Assault mod

[LostLT]

Thanks on the clarification for the cumulative values, I'll re-review and see if I'm doubling down on any 'non-combat' weapons that need to have their assault values adjusted back down to 0.

So... I've given some thought to what you've said.. I think that when it comes to vehicular ballpark adjustments, we can look to "that other game" (I am talking about ASL )  that deals with a similar scale (40 meter hexes) and handles similar design problems and abstractions.

The ASL rulebook has a great design footnote in its Armor Overrun (OVR) rules:

“Ordnance is given little weight in calculating the FP of an OVR attack because it is of little value in the close-quarter fighting reflected by an OVR. The vehicle depends primarily on its movement, imposing presence, and secondary armament firing on targets of opportunity for its lethality. Most OVR situations would not leave the vehicle with time to bring its MA to bear against targets at such close range and probably in full flight, nor might the vehicle commander be willing to stop his vehicle long enough to aim in such close proximity to enemy infantry without escorting infantry of his own. “

Based on reading the rules for ASL the two common times that AFVs enter into and are involved in the same hex with enemy infantry, only the FP of the secondary armaments (MGs) and also manned main armaments that are 15mm or smaller in caliber generally participate (in close combat).  This makes me think that more assault value weight should be given to a vehicles mounted MGs, while main guns should not contribute as much. 

There is still some general representation of the weight and class of a vehicle though - for overruns ASL establishes a 'base' firepower of 1, 2, or 4 based on whether a vehicle is non-armored, an AFV, or an AFV with a manned and functioning MA.  That base then gets modified by adding the vehicles FP from MGs. Whats interesting here is that a standard 4-6-7 german rifle squad in ASL (no LMG) has that same matching FP of 4. SO - if we are talking "general effectiveness" of an AFV in an assault, there is now a baseline to measure off of (being a German infantry squad).  In Squad Battles (I am looking at AotR numbers) - a German rifle squad with 8 rifles, 1 SMG and 1 LMG total assault value is roughly 270 (Infantry assault value + weapons).  If you follow by rule of thumb, for vehicles - soft targets can be given roughly a quarter of that (67), AFVs with no manned MA (135) and then 270 for AFVs with a manned MA + on top of that all the machine guns and possibly a smaller caliber MA that the AFV has.

^This type of abstraction if properly implemented would generalize the varying degrees of AFV lethality in assaults that is currently based on how much armor a tank has. Unfortunately, I don't know how one could do this.. based on the way the game computes Vehicle Assault Values - the closest way I can think of would be to intentionally generate a low vehicle assault value (while still keeping armor and vehicle infantry values intact to determine losses) and then modify it with a  *much higher* weapons value to make up the difference for it to be closer to what it should be.  

Lots of musing on this one.  I apologize if I missed a key critical detail somewhere. I appreciate the work you've put into testing this with the infantry and would love to hear more of your thoughts.