I'm finding it somewhat problematic, and I'm wondering if others do, as to the way that damge to light vehicles is resolved and treated the same way as for tanks (heavy vehicles). Specifically, this is about the rather unrealstic effect that a halftrack (light vehilce) must take 1 or 2 hits to become lightly damaged/fatigyed and then needs another 3 hits to go directly from lightly damaged to destroyed. Yes, I already realize that a light vehicle like a halftrack will ALSO become fatigued while a tank won't, yet a half track's ability in the game to absorb the same amount of damage as a tank is outright problematic.

As a possilbe solution, I was thinking about applying a houserule where every single hit on a halftrack (or other light vehicle) will result in a level of damage to it: 1 hit = light damage and fatigued; 2 hits = heavy damage; and 3 hits = destroyed.

Does anyone else have any views one way or the other as to whether or not the way the game treats or represents the sustainable amount of damage that light vehicles are capable of absorbing is problematical at all? or not? And what about other optional houserules, including the one above, that would conceivably correct this prevailing problem in the game design?

I'm not sure about this one. In many situation I think the half-track defends just right. Maybe an full force of a tank has a too low probability of heavily damagingan half-track in one shot... But doing heavy damage to an half-track might be to easy if you fire at it two times. I think the half-track is fine and a fun unit as is. Afterall, they are suppose to be worth something. However bill had an ide that halftracks could be made wounderable to suppresive fire. Thats a nice thing I think.

What irritates me more is the trucks. They are supposed to be moving stash, not drawing attacks, taking the objective, halting the time, used as spotters etc. An empty truck has nothing to do in the front. I would like to see some ideas of how to redo the trucks? Some rules so that they are used as they are supposed to: carry stash!

It doesn't really bother me, since it's far easier to damage/destroy a halftrack than a tank.

It doesn't really bother me either, halftracks have much lower armor.

rhall60918 said:

I've always found it unrealistic that heavy vehicles could be damaged by MGs or in this game. Your suggested solution is excellent. I would modify it to reflect light vehicle vulnerability to smaller caliber weapons.

1. Every hit by a heavy vehicle, anti-tank weapon or artillery on a light vehicle causes one level of damage.

2. Hits by other weapons are treated normally.

WRT trucks, the original Panzerblitz had the same problem. It was resolved in Panzer Leader whereby trucks/wagons could not spot, could not control hexes and did not count in any way towards victory determination either for units destroyed or occupying objective hexes. Sounds entirely reasonable to me.

Regarding the MG, I find that a single MG firing at an undamaged tank at normal distance is semii-ok. I mean 2 dices versus atleast 4 defence dices, gives a fairly low probability to hit. It can be argued that it is still large, but its not that bad. And that an MG can take out a truck or a half-track is fine. However the a double MG and or combined fire, attacking with 4 dices versus 4 defence for a heavy tank, that is kind of irritating.

And for my point of view, the main problem is combined fire. Due to combined fire, it is impossible to design though units. I mean a tiger tank is a bad-ass thing to have, but if the enemy have enough shermans firing at him, it is easy to take it out. However, if you limit combined fire, then a tiger would be much more fearsome, and would be just as though as the pure stats indicate.

Proposal of combine fire limitations:

-max two units may combined fire when firing at another unit.

-infanteri may not combine fire with other units (infanteri or tanks) when firing at tanks. (maybe with exception of anti tank specialists). Thus, only two tanks may combine fire when firing at enemy tanks.

-Mortar crews may not combine fire with ANY other unit. (only with a mortar on the same base as it self).

Questions:

How much stronger does this make the tiger tanks? A tiger in a forest have defence dices equalient to 11 dices, and two shermans have a max fireing strength of 12. So, two shermans have almost 50/50 probability to damage the tiger.

Normandy? How does this rule effect 'storming the beaces' scenarios? I saw some reports stating that US/British let their infanteri stay on the beach and fire at the enemy, which is a result of the combined fire rules. With max two infanteri combining fire, taking out those bunkers will be preaty though.

This will not eliminate the problem that MG may destroy tanks, but it will certainly limit it. Tigers/panthers will have vertually immunity will panzer/sherman etc. might get hurt if unlucky. But atleast, there will be no 4 dice versus 4 dice... Double MG's (two MGs on one base) is luckily normaly quit stupid, so I dont think we would se it quit often... I'm fine wiht the fact that a double mortar has a good probability of damaging tanks.

Basicly it's a matter of keeping things simple, which is good IMO. You can always have a special rule for a specific need in a scenario. Combined fire works well since, yes they can do more damage but more units are fatigued in the process and all the extra units are only using 1/2 of their firepower. As for tiger tanks, they where tough to kill but not that hard. They also had a bad habit of breaking down. It all works out in the end, for the most part. My biggest issue with the game is a lack of command and control rules and morale checks.

The combined fire rule seemed too much of an overkill for me, so I decided to limit the number of units in supporting the primary firing unit to the number of actions/turn allowed by the scenario. So if 3 actions per turn, then 2 other units may participate with the first firing unit, for a total of 3 actions. So for example: 1 Sherman fires at a Tiger I (in woods hex), with 8 and 2 other Shermans support with 4 each for a total of 16 dice against a defending 6 armor and +3 for woods = 9 defence dice for Tiger. The combat is resolved. The combined attack counts as 3 actions, so it is the opposing players action turn.

Grand Stone said:

The tactics used by sherman tank crews were at least 3 shermans to take on a tiger this gave the a much better chance of getting up close and inflicting damage. So using a whole bunch of shermans in combine fire to take out a tiger is a good reflection of the tactics used. (althought If this happens to you i think you are being a bit reckless in how you are using your tiger)

Motar crews cant do mixed combine fire already,

I think alot of this game comes down to thinking ahead at what the possiblities are, and to position your untis accordingly.

As already mentioned, PanzerBlitz had the same problem with trucks being able to be used to block armor vehicles moving through woods hexes.

My solution is to allow trucks which are by themselves in a hex to be immediately destroyed by any enemy combat unit which moves adjacent to them.Any passengers loaded on the truck at the time would also be destroyed.

Also, reducing the road rate for trucks to 1/2pt/hex is better in my opinion.

There might be a zone of control rule too, so that a truck loaded with infantry or gun cannot enter a hex adjacent to an enemy unit because it would be auto destroyed according to the first rule.

Most Tigers were destroyed by Allied air power more so than by Shermans. Usually the Shermans were trying to immobilize the Tiger so that it could be a stationary target for air strike. If I remember right, I think I read that it required at least 5 Shermans so that at least one could get around to the Tigers rear, which was about the only place the round would penetrate the armor. That might have been for the standard 75 gun though. The 17pdr on the Firefly model was much better, so 3 Sherman Fireflys could probably do some damage.

I think the problem could be solved by dividing vehicles into hard and soft targets.

Hard targets (armor 2 and more) cannot be harmed by machinegun fire, but MGs count as 2 infantry when attacking a hard target at a range of one or two hexes as normal.

Soft targets (armor 1 or less) can be damged by MGs as per the rules.

I also agree that tanks should be allowed to destroy enemy trucks or other vehicles with 0 armor (maybe at a cost of one Movement Point per truck) when overruning the hex.

I would furthermore not allow units without attack values (trucks, tractors, etc.) to take control of objectives.

In reality, combined tactics was used to take out tigers tanks, but none of the stories I have heared about says anything of it being easy. In tide of iron, it is, and dont tell me otherwise. You could for example impose the following general rule:

-A unit may only cooparte in combined fire if distance to the target is less the half normal range.

Thus, infanteri may only combined fire if they are all within 2 hexes from enemy infanteri or within 1 hex from a tank. Shermans may only combined fire if they are within 3 hexes. Thats preaty short, and using combined fire as a general tactic would be difficult, as it should be. Thus, tiger versus shermans: the sherman needs to manuver into position before they can pose a real great threat, or have a lucky shot. The panther would be a nasty tank, in addition to having good protection from shermans at moderate distances, it can outrun the shermans.

This may also have a possitive effect on fortification as it forces the enemy to rush towards the forts instead of just standing still.

YA, Ze Tiger should not be able to be destroyed as easy as it is in TOI. Maybe just adding 2 dice per unit supporting the attack and limiting the total of units to 3. and making the combined attack count as using up 3 actions. Then if you add aircraft to the game, and one airstrike (1 action), it would be balanced, if an 88 flak gun or other AA gun was allowed to shoot at the plane before it hits the target hex.

Agree with the rule about limiting mgs from damaging tanks.

Also like the idea of requiring infantry to get closer to tanks, like close assaulting together if adjacent, but otherwise not allowed combined direct fire against tanks from further than 1 hex away.

Hmm interesting rules..

A few thoughts with combine fire I had were:

Squads supporting combine fire must be in or adjacent to the hex of the lead Unit (As squads didn’t really have effective communications to other squads at distance only really field signals and voice, so therefore squads have to be closer to the lead squad for an effective combine attack to take place) so effectively they are within shouting distance to the lead squad.

As for the MG’s I think the attack value and range against vehicles need to be separated into against Vehicles as is now and against Heavy Vehicles. As MG’s are effective against “soft vehicles” but not Tanks (Maybe this could be done for all units) I think someone may have suggested this before?

In regards to tanks maybe all tanks taking part in combine fire only contribute half their fire power (including the lead Tank) as the commander of the lead tank has to coordinate his tank as well as all the supporting ones. Also all tanks supporting combine fire must be within line of sight to the lead Tank.

Anyway that’s my 2 cents I think something like that above wouldn’t be too complicated for ToI. Just a couple of extra dot points under combine fire in the rule book, and an extra line on the reference sheet for Units attacking and range values when adding in “Heavy” vehicles.

Seems like we are starting to agree to that atleast combined fire is to easy and that some kind of limitation should apply

I think the main problem is that the unit might have AT-weapons in addition to the MG. I do not see a squad as 4 guys and a MMG/HMG.

If I dont remember incorrectly, I think Bill was experimenting in a rule that fatitudes both the infanteri AND the AT gun if the AT gun is fired. In games terms, I dont think it does much to or from, cuz its mostly as simple as adding one extra infanteri per AT gun. I dont have a big problem with that rule.

VanCamper said:

In my opinion, that rule is fine as it is. A player who fires half or more of his troops at one target seriously limits his options for the rest of the round.

Im new to the game and we already see the potency of combined fire. I think we will adopt a SL rule that states that units engaging in combined fire must be in the same hex or adjacent to one another in a continuous line. Thus 3 units could still fire together but they have to have no empty hexes between them.

Or one must spend a command point to make an "incontiguous" attack. Across division would cost 1 as normal and "incontiguous" would cost 2.

Machine guns against tanks? Seems ok since they could really mess up your wheel and track assembly or get a lucky bullet in an eyeslot. With the odds of 2FP dice against 4 armor dice or more, seems unlikely they would do much anyhow. My advice is not to park your tanks so close to machine guns in the first place...

The problem is not the 2dice versus 4 in armor. Thats fine. The problem is when you have 3 MG guns combining fire with a net of 4dices versus 4 armor. Thats the point when it start becoming strange.

Given that a single machine gun unit might be more than one single 50cal, maybe 2 (3?), 3 machine gun units firing on a tank would ~ 6 .50cal's firing at said tank. Than's a LOT of lead flying around, getting into small spaces, jaming rotating peices, getting into the sight holes, making it harder to drive, etc. It's unlikely to damage a tank, but I'm ok with that as a possible. don't forget that the Tiger has thick armor (6) and so it will defend on average 3 times while 3 machine gun units (firepower 4) will only hit 1 1/3 times, on average. Not wanting to figure out the odds of 3 machine guns damaging a Tiger, it seems very low (<15%?), and that's only lightly damaged. It's only a little worse with the Pahter with an average of 2 2/3 defensive dice. ~<25% chance to have 3 machine guns damage it? TOI also doesn't have facing, so if I were a machine gunner, holding down the trigger of my .50 cal, I would not simply put my crosshairs on the flat smooth armor slope. I'd look for the vulnerable things sticking out from the tank, shoot at the back engine radiator, etc. Not sure if that argumen holds water, but in my own mind it sounds strange too ;-).

what is left out completely here is the range. The effectiveness of combined fire of MGs is seriously reduced due to the short range against vehicles. Thus the occassions where combined MGs do real damage against tanks are very rare; at least in all ToI-scenarios I played so far.

Usually the tanks take out the MGs at long range.

So, maybe it not that realistic, but it does not do the game any harm. I do not see any need to change the rules here (or anywhere else, for that matter. The basic ToI-rules are simple, fast and fun to play)

I agree. The Combined fire rules work fine as they are, making us balance overpowering attacks against the ability to react and advance.

MG, may not have been able to scratch a Tiger. But that squad could well have other weapons that could. Light mortars, bazzoka, radio comes to mind.

KlausFritsch said:

If the opposing players most potent armor and/or 88 flak gun units are eliminated in just that one action phase, the rest of the round will be of little matter, unless the scenario has been structured so that time is more important than enemy units destroyed. If the enemys main firepower component is removed early, its simply mop up time after that.

Since I have been using the +1 AF/unit added in Combined fire, I have found the game much more challenging and can design scenarios with German side being outnumbered 5:1 , and Tiger 1s and 88 flak guns survive longer and inflict more losses.

I have also been using the squad combined with AT gun as one unit, which requires all the crew to be destroyed first, and then a die roll to determine if AT gun got destroyed or is just abandoned, and can be either captured, or remaned again if owning player can move another squad into hex. Also, depleted crew can be reinforced by adjacent squad transfer.

And I have experimented with modifying the Fire and Move action, to -1AF/movement pt expended, rather than automatic half AF and -1 mp. This allows an outnumbered force to better use delay tactics and LOS obstruction to shoot and move out of LOS while choosing how much AF to lose based on how far to move. So a Tiger 1 could fire 12, then move 1 mp , 11 and then 2 mps, and so on, or vice versa if on the attack.. A single Tiger 1 then could very possibly take on 5 Shermans and 2 M10s destroying 2 or 3 of them before they can finally get the Tiger surrounded and in LOS, and even then, its then a close range battle that the Tiger can still win, because if the M10s get destroyed the remaining 4 or 5 Shermans will only be able to combine fire with a total of 11 or 12 dice instead of 20 or 24 dice., or try 4 or 5 separate rolls of only 8 dice, which the Tigers defense roll in woods is 8 and its only a 50% probability each attack that the Tiger will receive any hit at all from the Shermans attacks.

I