PG / AG Unit Stats: Initiative

I spliced this off from a prior post and fixed and revised the information.

For "Zero-Range" (RA=0) or Capital-Ship duels:

Initiative + experience + terrain + 0-2 "die roll" = who shoots first

There are other special events in the Initiative “die roll” such as Rugged Defense/Out of the Sun (attacker IN=0) and the TD v. Tank duel.

I do not recall any table that listed the exact numbers for experience, terrain, or unit-class modifiers for the "shoot first" formula.

Here is ground unit's Initiative's basic rule followed by modifiers, as best I can tell (the original efile is a bit sloppy and inconsistent and you might find further exceptions to add to the ones noted here):

• Basic Rule is, Initiative=weapon's effective range. Low for infantry small arms and high for guns, HW infantry's heavy MG outranges regular infantry's light MG, Tiger's 88mm outranges Sherman's 75mm, even though they are all RA=0 (so PG2's extra hex-range for some tanks was unnecessary). This is interesting because some people complained that the Tiger having "the same" range as the Sherman was an outrage but we see a rather ingenious solution where Initiative serves the function of relative range at the sub-hex scale, so that a panzerfaust might be powerful but the user often has to take a pounding before his assailant gets within range.
• Unit class= Artillery, AD, TD; based possibly on doctrine or assumptions about ammunition proportions issued: The SU-152 differs its IN according to class but the towed German 88 does not.
• Mobility= Self-propelled (SP) Artillery and Air Defense (AD) have higher IN than the same gun/howitzer when towed, but this is generally not true for SP TD v. towed ATG.
• Micro Troop Attribute= i.e. within a unit class: Rangers have IN higher than regular infantry despite similar small arms, and Partisans (as General Stats reminded me) have IN higher than Rangers despite poorer armament. What I first thought was an elite bonus might be an unconventional warfare bonus for surprise attacks, although it is interesting that paratroopers are IN=0, worse than regular infantry.
• Macro Troop Attribute= i.e. spanning unit classes of a nation: A general bias to boost German units.
• Other?= I am not sure if PG/AG uses other factors but it could include ammunition type,* optics, open-top, turretless, 2-man turrets, cupolas/periscopes, elevation/traverse, radios, or other items as I discuss in this blog.

Notable Inconsistency= Most towed AD is IN=2, e.g. the US 90mm AD is IN=2, but the comparable German 88mm AD is IN=11.

Micro/Macro Troop Attributes should be independent of normal combat experience because the “medals” counter is for experience.

I find the "effective range" factor to be useful but I favor more inclusion of "other" factors representing tactical flexibility and fast target acquisition.

* I removed ammunition as a definite PG modifier because, although the "1939" early-model Pz IV, the D model, is always stuck in an ammunition time warp with 1939 ammunition, even in a 1945 scenario when the Pz IIIN and SdKfz 251/9 have higher anti-tank Hard Attack (HA) with the same gun because the HEAT round is available, PG/AG raised the latter vehicles’ HA without raising their IN. If I find an example of ammunition within the same unit-class accounting for an IN change, I will post the information.

Aircraft's basic rule appears to be: Initiative=top speed.