .303 light machine guns and eight .303 medium machine guns in the battalion. In time for D-Day, the unarmed M5 Half-Track simply replaced the 15 cwt 4×4 truck as the new section transport, that was it. Of course, the section machine gunner might fire his Bren LMG from the armoured machine gun pulpit of the M5A1 Half-Track.
A single vehicle-mounted .50 cal. HMG is deadly in Rapid Fire! The weapon has a small arms value of 10, compared to only 8 for an entire British infantry company of eight figures. Firing from long range, safely outside the 24″ small arms fire zone, a stationary vehicle-mounted .50 cal. HMG has a 33 % chance of eliminating one enemy infantryman in hard cover, and an additional 16 % chance of eliminating two of them per turn. Statistically, it will take 12 turns to completely eliminate a dug-in 8-man infantry company from a perfectly safe distance, 6.7 turns if they are caught in the open at long range, or just 3 turns at short range.
The German MG 34 and MG 42 light machine guns are both overrated in Rapid Fire!, based on the MG 42‘s theoretically high rate of fire of 1500 rounds per minute. Of course, 1500 rounds per minute were never fired in action, because the MG 42 gun group of four men only carried a “Kampfsatz” combat load of 1000 rounds of ammunition between them. What kind of target would justify the expenditure of the entire combat load of ammunition in just 40 seconds?! To this day, German machine gunners of the “Deckungsgruppe” cover group are trained to fire short bursts at a suspected or observed enemy position, to pin the enemy and allow the “Sturmgruppe” assault group to manoeuvre against the enemy position. The doctrine of “Kein Feuer ohne Bewegung, keine Bewegung ohne Feuer!”, no fire without movement, no movement without fire, is strictly observed.
In Rapid Fire!, a German Panzergrenadier company of eight figures gets a +2 (+ 33 %) die roll modification on the small arms fire table, resulting in 1.67 casualties per turn when firing at enemy infantry in soft cover at medium range. As a result, it will take the Panzergrenadier player 4.8 turns to completely eliminate an enemy infantry company of eight figures.
Fighting without that same bonus, the British infantry company causes only 1 casualty per turn, requiring 8 turns to completely eliminate a German infantry company in soft cover at medium range. An unfair handicap, considering that British infantry was similarly trained to their German counterparts. The British carried 3000 rounds of LMG ammunition in the platoon truck, or 1000 rounds for each LMG in the platoon.
The British Small Arms Training, Volume I, Pamphlet No. 4 – Light Machine Gun, 1942 emphasizes that “During the attack, sections will be divided into two groups – the rifle group and the L.M.G. group.” The LMG group provided cover fire to allow the rifle group to manoeuvre against an enemy position. Bren gunners, like MG 42 gunners, were trained to fire short bursts to keep an enemy pinned down. The theoretical rate of fire of a weapon isn‘t the deciding factor in combat, training is. There‘s really no reason why non-German infantry should be severally handicapped in Rapid Fire! if they used the same proven tactics of fire and movement.
To counteract the rather bloody infantry fire, Rapid Fire! allows infantry to dig themselves into hard cover in just two (2) game turns. That‘s quick! Anyone who has ever dug a “Schützenmulde” shell scrape or “Kampfstand” defensive fighting position may feel a little ashamed now for taking a tad longer than two game turns to actually do it. But, then again, Rapid Fire! is a game, not a simulation of actual field engineering.
Rapid Fire! is an easy to learn game of World War Two with a noticeable confirmation bias favouring German armour and German light machine guns, as well as British .50 cal. phantom heavy machine guns.