Infantry carried in halftracks

[Glint]

Am I correct in thinking units loaded in halftracks cannot fire? i.e, if you fire on a target with a loaded halftrack, only the halftrack fires,not the infantry inside?
Cheers

[Remko van den Berg]

I think you are right, at least i know for sure that tanks loaded with infantry cannot fire nor the infantry loaded on them

[XLVIII Pz. Korp]

Correct, however loaded infantry in tracks contribute half(?) of their strength if the tracks assault. Not sure if half their strength or half their assault factor. It's somewhere in the manual.

[Glint]

Thanks guys, I'll check out the manual.
I asked as, I'm sure I've seen in footage somewhere, that say a M3 halftrack loaded with infantry have charged a position with the infantry firing?
That would probably be under the assault conditions as mentioned but, if they are two hexes away from an enemy infantry unit, surely they could fire with cover factors from the halftrack's armour included? That seems to be missed out in JTCS, or am I wrong?

[jomni]

If you raise your head to shoot, it becomes a juicy target.

[Mike Abberton]

From what I have seen of halftracks, the built-in firing ports have a pretty small field of view and would be of limited use for any sort of ranged fire.

Also, if a company of infantry is clustered in a couple of relatively small vehicles, their firepower would be quite different than that same company of infantry deployed in combat.

For that reason and probably for several others, the designers probably felt it wasn't worth including that capability.

Also, I can see that if it was included, that it would end up completely changing the balance of the infantry game, particularly considering the general overabundance of half-tracks in a lot of scenarios. If a player could suddenly make his own infantry immune to infantry counter-fire at range (hard targets rather than soft ones), half-tracked troops would be somewhat overpowered, especially in tank/AT gun light scenarios. You'd probably have to beef up hard attack factors at range for infantry/MG squads (heavy MGs could penetrate HT armor pretty easily and even the medium MGs included in some infantry squads could with some effort).

Anyway, just my thoughts on the subject.

Mike

[Dan Caviness]

Hello Peter/Remko/Mike:

Slightly off topic but a quick question I'm too lazy to figure out the hard way by running a dummy game.

Can loaded engineers (whether in trucks or halftrax) clear blocked hexes and/or minefields?

I'm sure they shouldn't...but I'm not sure if the game allows it or not.

Regards,

Dan

[Kool Kat]

Hello Peter/Remko/Mike:

Slightly off topic but a quick question I'm too lazy to figure out the hard way by running a dummy game.

Can loaded engineers (whether in trucks or halftrax) clear blocked hexes and/or minefields?

I'm sure they shouldn't...but I'm not sure if the game allows it or not.

Regards,

Dan

Hi Dan: :smoke:

I'm 100% certain that if you drive loaded transport (with mounted engineers, infantry, guns, etc.) into a mine field, it will trigger a mine field attack. I don't believe engineers may clear mines while loaded onto transport... nor would any able commander want to expose his valuable engineers to enemy fire while loaded... in a mine field of all places??!!

[Herr Straße Laufer]

From the game manual:

Minefield – Whenever a non-Engineer unit enters a Minefield hex, a mine attack is immediately carried out against it. Minefields come in three strengths: 1, 2, and 3, which represent the strengths corresponding to the “odds” line of the Combat Results Table that the attack is resolved on; i.e., a “3” Minefield attack is executed on the 3:1 line. Mines can be removed during play by a non-Disrupted Engineer unit that begins its turn in the Minefield hex. Mined hexes provide no defensive benefit to any unit occupying such a hex.



HSL

[Hawk Kriegsman]

After extensive testing and verification.

The answers are:

A: Loaded transports and their passengers are attacked when entering a minefield.

B: Loaded engineers do not clear mines when loaded on transport.

Next topic.

Thanx!

Hawk