This article came to mind:

http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/ttt_tigervulnerability/in...

Immobilisation was the realistic option rather than an outright blazing kill, and the Soviet Army could be creative towards that end...

This is interesting:

There is a 10-mm slit all around the base of the turret. AT gun and heavy machine-gun fire, effectively directed at this slit, will prevent the turret from revolving and thus seriously impair the tank's field of fire.

This is what happened to the Bovington Tiger.

A tank could be taken out of commission through damage to its optics which could be achieved by small-arms fire, though the chances of it happening are slim.

The thing in the picture is indeed the GAU-8 Avenger.

IIRC from my Squad Leader days, Heavy MG's (.50 cal or 12.6mm) were on the gun charts, however, they were only effective against lightly armored vehicles like halftracks or armored cars. It would be virtually impossible for them to knock out anything larger. I would house rule this as well.....

-Ski

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.