The strategy card "Heavy Gun Support" (Watchdog deck - Normandy) says:

"... No Op Fire is available due to overheating."

I can't activate this squad to OP FIRE or I may activated to OP FIRE but I can't use the special ability "Rapid Op Fire"?

I dont have the cards on hand to read in full, but if your quote of the card's text is correct I would take it as it reads and not allow any op fire at all.

Yes, that sounds like no op fire, but I will look at the card the next time I play (when the Furry Bear finally arrives).

The strategy card contents:

"Place a victory objective marker on one of your squads with a maehine gun crew. This unit gains a heavy machine gun that
has a range of 5 and firepower of 8 against infantry and a range of 3 and a firepower of 4 against vehicle. No op fire is available due to overheating.
The squad's movement is reduced to 2, and it cannot move and fire or assault."

My question is about "No Op Fire activation" or "No Rapid Op Fire special ability". No make sense to prevent Op Fire activation, but Rapid Op Fire I agree.

Well it sounds like there is no op fire allowed at all. I would make a house rule to make it only rapid op fire not allowed because that does make more sense. With op fire a normal unit still only fires once per turn so it doesnt make sense that it would overheat in op fire but not normal fire. Maybe its a misprint but either way i would just change it.

neu.descolado said:

I agree, no op fire at all makes not much sense, but that is what the card says.

In my opnion, the card itself does not make sense, since there were no heavy MGs that could kill a Sherman or a Panzer IV with one lucky hit.

The card sounds to me like someone needed a light AT gun with good anti-infantry capability (something like a 20mm or 37mm rapid-fire AA gun), but did not want to use the equipment rules from Days of the Fox.

The Operation Card "OUTFITTED BUNKERS" (Normandy) also says something similar:

"All heavy bunkers have a heavy machine gun in them. For a special action, any fresh squad in the bunker can use the machine gun. The machine gun has a range of 5 and firepower of 8 against infantry and a range of 3 and a firepower of 4 against vehicle. No op fire is available due to overheating. "

i can't swear but that sounds like the card to represent the American .50 cal heavy machine gun. op fire should be okay, but no rapid fire is accurate as the .50 cal had a slow rate of fire. in the case of the outfitted bunkers,not offical mind you, the intent was to represent mg 42's emplaced for heavy action also op fire should be okay just not rapid op fire. i could be wrong here but back when i was working on the game we where looking for ways to represnt the heavy and slow firing machine guns. also the Germans did use their 20mm aa cannon like a machine gun at times very devastating firepower

BJaffe01

just remember those answers aren't offical just base on my memory of what we where trying to do then. FFG probably made some adjustments

BJaffe01

BJaffe01 said:

A .50cal should not have an AT firepower of 4, I think.

BJaffe01 said:

BJaffe01 said:

That sounds more plausible regarding the firepower against vehicles, but the range against vehicles would be to short. Also, the firepower againts infantry seems excessive. Op fire should be allowed for AA guns.

I wish the design team had just taken the equipment rules rules from DotF and used them to model lighter guns.

well with regards to the aa gun the Germans had a 4 barrel 20mm set up i think 8 firepower against infantry for that would be fine based on the rate of fire.

BJaffe01

BJaffe01 said:

OK, if you take the quad version, I would agree to firepower 8.

I'm not an expert on guns in WWII, but I do agree that it is better to model these things like an equipment. When that it said, I do support the proposed rules (by BJaffe01 in another thread) of having an infanteri be fatigued after using an equipment. I think it will be easier to balance equipment that way, becuase that way your equipment doesn't give you an extra shot, it just gives you a better shot.

Just imagine a scenario where one side has LOTS of AT guns in barracaded positions, and how much fun it could be if you have 12 infanteri and 8 AT guns (4 light and 4 heavy for example) With the current rules, the designer of the scenario is forced to introducing atleast 8 infanteri squads which all can fire in addition to all 8 AT guns, and probably he is forced to reducing the number of guns due to balancing issues.

These are the funniest AT rules. Any squad can step up and operate the equipment. Artillery and AT teams required gun-specific training, especially when it came to ranging, fuses, etc. In TOI, the highly trained gun team gets killed and then any regular infantry squad without prior training can step up and just start firing away. Even funnier is that inexperienced squad "A" of country "A" can step up and start firing away with enemy equipment. A British infantry squad just off the boat mans an "88". Very funny.

Within the time frame of a TOI battle I would say this ability stretches credulity even in a stylized system.

Why not give each gun its own crew from the start, marked by a special token. If that crew is killed, the equipment is ooc for the remainder of the game unless manned by a squad with at least 50% elite troops or by another gun team. Moreover, manning enemy equipment should not be allowed except by special highly trained troops.

BJaffe01 said:

1. The type of weaponry needs to be specified for the bunker...it's either a heavy MG or equipment (20 mm quad) or both (with separate actions).

2. Neither a light or heavy MG should be able to damage a heavy vehicle. Only light vehicles, in which case a FP of 4 for the .50 is reasonable.

I agree there needs to be a gun crew. The scenario I've been working on lately has this issue. I have guns being towed by Bren carriers that I have to provide a squad for each. A Bren could only carry maybe 4 men? And you don't need 12 men to man a gun so there needs to an in between. I guess I could offer a reduced squad with 2 figures but that seems wrong too. While I'm griping I need more types of British tanks FFG! Why where they not in the Normandy set? How come Germany has so many but the Brits and Americans only get 2 types each?

Good luck getting more Brit tanks from FFG.

FFG was the US distributor for World Tank Museum models but gave that up...

Try: Strange Cargo or, Pithead-miniatures (British). Pithead-miniatures has a HUGE line of 1/144 WW2 (they accept payment via PAYPAL).