The Normandy expansion introduces several new armored units, among them the Stug III G assault gun and Jagdpanzer tank hunter.

If you look a the miniature, you'll notice they have no turret and the gun in built with the hull/chassis of the vehicule, meaning it can only aim forward. Those vehicules were not meant to be tanks, but rather tracked antitank guns, and proved most effective on defense when camouflaged and waiting for the ennemy armor to show up, rather than on assault. On a side note, these german vehicules were manned by artillerymen, not armor troops.

However, judging by their game characteristics, both the StuG III G and Jagdpanzer are superior to the Panzer IV, while in reality, their lack or turret made them a poorer choice on the offense.

So in order to stick back with reality and represent the lack of agility of thoses turretless armors, I imagined this simple house rule : like Heavy Infrantry Weapons, turretless vehicule cannot be activated with a fire and movement action.

On the other hand, the american Gun Motor Carriage M10 Wolverine was also significantly less armored than the M4 Sherman, resulting in higher losses when wronlgy used as a tank. It suppose lowering its armor value from 4 to 3 would do History justice.

Lastly, this is no house-rule but a call to your intrepretation : the M10 has an Open Top, described as "This véhicule is vulnerable to suppressive attack".

Fine, but what does that mean ? Can squads use their anti-infantry firepower to deal suppressive dice to the M10, or do they still use their anti-vehicule firepower ? What about tanks then ? Or am I just completely wrong, and th only meaning of this trait is than the M10 can be only suppressed by mortar attacks ? I guess that's what makes the most sense, but your opinion is highly welcome ! :-)

I agree with both those ideas.

Thanks Cyscott1. What's your opinion about my last question ?

As it is still a vehiclular target, units must use firepower against vehicles. Mortars and artillery becomes a threat though. So does Suppressive Support I think? Mostly it means that one unit can pin the tank and allow other units to surge past its guns or set up for the kill next turn.

Hefsgaard said:

I would stick with the standard rules on suppresing the M10 meaning that you'd use the vehicle attack numbers. I'd also say this would pin/disrupt not damage the vehicle since all suppresion does is force the crew to take cover.

I do have a beef with the way the firepower is handled with all tank units against infantry. it seems the designers have only allowed them to use a MG against infantry. Have they ever heard of HE rounds? This would make the assult guns more effective the only issue would be targeting would be area effect. I'll likely cook up a house rule to fix that at some point if FFG doesn't revise it.

Hum... that would mean you could rout an M10 by shelling it with your Panzer... I find this idea... rather weird.

As for using HE against infantry, that's already implied in Concussive Firepower, in my understading, and MG is used when shooting on the open.

And c'mon, don't you think infantry isn't already enough in **** when faced with armor ? :-P

Why would it be wierd to have a crew of an open top vehicle abandon it and run in the woods when faced with greater firepower? The M10 was lightly armored. If I was in one and a King Tiger opened up I think I might bail out.

Infantry was pretty much screwed when facing armor. All I would change is to increase the range and make it area effect rather than direct fire.

Sure the gun crew could bail out if shelled like hell... but what about the driver ? I'd say it would only apply to suppressive mortar fire, but while I understand that the gun crew could be scared enough not to use the gun, why would a pinned M10 driver not be able to drive away ? He isn't more exposed. And Trucks and half-tracks crews are much more exposed and can very easily jump off their vehicule, yet they don't rout like the M10 could...

Some guy (check his optionnal rules in custom-made scenarios) proposed that some vehicules could be assaulted. Why not the M10 then ? Or rephrase the ability to "Can be suppressed by AREA attacks" maybe ?

As for tanks using HE against infantry in the open (= not in building or pillboxes) :

- direct fire like tank guns is very hard to aim precisely at the ground, especially at longer range. It's way easier to shoot at or through a wall to detonate the HE round. Contemporary armies are only STARTING to develop airburst ammo that detonates at a set distance. Thus the MG was the preferred method to deal with infantry in the open.

- for game balance purposes, I strongly disapprove. Squads are already ****** up enough when facing tanks that they're really no need to make the beasts even more powerful. Why not just add the following rule then : "When shot by a tank, all squads in the target hex immediatly die" ? :-P