Machine Gun Consistency

[Big Insect]

Thank you all

This is most helpful

I was looking to establish some sort of working system that would allow me to introduce a few new varients into the lists - such as the Recce Stuart - without the turret but with an MG; or the Armoured Recon Jeep with a mounted o.50cal as part of a Recce Support platoon.

I appreciate the work (Orc especially) as all the variants of the Early War British tanks have been really taxing my brain.

Also Dr Dave - Suppression Fire is back - partly because I am trying to look for Core 'Commander' mechanisms that can be transposed across all 3 rules variants, and that is most certainly one of them.

I plod merrily onwards through the lists ... I am not 100% convinced we'll get them 100% right (as I have said to Leon), I'd personally prefer them all in a downloadable PDF off the Pendraken website, rather than in printed hard copy. As looking back through the old Forum it is the lists that seem to get the greatest hammering and the most need for change. But I gather that having them printed in the back of the book is what has been requested by popular demand.

Anybody for Finnish Aerosani or Russian 280mm M1939 tracked mortars ?

Cheers   

[Ithoriel]

Russian 280mm M1939 tracked mortars - yes, Yes, YES!!!

Might persuade Pendraken to make one so I can retire my ridiculously small 6mm scale one!

Direct fire mode for bunker busting and fortified house clearance a must

[Orcs]

I don't think the German LMG would dismount as anything other than one more bit of kit in a standard infantry platoon.

I'm not aware of them being formed into machine gun platoons.

Happy to get evidence I'm wrong, of course.

No idea of Western Allied doctrine, I'm still largely deployed on the Eastern Front

My point was that  the mg on the German half track was the squad MG  mounted on the vehicle and it gets AP of 1/40 . Exactly the same gun mounted on a tripod gets an AP of 3/60 Both have the same visibility and the halftrack surely has the ability to carry more ammo.

[Ithoriel]

For our games we assume that a standard German infantry battalion is 3 companies of 3 stands each of infantry and a heavy weapons company of 2 MG stands and a mortar stand. YMMV!

So our MG stands represent half a dozen or so guns.

An Sdkfz251 stand is the transport for a platoon - 3 vehicles with a machine-gun each.

The MG stand represents a unit designed to provide fire support. The 251s are valuable and relatively fragile transport.

I wouldn't want the latter to become mobile fire platforms. Leave that to the M16 "Meat Chopper"

BKC2 seems to me to have it about right to me.

[Dr Dave]

Jerry might take the rear mg mount off his 251, not the front (shielded) one.

Most British 1/2 tracks are the straight variant (not A1) and so have no pulpit mg anyway.

Good to have the bkc1 suppressive fire back. That way Vickers Lts and PzI can have a role in a tank battle.

I'd just be wary of counting MGs and think more about how was the vehicle used. Recce Honeys are precisely that, just a recce platform for sneaking and peeking. Not really a mobile heavy MG carrier - I thought that they were already in the lists anyway.

[Steve J]

For the problems of aiming bow mounted guns in British tanks, the following is very informative:

http://tankarchives.blogspot.com/2018/11/bow-machine-guns.html

Personally, I think pretty much of all of the BKCII stats work as they are. There are exceptions of course, as the recent discussion on BEF CS Support tanks has shown. So I think those 'errors' that are known need fixing and then, famous last words, everything should be fine...

[Dr Dave]

Personally, I think pretty much of all of the BKCII stats work as they are. There are exceptions of course, as the recent discussion on BEF CS Support tanks has shown. So I think those 'errors' that are known need fixing and then, famous last words, everything should be fine...

Agreed.

I'd beware the tail wagging the dog

[Orcs]

For the problems of aiming bow mounted guns in British tanks, the following is very informative:

http://tankarchives.blogspot.com/2018/11/bow-machine-guns.html

So from this article we can deduce that bow machine guns were almost ineffective, The threat of them being there was probably as effective in deterring opposing infantry as any firing they may have done.

It seems  strange that the powers that be did not take this as a reason to reduce the crew by one, and use the space gained to improve the tank in other ways.

From my reading of accounts in the Western desert crews were often short manned and it was the bow Machine gunner that was most often left unmanned, particularly as this and the driver position were impossible to bale out from if the gun was pointing over the hatch.


I would still like to see the MKVl given a beter AP rating of 2/60 as its considerably more powerful than the Pz1 that gets 2/40

So it would seem that an AP of 1/40 is correct for ant tank with a bow machine gun.

[Big Insect]

Many thanks folks - we all are broadly in agreement

I am mainly looking at where I need to add to the BKCII lists rather than alter too much of what is in existence

& yes the 280mm tracked mortar has a Bunker Buster capability over open sites, if deployed on-table

Cheers
Mark