mwindsorfw | 18 Apr 2017 1:01 p.m. PST |
A discussion about crews bailing out of damaged tanks got me thinking about the opposite situation. In many books I've read, the friendly tank crew hits an enemy tank, but the enemy tank does … nothing. No smoke, no bailing out, no movement or firing. It seems that the friendly tankers would keep shooting at the enemy until the crew bailed or the enemy tank "brewed up." Friendly tankers seemed leery of any enemy tank that was "just sitting," even if the battle seemed over. Most rules, however, seem to give you the instant gratification of knowing the exact status of enemy tanks. I would be willing to add a small extra layer of rules to reflect this (if it makes sense in the time frame and scale of the game). On a KO result that does not result in a brew up or bail out, I would have the friendly tank continue shooting at the target (that is now pretty locked-in) until (a) the enemy bails out or brews up, (b) the friendly tank takes fire from another enemy, (c) another enemy moves closer to the friendly tank than the target, (d) the friendly tank receives a withdrawal order, or (e) the friendly tank suffers a morale event that causes it to stop firing or take other action. Am I off base on this? |
Mobius | 18 Apr 2017 1:08 p.m. PST |
So if many other enemy tanks are shooting at the friendly tank it would still focus on shooting the possible destroyed one? Even if the other enemy tanks are closing in? |
Weasel | 18 Apr 2017 1:08 p.m. PST |
There's a few games that have a "silenced" status, where you won't know the true status until the player tries to activate the tank again. ASL had it, and I borrowed the idea shamelessly for 5core Company Command :-) As far as forcing the player to keep shooting, not sure Im a fan of that. I'd rather let the player take their own chances. Though you could make it a "commitment roll". If you silence a tank and no antitank threats are in sight, roll 5+ to keep firing, on another roll, the player can do as they please. |
Mako11 | 18 Apr 2017 1:12 p.m. PST |
When you see the enemy bail out, or it is on fire. |
boy wundyr x | 18 Apr 2017 1:42 p.m. PST |
I played in a double blind game once where a Firefly took out our Tiger on its first shot, but it didn't brew up or smoke. The Firefly spent the rest of the game shooting at that Tiger – it was hilarious, we had to keep shushing ourselves on our side of the curtain when we heard another shot had drilled it and the player in charge of the Tiger had to roll fake survival results to keep the other side in the dark. Of course we lost the game and pretty much every other tank we had got shot up by the regular Shermans, but the Firefly magnet sitting dead in the crossroads of town was great. My blog report and pics of the game: link |
BattlerBritain | 18 Apr 2017 1:45 p.m. PST |
They'd keep shooting till they saw some effect. It takes time to traverse and lay on to another target and it's quicker to just send another on it's way at the same target. As an example of keeping banging away at a target you've surely damaged back in the 80's I visited the museum at Overlohn in Holland. Back then they had tanks supposedly still in the positions they were knocked out in. A Sherman was in a wood having been hit by 75mm from a Panther at 50yds range. You couldn't really see much damage to the Sherman except on closer inspection of the lower hull at the front side just below the drive wheel: 5 holes of 75mm diameter all touching each other like Olympic rings. The first had more than likely done enough to KO the tank but they kept pumping rounds into it till they saw either the crew bail out or smoke start coming out of it. B |
RetroBoom | 18 Apr 2017 1:51 p.m. PST |
mwindsorfw: that's pretty much how it works in Hail Of Fire. When a tank is hit, a second roll produces either a destroyed result (the turret blew off, belching flames, or some other immediately visible way to confirm destruction) or a possible number Received Fire Points, which just like when infantry or hit, are resolved when the tank tries to do something, possibly resulting in it's own "killed" result (meaning the vehicle finally started to brew up, or the crew is visible leaving the vehicle). The shooter can keep shooting at it repeatedly, and might get a destroyed result on further hits, but it also might keep generating RFPs, which are only resolved when the tank is activated. If it never tries to move or fire, there's no way to know its dead without either continuing to try to blow it up, or have infantry go in to confirm (assaulting the vehicle forces it to resolve it's RFPs). Though, continue to lay on enough fire and riddle enough holes, it's real tough to imagine it won't be revealed dead when activated… So basically I stole it from Weas who stole it from ASL… |
Just Jack | 18 Apr 2017 1:52 p.m. PST |
Mobius, I think if the situation you described is occurring, the tank in question is leaving the neighborhood, not hanging around. Surely that's gotta be the case in any situation with parity of tanks? I could see a Tiger/something roughly equivalent sitting atop a commanding position and engaging scores of enemy tanks from a distance, feeling quite sure of himself. But a Sherman, T-34, or Panzer Mk IV? I think anything but the Tiger is running for it, and even some Tigers, once the swarm of T-34s or Shermans got close enough. "It seems that the friendly tankers would keep shooting at the enemy until the crew bailed or the enemy tank "brewed up."" This concept seems to me to be based on the more 'normal' circumstance of not having but one enemy tank in your field of vision and/or sector of fire at a time. I throw in sector of fire as, if you see a bunch of enemy tanks, and you have a bunch of friendly tanks with you, it's not your job to engage every enemy tank, just the one(s) in your sector, so you fire until you're sure it's dead. The only issue I have with the OP is wondering how often this actually occurred. I mean, if we're looking at the totality of WWII, 1939-1945 on all fronts with all tanks, maybe the raw number is 'a lot,' but my issue is not with the raw number, it's with the frequency of occurrence. Certainly I was not there, but it seems like generally (from archival film, photos, and memoirs) that the vast majority of times it was instantly clear to the TC/gunner whether the target was still in action. The round went out and then the TC is calling to put another round into it (meaning it clearly is still in action), or providing the gunner a new firing command. You can read plenty of memoirs where the writer describes seeing the enemy crew bailing out, much less the target exploding, turret popping off, etc… V/R, Jack |
Yellow Admiral | 18 Apr 2017 2:27 p.m. PST |
The OP makes an excellent point, and I prefer a similar approach in naval games, where the ships can often take many hits without showing any external effects. I prefer to have players roll damage results in secret, and only announce visible changes (fires, explosions, slowing, sinking, etc.). A tank game played at 1:1 scale would seem to need a similar approach to shorten the 5,000 foot general a bit. - Ix |
DisasterWargamer | 18 Apr 2017 2:42 p.m. PST |
I like a mechanic where you do a save roll at the end of the turn to see if the shot took you out – multiple shots decrease the survival – Rare chance for an immediate result where other tanks would now shift to new targets – unless turns are longer time wise |
mwindsorfw | 18 Apr 2017 2:44 p.m. PST |
Jack, most of the accounts I've read involve North Africa, and not being sure of the exact status of an enemy tank seems to have been an important aspect of tank combat. There is frequent mention of firing another round (or a few) at a tank that had been hit. In game terms, you might just put a suppression marker on the hit tank. In real life, however, the gunner or commander would be pretty sure they got a hit, but not sure of the result. Is the enemy crew dead, stunned, dealing with a wounded comrade? Maybe a solution is to limit a friendly tank continuing to fire on an enemy for only one additional turn. That would have the unfortunate effect of eliminating boy w's great story about the Tiger and the Firefly (which I think is plausible in light of the Tiger's reputation). Mobius, I though I covered that in (b), but I may not have been clear. If someone starts shooting at your tank, your tank is going to change actions (like move quickly). One game that seemed to deal with this in a good way was the computer game, Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord. |
15mm and 28mm Fanatik | 18 Apr 2017 2:47 p.m. PST |
Until they're reduced to a heap of molten slag, of course. |
Legion 4 | 18 Apr 2017 2:58 p.m. PST |
Yep … keep shooting until it is burning … |
Weasel | 18 Apr 2017 3:32 p.m. PST |
RetroBoom – and maybe a new generation of gamers will then steal it from you :D |
troopwo | 18 Apr 2017 3:44 p.m. PST |
Until it burns or explodes. |
GarrisonMiniatures | 18 Apr 2017 4:05 p.m. PST |
Back in the 70s at Liverpool we had a game called 'crazy tank' – basically, we used the shooting and movement rules of the club WW2 rules. Each player drew 3 tanks by lot, placed around the edge of the table as a 'squadron' and, for the first move, out of sight of everyone else. Then, it was pure survival – last man standing (usually a Sherman or equivalent – everyone would target the heavies. In one game a tank was hit early on and then just stood there ignored by everybody. Last man standing thought he had won the game until the 'dead' tank opened fire and won the game… After that, if you didn't have any other targets during your move you fired on a dead tank that wasn't burning… Just because it looks dead doesn't mean it is dead… |
wizbangs | 18 Apr 2017 4:11 p.m. PST |
Until it brews up sounds a bit harsh. It takes away the decision a tank may have at firing on other tanks that pose a greater immediate threat. They could always go back & finish it off afterwards. I would introduce a rule to see if it brews up (I liked ASL's method). If it doesn't then leave it up to the owning player to roll a d6 during each starting phase to get a status on the tank: 1-2 it's declared dead (by smoke or crew abandoning it 3-4 still unknown, roll again next round or 5-6 it gets upgraded to bailed out/suppressed status (shows signs of turret moving or attempting to move). Add a -1 modifier for each additional kill or bail out result. This improves the chances of knocking it out with additional hits, but leaves it up to the firer to determine his priorities & whether to keep shooting. |
Mark 1 | 18 Apr 2017 4:28 p.m. PST |
I recall an engagement in Brazen Chariots … I think it was the (somewhat) famous battle at the airfield … where Crisp describes sitting among various tanks that had been knocked out in prior fights or smoldering from being hit earlier in the same engagement, firing away at the Panzers for some period of time. He watched them return fire into the various wrecks around him without being able to identify him as the shooter. Of course there is also the case when his tank was shot up, taking … again IIRC … about 3 or 4 penetrating hits before his driver managed to drive over an abutment, disabling the tank upon it's landing after the fall. Not exactly what we are talking about here, but within the same topic area. The status of the various hostile tanks in a battle was not always obvious to gunners, so there was a tendency to keep shooting at any given target until it changed shape, or something (crew or flames) could be seen coming out. At least that's what my readings have given me to believe. -Mark (aka: Mk 1) |
Weasel | 18 Apr 2017 4:41 p.m. PST |
Now that I think about it, maybe ammo status is a concern too. Down to 5 shots, do you take another at the same tank or do you wait? |
wrgmr1 | 18 Apr 2017 4:47 p.m. PST |
Mark 1, Brazen Chariots by Bob Crisp is one of my favourites. In that same engagement Bob tells his gunner to fire on the big B…… until he stops it. Whereupon the gunner did just that, until it stopped and the crew bailed. |
troopwo | 18 Apr 2017 6:11 p.m. PST |
You hit it unitl it burns or eplodes. As a commander you have your arcs that you are responsible for and you have your priority of targets. Whatever the most threatening target is to you you hit it until it is no longer a threat. Just because a slag of metal ricochets into orbit is meaningless. Look around, there are pictures of Ferdinands with over two hundred hits to the side, multiple tanks with sabot rods sticking out of their armour or even a dozen wires from saggers hanging over the vehicle. |
goragrad | 18 Apr 2017 11:34 p.m. PST |
One of the Churchills (Kingforce) in action at Alamein returned to laager having been hit over 80 (per wiki, I remember from the AHV Profile) times with many projectiles still lodged in the armor. Amusingly, again from 'Brazen Chariots,' I recall a passage where the author noted that in an engagement from a firing position the tank would be hit and the crew themselves would only know whether there was serious mobility damage when they tried to move. If the tank isn't moving, the extent of a mobility hit won't be known until they try to move. |
Windy Miller | 19 Apr 2017 4:43 a.m. PST |
A friend of mine was a Challenger gunner in the First Gulf War and on one occasion engaged a T55 head on with a fin round at a range of about 1000m. Due to muzzle blast he couldn't observe the strike and there was no obvious effect on the target so he put another round into it. Same result. He was by now getting a shoeing from the commander for crap shooting and was about to fire a third round when the turret flew off. When they inspected the T55 afterwards they found that both rounds had penetrated the front glacis and exited through the engine. So it's still common practice today to keep shooting until the target is obviously destroyed. |
David Manley | 19 Apr 2017 4:47 a.m. PST |
NATO air forces hit Serbian AFVs multiple times over several days during the Kosovo debacle since the ability to confirm an AFV's status at distance by remote means was pretty awful (aided by the Serbs being rather clever in making dead AFVs look alive to IR by setting small camp fires under the engine bays of vehicles that has been knocked out). As I recall the number of vehicles claimed as kills was some horrendous multiple of the number actually knocked out. |
Mobius | 19 Apr 2017 5:11 a.m. PST |
Then there is the photo in a Squadron/Signal Panther book. A KO'd Panther was looked at which had all kinds of hits in it. This was because each Sherman unit that passed down the road days after had to shoot a few rounds into it 'to see if anyone was home". Well, if it had burned out originally there was nothing left to burn on subsequent days. According to the 'fire until it burns' rule the Shermans would of emptied their ammo on it. One game that seemed to deal with this in a good way was the computer game, Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord. I'm not sure how that game works. The computer does know if the tank is KO'd or not so can present some artificial options to the player. I know in our computer game Panzer Command the floating ID coin over the ko'd tank goes away and it can't be shot at again. Often a KO'd tank will not brew up so that is the only way to tell. We have had bug reports from players complaining they can't fire at some enemy tanks. Reason – the tanks were knocked out and the player had the floating coin option turned off. One advantage our game has is that it has a two phase turn. If a tank suffers severe damage in the first phase it can still be fired on in the second phase. It doesn't make a morale roll until after the second phase. Thus has an entire phase where no one, enemy or friendly, knows if its going to bail or not. This is also true in Panzer War. Tank morale isn't done immediately. Maybe, other games can use this mechanic. The tank morale bail out roll will happen in the turn or next turn (depending on a die roll)that the damage happens. Until then it does nothing. The tanks that hit it will then have to decide whether or not to keep firing or assume it will bail out and move on to other targets. |
mkenny | 19 Apr 2017 6:52 a.m. PST |
The very detailed Medical Survey done in 1945 on British Tank Casualties has information on 131 tanks struck by AP. 35 were scooped and not penetrated. 67 were penetrated once. 21 penetrated twice. 3 penetrated 3 times. 1 penetrated 4 times 4 penetrated 5 times 103 Struck by HC: 38 scooped 58 penetrated once 7 penetrated twice |
Who asked this joker | 19 Apr 2017 6:54 a.m. PST |
Crews are taught to keep firing until their is a sign that the tank is disabled. Crew bails. Tank on fire. Both. There is footage of a Pershing taking out a Panther. At close range, the Pershing put 3 rounds into the tank. The crew was bailing after the second hit. I suspect they were actually bailing after the first hit but you could not see any signs until the second round hit. YouTube link |
Mobius | 19 Apr 2017 7:10 a.m. PST |
mkenny, so there were a number of casualties when tanks were just scooped but not penetrated. I wonder if a single tank had multiple scoops. |
boy wundyr x | 19 Apr 2017 7:28 a.m. PST |
So for regular two player games (without the umpires we had for our double blind game), is there a set of generic rules someone has that would work to give uncertainty as to the results of the hit? Something that could work in a general way with any rules system (I Ain't Been Shot Mum being mine). Maybe just hold off rolling the damage result until the next time the tank intends to do anything? Chris |
mkenny | 19 Apr 2017 7:32 a.m. PST |
I assume they did not include old 'scoops' as there must have been a lot of them on various tanks. Whilst a straight-on hit had a very high penetration rate there will also have been a lot of very odd-angle strikes that bounce off for any number of reasons.
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Legion 4 | 19 Apr 2017 7:57 a.m. PST |
I read Brazen Chariots years ago. IIRC, the author talked about a lot of "friendly fire" losses. IIRC, that is why the UK painted those red & white stripes on certain areas on their tanks. In an attempt to avoid this. By ID'ing friendlies. |
vtsaogames | 19 Apr 2017 8:41 a.m. PST |
Ok, for the less knowledgeable, what exactly is scooped? |
Windy Miller | 19 Apr 2017 8:44 a.m. PST |
Ok, for the less knowledgeable, what exactly is scooped? A glancing blow that takes a chunk out of the armour but doesn't penetrate. |
mkenny | 19 Apr 2017 9:26 a.m. PST |
One of the Churchills (Kingforce) in action at Alamein returned to laager having been hit over 80 (per wiki, I remember from the AHV Profile) times with many projectiles still lodged in the armor Mr Churchill's Tank. D Fletcher Schifffer. Page 106 The Special Tank Squadron was by now being referred to as Kingforce after their commanding officer and it was Norris King who Ied the way in T68189/R, followed by 2~d Lieutenant Appleby in T31665/R and Corporal Kelly in T68186/R. Corporal Kelly did not Iast very Iong. When his 6-pounder gun recoiled after the first round had been fired it stuck, refusing to run out again. Unable to contribute more to the action Corporal Kelly ordered his driver to engage reverse and quietly withdrew from action. Nobody knows precisely what happened to 2/LtAppleby. His tank was seen to advance into the thick of the action. For a while it disappeared over the edge of the ridge but a short time Iater it was seen reversing slowly out of action. Then it stopped, smoke appeared and it finally burst into flames and continued to burn for the rest of the night. Only one man, and he wounded, is believed to have survived from the crew of five. When it was examined Iater it was seen that 38 rounds of 50mm calibre had struck the front of the tank, one of which had penetrated. There was damage from one high explosive round and six strikes from 75mm guns, one of which had penetrated. This was probably the shot that did the damage. However on closer inspection eight strikes were found on the back of the tank, one of which had gone through the gearbox and three into the turret. They were of 57mm calibre and had obviously come from British six-pounder guns. Putting the facts together after the event its seems as if Lt Appleby had gone further into the German position than was wise, and taken a Iot of punishment. As he reversed out his tank, wreathed in smoke, was spotted by an Australian anti-tank battery. Being unfamiliar with the shape they took the sensible precaution and opened fire. It was an unfortunate turn of events but there is no doubt that Appjeby's tank absorbed a tremendous amount of punishment before it was destroyed. Major King himself, on the other hand, had an excellent day. He fired 45 rounds of 6-pounder, claimed hits on four enemy tanks and took eight enemy rounds on his Churchill, none of which penetrated. He withdrew in good order, describing his tank as fighting fit Before & After photo of the Churchill of Lieutenant Appleby. Turret facing rear in top pic.
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Just Jack | 19 Apr 2017 10:32 a.m. PST |
All, Is "HC" Hollow Charge, and are we using that to refer to what we now call HEAT? For 'Table 7,' do we have any idea what kind of tanks we're talking about? I gather they are British ;) But I mean, are these Shermans and Fireflies, Stuarts, Churchills, Cromwells? If a round glances off ("scooped"), how can you tell if it was an AP rather than an HC round? If I am reading this right, we've got a total of 234 tanks hit by anti-tank fire. 73 tanks were hit a total of 87 times and not penetrated, and ten tanks were hit two or more times and not penetrated. So much for the vaunted German super weapons! I'm guessing; maybe it was a regiment of experimental Centurions rushed into battle in 1944? ;) 102 tanks were hit only once, but penetrated. 13 tanks were hit twice and penetrated both times. There was one tank hit five times and penetrated all five times. The most rounds any single tank took were nine (five penetrations and four 'scoops'). There are only eight tanks hit and penetrated more than three times, and half of them were penetrated five times. Is this a case of the burned out tank being popped again every time a new tank came round the corner, or something used for target practice/zeroing of the guns? This is fascinating to me, thanks for posting! For all the tales, you'd think every time an Allied tank was sneezed at it burst into flames. With regards to the OP, I haven't done any sort of quantitative analysis, but it seems to me there are a few outliers, but in the overall scheme of things it doesn't occur to me that the Germans were pouring a lot of rounds into 'dead' tanks. However, there is quite a bit of supposition there on my part; I suppose I'm presuming that the majority of 'scoops' were coming prior to the penetrations, though the facts (the table) don't actually comment on that. Looks like another case of 'who knows?' I absolutely agree with the idea of tanks being fired on until visibly out of action, I'm just not sure of the frequency of tanks being knocked out of action and not displaying any signs of being out of action. That is, I believe anyone shooting at an oncoming tank is going to shoot until they see the tank leave their field of vision, they see the tank explode, or they see the crew leave the tank. I don't feel like it happened all that often (though I may be wrong) that men shot at a tank and put it out of action, but didn't know it. I mean, what are we saying with that? It seems to me the only two options for that are: 1) The crew of the target vehicle bailed out but the firing element didn't see them bail out*; or *even then, I've read of units shooting up abandoned tanks to make sure they were destroyed, i.e., less likely to be recovered and put back into action. I wonder if that explains some of the tanks in Table 7; the Germans saw the tank was abandoned, but put a few more shells into it to burn it out, make it harder recover and repair. And I include making it more difficult to recover because I have personally seen an armored vehicle (an AAV) on fire, which melted the suspension and made it impossible for another AAV to tow it out of the area. 2) The round penetrated the tank and killed/incapacitated the entire crew, so the target is not combat effective, but shows no signs of not being combat effective. Anything less and we're simply shooting a tank that is still in the fight, albeit at less than 100% performance. In any case, this has truly been fascinating. V/R, Jack |
Mark 1 | 19 Apr 2017 10:37 a.m. PST |
Mkenny: Appreciate the info you have posted, including the scan of that table on hits. Can you provide reference info on the report that scan comes from? I may want to refer to it in the future. Thanks. -Mark (aka: Mk 1) |
mwindsorfw | 19 Apr 2017 11:41 a.m. PST |
Here are a couple of photos of interest. The top one is reportedly a Panther. The two hits have not penetrated, but have fractured the armor around them (bulging?)
The bottom photo shows six non-penetrating hits, which gives you an idea where "scooping" comes from. The seventh hit appears to have penetrated.
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mwindsorfw | 19 Apr 2017 11:52 a.m. PST |
Here's a different view of the problem facing tank crews. Which of these tanks is abandoned or inoperable?
I would argue that in the top two photos, you cannot tell if the tank is "alive" or "dead." Assuming your tank had just hit it with one round, are you going to stop firing at it? |
troopwo | 19 Apr 2017 12:07 p.m. PST |
A hit may not penetrate the armour, yet be good enough to actually cause either a fire or even an ammunition explosion internally. This does not even include the spalling of the armour inside the armoured shell as it were. A strong enough hit on the outside is enough to send shards and great pieces of metal flying into whatever will absorb it, like your loader or you very own body. Externally stowage, camoflage and equipment can be set on fire as well.
Keep in mind the hard part. It is a threat until you see it burn or explode. You can not see inside of it and crews can return. Even a supposedly abandoned tank becomes a priority target on the battlefield for the sappers or engineers to come and blow up to deny the enemy. |
mkenny | 19 Apr 2017 12:26 p.m. PST |
That is post-mortem damage. The Panther was knocked out by Canadian Infanty with a PIAT Later Major Sale of 3rd CLY took that photo and it has been wrongly captioned as being knocked out by 3 CLY and the crew killed by concussion. So for sure this Panther was used as target practice. |
Mobius | 19 Apr 2017 12:47 p.m. PST |
It looks like it might have taken an possible non-fully penetrating 7th hit on the left side of the ball mount MG casting. Though hits like that often result in fragments entering the tank through the hull machinegunner. |
troopwo | 19 Apr 2017 1:39 p.m. PST |
Neatest picture I have seen was from some friends who did a tour in Somalia in '91 with a Canadian Armoured unit with armoured cars called Cougars. Six wheelers with a Scorpin turret and a low velocity 76mm gun. Everyone was always derisive about that gun. Well my friends ran across a weapons park that included a couple of new T55s. It really wasn't in their mind to let the equipmemt sit there waiting for someone to put it back in service, especially against my friends. So they decided to take pictures in the turret before and after they fired at it. Afterwards they figured they could sabotage enough parts to make it inoperable. So they moved a bit off and put a round into the side of the turret. The internal results were astounding to say the least. A two foot by three foot slab of armour an inch thick came off the inside wall of the turret and flew across in one piece taking out anything that was between it and the opposite inside wall of the turret. Needless to say, we all had a bit more respect for the ability of that little gun and its HESH rounds. I just can't imagine being inside a Grant or a Stewart with all those rivets popping off and flying into the crewmen, nevermind the spalling from modern ammo. I can give everyone another thing to chew on. Crew experience and how many times thy had been knocked out previously. In Normandy, the 'experienced crew form 7th Armoured Division, were known for the habit of bailing out with a little more alacritiy than other units. Having the experience to have either lost or had to bail out of tanks in the past made them a bit more jumpy. ther units that did not already have that battle experience took a while to recognze that once one fifteen pouund lump of projectile smashes against the side of your tank without succes, surely more were to follow unless you took out the threat or found cover. "Warriors of the Working Day" by Peter Elstrob, is a great fiction about a tank commander who is a leader and a hero from the North African campaign who becomes a complete wreck by the time he crosses the Rhine. E;strob a Spanish Civil War vet, commanded tanks throughout the war and speaks with some authority and truth. Postwar he wrote for a number of historical publications. Certainly something to think of. |
Old Contemptibles | 19 Apr 2017 3:58 p.m. PST |
There is a great YouTube video that shows a Pershing firing at a Panther. The Pershing hit it once and smoked the Panther. But they put another round into it just to be sure. YouTube link |
troopwo | 19 Apr 2017 4:28 p.m. PST |
Was it in "Brazen Chariots" where even his crew when they saw the enemy crew bailing out generally diverted fire away in sympathy? |
Marc33594 | 20 Apr 2017 11:08 a.m. PST |
Back to the original question. I dislike rules that make me do things, like continuing to shoot at a target. Weasel is on the right track. Ammunition. We use little micro dice for a simple ammunition rule in Rapid Fire and no reason you can't adapt for other games. You fire and tank does not immediately brew up or crew doesnt bail. Up to the player. Put another round into it and use more of limited supply of ammunition or track another target and take your chances. |
Wolfhag | 20 Apr 2017 1:14 p.m. PST |
Regarding the Panther at Cologne. There was an interview with the Pershing gunner and he was asked why he kept shooting even though the tank was on fire and crew bailing out. His response was the Panther had it's gun pointed right at him and he did not know the gunners status or intention so he kept shooting. I GM games where the shooter must continue to shoot until he sees confirmation, like fire or explosion. Since we can determine fires and explosions without additional die rolls it does not slow down the game. Players seem to have no problem with it. I've read many accounts of bailing crews being machine gunned too. Wolfhag |
christot | 20 Apr 2017 2:28 p.m. PST |
"I dislike rules that make me do things, like continuing to shoot at a target. " I dislike rules which allow me (the gamer) to make decisions that the individual(s) on the ground would have no knowledge of, or that allow me to do things that they wouldn't have done. Stick to Rapid Fire, you won't like it elsewhere. |
Rudysnelson | 20 Apr 2017 4:21 p.m. PST |
When they stop firing at you and stop moving. A lot depends on the intensity of the situation. How many targets are out there. if a lot then you may stop firing at a tank too early. |
Just Jack | 20 Apr 2017 6:45 p.m. PST |
Stick to Rapid Fire, he won't like it elsewhere? What a pretentious, thing to say… A set of wargaming rules that stops the gamer from making decisions individuals on the ground have no knowledge of, and that stops a gamer from doing things they would not have done, does not exist. It's humorous to me that someone so out of their element as to believe such a thing would have the temerity to post such a response, but I guess that's how the world works now… |
Marc33594 | 21 Apr 2017 7:00 a.m. PST |
But christot that is EXACTLY the point. Crews were NOT required to continue to shoot at targets until they brewed up. Many games now have ammunition rules and seem quite popular. |