A tale of two tank platoons

[Norm S]

Easy WWII rules – Neil Thomas – Wargaming, An Introduction.

A post that looks at a 4′ x 3′ game with just 3 tanks per side and considers some house rules for tank on tank action for these simple rules.

Blog LINK
http://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2020/03/a-tale-of-two-tank-platoons.html

 

[Darkest Star Games]

Interesting results.  Neither the Panzer rules nor your add-ons to ITW allow for the possibility of crews re-mounting their tanks?  Some rulesets cover that, and it was darn annoying in V1 of the Battlefront rules when you’d bail an enemy crew, who would then immediately remount and knock you out…

=

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[Norm S]

Yes, I imagine once troops cross a threshold of getting out of harms way, it is hard to encourage them to get back into harms way and I don’t think many tankers want to sit in an immobile tank. It did of course happen, but it is perhaps better for the dice to be weighted against it 🙂

Sometimes as gamers, we have the power to put troops into situations or positions that they or their commanders might see as too perilous and not do – Overall, I like rules that reduce player ‘power’, but retain player ‘influence’.

I do not have any military experience, so all of this of course is conjecture on my part, though it typically makes a better ‘game’.

 

[John D Salt]

How often did a tank crew return to their tank having once bailed out? You don’t leave the vehicle unless something has gone quite badly pear-shaped, usually that the tank has been disabled.

I don’t say that it never happened, but I have never heard of such a case, and I strongly doubt the need for rules to cover such an eventuality.

All the best,

John.

[Darkest Star Games]

I have read accounts where tanks were hit, but the crew didn’t know how bad due to smoke and internal spalling so they jumped out.   Then once they realized it wasn’t brewing up they (or at least some of them) jumped back in and either got back into action or pulled the tank out to have it checked over.  Don’t know how common this was, and you’re probably right on not need a rule for it unless you’ve gone more game than realisitc.

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[Who Asked This Joker]

I applaud that you don’t allow the crews to play “hero”  in the game and force them off the field if they lose their nerve.  That is consistent with military thinking of the modern time.  Tanks can be replaced.  Human life cannot.

I think the tweaks you used seem to work really well without actually complicating things.  Well done!

John

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

--Abraham Lincoln

[Harry Faversham]

If I was in a foxhole with a Bren and saw a tank crew bale out I’d probably give ’em a burst. If I spotted a tank crew re-mounting said tank I’d give ’em a full magazine.

"Wot did you do in the war Grandad?"

"I was with Harry... At The Bridge!"

[John D Salt]

Darkest Star Games wrote:

I have read accounts where tanks were hit, but the crew didn’t know how bad due to smoke and internal spalling so they jumped out. Then once they realized it wasn’t brewing up they (or at least some of them) jumped back in and either got back into action or pulled the tank out to have it checked over.

I’d be interested to know exactly what accounts you have in mind here. I do not recall ever reading of such an instance in numerous accounts of tank combat by Don Featherstone, Kenneth Macksey, Keith Douglas, Bryan Perrett, Ken Tout, John Foley, Andrew Wilson, Stephen Dyson, Robin Maugham, Cyril Joly, Robert Crisp, Jake Wardrop, Stuart Hills, Keith Jones, Dmitry Loza and many others whose names don’t spring readily to mind. In this lot I have read about crews fighting immobilised tanks as pillboxes, gunners knocking out ATk guns with AP, crewmen stuffing socks into holes punched in the armour because they found the daylight disconcerting, a Matilda’s gun being jammed on full recoil by a lucky hit from a German 20mm, a Russian Sherman shooting down an aircraft with its main gun, and a Churchill troop leader dissolving his shirt while trying to demonstrate how to use the anti-gas bleach for laundry. Never heard of bailed-out crews re-mounting their tanks in action, though.

The nearest thing I have found is one occasion, at the start of the battle of 73 Easting, where Iraqi tank crews, mistakenly believing the start of the battle to be an air attack, left their tanks to take cover in air-raid shelters. When it became clear that they were in fact under ground attack, some tried to mount and fight their tanks; I don’t know how many made it, though. Given the stories one hears about the unnerving effect of JaBos on German morale in Normandy, one might perhaps have crews abandoning their vehicles under air attack, but they will no longer be in action by the time they remount.

Personally I blame the writers of “Flames of War” for this whole bail-out-then-jump-back-in silliness, but if there are any actual historical examples of it happening, I’d like to hear them.

All the best,

John.

[Darkest Star Games]

John D Salt wrote:

but if there are any actual historical examples of it happening, I’d like to hear them.

  Fair enough.  As i recall one was an American tank (maybe Op Cobra) and the other German on eastern front (i recall reading very clearly.  A hit set of a flare inside the tank and the crew thought it was a fire and bailed out for 10 minutes or so and hid in a nearby ditch, remounted when they realized it wasn’t a fire). I’ll do a little dig of my books and see which they were for ya.

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[Tactical Painter]

The problem with allowing these things in a set of rules is there’s a danger you allow the unusual to become normal. If a gamer can send a crew back into a tank why wouldn’t he/she? Not saying it never happened, but doctrine and self preservation alone meant once abandoned crews did not return to a tank in an action. Gamers need to be saved from themselves otherwise games can drift more towards Hollywood than history.

The Tactical Painter - painting miniature armies for battles on the table top.
http://www.thetacticalpainter.blogspot.com/

[Author]

Posts