"Armor Suppression?" Topic

My SciFi rules are coming along nicely. The infantry has been perfected – at least as perfect as I can get – and now I'm working on the armor rules (I have rules for when you have 1 or 2 vehicles – new rules are for armor battles with 50 tanks on the table).

Does direct fire at armor have an effect other than damage/kill? Morale check, suppression, pinned?

I'm having trouble imagining what this would be in real life? Panicked/startled crew? Buttoning up?

Tank crews can certainly panic and if you are taking fire, decision making will be affected.

One of the best things infantry can do if the armor is within range of their AT weapons is to force the armor to button up with suppressive small arms fire. The buttoned up armor has much less visibility and gives the infantry AT weapons a greater chance of killing them without being killed in the process.

Yes, most armor units taking incoming fire if it was in high volumes and accurate could suppress the unit. They could break and retreat like an other unit. Based on training, experience, moral, etc. Not all Grunts & Tankers are created "equal" in quality, abilities, etc. E.g. a US or UK Tank crew vs. an Iraqi crew.

One of the best things infantry can do if the armor is within range of their AT weapons is to force the armor to button up with suppressive small arms fire. The buttoned up armor has much less visibility and gives the infantry AT weapons a greater chance of killing them without being killed in the process.

That is basically what we were taught the Infantry School, etc. But you can also cause armor to "button up"/ be suppressed by calling in FA and/or mortar fire. And then the Infantry can maneuver closer if need be to get a "good" shot/high probability of a kill. Infantry can also use close terrain, e.g. jungles, woods, structures, etc. To mask their movement and set up AT Ambushes. In daylight or darkness …

Plus in closed terrain, improvised explosive devises, i.e. Molotov Cocktails, etc. and satchel charges, etc. Can be more easily used in this type of terrain. Taking the fight up "close & personal" to the armor.

Anything that causes a tank to button up will suppress it. A big suppression factor is the loss of commo abilities. That is why artillery are air strikes will suppress tanks quickly. Futuristic commo affects will depend on type systems you are using.

In the far future -- you did post on the SF Discussion board -- it's likely that armored vehicles will normally fight buttoned up. They will have plenty of redundant sensors and internal displays for the commander and gunner, and crews will be trained to fight from within the vehicles.

I expect that most battles involving armor and infantry will take place on worlds that can support life. That's where most of the people will be, so that's where the conflicts over resources will occur.

Those conflicts may involve nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, and armored vehicles will have life support systems and sealed environments to enable them to function in those environments.

However, most armored vehicles will not have the expensive designs and systems that allow them to function in corrosive, insidious, and other kinds of difficult atmospheres. There will be specialized vehicles and probably individual armored suits used by forces assigned to worlds with such atmospheres.

Catastrophic Failure! Let us just say that a tank does go boom in a big way, what happen to those who are around it like infantry, you can't just say it only effected the tank, your going to have to take in a count for blast radius. Plus you might what to look at blast radius from any other weapon systems on the hull of the tank as well, when I was in the infantry we didn't call the armor units missile magnets for nothing and if we were in support I made sure my guys dug in far enough away so if one did get hit the shrapnel bouncing off the hull didn't get us.

I'd think it would slow armor down, as tanks would be a little more cautious about rushing from one bit of cover to the next, instead of forging straight ahead. We've been playing Chain of Command which has a "Tactical" movement for infantry, which is slower than regular movement, but provides greater cover. I'd think something like this might apply to armor, as well.

Grelber

Part of me agrees that more and different sensors mean that AFVs will fight buttoned up. The other part remembers that some bright spark thought that modern aircraft wouldn't need cannon.
Is suppression going to be a thing if these vehicles are actually drones? Or self-directed machines?

What is your definition of suppression?

Causing an AFV to button up with a negative modifier on future firing and a reluctance to advance or to just remain stationary?

I had a problem with the Mein Panzer rules where incoming fire could pin an AFV which then had to remove the pin to do anything.

Particularly an AFV being pinned by automatic weapons fire.

Didn't seem at all likely to occur in the real world.

Buttoned up afv's should be penalised for being so, harder target acquisition and movement etc.
Being hit with small arms fire could force a repositioning of the vehicle……..there are accounts of vehicles being driven off by machine gun fire.

Oberlindes makes a great point about SF armor probably not being affected by being forced to button up. OTOH, coming under heavy fire could certainly force them to retreat to cover, effectively suppressing them. And this could be other than direct anti-tank fire. In WWII, artillery fire was one of the most effective ways of driving off tanks. It rarely killed a tank, but tank crewmen hated being under artillery fire and would often fall back rather than get pounded. US infantry considered artillery their primary anti-tank defense.

Here's my take: armor in the future will still be affected by man-(bug-) portable weaponry. EMP, new gizmos that cause effects that we haven't thought of…remember, technology evolves in response to other technology. It didn't take long to go from ATRs to shaped charges to modern day man-portable missile systems and RPGs. One side's advance causes another side's counter-measure, and so on.

Great points all.

My vehicles are manned. Drones are limited to smaller sizes, but are an important weapon. A "drone swarm" is cheap and deadly.

I expect they will always be buttoned up so no negative modifiers there.

I think I will have a suppression style effect. Essentially if you are hit (regardless of penetration) you take a suppression check (a morale check). Failure by good troops is pretty unlikely, but it happens. In my rules a morale failure causes you to change orders to a less aggressive one (from Forward, to Hold, to Retreat, to Rout). So you might cause an enemy tank to stop but it won't rout after just one "ping." OTOH the game is pretty deadly…

My opinion is what is going through the minds of the crews in the tank when hit. I've read accounts of German Tigers and Soviet KV's taking over 100 hits and the crew not bailing out. Why? Because they felt safe?

A friend of mine in US SIGINT was in Yemen last year. They had a drone watching Saudi operations against the local Yemen "rebels". A Saudi tank (Abrams?) took small arms fire and the crew bailed out. Why? Did the crew's morale break? Were they expecting RPG/ATGM's next and knew a hit would be deadly? Maybe they watched some videos of modern MBT's brewing up and were pre-disposed to thinking any hit would kill them.

The other factor could be a non-penetrating hit that spalls the inner armor and kills or injures one or more crewman. That could be enough to bail out.

Another factor could be HE hits. While not penetrating the crew could "get their bell rung" which would decrease their effectiveness temporarily and generate a delay in executing their next order for shooting. If the shock knocked out a vital component making the vehicle ineffective the crew might bail.

Another factor could be an engine fire. Since the engine compartment is separate crews could not always detect a fire. However, smoke being sucked into a buttoned up tank from a smoke or WP round did cause crews to panic.

Wolfhag

Ive been told (no idea if its true) that Abrams tanks have withstood hits that, while the tank remained operational, killed all the crew inside.

Going back to crew bailing out for no apparent reason, with the increasing quantities of technology being used and likely to be used without even going particularly sci-fi, just what effect would all their screens going black followed by a flashing 'C\>' appearing… (yes I know anything installed in a tank will be designed to take some punishment, but still…)

Real Life "no damage" results to armored vehicles in actual combat have included:

Flashes from rounds ricocheting off armor interpreted as gunfire, resulting in friendly fire. (Desert Storm)

Panicked crew evacuates vehicle. Generally poorly trained crews, believing that they are unsafe. Better trained crews will stay with the tank unless they have good reason not to, or orders to leave it.

Panicked crew evacuates vehicle- even if it wasn't even hit. (Iraqis, Syrians, Egyptians, in several wars) In Desert Storm this wasn't even panic, sometimes, just rational. If the first three vehicles in a row blow up and you can't even see the cause, why would anyone stay in the fourth fifth and sixth?

Startled crew tries pauses to assess just what happened. (Universal)

I read of a Tiger crew abandoning their tank at the sight of seventeen rapidly approaching dust clouds--not realizing it was a company of M-3 Stuarts :)

I'd heard the same. But hopefully in the future … you'll be able to ID objects on the battlefield with more accuracy.

E/C, have you read any of the Hammer's Slammers series of books ? Some good concepts there …

Abandoning a healthy Abrams? For Shame!
I guess that comes down to training?

I just read the book 'War Stories of the Tankers, American Armored Combat 1918 to Today', where an Abrams TC describes in Iraq his tank taking multiple RPG hits, killing the RPG shooters and making it home.

Its a great book and my short review on TMP is here;
TMP link

I second the Hammers Slammers books.

Mark, good luck with the rules.

Even if it were a 'crewless" vehicle, it could be suppressed by all of the above mentioned effects. The operator, be it human or A/I would simply react to save it's vehicle instead of the crew fearing for it's personal health. If remotely controlled, jamming or going after the
remote operators could offer an interesting change in tactics. I know the thread said vehicles are manned but it was too good an idea to pass up.

Particularly an AFV being pinned by automatic weapons fire.

Didn't seem at all likely to occur in the real world.

How does the crew know if the infantry is just trying to distract them from the antitank weapons about to be unleashed?

As for drones getting "pinned" by artillery fire, don't forget that the usual first 'casualty' of an arty strike is the antennas. No antennas, no control signals going to the drone!

Gentlemen,

I rode a Tank for 10 years (i.e. M48A5, M60A1, M60A3, M1 & M1A1) in the US Army.

Suppressing a single Tank, a Tank Platoon or a Tank Company are three (3) different issues.

Yes, firing small arms and/or artillery at a Tank will cause it to button up.

Yes, when you button up, you reduce your visibility and perspective by 70% or more. Vision blocks suck!

Small arms fire was mainly a nuisance. I never really worried about artillery or mortar fire because they told us that it took approximately 54 rounds of artillery to score a hit/kill on a tank (that's < 2% chance).

For the sake of a tank or tank unit 'being suppressed' it depended on 'whether or not YOU actually recognized' that you are being threatened or engaged by some weapons system that could kill actually you. If Yes, it effected your actions. If No, you continued the mission.

Thus, in most cases small arms and artillery/mortar fire didn't pose a recognized threat unless in the case of small arms fire, it was really close to you, say 200m or less. Which meant the Soldiers were within RPG range.

Being under fire from a 'real threat' caused us to button up, return fire and seek cover, while trying to figure out what we were going to do about it.

I'd call in that case, we were actually being Suppressed! ;^)

Analsim,

Since an ATGM has range equal to or greater even a tripod-mounted MG, wouldn't ANY small arms fire mean that you're in range of a man-portable AT weapon, whether ATGM or RPG?

I suppose it also matters on what an enemy is likely to be equipped with. Insurgents in Iraq probably didn't have access to many ATGMs. But in Lebanon we know that Israel faced a lot of ATGM fire and it was extremely effective in mitigating their armor advantage. So might a tank crew in Lebanon react differently from a crew in Iraq? Or does it matter in your opinion?

Have never even been in a tank, so your comments are greatly appreciated and very interesting!!! :-)

My WWII rules allow for tanks to be suppressed but my vision of suppression is much more than buttoned up. It's based on some of the many accounts I've read. When a tank was hit by AP or HE fire and not damaged to the point where the crew bailed or the tank brewed up, there was some period of time where the crew "took stock" and activate assessed what damage had occurred, how to mitigate it if necessary and then get back into action. The "taking stock of the situation" is Suppression. The Qtest to Rally/Recover reflects that training and troop quality played a key factor in how fast a crew could get back into action at full effectiveness.

Now I will be the first to admit this has changed for modern combat where the chances of One Shot One Kill are likely much higher than in WWII. And if you're in the fantasy realm then IMO Suppression becomes even more problematic. As does damage. In the year 2200 you probably just survive or are dead. If they still have tanks then. Cheers!

@VIS: that's part of why the Merkava series were built with so much crew protection. It takes a top-flight ATGM (or RPG29) to punch that armor and get to the crew.

If you know that there's virtually no chance of an ammo explosion, I'd bet that the crew is far more willing to stay inside, even if they're drawing all the fire. (I've seen a video where the Army deliberately set off the ammo rack in an Abrams with the access door closed. Big scary fireworks outside, not a sound inside.)

Saudi tank (Abrams?) took small arms fire and the crew bailed out.
Probably those that didn't include the possibility of a Greyhound knocking out a Tiger from the rear or side are busily including this anomaly into their rules.

Analism, a gent on another thread asked about US Forces in '85 West Germany. TMP link For gaming purposes.

I gave him all the answers I could from the Infantryman's POV. As I too spent over 10 years in the US ARMY. But in the Infantry not in Tanks as you have … So maybe you can help him out. Thanks !

VIS,

One of the main points I wanted to make is that I only felt suppressed when reacting to a genuine threat.

Yes, for the most part, we are well versed in the organization, equipment and tactics of our adversaries. And Yes, the presents of small arms fire at any range, indicated the 'potential threat' of being engaged with more lethal weapons, such as an ATGM.

But, that's the Tanker's dilemma. You don't know for sure until the enemy shoots the ATGM at you. Because we are not likely to spot anything over 200 yards that is NOT shooting at us, on our own. Remember we go blind when we button up. Even with the Gunner's telescopic sights (4-8x power) it's field of view (FOV) was very limited, especially at high power.

So, regardless of the theatre of operation you are basically threat oriented.

Legion 4: I'll take a look at the thread you mentioned above.

Regards!

Thanks Analism, some more Tankers just posted too. But he is looking for any and all intel from guys like us who served at that time.

During a war game exercise, us grunts climbed up on an M48 and dropped a smoke grenade inside the crew compartment. They all bailed and were very messed up and pissed off.

Wolfhag