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.

vehicles with Night Shields reduce the range of weapons fired at them by 6 inches.

the rule says "The extra distance is also counted for working out if the vehicle is in rapid fire range"

in 5th this was taken to mean, given the 12" range limit of rapid firing weapons, that they had to actually be within 6" to rapid fire.

In 6th edition (assuming a 24" range rapid fire weapon) would they become able to fire 2 shots at 6" ([0.5 * range] - 6) or at 9" (0.5 * [range - 6])

Well, two things come to mind:

#1 - A weapon doesn't have a rapid-fire range, just a way of calculating rapid-fire range from its set range value. In that case, your latter calculation would make the most sense.

#2 - Is its range considered a "characteristic" of the weapon / model firing the weapon? If so, multipliers are applied first, make it your first calculation.

I think that's a big and would require talking it out with your opponent for now. Maybe someone has a stronger argument for either

Yeah, I think in 6th its pretty clear that you'd take the weapon's range down by 6" and then half of that would produce two shots with a rapid fire weapon (so a 9" double-fire range if the weapon's original range was 24").