"5’ 2” A long story" Topic

There has been a long simmering "disagreement" between us authors of our rules on the definition (if required) of a low vehicle.
The issue is, that should a very low vehicle be very hard to hit by an anti-tank weapon firing a solid round. The is anecdotal evidence that British Universal Carriers (which are open topped) were hard to hit due to their very low profile 1.57m (5' 2"). So if we were to decide there was a category for a low vehicle what would it be, we decided that 5ft 2 inches or below would be the decision point; with a qualifier that this did not cover the height of the crew operating the vehicle or very small items like Roll Bars on modern "jeeps" and the like or whip type aerials.
The reason it applies to only to firing anti -tank guns firing solid shot is that they have limited chance of hitting the crew, in our rules). Machine guns and auto cannons firing at the crew (reminder the vehicle is open topped) have a significantly higher chance of hitting crew due to multiple round firing at the vehicle as the lighter weapons have only a limited chance of penetration the armour at range.
Modern at least tank guns can fire rounds such as HESH and HE that do not need a direct hit to affect light vehicles, so may not suffer that limitation.
As an aside it does make the WW2 Dingo armoured car a hard target as it does not class as open topped, depending on circumstances it may count as unbuttoned as there was a tendency to leave the top hatch cover open or remove it as in the event of hitting a mine the crew was killed by the physically hitting the hatch cover. Its armour thickness is sufficient to make penetration by even Heavy machine guns difficult in the front arc; making it excellent for reconnaissance tasks; bit of an aside but it gives some insight to the rule writers thinking.
I am sure there are those that consider this too detailed for their games but that is a personal opinion. I would be interested in folk's opinion of the underlying logic and if it has any logical flaws. Plus is anybody aware of an armoured vehicle lower than a Dingo 4 ft 11"?

Shows even a "perfect" set of rules has room for improvement.

I suppose some sort of formula is called for.

The Italian L3/33 tankette was only three foot, 11 inches tall.
In the mountains of northern Greece and Albania, October 1940 to March 1941, I don't think they would have operated unbuttoned a lot, but in Libya and Egypt, they may well have. I'm not familiar with their usage in Spain, save to say that they seem to have operated year-round.

Grelber

I thought this was about an Iggy Pop song.

Five foot two is pretty generous giving it more height than it feels like when standing next to one. Four foot in general might be more of an average.

Mind whatever would hit it went through it like butter.

Funny that the scout cars were for the most part open topped too until very late production.

Sit down, John! Sit down!

Do you have a separation in your rules between acquiring a target and hitting?

You can see anything in the open, but any intervening cover or being buttoned down is going to make it harder to acquire a shorter (or hull down) target. So I don't think a formula makes sense

You could also look at the height of German spgs and compare

Be very careful with sources. British humour is often strange, and saying something is better because it is shorter may not be militarily correct. Your sources may be correct, but British people will be happy to spend an evening in the pub convincing you that a 5 sided dice is preferable to a six sided

John

Not sure about a short target as a significant factor in gunnery. I think spotting/acquiring would be the main difference. A dingo is pretty small but I should think it's main defences were hiding, ease of going hull down, speed and not being a priority target. Park up a bren carrier or dingo behind a hedge or wall and it's likely invisible in full cover.

Using terrain to hide is just that. The low vehicle height can be an advantage in that it can hide behind small obstacles. It is however not an exclusive property of a small vehicle. Most manuals refer to tanks in one of 4 conditions.

Hidden/Hide,
Turret Down
Hull down
In the open.

In the top two if the obstacle is substantial they may not be engaged by direct fire if close enough to the obstacle except by indirect fire.
Similarly the ability to spot a vehicle is set to some extent by size and partially obscuring the vehicle. This is already covered in our rules.

We do to some extent have a target size function in that we make target AFVs (tanks and other vehicles) harder to hit if some of the vehicle is protected by some form of resistant obstacle even if not full height.

What we have not done (you could say it's an oversite) is set an equivalent vehicle size such that it is harder to hit as its a small target like say a turret of a tank.

Our fix is not ideal but while the size impact is significant factor excessive rules about it can prove counter productive as more rules slow the game down, this in itself can reduce accuracy as the time available is always limited and more rules use more game time and the compromise the result. It is a difficult and very definitely a personal compromise.

Grelber thankyou for that information. Not that rare either over 2000 produced in various versions! I looke it up after you drew it to my attantion.

Ps – to all the S tank of the cold war was noted by allies as difficult to spot due to its low silhouette.

troopwo – There are a significant number of vehicles in this size class that are not open topped, like the tankette mentioned in this thread to make the issue significant.

Universal soldier by Donovan mentions the measurement :-).

UshCha, you might want to take in another consideration.
Would a tank or gun waste a main round on such a vehicle?

Seriously, a burst of coax could be enough to dissuade such a vehicle in the first place and force it to move or go to ground as it were. Just as likely and easier to do with a mortar round or two or artillery too.

In a tank, pretty much anything past a two pounder or a 37mm the ammo starts getting limited and crews do think about what they really want to expend it upon.

I am trying to remember, was it Squad leader with the small target rules? they also had a matching 'big target' rule that litereally punished people who chose the large and over sized vehicles.

troopwo – you are correct, what we try to do, rather than limit ammunition, an ideal solution but to time consuming in terms of player time, is to make using a "big gun" not the optimum weapon so that the game choice is the same as the real choice even if for the "wrong" reason. Not ideal but it does eliminate some issues. Hence the need for the change we identified to better "force" a more real world plausible choice. We have done it elsewhere, making the real world choice the best in game even if slightly skewing results, again a rules designer compromise.

Your rationale sounds reasonable. Am not clear why it would be limited to solid shot weapons but I am not familiar with your system.
Your underlying logic is sound.

Joe Legan -Shape charge warheads and the like were not available for long range fire. Stelgranite 41 is one of the few Shape Charge rounds and that had a range of 300m so were very close and a relatively easy shot so target size it may be less significant.

Shaped charge round are fired at a low velocity as the shell walls are very thin and don't hold up to being fired at high velocities. Also, the faster a shaped charge round spins the less the penetration will be.

I think MG fire at a lightly armored vehicle would force it to move ASAP out of the LOS as a main gun round will most likely be fired next. That's what I'd do or bail out.

The manuals say to engage AT guns with coax and bmg MG fire. This should immediately suppress the crew to a greater or lesser degree, maybe cause causalities and knock out the gun or sight. In my game, that means the reload time is doubled and no range finder use.

Firing the coax first should give the main gun a better chance to hit because the gunner, observing the tracer, will help him better estimate the range for the main gun.

The first main gun shot will depend on if a round is already in the chamber. If engaging a non-AFV target ideally you want HE. If you have AP loaded you can fire it off immediately (dump the round) without aiming to get an HE round loaded or attempt to hit the gun which would be hard and a miss has no effect (MG fire does). If the AP round missed it would count as a ranging shot to make the HE round a better chance to hit.

This is where Sherman's had an advantage with a very good HE round with a delay fuse it can ricochet fire if on firm ground:

Wolfhag

My suggestions for firing at partially hidden and small/large targets:

Hidden/Hide: Cannot be spotted over 200m. Return fire is at muzzle flashes with an accuracy penalty.

Turret Down: Cannot be spotted over 200m.

Hull down: Since it is in partial cover don't use an accuracy modifier, give it a "cover save". So if it is hit, the defending player rolls a D6 and the round has a 50% chance to hit the turret.

In the open: In the rules, designate a standard size target for gun fire. Accuracy bonus for targets for target size/height above the standard size. For smaller targets then the standard size use a "size save" like a cover save if the round hits.

Let's say a vehicle with a height of about 2.5m (T-34/85, Panzer IV, etc.) is the standard size. They get no size save if hit. A StuG III height is 2.0m. It is 80% the standard size so 20% chance the round missed because of the smaller size. (defender rolls a 1 or 2 on a D10 for a miss).

The German Pak 40 AT Gun is 1.2m high and dug in about 0.8m high. 1.2 is about 50% of the standard height so a 50% chance to miss. 0.8m is about 70% chance to miss.

Near Miss: Firing HE rounds you can determine a near miss by the amount that the round missed on the "size save". So if a 1-5 was needed to confirm a hit and a 6 was rolled the HE round impacts next to the gun causing heavy damage to the crew and gun. The greater the miss the further away the round landed and the less chance of damage.

Large Target: Rather than an accuracy bonus for targets over 2.5m you can use the same concept. Tigers, Panthers, Shermans, and Pershings are 3.0m high which is 20% higher than the standard 2.5m. So if the shooter missed, either player could roll a D10 and a hit is confirmed on a 1 to 2 because of the larger size.

This should help speed up the game because you are not looking for and adding/subtracting modifiers (a real pain for me), it is an accurate physical model and can keep the defender in the game rolling the saves rather than sitting idle.

You could also use this concept for attempting to fire through doors, windows, loop holes, muzzle flashes, and moving targets rather than accuracy penalties.

This should work well if you are rolling a D6 to hit because you are very limited on die roll modifiers.

When the shooting player rolls to hit the defender can roll his save at the same time to speed up the game.

Wolfhag

Well after a session with the calculator and play testing and a debate about the mininimum additional rules, we opted to set the chance a bit oin the low side (authors not agreing on what would be "perfect"). Classing the target as only taking hullhits. Hul hits are defined already in the rules as aort of dammage and to vevaluate hull down effect, so players are alredy familiar with the terminology and how to assessit. In addition firing at the vehicle withan MG is now more effective than using a tank gun, as noted as being the better choce by Wolfhag and the fastest implimentation in our rules.

While we do not have a large target definition most of the time the targets are not that big. In some scenarios a very large object, building, large ship etc, can be devided into effectively more than on target for damage purposes it is deemed neccessary.

Thanks for the help and interest.

UshCha,
I liked it so much I'm making some changes to use it. The fewer modifiers the easier to play.

Wolfhag

Where I live lowriders are very popular.

Well at least we can all agree the Sherman had a low profile!