Right set of NATO symbols?

[CaptainKoloth]

Hello everyone: brand new here and also new to wargaming in general! Got a question here I'm hoping you could help me out with. I've been teaching myself the NATO unit symbols, for which the symbols for anti-tank and anti-air I understand are a right-side up triangle

and a dome
.
However, I have picked up more than one computer wargame in which the symbol for anti-tank is an upside -down triangle with a dot -

(I could understand the dot as denoting artillery but it seems to me it should still be a right side up triangle) and anti-air as a triangle with a line
.
Is there more than one accepted set of symbols? Why the discrepancy?
Sorry for the weird image sizes!

[bayonetbrant]

there's an official set of NATO military symbology that's required for use in professional contexts, like battlefield events tracking apps and professional sims used by the military

PDF here:  http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/doctrine/other/ms_2525d.pdf
More info here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Joint_Military_Symbology


However, game designers are free to modify things however they want, and mix-and-match to their heart's content however they choose.

An example is wheeled vehicles, who's NATO-std icon is nothing like what most commercial designers use.


So there's a universal standard among those that can actually enforce one - the military.  But there isn't in the anarchy that is game design,

[Bison]

WW2 game?
The v with artillery is an anti-tank tank destroyer (artillery with anti-tank guns) if it had an oval it'd be a self-propelled anti-tank tank destroyer (tanks with anti-tank guns).
The inverted v with the line is anti-air.

The US symbols were standardize post-WW2 to what is now referred to as NATO symbols.   

[mirth]

These serious wargaming discussions unsettle me.

[CaptainKoloth]

WW2 game?
The v with artillery is an anti-tank tank destroyer (artillery with anti-tank guns) if it had an oval it'd be a self-propelled anti-tank tank destroyer (tanks with anti-tank guns).
The inverted v with the line is anti-air.

The US symbols were standardize post-WW2 to what is now referred to as NATO symbols.   

They are both WW2, perhaps that's the difference. WW2 symbols differed from the present NATO ones?

[Staggerwing]

These serious wargaming discussions unsettle me.

It's like finding out that Sindarin is real and your pronunciation is all wrong.

[Bison]

WW2 game?
The v with artillery is an anti-tank tank destroyer (artillery with anti-tank guns) if it had an oval it'd be a self-propelled anti-tank tank destroyer (tanks with anti-tank guns).
The inverted v with the line is anti-air.

The US symbols were standardize post-WW2 to what is now referred to as NATO symbols.   

They are both WW2, perhaps that's the difference. WW2 symbols differed from the present NATO ones?

Yes.  Very similar because NATO symbols evolved out of US symbols post WW2.  A "v" in current NATO symbols is air assault for example but smaller and not corner to corner, anti-armor is an inverted "v" and anti-air defense is the dome like the first images you posted.  There's more that can be added to the symbol frame to add unit capabilities like wheeled or tracked, etc...  You can google WW2 symbols and find the standard symbols that the US military used and those used by the Germans.

[mirth]

Gawd, we're nerds.

[jomni]

Here's the thing....
NATO wasn't around in WW2!!!!
:wow:

[Bison]

True.  However, that doesn't mean that historical symbols are used.  How many games use the actual German symbols to indicate the type of unit?  I cannot think of one.  I'm sure that there is one, but I cannot think of any.  So what do designers do?  They use NATO symbols because they are a common military language now.  The real heretics use silhouettes to identify the type of unit.  :)

[Philippe]

There was a set of Nato symbols around and in use before Nato existed.  Most of them were adopted into what we now think of as the Nato symbol set.  If I remember correctly the symbols for anti-air and anti-tank were a bit different from the ones that get used now, which probably date to the late sixties or early seventies. 

The Library of Congress has U.S. Army situation maps from the end of the war available online.  These are essentially the ancestors of the West Point Atlas military maps.  Whenever I look at them I'm always impressed by how easy they are to read, and they only use one color.  Sometimes less is more.

The Germans and the Soviets each had their own style of military symbols.  The German symbols were quite ingenious in terms of the amount of information that they conveyed, but they probably gave you too much information.  The Soviet symbols were somewhat simpler, but much harder to read.

Although the American symbols which evolved into Nato symbols were probably the easiest to read at an operational level, the Germans had the best convention for headquarters symbols.  Every now and then you'll see a wargame designer adopt part of the German HQ symbols set.  I think I've seen a screenshot from the Operational Art of War that was using it.

[spelk]

I remember seeing a game (I can't remember which) that used these:



They just freaked me out.

[Barthheart]

AH's The Longest Day board game used the the German style symbols.
I made a set of them for Advance Tactics when we made the World at War scenario.

[spelk]

AH's The Longest Day board game used the the German style symbols.
I made a set of them for Advance Tactics when we made the World at War scenario.

Ah that was it I think, Advanced Tactics!! Good job Sir!

[Strela]

AH's The Longest Day board game used the the German style symbols.
I made a set of them for Advance Tactics when we made the World at War scenario.

So did/does the board game, Streets of Stalingrad...



Note v4 of that game has been cancelled, but the earlier version used the equivalent symbology.

David