Tank Assaults

[Jeff Conner]

Captain G:

In ES, tanks (really any AFV with an armor value greater than the AFV value set in the PDT file, usually set at about 20) are very effective in assaulting infantry. The opposite is not true, infantry assaulting tanks is a huge waste of resources. Your best result will be if you fail the morale check. For vehicles with armor values less than the AFV value, the results are a little less clear. At this level, however, infantry has a much better chance in both scenarios. In my experience, a tank with an armor value of 15 has about a 50:50 chance of surviving an assault with an infantry squad. A halftrack or armored car with an armor value of 8 has even less. There are lots of other variables to be included here including who is attacking, the weapons involved etc, but this is kind of a rough estimate.

The other consideration in ES and most of the other SB games is that a vehicle assaulting into covered terrain stands a rather significant chance of being immobilized. This can result in either the attacker's or the defender's hex depending on the defender's morale check results. This type of assault is usually only a good choice if the gain is worth the risk.

I did a test one time with several different German AFVs against an American squad, with both sides as assaulters. With a sample size of ten, the infantry did not damage a Mark IV or anything heavier. If I can find the results, I will try and post them here in this topic. That said, I have seen vehicles in the Mark IV class destroyed making assaults, but it is pretty rare.