Very first draft of new rule. Comments please
Firing into buildings
Often a player will know that there is a vehicle or troops hiding behind a building and they will want to fire their main gun at the building to destroy it or blow a hole through the building to gain a line of sight on the vehicle or troops behind the building.
For playability, buildings are consider cover and even when fired upon by main guns they will often remain standing or possibly fall into a huge pile of rubble that still cannot be seen through.
You can however shoot into a building at troops inside the building.
For the purposes of this game, when you fire an HE round into a building, the firing player specifies which floor of the building is being targeted and you apply the full conventional fire factors of the weapon(s) being fired to the personnel inside the building which are on the targeted floor and ½ the fire factors on the floor directly above and/or below the floor being targeted. However, the building is always considered still standing.
(Should there be a target card for buildings of various sizes or are buildings always considered to be hit every time? Has a tank ever shot at a building and missed? How about a small house at 3000 meters? I guess they could miss)
In the case of very tall buildings, if the firing vehicle(s) knows the location (which floor) the troops are on, they can concentrate their firepower on that floor. If the shooters suspect that there are troops within the building but have no idea which floor or are simply shooting at the building just in case anyone is in there, the referee may want to roll a die to randomly select which floor is being targeted as the firing crew would most likely choose a random floor without prior knowledge of where the troops are located.
As with all types of firing, all rounds fired in a fire phase are considered to be fired at the same target. A vehicle that can fire 4 rounds per phase cannot specify 4 different targets or in this case, 4 different floors of a building.
[Photo example of tank firing into one story building (first floor full CF factors, roof ½ CF factors.]
[Photo example of tank firing into second story of three-story building (second floor full CF factors, first and third floors ½ CF factors.]
[Photo example of tank firing into third story of three-story building (third floor full CF factors, second floor and roof ½ CF factors.]
Firing at concrete or block walls
Firing an HE round from a tank’s main gun at a wall will destroy a section of wall and eliminate any cover created by that section of wall. For the purposes of this game, Autcannons and chain guns have no effect on walls, only main tank guns 76mm and larger. Once a section of wall is destroyed, tracked vehicles and foot troops can pass through using their Open Movement allowance without any movement penalty. Wheeled vehicles cannot pass through destroyed walls.
How much wall is destroyed by an HE tank round? This could get very complicated based on the size of the gun firing, distance, composition of the wall, etc .
To keep things as simple as possible the firing player places a marker at the point on the wall where he is shooting. Use the US HEMTT vehicle card as a target (Side, stationary) to see if the shooting vehicle hits the wall,,, it’s unlikely but they could miss. If a hit is achieved, use the chart below to determine how much of the wall is destroyed. This is one of the very few places we use inches instead of meters in these rules.
Scale being used Damaged area
6mm / 1/285th scale 3/4”
15mm 2”
20mm 3”
28mm 4”
If you have sections of destroyed wall, you can replace the sections,, otherwise simply placing a bit of smoke (cotton) in front of the wall can signify that it’s been destroyed.
Note to referees. If a player knows that there is vehicle behind a wall and wants to destroy the wall and reveal the vehicle behind, but the actual firing vehicle on the board would have no way of knowing exactly where the vehicle behind the was is (or if it’s even there at all) the referee may want to roll a die to determine where the firing crew decides to randomly shoot. As with all types of firing, all rounds fired in a fire phase are considered to be fired at the same target. A vehicle that can fire 4 rounds per phase cannot specify 4 different targets or in this case, 4 different locations on the same wall.
TAC II 