Machine Gun Consistency

Started by Big Insect, 04 December 2018, 03:53:04 PM

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Orcs

So looking on the BKC 2 lists

Tanks with twin machine guns like those below get AP 2/40

German Pz 1    2 x 7.62 MGs  AP 2/40
Polish 7-TP      2 x 7.62 MGs  AP 2/40
Russian T26     2 x 7.62 MGs  AP 2/40

Other Tanks with a single MG as main armament like the Belgian T15, French FT 17  get AP 1/40

The British Mk V1 also gets AP of 1/40 which is fine for the A and B variants but the Mk Vl C had a 15mm HMG and a 7.962 MG coaxially mounted

Also the A9 has an AP of  1/40 despite having 1 Mgs in each of the two front turrets .

So from this I think we need two entries for the British MK Vl and the A9

Mk V1 A/B  AP 1/40
Mk Vl C      AP 2/60
A9             AP 2/40 both Turrets manned in Early war
A9             AP 1/40 Later when Turrets not always manned


My other query with the vehicle  mounted Mgs is that they are no where near as effective as normal infantry MGs.  surely in a tank where the gunner is nice and safe from normal bullets and shrapnel he would be able to aim better than his infantry counterpart laying / sitting in the relative open.  

Perhaps the lack of visibility in a tank can account for this. but what about the MGs on Half tracks?  They are at 1/40 unless you dismount them when they become 3/60?





The cynics are right nine times out of ten. -Mencken, H. L.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well. - Robert Louis Stevenson

Dr Dave

Quote from: Big Insect on 05 December 2018, 01:34:58 PM
... will include their hull, co-axial and roof mtd hmgs...

roof mtd hmgs are often solely for AA use. you have to leave the turret of a honey to use the 30 cal!

also, if the commander is doing that, then he's not guiding the fire and selecting targets for the gunner / other crew members. I'd ignore roof mtd AA mgs.

Dr Dave

Quote from: Orcs on 05 December 2018, 09:07:30 PM
My other query with the vehicle  mounted Mgs is that they are no where near as effective as normal infantry MGs.  surely in a tank where the gunner is nice and safe from normal bullets and shrapnel he would be able to aim better than his infantry counterpart laying / sitting in the relative open.  

Perhaps the lack of visibility in a tank can account for this. but what about the MGs on Half tracks?  They are at 1/40 unless you dismount them when they become 3/60?

you're right about the field of view - it's dreadful for a coax / bow MG. The infantry MG gunner has a much better view of the world.

I think the exam question is "what was wrong with MGs in BKCII?" - for 1/2 tracks - nothing. The rules worked fine didn't they?

I'd be more interested to know if proper suppressive fire is making a come back?


Orcs

05 December 2018, 09:52:09 PM #18 Last Edit: 05 December 2018, 09:55:40 PM by Orcs
Quote from: Dr Dave on 05 December 2018, 09:13:24 PM
roof mtd hmgs are often solely for AA use. you have to leave the turret of a honey to use the 30 cal!

also, if the commander is doing that, then he's not guiding the fire and selecting targets for the gunner / other crew members. I'd ignore roof mtd AA mgs.

I was thinking the  Pulpit MG in the M3/M5 Half track or the infantry MG mounted on an SDKFZ 251. This cpould be taken with the infantry when they left the vehicle when it becomes AP 3/60

But your right. it works fine in BKC2 also we do not know the rationale behind the authors thinking. it might just have been to simplify things and make the game more playable/ realistic, otherwise some idiot rule lawyer will buy loads of half tracks and no infantry as it gives him more firepower for the points

You can always bring in a house rule. Its not worth changing the main rules for
The cynics are right nine times out of ten. -Mencken, H. L.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well. - Robert Louis Stevenson

Ithoriel

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 :)
There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

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   
'He could have lived a risk-free, moneyed life, but he preferred to whittle away his fortune on warfare.' Xenophon, The Anabasis

This communication has been written by a dyslexic person. If you have any trouble with the meaning of any of the sentences or words, please do not be afraid to ask for clarification. Remember that dyslexics are often high-level conceptualisers who provide "out of the box" thinking.

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 :)
There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

Orcs

Quote from: Ithoriel on 05 December 2018, 10:20:14 PM
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.
The cynics are right nine times out of ten. -Mencken, H. L.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well. - Robert Louis Stevenson

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.
There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

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

Quote from: Steve J on 06 December 2018, 07:58:15 AM
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

Quote from: Steve J on 06 December 2018, 07:58:15 AM
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.
The cynics are right nine times out of ten. -Mencken, H. L.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well. - Robert Louis Stevenson

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
'He could have lived a risk-free, moneyed life, but he preferred to whittle away his fortune on warfare.' Xenophon, The Anabasis

This communication has been written by a dyslexic person. If you have any trouble with the meaning of any of the sentences or words, please do not be afraid to ask for clarification. Remember that dyslexics are often high-level conceptualisers who provide "out of the box" thinking.