I'm not sure how much the developers pay attention to this forum but I'm hoping someone can speak to the thinking behind the tank range and firepower bonus v. pillboxes. My friend is much more the historical military buff than I am and he's got some issue with the tank bonuses versus pillboxes.

His argument goes something like this. Tank HE rounds into a house he can see the bonus to firepower and to range. A tank round that doesn't go exactly through the 6 inch (by 12 inch deep) slit of a reinforced concrete bunker doesn't do anything. So why do the tanks get the same benefit against pillboxes as they do against houses?

Me personally I know I dislike it because it tends to center around a critical objective (especially in a scenario like Silence the Guns) but in general have no significant problem with it. So can anyone speak to the logic or reasoning behind the way the rule is?

My explanation (by no means official) is that the modern battlefield of WW2 is essentially empty. Infantry is hard to spot at distance. Houses and pillboxes are nicely visible and immobile, therefore quite easy to target. They also have the added advantage of telling you exactly where the occupying infantry is in the hex.

So it is not unreasonable to assume that such shots are potentially much more effective than the usual fire at infantry in the open, which is mostly guesswork and luck. I say potentially more effective because the cover dice are not reduced, so the pillbox might still protect the infantry, 6 dice yielding an average of 2 successes.

Klaus

Of course this could be home modified to suit your needs but I would take it much like the bombing of the beaches on and before Normandy, it sure didnt destroy the pill boxes, but the occupants inside still felt it, in example, ears ringing, loss of hearing, stunned, etc. I would imaging a small pill box being hit with fire causes quite a caucophany inside the concrete (echo anyone?). So that maybe what they are trying to convey, stunned infantry inside would not but putting up much of a fight.

Yes, that is a fact that I also tend to forget. Casualty removal not only represents dead soldiers but also soldiers who are otherwise incapacitated.

Luftwaffe Flak said:

Yes. And I've always assumed this was the meaning of "concussive" in the "Concussive Firepower" special rule for tanks.

I do agree with the idea of echos inside a pillbox and all that but that wouldn't lead to casualties.

So I can only see a benefit when you opt for suppresive fire.

Tanks also fire armor piercing rounds. That would be more effective against pillboxes.

I am reading the D-Day books by Osprey, and there tanks taking out pillboxes and bunkers are frequently mentioned...

A couple of cites (book title, page #) there would be helpful, thank you.

sloejack said:

Sorry that this took so long. I scanned through the pages of the two books I had read already and found the following:

D-Day 1944 (1) - Omaha Beach by Steven J. Zaloga (Osprey Publishing), page 52 near the bottom and page 81 near the bottom

D-Day 1944 (2) - Utah Beach & the US Airborne Landings by Steven J. Zaloga (Osprey Publishing), page 56 near the bottom and page 63 caption 81 of the top picture

I am currently reading the third book:

D-Day 1944 (3) - Sword Beach & the British Airborne Landings by Ken Ford (Osprey Publishing), page 62 near the top

As I said, I just scanned the first two books, so I might have missed some references, but I do not think so.

The fourth book deals with Juno and Gold beaches and is next on my (very short) reading list.

sloejack said:

And what I forgot to mention earlier is that I wrote the following rules questions to FFG:

Are bunkers vulnerable to Concussive Firepower? Are supply depots vulnerable to Concussive Firepower?

With the following answer:

Thanks for the cites. The question about how effective the tanks were vs. pillboxes was posed before Normandy was published so that's certainly different. My opponent still grouses but it is what it is. We may play around with the rules for our use to see if he feels better about it but I suspect that in the grand scheme of things it's not the end of the world.

Infantry weapons are also effective against pillboxes, like hand granades and flamethrowers - almost of pillboxes were taken using these weapons and however none of them could destroy the pillbox itself, but instead they killed or injured the enemy inside.

as an additional reading: http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/pillboxwarfare/index.html