Burning Tigers

[zaarin7]

I agree and technically you are right but most folks will recognize the name "Elephant" before "Ferdinand".

[Matt W]

There is indeed a SSR for the lack of MGs on the "Elefant". Good pickup!!!

[zaarin7]

Yet they don't include an SSR on how the KV-1 almost could not see out of the vehicle closed up in 1941. Or how as late as Kursk the T-34 still only had 4 crew and the commander was the gunner so his view was only what he could see through the gunners sight.

Oh well I guess if they did all that it wouldn't be PG it would be something like ASL. What does it do give a Soviet favorable odds shift in close combat?

[campsawyer]

Yet they don't include an SSR on how the KV-1 almost could not see out of the vehicle closed up in 1941. Or how as late as Kursk the T-34 still only had 4 crew and the commander was the gunner so his view was only what he could see through the gunners sight.

Oh well I guess if they did all that it wouldn't be PG it would be something like ASL. What does it do give a Soviet favorable odds shift in close combat?

Your last sentence sums it is up, this is not ASL. Personally, I don't like these individual SSR's for vehicle idiosyncrasies because they don't reflect at scale. This is a platoon of units and at the scale my feeling is that those special characteristics should be reflected in the numbers on the counters. With the Ferdinands, they should have a much lower DF than they have. At this stage of the war they were tank destroyers and did not have the anti-personal capabilities, so my simple answer is a DF of 2 or 3 rather than additional SSR's. It has been done with other counters, such as the SU-100 in RtB, it has no DF factors.

[Poor Yorek]

At this stage of the war they were tank destroyers and did not have the anti-personal capabilities, so my simple answer is a DF of 2 or 3 rather than additional SSR's. It has been done with other counters, such as the SU-100 in RtB, it has no DF factors.

Alan,

Might this be a matter of ammunition supplied? Granted the Elefant lacked a machine gun, but if these AFVs were supplied with HE as well as AT rounds, a reasonable DF value might be warranted (and the lack of the MG accounted for by a negative col shift in assault). I plead ignorance of Stalinite ammunition specifics, but perhaps the SU-100's 100mm gun only had AT rounds available - if I recall correctly, that gun was a specialized AT calibre - and hence the lack of a DF value?

Just speculating on APL's fire value decisions.

[campsawyer]

At this stage of the war they were tank destroyers and did not have the anti-personal capabilities, so my simple answer is a DF of 2 or 3 rather than additional SSR's. It has been done with other counters, such as the SU-100 in RtB, it has no DF factors.

Alan,

Might this be a matter of ammunition supplied? Granted the Elefant lacked a machine gun, but if these AFVs were supplied with HE as well as AT rounds, a reasonable DF value might be warranted (and the lack of the MG accounted for by a negative col shift in assault). I plead ignorance of Stalinite ammunition specifics, but perhaps the SU-100's 100mm gun only had AT rounds available - if I recall correctly, that gun was a specialized AT calibre - and hence the lack of a DF value?

Just speculating on APL's fire value decisions.

My point exactly. This special case was handled within the DF rather than a special rule.

[zaarin7]

That's fine and I too prefer that I just hope that if the vehicles are ever presented post Kursk (Anzio for example) somebody makes a big sticky note somewhere very visible that says something like:

POST KURSK REMEMBER TO CHANGE THE DF ON THE FERDINAND/ELEPHANT. (caps for emphasis not yelling)

[mike perryman]

The Elephant/Ferdinand might have been designed as a tank destroyer but at Kursk the Germans used them as a battering ram in the vanguard of the attack. The DF rating is for the 88 gun which carried HE rounds and the lack of a machine gun for self defense is covered in the special rule for assualt combat.
Thanks, Mike

[awdougherty]

Vince, if you got that impression from my post, please consider I have limited vision and my specific situation is unlikely applicable to someone with 20/20 corrected vision.

Going back a bit in this thread as I just got and punched my copy. My vision without glasses is pretty solid, with glasses it's a bit better than 20/20. I find the new markers basically unusable. Not that I couldn't make out what they say if I try, but I need those markers to help establish an overview of the situation at a glance. It's as if functionality of any sort was tossed out the window when they were designed.

Honestly, I'm at the point where I doubt I'll ever use the laser cut counters in any way if I can cobbled together what I need from Eastern Front and Road to Berlin.

[otto]

Why don't you colour them with different markers?
:-)