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A bit of newbie question.....

I have just started a panzer lehr mech list, my halftracks have aa/mg now the rules say these can be used as a self defense fire. How does this work? Does it mean i can only use them if the platoon they belong to are attacked by the aircraft?

Am i also right in thinking that i can use the aa/mg as a normal machine gun, to give my halftracks a total of 6 shots?

I find the main rule book very hard to search for specific questions....

I don't remember all the rules, but I do know there's some serious caveats to using them that can make them pointless to use.

First is that self defense AA can only be used when the unit is being directly attacked by ground attack planes.

Second, when a unit uses self-defense AA during the enemy turn, they cannot fire their normal guns on next turn. I think there's also some other restrictions on what you can do.

Lastly, and this one I'm not sure of, I think the RoF values are reduced to 1 for self defense AA.

96mgb wrote:A bit of newbie question.....

I have just started a panzer lehr mech list, my halftracks have aa/mg now the rules say these can be used as a self defense fire. How does this work? Does it mean i can only use them if the platoon they belong to are attacked by the aircraft?

Am i also right in thinking that i can use the aa/mg as a normal machine gun, to give my halftracks a total of 6 shots?

I find the main rule book very hard to search for specific questions....

Self defence AA guns can only fire at ground attack aircraft specifically targeting their unit. You can however add their firpower to your halftrack, though you wouldn't get 6 shots each, unless your regular MG is ROF 5. For vehicles with more than 1 MG/HMG you only can fire full ROF with the first MG/MHG and any extras add +1 ROF regardless of their individual ROF.

For example: A unit of 5 M5A1 Stuart tanks (USA Light tanks) has 3 MGs per tank (1 coaxial, 1 hull mounted and 1 AA MG). If they decided to shoot their MGs only (ignoring their main guns) they would 5 shots each. 3 for the first MG, and a +1 for the remaining 2 MGs on the tank. Otherwise tanks would be overpowered for anti-infantry purposes.

If you decided to shoot the Stuart's main gun instead, you could then fire 2 MGs (1 can't be fired as the gunner is busy firing the main cannon) at ROF 1 each, as they are supplementing the main gun, and are not the 'primary' gun in the equation.

There is actually several good diagrams in the FoW rulebook that explain all this, it just takes time to adapt to a new rule system, especially coming from the (in comparison) very basic 40k rules.

It took me almost a year to get it down pat, and questions still pop up!

Finally, check your rulebook as well, because firing your AA MGs make you more susceptible to assault, as your tank/halftrack is basically throwing caution to the wind and 'unleashing hell' regardless of other threats.

Whats crazy is that there are a tonne of german vehicles that have SD AAMGs but none modelled. Bergepanther has one for example, Panzerwerfers, etc etc. Most BF halftracks come with spare vehicle mounted MG42s so getting spare guns shouldnt be a problem, but model those suckers on.

I have used this to great effect, when the chips are down, drive 12 and fire those extra MGs at infantry in the open, or get a lucky 5 hits to stop an infantry assault.

In my last game, I needed to kill off a Neb platoon to force him to go below halfstrength. He stopped firing, and I didnt have LOS, so I double timed my PanzerWerfers into a position to assault the next turn. He brought up a few sections of infantry to assault me, and the 3 AAMGs got the 5 hits needed to in and stop the assault, then next turn I drove up and MGed the Nebs to death, all because I remembered they had an MG42 despite not being modelled on.

Hey thanks for the info guess ill need to get some proper aa!

96mgb wrote:Hey thanks for the info guess ill need to get some proper aa!

Yeah if you want to protect areas of the battlefield from air attack you need to include Light or Heavy AA units in your force. Air power is such hit or miss that often adding AA units isn't really necessary if you spread out your units effectively to avoid your opponent being able to have too many stands/vehicles under a single blast template.

Only include AA units if you *know* your opponent will have aircraft, or you know that they will be useful/effective against whatever else you are likely to face, because you want to still be able to use them if your opponent has no air planes to shoot at.

One weakness of AAMGs on vehicles is that if an armored vehicle uses them to unsucessfully defend themselves, they are considered open topped for the attack which makes it more likely they will be destroyed, because the top hatch has to be opened for the AA MG to be used.

Skriker

Matt Varnish wrote:In my last game, I needed to kill off a Neb platoon to force him to go below halfstrength. He stopped firing, and I didnt have LOS, so I double timed my PanzerWerfers into a position to assault the next turn. He brought up a few sections of infantry to assault me, and the 3 AAMGs got the 5 hits needed to in and stop the assault, then next turn I drove up and MGed the Nebs to death, all because I remembered they had an MG42 despite not being modelled on.

If you Double, you don't get any defensive fire when assaulted.