"Moving and Shooting in a Vehicle" Topic

I see in a lot of rulesets where when a vehicle moves, it cannot shoot. In my ruleset, instead of not shooting at all, a vehicle has a -1 modifier to their shooting skill when travelling at fast speed.

In my opinion, a vehicle usually has more than one crew member. It stands to reason that there would be at least 2 crew. One manning the controls, and one manning the weapon.

Therefore the only thing that would make a weapon on a vehicle inaccurate would be the terrain it is travelling over and the speed in relation to the target.

What do people think of move or shoot rules?
Are they viable?
Are they realistic?
Is a modern vehicle different to a WWII vehicle in this area?

Discuss.

My limited understanding is that a vehicle would more than likely slow down and perhaps stop to get a clear shot at the target, therefore in my rules there is no moving and shooting, but that is not to say I am coerrect.

Early war British Tank crews were trained to fire on the move and the weapon systems designed to allow this. Generally crews would not fire on the move, where possible.

The main developement that allows Modern MBTs to fire on the move is stabilised weapon systems, this with laser systems allow most modern MBTs to accurately fire on the move.

Modern MBTs are very different to WWII Tanks in the same way a Boing 777 is different to a Dakota!

Tally Ho!

Is a modern vehicle different to a WWII vehicle in this area?

Yes. Modern movement compensators work. During WW2 such things were in there infancy and often disabled as more trouble than they were worth (if fitted at tall).

During WW2 the modifier would (in my opinion) need to be quite a bit more than -1 if allowed at tall. -1 seams ok for modern.

x42

To give yourself a good idea what a WW2 gunner saw, roll up a sheet of paper to give you a tube with a 1 inch diameter hole. Drive down a road (as a passenger of course), even paved, and try to keep focus on an object 3-400m in front then beside you. Now think of this as a life or death situation. Now think what this is like on an open field with the smell of fuel and grease and sweat etc…

Now as for Modern, three axis stabilizers gives a tank the ability to travel full speed and still get 90ish percent kill probabilities.

Just my two cents from sitting in a few of these vehicles and wondering how they ever did it in WW2.

Pre-stabilization tank crews were trained to fire from a short halt. Overall movement would be slowed. But then most rules give tanks way too much movement anyway. Yes, a tank might have a top speed of 40 mph, but try that going cross-country while looking for a way across the ditch without throwing a track and trying to stay as far below the hill crest as possible so you aren't shot at, and with the tank commander trying to figure out where they are and which direction to go while staying in formation. And, oh yes, the turret crew hanging on for dear life with every bump and jolt. Trust me, that tank is going closer to 10 mph cross-country, even with stabilization.

It depends what you are modelling, move or shoot is a reasonable approximation of what most WW2 units did most of the time. Some rules allow a mixed fire & move with reduced movement and fire effects to simulate firing from the short halt.

Firing from a moving vehicle is a complete waste of time in the absence of extensive computer aids, and even then real terrain is often extremely bumpy and irregular. Firing from the move also implies that you are firing in the open, which essentially just means you are a great big target and are going to die extremely quickly in the face of modern weapons. Survival involces creeping out of full cover to a turret down position, having a damn good look around, possibly moving up to take a shot if a target presents itself and then getting out of there ASAP.

Peep peep, pop up, pop pop, off. As the saying goes.

An entertaining 'tank gunner simulation' exercise is to try walking across an apparently flat open field while just looking through a rifle sight (or a camera or a pair of binos or put a bag over your head or something to restrict your vision) and see how far you can go without falling flat on your face.

Although the British (early WWII) tank crews were trained to shoot whilst moving (this was actually official doctrine) the practice was soon abandoned after the initial combat experience of units in the field – though training doctrine remained unchanged for fresh units for quite some time. Move, halt, shoot, move, halt, etc., was the norm for WWII tank crews wanting to do more than make a lot of noise.

In my reference to my rules, they are for science fiction/modern, but the discussion is more general. I was just giving an example of how i decided to deal with the issue.

Based on what has been said, and disregarding WW2 tech, perhaps the best way to deal with it is as Tim and x42 suggested. Namely, allow shooting at slow speed and a modifier (-2,-3) at fast with an overall cut to traversable distance.

With that in mind, how often would a tank be reasonably expected to travel at top speed? What kinds of terrain are helpful when travelling at that speed?

Should rules be limited to only allow tanks/vehicles to travel at top speed only on certain types of terrain?

For example a tank can travel at top speed on a road or on flat grassland, but must travel at slow speed everywhere else.

An extension of that would be what kinds of terrain a tank can't travel on? Can a tank knock down a tree for example? Is mud a factor for modern tanks?

And in relation to average speed, would a human on foot be faster than a tank, assuming the tank can transverse the same terrain the human is travelling over?

You can shoot from a moving vehicle, just not accurately.

Somewhat insulting but … if you haven't a clue on these sorts of things, you shouldn't be writing a ruleset. Or, you should be writing one where these questions don't matter (grav tanks, force cannons, wetware computer targeting, and so forth).

I didn't know there was a set of rules for writing a ruleset.

Did you know that asking questions is how you gain knowledge?

Finally; Just because a question is asked, does not mean the person is not knowledgeable on a subject. Have you ever heard of a discussion forum?

GALACTICCONTROLdotCOM asked:

With that in mind, how often would a tank be reasonably expected to travel at top speed?

To an extremely close approximation, the answer is "never".

The way AFVs move in contact, or when contact is imminent -- which are the only modes of movement one is likely to see on the wargames table unless you are doing company-a-stand stuff -- is to dash from covered firing position to covered firing position. They may then creep into the position, and, once it is occupied, will remain static while covering the move of their mates. During the dash, they will probably spend the first half of the move accelerating, and the second half decelerating, leaving no time at all actually travelling at top speed. So, battlefield mobility depends a good deal more on power-to-weight ratio than top speed.

Of course, "static" vehicles might not be entirely so, and might be jockeying along a crest-line; as Martin almost said, tank tactics boil down to "pop up, peep peep, poop poop, pop down, p1ss off", as I was told by an Irish Hussar Colonel at CAST(North) some years ago.

Even if a vehicle is not dashing from cover to cover, but making an admin move on metalled roads, it is still hardly ever automotive performance that is the limit on speed. Rather it is the march administration -- "an army moves as fast as it can think". What with the administrative drag of arranging road marches, and the extreme slowing effect of tactical maneouvring in contact, AFVs that should in principle be able to manage well over 50 kph on the flat have a mean rate of advance more like 5 km/h in the advance to contact, and admin moves by soft vehicles capable of reaching the national speed limit will be lucky to beat 40 km in the hour.

Having said all that, WW2 British tank shooting doctrine trained gunners to use the free-traverse mounts of their 2-pdrs, and a well-trained crew travelling over flat desert-like terrain could achieve hitting rates almost half as good as fire from the halt. This is exceptional; before the introduction of effective stabilised guns and sights, hitting rates were more like a tenth or a twentieth.

Another thing that is often neglected about moving cross-country in an AFV is that it makes the loader's job very much harder, as well as the gunner's. As well as reduced accuracy, you'll have a reduced rate of fire.

While practising running cross-country while staring at a target though a toilet-roll tube, you should also arrange for a mate to hit you over the head with a skillet every time you fall over. There is nothing in the world quite so unforgiving as armour steel when you bang your head against it.

All the best,

John.

While practising running cross-country while staring at a target though a toilet-roll tube, you should also arrange for a mate to hit you over the head with a skillet every time you fall over. There is nothing in the world quite so unforgiving as armour steel when you bang your head against it.

Heh, good point. I'll probably make dazzled crew a part of the damage table.

My 2 cents…

<<What do people think of move or shoot rules?>> I Usually think they are too liberal, from my experiance in tanks and apc's.

<<Are they viable?>> Most game players don't like how things really go in life. Artillery must be fast and don't bother them will calling fire, let alone doing adjustments. Same is true with move and shoot.

Are they realistic? If you move the muzzle of a gun 1" as you fire, how far off your aim point will you be at 300 meters? Now, just imaging being in a vehicle as it rumbles, jumbles and bumps its way across the terrain. The entire time the muzzle is moving every which way, where will your "aimed" shot go? If you plan to do more than recon by fire, the short halt is a must. This changes as stabilization system appear and improve for main gun/coax only.

<<Is a modern vehicle different to a WWII vehicle in this area?>> Only as far as stabilization for the main gun/coax.

Having attempted small arms fire from a moving vehicle, I can say that even short range firing at a large target is very difficult.

Given the ground and timescales of most tactical tabletop rules "move or shoot" seems very appropriate.

If a turn is a few minutes and a move is a few kilometers then move-and-fire becomes more reasonable. Especially with modifier to effectiveness (rate of fire and/or accuracy) for higher speeds.

I suspect there are many here far more experienced than me,
But to paraphrase an old saying – you would have to be very unlucky indeed to be hit by a moving tank that is actually aiming at you.
It was extremely difficult for me to keep the ol' sights on an M60A3 even close to the target while on the move. You bounce all over the place in there.

Hi

If you point a gun wrong by ONE degree, you will miss the aimpoint by 5 feet at 100 yards, 50 feet at 1000 arms.

now, without tools, I want you to plot a line, then draw in a 1degree second line and get it right.

Shooting on the move is for movies and, at best, putting HE somewhere in vague target area hoping that people keep their heads down.

Rocky

….look at an american roadsign. Count the bullet holes. It is all about the beer….

As has already been pointed out, a lot depends on the era. Even in the modern era there has been a lot of difference. I was a tanker who went to gunnery in both a Sheridan which used a sighting system similar to WW2 (V range sight), a M60A1 with the ghost system (adopted from the Germans in WW2) and the M1.
The Sheeridan was a little different in that you could not shoot the main gun on the move. The recoil of the 152mm gun would litterally knock it over.
The m1 system is vastly superior than the M60A1.

part 2. i tend to lose long posts on the laptop.
In regards to the other questions.
A main determining factor is the time of the turn. Evn in WW2 if the turn is long enough a AFV can do both.
Depending on which type of action is more common, the modifier may either be placed on a vehicle that moves OR it can be a bonus applied to a AFV that does not move. The modifier should be placed on which action is the least common. Generally in WW2 the most common action is not shooting due to all the AT ground systems.
Anything is viable based on your listed objectives when you started the process.
Realistic is another matter. Very realistic may result in a very slow system which will frustrate the players by all of the misses.

For example in the 1970s Tank Gunnery manuals, the initial paragragh on the intoduction states that a stationary M4 Sherman (76mm) firing at a stationary target only 500 YARDS had to fire 13 shots BEFORE it reached only a 50% chance to hit. Wargamers could find all the misses tedious.

Hi

But how was the target defined?

For instance, not a tanker, a smart bomb only has a 80% chance of hitting the target, but the target is defined as within a meter or aimpoint, which isn't very awful when discussing a 2000 pound weapon!

If the hit is "anywhere on the tank", that is a different target than "within an inch of aimpoint".

Rocky