Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So a friend and I came up with some house rules about buildings (more specifically enclosed building) and we decided that ordanance weapons firing at a building would modify the AV of the building by -1 to represent lobbing a shell onto the roof where its not as armoured. However when I got home I thought of a Leman Russ firing at a bastion and how it would shoot at the walls and not lob a shells onto the roof because it physically can't.

Long story short I've decided to change the rule so it only works with barrage weapons but I know my friend will b&#ch that a russ would be able to lob a shell onto the top a bastion. So would it? Am I right to change our rule or is he right that russes can essentially be used as artillery?

Also any numbers, proof or even bits from novels would be appreciated cause I know he's not going to give up something that benfits him so easily without and form of support on my side.

No, I don't think Russes can be used as artillery. The only way they'd feasibly be able to "lob" their shells onto something would be to be very far away from it - like most tanks, their shells would travel in much smaller arcs than regular artillery, and thus the great distance would compensate for this.
Of course, this is just my rather inexpert opinion, but take it as you wish.

Thats what I figured but the guy's to stubborn to accept opinion (no offense). Don't imperial armour have stats on the vehicles like gun sight, transverse and all that?

It might do. If your pal is too stubborn to accept group opinion, then I'd suggest looking in there, though I can't be sure it has the stats you're looking for.

In cities of death, only barrage hits from above.

Any siege variant of a russ should hit the "side-armor" of a building, but as AV 14 is maximum a demosliher should have a good chance to ruin the building and without the walls the roof comes down soon..
So yes if he levels the building, he can lob at the roof when it is at the ground

Heard its 45° upwards as max traverse for russes, but sadly cannot remember where.

1hadhq wrote:In cities of death, only barrage hits from above.

Any siege variant of a russ should hit the "side-armor" of a building, but as AV 14 is maximum a demosliher should have a good chance to ruin the building and without the walls the roof comes down soon..
So yes if he levels the building, he can lob at the roof when it is at the ground

Heard its 45° upwards as max traverse for russes, but sadly cannot remember where.

Main rulebook states all vehicles have either:

a) 45° vertical Traverse(that's 22.5°, up and down) for non-articulated mounts on the model

-or-

b) A traverse of exactly what the model can traverse.

Imperial Armor 1, Tech-Spec states a -8°, to +20°, +22°, +25°, or +26° traverse; depending on the individual variant(MBT is -8° to +22°). this means none of them are capable of firing in a Barrage form since the Highest elevation Traverse will do little more than counteract gravity at extreme ranges.

It's theoretically possible for a tank to lob a round to strike the roof of a building... but unless your gaming table is twenty feet long, the tank's going to be too close to its target to bother doing that. The maximum traverse of the cannon doesn't permit enough arc on the shot, unless the tank is firing from elevation (a hill or similar) and the target rooftop is at lower elevation from the tank.

Psienesis wrote:It's theoretically possible for a tank to lob a round to strike the roof of a building... but unless your gaming table is twenty feet long, the tank's going to be too close to its target to bother doing that. The maximum traverse of the cannon doesn't permit enough arc on the shot, unless the tank is firing from elevation (a hill or similar) and the target rooftop is at lower elevation from the tank.

Almost works, until you remember the max range on a battle cannon.

The range could be as short as 12" (real life, not tabletop), you can still "lob" a shot at something. With the cannon elevated to 45^ (assuming, for the sake of argument, that this is possible) this allows the shot to reach its absolute maximum range, if the target is closer, the tank will need to traverse higher (again, for argument, assuming this is possible), in order to give more arc but a shorter total range. The target would obviously need to be under the arc-of-fire in any case, as the round begins dropping back to earth after it reaches the apex of the arc.

Upshot? I agree that it's not really within the scope of the game to use battle-tanks as indirect artillery support, I'm just pointing out a scenario in which it would be possible, not that such a scenario is likely to be common in a 40K game.

the leman russ could fire a time fuse in order to get the round to detonate above the building.

It could, sure, but I'm not sure if such things are reflected/present in the tabletop game in the same manner that firing arcs and such are. It's also back to the math-game where you need to determine range-to-target, maximum range of shell, appropriate fire arc (traverse/elevation of cannon) and then travel-time of the round to set the timer.

All possible with a tank, to be sure, perhaps not possible within the scope of the rules of 40K.

the biggest flaw in most of Y'all's theories is that the maximum elevation traverse for most tanks would be specifically to fire at maximum range; Ballistics already having been taken into account in the design process.

The thing is that the Rounds for the battle-cannon are depicted as fully-cased shells Artillery ballistics use Charge packets and a single shell(i.e. they are caseless); this is so the shell can be fired both via parabolic arc and with exactly the velocity required for ToT.

No. Tanks and artillery fill different roles, and although some RL vehicles blue the line, in 40K...not possible. Sorry.

The Leman Russ is a tank, and tanks have high velocity shells so that they can accurately hit targets at distance.

In rules terms the Leman does not hit side armor as we would expect if it was 'lobbing' the shell. If you want something 'lobbing' shells, you need artillery of some kind.

although the Lemun Russ model does allow the gun to traverse fairly high up so it could, in theory, do bombardments.

heck, we do bombardments with Abrams tanks who don't have much more of a traverse in the verticle direction(of course this is on desert terrain and over the curviture of the earth)

course, the Lemun Russ tanks need their turrets to be far larger to fit the gun so the scale is abit off.

In theory, but the shell will be leaving so fast that minimum range will be extreme.

Tanks != Mobile Artillery, even though they kinda look the same. A tank's rifle, and an arty piece's howitzer are very very different weapons.

ChrisWWII wrote:In theory, but the shell will be leaving so fast that minimum range will be extreme.

That's pretty much the sum of it, ChrisWWII is right.

ChrisWWII wrote:In theory, but the shell will be leaving so fast that minimum range will be extreme.

Tanks != Mobile Artillery, even though they kinda look the same. A tank's rifle, and an arty piece's howitzer are very very different weapons.

You got it!

As a tanker in the U.S. Military I find my self wondering if it WOULD be possible. I try to imagine any reason for us to be lobbing shells in any way. It just doesn't make sense when I could radio up the artillery and have them level the building.But 40k isn't real life so I don't know what kind of ammunitions they have. But if I was me i wouldn't be so stubborn as a player and just except it. If every call was made your way then you wouldn't have any fun.

The only vehicle that would be capable of blurring the line and lobbing shells as well as having direct fire would be ones with Ordnance Barrage in the profile.

It would suggest that these tanks (Bassie as far as i know is the only one but i'm happy to be proved wrong) can level their guns for direct fire, or traverse the barrell quite far up to allow for barrage (or lobbing) of shells.

Admittedly i have no idea how actual tanks work and am going off personal opinion and movies (i know, sorry). But when do you ever see a battle tank roll up to a building and lob a shell on the roof. They will always take a straight shot and blow out the walls. i suppose a tank could do it but they would need to be much further away, with a longer range gun......at which point they become an artillary piece anyway.

There are recorded instances of tanks and tank destroyers driving up ramps to fire at a high angle as substitute artillery pieces. It works but it's obviously a silly thing to do most of the time. The majority of tanks the majority of the time won't be shooting like that.

Admittedly i have no idea how actual tanks work and am going off personal opinion and movies (i know, sorry). But when do you ever see a battle tank roll up to a building and lob a shell on the roof. They will always take a straight shot and blow out the walls. i suppose a tank could do it but they would need to be much further away, with a longer range gun......at which point they become an artillary piece anyway.

This is, basically, what I was saying. A tank *can* lob a shell like an artillery piece... provided its mechanics allow it to traverse its turret up to 75, 80 degrees (less if the target is much further away)... but, why would you do this? Shoot the target in the face! You're a *tank*!

There are recorded instances of tanks and tank destroyers driving up ramps to fire at a high angle as substitute artillery pieces. It works but it's obviously a silly thing to do most of the time. The majority of tanks the majority of the time won't be shooting like that.

Yep. Throughout their history, some tank commanders have just gotten straight-up stupid with the tricks they've pulled out of their sleeves regarding their armor... but doing that sort of thing is really rather out of the scope of the tabletop game.

Praxiss wrote:

Admittedly i have no idea how actual tanks work and am going off personal opinion and movies (i know, sorry). But when do you ever see a battle tank roll up to a building and lob a shell on the roof. They will always take a straight shot and blow out the walls. i suppose a tank could do it but they would need to be much further away, with a longer range gun......at which point they become an artillary piece anyway.

The biggest difference between tanks and artllery (besides armor and type of ammo) is velocity of shell.

Tanks fire high velocity shells in an attempt to have the ability to shoot accurately at long range, in addition, the speed often helps them penetrate armor better.

Artillery pieces tend to fire shells at a much lower velocity. Given that artillery is usually going for indirect fire, they want their shell to be able to arc in a ballistic trajectory, and not land an ungodly distance away.

So yeah, like I said. In theory tanks can function as makeshift arty, and arty can serve as make shift direct fire units, but they work much better doing what they were oriingally designed for.

Psienesis wrote:

There are recorded instances of tanks and tank destroyers driving up ramps to fire at a high angle as substitute artillery pieces. It works but it's obviously a silly thing to do most of the time. The majority of tanks the majority of the time won't be shooting like that.

Yep. Throughout their history, some tank commanders have just gotten straight-up stupid with the tricks they've pulled out of their sleeves regarding their armor... but doing that sort of thing is really rather out of the scope of the tabletop game.

Actually, I remember that during the Taros campaign, a few tallarn regiments ended up stranded in front of a mountainous area full of kroots. The infantry companies were losing in the game of cat and mouse they played in the mountains with the kroots, so they took the habit of relying on their artillery to smoke out the xenos. But since basilics and bombards could not cope with the number of demands for artillery support, they ended up using their tanks (which had been left behind with the artillery companies since they could not advance through this kind of terrain) as artillery pieces.

Guess what happened next? Nothing. The kroots continued playing cat and mouse and ended up chasing the tallarn all the way back to their landing site a few months later (capturing said artillery pieces and tanks on the way).