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So as a Japanese player all my tanks are armour value 1 (besides one from memory). Does this mean small arms can bail out my vehicles if I roll a 1 for armour and they roll a 6 for firepower test? (and fail my bail check)?

I mean the odds are slim and usually there are heaps of pack guns trying to hunt them down but I havent looked at the rules in a while and well its pretty cool if they can. Many Japanese tank attacks where halted by small arms and mortars.

Im asking because I have come across the bear minimum basics for a Tank company and since they are elite I dont need many. I have a soft spot for little tanks too.

 Swastakowey wrote:
So as a Japanese player all my tanks are armour value 1 (besides one from memory). Does this mean small arms can bail out my vehicles if I roll a 1 for armour and they roll a 6 for firepower test? (and fail my bail check)?

Yes. The odds aren't that slim, I lost 3 out of 4 halftracks last week to rifle fire........

Awesome, I just wanted to make sure there wasnt something I was missing. I feel a lot better about taking a Tank list in early war now then.

With enough rifle fire my tank units can effectively be halted. Luckily my tanks can still fight when bailed, but its still better than him hardly being able to hurt me.

Thanks dude.

And if you're doing a hypothetical battle against (currently non-existant) Early War US forces, don't forget that those .50 cals that they're in love with are AT 4...

Yea I see dark times ahead for the Imperial Forces. Against the US tanks usually were used as defense weapons that were dug in etc. I wonder if the rules will reflect this. Otherwise they will have a hard time as the tanks used didnt change throughout the war really.

Yes it does. It was more common than you might think for those early war light tanks to be stopped by machine gun fire.

Yea I watched those old Training videos and they point out all the spots vulnerable to rifle fire. Pretty interesting stuff. I knew Jap tanks had this problem, but didnt think the rules would allow it. Im glad they do though.

I'm expecting more of the same in Great War and experience the same in Spain in Flames. Concentrated rifle fire can really ruin small tank platoons.

I'm expecting the tanks in great war to be armour 1, on the other hand |'m not expecting the MkIV male's 6pdr to have an AT value much higher than 3.

I hope so too. Any more armour and it would be an insult to my tanks haha.

I agree though.

Thinking Great War could either put tanks at armour 2 - so rifles don;t hurt then while boosting HMG to AT:3 so they can still, or more simply drop rifles etc to AT:1 when shooting.

result: HMG and 'heavier' guns can potentially hurt tanks but standard side arms cannot - not being designed with punching through armour in mind.

Hoping Great War does not find itself shackled to the WW2 stat lines, they will not fight each other so could very easily expand these things out.

Mind you also hoping if it takes off what is one book with a handful of lists will be split into 'years' (not the three era of late war, just use the year, not in each list what year or years it can be used in with variations shown)

Although I love the great war as a setting, I would be very surprised to see it go beyond the 1918 year. Once it looses tanks a lot of players will probably be put off.

leopard wrote:
Mind you also hoping if it takes off what is one book with a handful of lists will be split into 'years' (not the three era of late war, just use the year, not in each list what year or years it can be used in with variations shown)

I don't think they'll be able to split it solely on year. They'll probably have to split it by front as well.

They'll probably do just a few key campaigns as individual books like the Vietnam books.

We'll find out in August if they've changed attributes, if not we already know the armour stats of the French FT tanks.

Is that when the rules are released? August?

They're a free supplement with WI's August issue. When the issue is actually released my differ from that date.

Ok cheers for that.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Is that when the rules are released? August?

The issue will start showing up in shops at the end of July.

leopard wrote:
Thinking Great War could either put tanks at armour 2 - so rifles don;t hurt then while boosting HMG to AT:3 so they can still, or more simply drop rifles etc to AT:1 when shooting.

result: HMG and 'heavier' guns can potentially hurt tanks but standard side arms cannot - not being designed with punching through armour in mind.

Hoping Great War does not find itself shackled to the WW2 stat lines, they will not fight each other so could very easily expand these things out.

Mind you also hoping if it takes off what is one book with a handful of lists will be split into 'years' (not the three era of late war, just use the year, not in each list what year or years it can be used in with variations shown)

The Mk1 was largely immune to rifle fire but then it had 8mm side armour and 12mm frontal. That exceeded the protection of early war WW2 tanks in many cases, there was also anti-grenade deflector nets on the top. The Mk1 was well enough protected for its role, but would not have withstood any form of anti-tank gun.

It would deserve 2 1 1 armour coverage based on raw thickness, and 3 3 2 to account for defensive gubbins and redundancy inside the vehicle, because a penetration with the weapons available might cause limited effect on what was essentially a land ship with deck crew.