Except that you asked about a Panzer. Machine guns have a chance, a very small chance, of doing something to a PzIV. The odds of it doing something to a Tiger are even less. A Tiger, on average will block 3 hits and a Machine Gun will do roughly 1 hit on average against a vehicle.

I don't think that I have ever seen a Tiger get stopped in the game with anything short of a combined fire shot from a bunch of Shermans.

But anytime that you are dealing with dice, improbable events can occur.

I think that people are making a mountain out of a mole hill out of this. Machine guns attacks againt tanks is such poor shot that it rarely occurs in a game. When it does occur, it is a usually a desperation shot and the machine gun squad is about to get screwed over hard.

Mike Z

Thanks for putting this discussion into perspective...

Seems to me that this is just the downside to having a pure dice roll rather than a CRT. Impropable things may happen. That being said, I'd much rather be rid of a CRT.

The handful of dice Combat System is similar to Heroscape with range attenuation taken into account. Highly improbable results happen in that game.

I suspect some here are hollering before they are hurt.

Right, because the game that I'm sure most influenced the ToI designers was Heroscape. It's a natural evolution, really: very light fantasy battles--> detailed WW2 tactical combat. It's obvious!

I prayed to avoid things like this. Chance that machinegun destroy Tiger is like flamethower shoot dawn the plane.

Yes, yes... but there is posibility if plane fly under the bridge and soldier with flamethower stay on it and shoot right time down than...and we could seriously debate about it

I only hope that things like this are not game standard.
Yes this is game only but not game with elfs and dwarfs so balance it is harder

Memoir '44, Combat Commander, Tide of Iron...

With these, I think wargamers should indulge their inner Sgt. Rock and Audie Murphy a little more and their inner Red Skull and Michael Wittman a little less.

Calm down John Wayne... or should I call you John Rambo?

People mess this up all the time, but a Tiger IS a Panzer.

Yes, to be specific, the Tiger I was the Panzer VI ausf. E. The Tiger II (or King Tiger, or, to the Brits, the Royal Tiger) was the Panzer VI ausf. B (not the Panzer VII, as some think - the VII was the designator for the Panzer Lowe, which was a super heavy tank never built, although elements of its design made their way into the King Tiger). All German tanks were known in Germany as panzers (or, panzerkampfwagens, to be more specific!).

However, Mike's point is also valid! It wasn't until the Panzer V, the Panther, that German tanks were known by anything other than their numeric designator (Panzer I, II, III, and IV), so it's common to refer to these earlier tanks simply as "panzers", while the Panthers and Tigers usually get called out by their nicknames.

Just a little panzer trivia for your reading enjoyment!!!

I guess in reality a well hidden MG Squad could very well ambush a tank, while it's crew is looking for enemies from open hatches. Therefore aimed MG fire could knock out maybe the tank commander and the drivers rendering the tank mostly blind and immobile.

And I also guess that perhaps sustained heavy (.50 cal) MG fire at a tread might damage the tread links, causing the tread to slough off, thereby causing a mobility kill (and there's no way the crew is going to get out to fix it with that MG blazing away). But I for one would not envy that MG crew having to sit there blasting that tank tread while the tank's 75mm gun (assuming Panzer IV) traverses over to my position! But again, is it possible, yeah, probably.

I can't believe people are still arguing about this.

I think it's pretty obvious that the combat in Tide of Iron is not supposed to be completely realistic but something akin to "WWII according to COMBAT", i.e. all the Americans can throw grenades with unerring accuracy into tank hatches, all the Brits fire their rifles with murderous accuracy so long as they've had enough tea, and all the Germans wear spiked Prussian helmets and cackle maniacally while running down Allied infantry in their panzers while twirling their villainous black mustaches.

Alexius, I was thinking of this sort of thing, too.

Does the game allow for F-Kills (destruction of the main armament) and immobilization? If not, perhaps the designers wanted to allow for the small probability of MG fire causing damage to firing mechanisms, etc.

It's not unAmerican it's Hollywood where all things are possible!;-)

Yes but this is too much and it is functionless. Or is there any reason for that?

If tanks have bonus against infantry in building, we can argue if it is possible. But reason is that infantry in buildings have perfect cover against infantry and not against vehicles is that if it has good cover against vehicles too, it will be obligatory and universal tactics to place them here. So there is reason to give tanks bonus against buildings.

But is there any reason to give machine gun chance destroy tiger because of lucky roll? No. We have bazookas in infantry so why this pointless reality mistake?

Alexius:

Yes, jamming the turret base with bullets was a small but real possibility with the Tiger E. New tanks were therefore built with a protective guard around this area, from February 1944.

There were other ways to hurt a Tiger with machine gun fire:

- A good commander would put his head out of the hatch to get a good look around. But usually another crewman could replace a wounded commander.

- Tigers built before June 1943 had smoke grenade launchers fixed to the turret top edge. One of these might be ignited by MG fire, enveloping the tank in smoke for a minute.

David

Goddamn people it's just an artifact of the combat system the game uses. It's an incredibly small chance for something highly unlikely to happen. Sounds about right. If it REALLY bugs the crap out of you, just house rule it out. I seriously doubt it's going to be a problem, since I don't see anyone subscribing to the "machine gun down the tank" strategy.

As you guys are still making a mountain out out of a molehile, I ran the numbers and compared the ability of a machinegun vs an anti-tank squad to at least lightly damage a undamaged Panzer IV and a Tiger I in the open.

Both squads were at half-strength in order to keep things consistant.


Odds of at least lightly damaging a...
Panzer IV Tiger
Machine Gun Anti-Tank | Machine Gun Anti-Tank
Short 25% 67% | 2% 27%
Medium 15% 45% | 1% 12%
Long 7% 20% | 0.2% 3%


Additional info:

The absolute best result that a single Machine Gun can achieve against an undamaged tank is to Lightly damage it. An anti-tank squad can actually destroy either tank with a good enough roll.

Machineguns can not move and attack while AT squads can.

The range of both an AT squad and Machine Gun are the same. However, both are less than a tank's anti-infantry range. A tank can easily sit out of range of either unit.

Mike Z

HAH, who needs a MG? Tom Hanks can take out a Tiger with a .45 M1911 Pistol! I SAW IT HAPPEN!
[The P-51 did not even fire, just flew back to England and claimed the kill...]. This was the approved AT measure in 1944, after one ran out of green wool socks and dynamite...

See Panzer Pranks for the Hollywood version of WWII combat. Apparently the game had lots of 'grenade down the TC hatch' action.

"Tiger I machinegun" perfect
"Panzer IV machinegun" is strange

infantry anti-tank statistics - perfect

Machineguns can not move and attack while AT squads can. perfect

However, both are less than a tank's anti-infantry range. A tank can easily sit out of range of either unit. perfect

So this looks like ww2. with bazooka u must run so close to tank as possible because probability to hit between ranges are very different, thats ww2 feel, super

Thank goodness we finally got this resolved!

As long as its understood, of course, that "lightly damage" here means chipping the Zimmerit and only the Zimmerit.

If it really bothers you, just play with this rule: Small arms fire does nothing to a highly armoured vehicle. Done, problem solved.

I don't know many machine gunners that would sit and shoot at a tiger rolling through a house. I think thats the time when the ammo handler looks at the gunner and taps him on the helmet and says, "time to go, frank!"

Personally, I am considering a few house rules for this:

- Small arms fire cannot damage tanks.

- Infantry can only damage a tank via assault.

- Infantry must have an officer, to assault a tank.

Only an officer would have the knowledge experience to attempt something like that. (create sticky bombs, know where to place grenades, etc...)

Still, it would be nearly suicide.