I have been conducting research on infantry assaulting heavy vehicles and am interested in thoughts and ideas for incorporating same into ToI without unbalancing the game. The rules state "The active squad may not assault a hex that contains an enemy heavy vehicle". Although I can reason why the designers of the base game might decide to limit such an action, history is repleat with countless examples of infantry assaulting isolated, unsupported armor units. The lack of this capability within the ToI rules system detracts from the flavor of history while seemingly being easy to model with simple rules and without unbalancing the game.

Anyone have house rules you're using to support squad assaults against heavy vehicles?

What constitutes an assault in the real world? I do not think climbing on top of the tank hacking away with the bayonet.

I consider the Assault action, a prolonged closerange firefight, combined with some actualy hand to hand. It is machinepistols, granades and bayonets.

Infantry attacks with mines, demolitioncharges or similar is in dealt with by Concentrated fire at Close range.

Hmmm, trying to pry off a tank turret with a bayonet would be the definition of lunacy I agree.

An alternative definition of assault would be the use of hand grenades, weapons, explosives, etc., at melee range in order to defeat an enemy AND capture his ground in one fell swoop. We could call it close assault

The assaut action provides a mechanism for resting a hex away from your opponent. Comes in real handy during the final turn if your opponent has a unit (tank or squads) sitting on the objective that you need to capture in order to win (or not lose).

Close assaults by infantry against tanks since their introduction to warfare have been well documented, especially during WW2. Usually these were against tanks that had outrun their infantry support or became isolated due to doctrinal misuse, breakdown, getting lost, urban combat, etc.

I'm not necessarily looking for anything complicated or unwieldy. More like something that fits with the spirit of the game and could be explained in 1-3 short paragraphs.

Thouse assaults were proberly executet by specialists using specialist equipment.

I agree with that assessment. Equipment such as flamethrowers, infantry anti-tank (bazookas/panzerfaust/piat) and combat engineer kit, come to mind.

Also, many such assaults were conducted by elite, experienced and/or highly motivated units (rangers/commandos, paratroops, panzergrenadiers, marines, russian guards and penal battalions, pioneers, etc.). Your regular infantryman didn't always have the motivation, leadership or knowledge for conducting an assault against a tank.

I found this in a a thread on BGG. The discussion included a wide range of ToI subjects (mortors and smoke, artillery effects in woods, MGs v. armor, assaults...) (The entire discussion can be viewed at http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1579137#1579137 ):

"2. Assaulting tanks : The active squad may assault a hex containing a heavy vehicle if the target hex has no enemy squads present.
Treat the heavy vehicle as a light vehicle in all respects, except tanks get to roll their armour roll, ignoring the first success rolled. ((This should be within the spirit of the rules : not allow armour to benefit infantry, and also to mirror the fact that light armour does not get its armour roll in normal assaults. This means you´ll have to clear away supporting infantry before you assault a tank, which is fine.))"

I like the above ideas but think it's a capability that should be limited to sqauds with the specialty chits of either anti-tank, engineer or flamethrower, or squads with a majority content of elite infantry+officer. Also:

a. To simplify the heavy vehicles defensive value I would simply halve the armor value.

b. Allow the vehicle to defend itself using a machine gun value.

I would not recommend this variant for any pre-existing scenarios unless the players wish to add a new dimension to freshen it up.

Anyone played with the BGG rules or designed scenarios with the assaulting-heavy-vehicle option for squads?

I would not recomend this variant at all. It makes tanks much too fragile. Halving armor AND allowing infantry a 4-hex shortrange attack, is simply a gamebreaker. Tanks could and did run through infantry formations time and again. Thus the overrun rule. Assaulting infantry is already powerfull beyond realism.

I would agree that the current edition assault rules can be powerful, but only because we're allowed to assault in "waves". I would prefer to see the rules changed to allow only one assault per target hex per game round, similar to the Op Fire rule allowing only one OP Fire attack per target per hex. By the way, did you mean 1-hex shortrange attack? Again, the utility of assaults against heavy vehicles within the context of the game is to capture that objective hex. The secondary benefits are tactical as a "fleet in being".

The overrun rule for heavy vehicles is legit, but probably should be restricted to clear terrain hexes only (also, I would restrict open topped heavy vehicles from performing overrun). The flip side of this type of attack is close assaulting by infantry against tanks. Interestingly, the overrun rule allows a form of defensive assault against tanks by the overrun squad if same is in OP Fire mode. Op Fire can be conducted against the active tank in the overrun hex. A heavily damaged tank is forced to retreat back to the last enemy free hex. That the tank does get full armor value is logical since the infantry would, for the most part, be confronting the front of the tank. If a squad were actively assaulting a tank, they would likely be attacking from the side or rear (thinner armor).

The USMC says hunting tanks is fun and easy, but only if they lack infantry support. I think if one uses all combat assets economically, a combined arms attack/defense can limit the vulnerability of tanks against infantry assault. OP Fire is a very useful tool for protecting tanks advancing ahead of infantry. Infantry support the tanks, tanks support the infantry. Its all in the sequencing and synchronization of actions. Also, by limiting the capability to a few specific specialty units, the vulnerability of the tank to assault actually goes down, since these chits are not plentiful. The scarcity of these resources would force the owning player to husband them if she/he forsees a future need to assault a heavy vehicle. Obviously, the tank owning player would look for opportunities to kill off these potential pests. A better offense leads to a better defense....

I'm guessing that FFG is working on an advanced rules section for the 2nd edition rules. If so, I would love to see this option included.

Tankhunters are already in the rules! No need for more of them.

If we need assault on tanks, then we need the weapons tanks used to defend against such things. Another layer of complexity (ASL commming up)

And no I meant 4 hex CC - move 3 hexes and shoot one.

I know amongst th hardcore ToI crew, ASL is used in the pejorative. I have never played it myself. I grew up with Panzerblitz, Panzer Leader and a variety WW2 miniature rules. Recently, along came FoW. Of the two, I much prefer ToI. ToI follows the first rule of wargame design more so than FoW: keep it simple. So, please be assured that I am not trying to ToI into something that it isn't. That said, there is an audience that wishes to see the system reach its full potential at on two different, but not necessarily exclusive levels: playability and realism. "Wargaming is an act of communication." (Peter Perla). This occurs at the gameboard level and between the players and the company. In many sets of rules (FFG included) there is a section at the back for advanced variations. My personal hope is to see a future advanced section (the rules of which would be optional).

You indicated that we already have tankhunters. Are you referring to the anti-tank specialization token?

Yes I am refering to the anti-tank ability.

Playability and realism are unfortunatly mostly opposites. Persue one and you lose the other.