"Fighting from halftracks" Topic

I know infantry usually used halftracks as lightly armoured trucks and got off to fight…

But – they could have fought from the vehicle and might have to if ambushed etc.

So – how to handle this? are they as effective as firing on foot? I doubt it since there are a limited number of points you could fire from. And the protection offered by the armour would be marginal and you'd lose any benefits of concealment (infantry lying down at ranges of 50+m are very hard to spot, even in open ground)

It seems unfair to say it can;t be done but at the same time if it's made too powerful, players will overdo it and we'd see ACAV tactics!

So how to handle the (admittedly rare but quite feasible) practice of fighting from the vehicle??

Any suggestions.

The reprint of the German Squad tactics manual includes the drills for fighting mounting from SPWs. It strongly advises to only do this against light/disorganised opposition. The principal weapons are the LMGs mounted on the vehicle, particularly the front mounted one. The riflemen just thicken up the fire and provide local defence. They stick their heads over the top to fire/throw grenades – like a mobile trench.

SPWs were reasonably well armoured against small arms, even at closeish ranges (over 50-100m), although M3/M5s aren't (IIRC a .50 cal will penetrate one at 1000m!).

Main problem is that the HTs are bullet magnets, very vulnerable to any sort of AT weapon and the passengers are clustered targets.

Not as rare as you might imagine.
Quite common in early war actually, until jerry realised that stiff resistance resulted in unacceptably high casualties.
Also sort of in vogue for western allies in late war.
Not so much firing from the rear maybe.
Some US mech infantry and UK (bren carrier) assault platoons used a coup de maine tactic whereby they drove pretty much right up to the enemy and assaulted out the vehicles.
Again, rather reliant on light resistance.

I would simply up the killing effect of fire directed at the vehicle.
Infantry are usually spread out so one burst of fire cannot hit an entire squad, etc etc.

You should also have quite harsh effects for infantry inside any half track hit by ATG fire. Even a pak36 could really make a mess of a half track or bren carrier.

Martin has reminded me of something else.

M3 half tracks and bren carriers are more bullet resistant than proof.
You should perhaps incorporate some chance of machine gun fire going through the things and remember that first floor + windows can shoot down into the back at shortish range.

With German half tracks, remember they never had that many of the things and even fewer early war when the assaulting thing was more likely.

As an easy fix we give WWII halftracks hard cover status for fighting out of – they weren't bullet proof as such

IIRC the M3 series was notorious for letting MG bullets in through the armour but taking enough kinetic energy out of them that they'd then richocet around inside the body rather than passing through the other side. Not nice if true. Also rather messy if a grenade landed inside.

"remember they never had that many of the things and even fewer early war when the assaulting thing was more likely."

Typically only one company (if that) for the entire Schutzen brigade early in the war.

Firing from halftracks seemed to work pretty well in "The Dirty Dozen."

Weren't the M3s called "Purple Heart Boxes"?

I think Martin Rapier may end up correcting me here, but I'm pretty certain that using Universal Carriers as rifle infantry fighting platforms was strongly discouraged by the British Army.

Like the halftracks, it was supposedly small-arms proof. But it seems in this context it was proof against the odd/chance shot, not sustained fire from machine guns and the like.

However, I seem to remember one Panzer Commander in '44 or '45 watching in bewilderment as 'swarms' of Carriers charged to their fiery deaths at the hands of his tanks

I imagine if moving over smooth terrain, or on a road, they should be pretty easy to fire from, to at least suppress the enemy forces, especially when using automatic weapons, e.g. MG's and MP-40's, or MP-44's.

Due to sloping, I think the German halftracks may be better protected against small arms fire than the M-3 and other American tracks.

When running up against A/T guns, or tanks, I would definitely want to dismount rather quickly. For mortar fire, or artillery, probably best to take your chances against the lucky "hole in one shot" and stay in the vehicle, to be protected better from shrapnel, and to drive out of the beaten zone quickly.

I wouldn't want to be in one in a city, or town with two-story buildings, since getting fired on from above, or having grenades and molotovs dropped on the vehicle would be a significant danger.

I agree, treat as hardcover for the troops, when being fired at, and there should be some sort of negative modifier for firing from them, when moving fast, or over rough terrain.

If hit by a heavy weapon that penetrates, or drops into the opening, casualties will be high.

The Germans even rode into battle on tanks on a number of occasions, when assaulting, so it seems they were more interested in keeping the attacks moving than casualties. Russians did the same regularly as well.

Presumably, both nations troops would jump off them when enemy firing started hitting close, or they believed they were in danger of being targeted by enemy weapons.

Despite all the very valid points about AFVs being bullet magnets, higher up, etc etc, there's something very comforting about having a third of an inch of steel between you and incoming bullets, as opposed to a cotton shirt.

Maybe. It depends on what you fear more.

I rode on top of my APC the whole of the Gulf war because I didnt mind getting shot near as much as burning. M113/M577 have a bad reputation for that, as did M548's back when we still used those wretched things.

I dont know ir they are better or worse than a WWII halftrack. I have never been close to an SPW, but I have crawled over several US halftracks, and It sure looks like an M113 has better armor.

Thanks a lot for these responses.

They largely bear out what I thought. The main thing I want to avoid is making halftrack mounted fire too powerful. This would encourage players down a route that was not historical. While at the same time still allowing it.

It's a delicate balance.

"It sure looks like an M113 has better armor".

It does, but the reputation for firing up that the M113 has is because it's made largely out of aluminimum, which burns when it gets hot enough, which it will after a few penetrating rounds. To quote an Israeli general "at the beginning of the war, we couldn't get the troops out of the M113's. Once they saw a few burning, we couldn't get them in the M113s". That sounds a lot like your experience.

At Ft Sill, I saw 2 M548s burn. One was in my section just before I got there. I didnt see the fire, only the remains, but it was a lasting impresion.

If you are not familiar with a 548, it was a M113 variant used to carry artillery ammo. Unfortunetly, the ammo weighed to much for the motive system and they never worked very good. Plus the whole burn to the steel parts.

Of course the main ingredients of Thermite is Aluminum ;). Robert

"The main thing I want to avoid is making halftrack mounted fire too powerful."

Yes, there is a real tendency for people to use them as light tanks if you aren't careful.

A Warrior is a light tank capable of carrying infantry, an M3 or Sdkfz 251 isn't.

"I think Martin Rapier may end up correcting me here, but I'm pretty certain that using Universal Carriers as rifle infantry fighting platforms was strongly discouraged by the British Army."

LOL, fame at last. IIRC in theory crews could fight mounted from their carriers (and some did) but equally often they dismounted. The carriers were mainly a means of moving light infantry weapons around the battlefield and thickening up the firepower of infantry companies they were attached to. Colonel Wigrams 1942 'Battle School' shows the carrier platoons being used to engage the flanking defended localities during a battalion assault on a company defended locality. In that case they used their mobility to rapidly move into position, but then dismounted to fire.

Given that there's one of the SdKfz 251 series with flamethrowers mounted, it seems likely that fighting while mounted was considered an option.

I recall a situation pre-Alamein where the local German Commanding Officer received word of a large body of British Tanks approaching, and called off a proposed local attack.

The Tanks were in fact Universal Carriers.

Pat

Sure, but the various SP weapon versions of the Sdkfz 251 were used as SP guns, not infantry carriers. Rather like the Wasp was an SP flamethrower in a carrier chassis.

It must have taken quite some nerves to take your half-track close enough to the enemy to be able to utilise the flamethrowers.

Based on a certain famous photograph which appeared on the cover of Avalon Hill's old "Third Reich", it looks like they just used them for torching farmer's cottages and laying waste to innocent villages…

Re the FT version of the 251, etc., I recall reading, somewhere, a complaint by a German soldier that by the end of the war they were hanging guns and things on the halftracks and giving them missions that the panzers used to do, but that they just didn't have enough armor to take on those missions.

I believe the idea with all the lightly armoured SP flamethowers (be they German, Russian, British or whatever) was that they were only really effective against fixed fortifcations, mainly bunkers, so the rest of the combined arms team would suppress the AT defences and isolate the target bunker, then bring up the flamer to finish it off.

Even the standard drill for the mighty Crocodile involved it being brought into action after everyone else had done their stuff and the target thoroughly isolated from its supporting positions.

IIRC it went something like:

i) isolate bunker with smoke
ii) shoot at bunker to see if occupants surrender
iii) bring up AVRE and blow a hole in the bunker
iv) see if occupants surrender
v) bring up Crocodile and shoot flame into the hole
vi) move onto the next one