[House Rules] Immobilizing AT Fire

[campsawyer]

I know this topic has been batted around before either here or CSW, but I just wanted to put forward the thought of immobilizing AT fire. This would be AT shots that don't kill the armored unit but temporarily immobilize them it instead. Many real AAR accounts mention that they hit the targets with fire to see it stopped but soon after needed to shoot at it again at it wasn't killed, but there was a brief moment of indecision for the crews. (Just read and interesting account of a German Panzer crew going after a KV-1 thinking they destroyed it, only to have to go after it later.) This got me thinking that the PG AT system is a binary result, you either kill them or you don't, but in reality there were grey area's and sometime the tanks were just temporarily stopped.

I believe that PG has all the mechanics to have this simulated in the game. Morale has been used to show temporary fire results for infantry as well as further penalizing tanks upon a step reduction. I believe this can be used to create the above effect that I mention. Recently, is some of my solo games I have resurrected the idea that a AT fire result of a modified roll of '9' causes a 'M' morale check for the armored unit. The unit would apply all failed morale check rolls per the core rules and would recover in the same way.

So, the first question to be asked is how did the scenarios that you tested it on play and did if significantly change them? The answer is it changed them no more than a random leader selection would change one play for another. Out of three played and one of those twice, with and without, the modification all results were within a normal play. The morale check occurred eight times in the three games, with failure five times and two demoralizations and three disruptions. With the surrounding bigger battles only one time did it allow for a interesting situation to occur. A Soviet ATR unit was able to disrupt a PzIIIG that was part of an assault force moving to attack. Stopped from moving up the German assault force was denied the armor support and was demoralized by a Soviet counter-assault. If they had the armor, they may have received a better result on the first round would not have been demoralized on the second. The Soviets eventually beat the Germans back, but the Germans won the scenario. So, I saw this as not really a major effect.

The second question is how can this be useful if it did not have a big impact? This is where I toss it over to the forum to possibly try and report on the results. I am just looking for people to give it a try, or if they have, and give some feedback like I have above.

[rmakowsky]

The issue I have is that these units are platoons of tanks and so hitting one tank and having it stop is not reflected at the scale of the game.

Having said that however I agree that a separate effect to step loss is a good idea. Maybe it could be platoon indecision or some such due to the attack. Would cause the same thing but would explain at the scale of the game.

I will try this out in my next game. Thanks,

[campsawyer]

Thanks for the feedback. Your comment on platoon v. individual is well noted. I had this discussion before with another person and hence the M check rather than a straight disruption for a result. The M check gives more seasoned tankers a chance to brush off a disabling effect, one tank losing a tread. But it does give the variabilty to having the platoon leaders tank temporarily disabled, which would stop the platoon and have them go in a defensive position while he sorts things out.


You can probably think of other reasons to, but more importantly thanks for giving it a try.

[JayTownsend]

I think with a platoon of Tanks/AFVs/Armored Cars and so on the step loss reflects not only eliminated vehicles but also disable vehicles, that can't move due to losing a trend, can't fire due to a damaged gun and so on.

[Matt W]

Does anyone know if this treatment has changed in PG:Modern? I have found that vehicles are much more fragile in PG than I would expect. Yes, they are hard to hit, but once hit, the reduced unit usually demoralizes (an M2 on a reduced morale typically fails spectacularly) and without leader bonuses they rarely recover sufficiently to participate later. I don't see this as wrong but it requires a relative level of caution in using armor that changes my tactics in the later war scenarios.

[vince hughes]

I don't see this as wrong but it requires a relative level of caution in using armor that changes my tactics in the later war scenarios.

mmmmmmm ? Notes this confession for future tussles with this player

[Hugmenot]

I always ask myself a few questions when thinking about adopting a house rule.

Is the house rule difficult to implement?
No, it's very easy to implement.

Does the house adds significant playing time to a scenario?
No, I doubt it adds more than 5 -10 minutes playing time to large scenarios with 150+ units.

Is the house rule unrealistic
I lean towards no; immobilization with later recovery without loss of firepower did happen.

Is the house rule unbalanced
It depends on the scenario on my opinion. An attacker which has many more AFV's than the defender may be negatively affected by this house rule. Not only an AFV may have to spend a few turns recovering morale, the attacker may need an activation just to attempt that recovery. If playing a huge scenario (say 200+ counters) with the optional fog of war rule, the net effect of the immobilization may be too punitive for the attacker.

I do like the chrome at little cost it brings and thus I will probably try it in a small to medium scenarios t before I decide whether I want to try it for larger scenarios.

[Matt W]

"mmmmmmm ? Notes this confession for future tussles with this player "

Except of course, when I have a horde of Shermans and losses don't count...

[campsawyer]

Does anyone know if this treatment has changed in PG:Modern? I have found that vehicles are much more fragile in PG than I would expect. Yes, they are hard to hit, but once hit, the reduced unit usually demoralizes (an M2 on a reduced morale typically fails spectacularly) and without leader bonuses they rarely recover sufficiently to participate later. I don't see this as wrong but it requires a relative level of caution in using armor that changes my tactics in the later war scenarios.

Matt, at the time of playtesting, there was no change to the armor rules in Modern PG. It is doubtful that it has since then.

[campsawyer]

I always ask myself a few questions when thinking about adopting a house rule.

Is the house rule difficult to implement?
No, it's very easy to implement.

Does the house adds significant playing time to a scenario?
No, I doubt it adds more than 5 -10 minutes playing time to large scenarios with 150+ units.

Is the house rule unrealistic
I lean towards no; immobilization with later recovery without loss of firepower did happen.

Is the house rule unbalanced
It depends on the scenario on my opinion. An attacker which has many more AFV's than the defender may be negatively affected by this house rule. Not only an AFV may have to spend a few turns recovering morale, the attacker may need an activation just to attempt that recovery. If playing a huge scenario (say 200+ counters) with the optional fog of war rule, the net effect of the immobilization may be too punitive for the attacker.

I do like the chrome at little cost it brings and thus I will probably try it in a small to medium scenarios t before I decide whether I want to try it for larger scenarios.

Good points Hugmenot, like to hear your trials with this when done.