Bombarding Tank Riders

[plloyd1010]

Fred, if your pal can handle ASL, I'm sure PG should be no problem. I was excited about the prospect of ASL before it was published. The actual product was disappointing to me. I had expected a much neater rules set, instead it was binder of minutia, much not being particularly relevant.

When thinking of bombardment fire modifiers against moving targets, I would look mostly to the drum fire rule in IA, and perhaps a "just moved" modifier as with AT fire. I don't expect the turrets would provide much cover. Apart from pre-war photos of "fighting from a tank", most riders appear to have been on the front or on the turret when it came to riding on tanks (photos & book descriptions). The ask yourself, what side of the turret would you hide behind while shells detonate randomly around you? It doesn't seem safe, and perhaps more dangerous than, the clap-boards and canvas of a truck.

[zaarin7]

You could put this forward as "Advanced Panzerblitz" (APB)since that was the original purpose of the design.

[vince hughes]

Vince, you never did or do rules/mod negotiations?

Peter, not mods no, but between 17 years old to 23 years I wrote 3 sets of wargame rules for miniatures gaming in Napoleonics, ACW and WW1. I was a member of a very prominent wargame club called the South London Warlords and they arrange a big 'do' every year here called 'Salute'. I was proud to have these sets used by members of such a famous (in wargames world) club and reams of them printed (photo-copied actually ) by the players.

I didn;t get into board wargames till later in my 'career'. I was a miniatures man from 7 years to 13 years before moving onto AH products. Stuck with miniatures into my 30's.

With the board games, as already mentioned in this post, it was a very large club as far as membership went and again, I guess individual mods by each player would have made it a bit tiresome for me discussing with so many different opponents rather than just cracking out the box and playing the designed game.

Talking of the the Army in the early 80's, that was when I went to pick up (excitedly) my copy of the ASL rulebook and Beyond Valour from a very good Aldershot wargame shop called Esdevium games. I couldn't wait to see the 4 x previous SL books combined into a cogent one volume. Like you, my heart sank when I got the product home. There was just too much of it for me and the SL game had from that point morphed into a huge rules beast that I was not prepared to wade through and probably re-wade through everytime I might take a hiatus from playing the system. For me personally, it was a sad end to one of my favourite all time games, Squad Leader.

Hey ! Glad you liked the look of the suggested book. What amazes me about those type of books and even Gundersons "Stormtroop Tactics 1914-18" was how many of those small unit tactics were still relevant and used in much the same way even when I was in the Army in the early 80's. I will look for your suggestions online thanks.

[vince hughes]

You could put this forward as "Advanced Panzerblitz" (APB)since that was the original purpose of the design.

But "Advanced Panzerblitz" probably has one page of rules for every Chapter of "Advanced Squad Leader". A somewhat skewed exchanged rate.