Phil's ruling...this is no cover.  Really?

Can I dare say the 'boss' is wrong?  Well, maybe not wrong, but I'd have to say he's mistaken or has forgotten the original meaning. What I'm referring to is Aircraft and cover. There was a huge discussion on the BF forum about it here;
http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=126&aff=3&aft=513137&afv=topic

I recently just listened to WWPD podcast Episode 14, and they say they received an e-mail from Phil about the correct ruling.  Even though this comes from the creator I still have to strongly disagree.

Teams in, or on the far side of and within 4"/10cm of, woods or buildings are Concealed to aircraft.


There are two interpretations of this rule.  Even though I can't, for the life of me, comprehend why.

Camp A (Phil's ruling, and the wrong camp)
The woods or building has to be between the aircraft and target at the time of shooting, in order to get cover.  So, if the aircraft can fit inside that 4", the team gets no cover.

No cover from a dive bomber?  Really guys?

The #1 reason this is the wrong ruling
is because the rule doesn't say, "woods or buildings between the aircraft and target".  There would be zero reason to say "far side" if this is how the rule was suppose to work.

I don't even see much of a reason for 'direction of travel' if this is the way the rule was meant to be.  You might as well just let people put aircraft where you want with in 6" of a target.

The other reason, not that this game is realistic, but for a dive bomber trajectory, this makes absolutely no sense.  A bomber would have to dive at a 90 degree angle to make this attack work.  And a bomber with rockets or guns would NEVER dive at this angle.  I think only the Stuka even came close to this dive angle.

What happens if 2 of the 3 planes end up in the forest?  does only the lead plane count?  Or does the lead bomber let his buddies crash into the woods just so the target team doesn't get any cover?  If the target has cover from 2 of the 3 planes why wouldn't the team get cover?  You already have rules where the number of planes matter.  So why would you get no cover from aircraft if 2 of the 3 are in the woods and not in the 4" space between the plane and the unit?

The other 'excuse' camp A makes is intervening friendly troops can cause your aircraft to push into the woods and then you would get cover.  To me this is a reading to much into the rule cop out.  Especially if the target is 3.9" away from the woods.  The slight chance that you can't get your aircraft in there, where there isn't intervening friendly's, you'd probably just choose another target.  More often then not you aren't going to take a chance on your units being that close...especially if you want to move them.  I'm not saying this can't happen, but using this as a reason why camp A is correct is total garbage.

Camp B (The right camp)
The cover is based on the direction of travel of the aircraft.  If a team is on the far side of woods or buildings, and within 4" they get cover no matter where the aircraft is placed.

All the rule says is;
Teams in, or on the far side of and within 4"/10cm of, woods or buildings are Concealed to aircraft.  There are no if's, buts, exceptions, or conditions to the rule.  If you are using aircraft and your target is on the far side of and within 4"/10cm of, woods or buildings....they are concealed.  End of rule.  It seems very clear to me.  The other camp never say it seems very clear.  They always say "I see how that can be misinterpreted.  But, I really can't see how.  I think they are reading way to much into it.

Again, not that this game is trying to be realistic, but think of the trajectory of a bomb.  Unless the bomb came down at a 90 degree angle, it would hit the building or the woods before it hit the target.  And because its a bomb, the target would still take damage, but because it wouldn't be a direct hit, the target gets cover.

Stuka's had a trajectory of 60-90 degrees.  The Stuka might be the only plane that could pull it off.  Shturmovik only attacked at 30 degree's as did most other dive bombers with guns and rockets.  The 'camp B' ruling resolves this 'realism' issue.

Look at 'point 3' in the picture to the right.  This is even at a 90 degree angle dive.  The direction of the bomb still doesn't travel straight down.  And as I said, no way aircraft with rockets or strafing machine guns dive at this angle.

Its simple physics people.  Don't make me pull out the equation....because I found it.   

With the camp B ruling, there are no arguments about realism or goofy game play situations.  If you attack with aircraft, your target is on the far side of and within 4"/10cm of, woods or buildings....they are concealed...end of story. 

Maybe in version 3, Phil could add some special rules to include both camps.  Maybe Stuka's or even aircraft using bombs could ignore this 4" cover rule.  But aircraft using guns and rockets, the target would still get cover....based on direction of travel.

Unfortunately I'm not as articulate on paper as I sound in my own head, so hopefully this all makes sense.
All this over a +1 to hit...sheesh! 

Another issue that has come up that further makes me a proponent of the 90 degree arc, is a concealed tank where the front of the tank is hidden.

The rules state that if more then half the tank is hidden, but the main part is still visible the tank gets concealment.  So, basically if 50% to 90% of the tank is hidden the tank gets concealment. 

The issue now arises if its the front part of the tank is hidden.  By the current rules  HAS to shoot at the front armor.  Which is totally ridiculous.

Sorry for the juvenile picture, but the picture shows where Tank 1 has concealment form tank 2 but tank to can't see the front of the tank.  Because he is still in front of the 180 degree line he would still have to shoot at front armor.  Never mind like I've discussed before, that even if that building isn't there, you can still barley see the front of the tank.

Conversely, in this next picture you can see way more of the front of the tank, but yet now you would get to shoot at the side armor of the tank.  Forgetting that I don't like the 180 arc, but the current rules in this situation you shoot at the side armor and not the front even though you can see more of the front armor then the picture above.

With my 90 degree arc rules, this strange situation can never happen.  If you are straddling the front armor line like these 2 pictures, and there is a building in the way, you mostly likely won't even be able to shoot at the tank.  If you can it would clearly be a front armor, or side armor shot.  

I think I may have found why people aren't seeing this.  In forum posts on the FoW site it seems a lot of people are either still playing the old way where you have to turn your turret to shoot.  Or some misinterpretation where you can only turn your hull if you are firing a hull MG.  Otherwise the turret still has to turn.

You can't say one vehicle can turn if it doesn't fire its hull MG, but just because you want to force a turret to turn with a rule, say that another vehicle can't turn hits hull if it doesn't have or fire a hull MG.  That would just be silly.  The 90 degree arc gives a choice, and makes it worth while for a turret to turn.

I don't believe this was Phils intent with the rule change, anyway.  It wouldn't make any sense.  To keep things in line with things being simple, the hull and turret turn together (just like hull mounted) at the closest team.  I think maybe once people start playing this way and see they might as well Glue their turrets down...maybe this will catch on. 

The more situation I run into, and the more people talk about it, the more I think this is a must.  There was even one topic were guys were having trouble dealing with Panthers and Konigstigers.  Its just so hard to get behind that 180 line.  There is nothing in the game that can penetrate the front armor of a king tiger.  Sure, you could use planes or engineers to take them out.   But put in the 90 degree arc, and you force those big cats to play smart.  Its just to easy to keep everything in front of that 180 degree line.

And as you can see with front armor, it just makes no sense.  I know this game has never claimed to be 'realistic' and I'm OK with that.  but having a rule just because its simple doesn't make it right.  I think this is the one that that is hold this already GREAT game from turning into a Legendary game.

What makes this situation even worse, is if tank 1 is a gun team with a gun shield.  It makes no sense, but you would still have to make a fire power check for shooting at the gun shield.  Even though there is no way the gun shield could protect them from that angle, never mind also being behind the building. 

OK, here is a rule set that I've been working on.  Lets see how things turn out.
Most of this will assume you already know how FoW works.  This is a work in progress and is designed to make turreted tanks more useful, and to take the advantage away from assault guns.

This affects all units (tank and gun teams) that previously had a 180 degree firing arc.  And also tanks with turrets.  The 180 degree arc will still be used to some extent.

The first thing you will need is 2 Laser Levels.  These will be held perpendicularly directly above the unit you are checking the firing arc or frontal armor.  This will give you a 90 degree firing arc coming out at 45 degree angles from the unit.  I had to draw in the lines because the laser light doesn't show up when you take a picture of it....go figure.   

To correctly position the lassers (remember directly above the unit) have both lasers come out the front corners of the tank.  I originally thought this would give each different sized tank a unique arc, but its so minuscule it makes little difference.  Its now more of just a standardized guide for this rule set.

I'll try to do rules as best I can in the order they are in the FoW book.
**Also keep in mind, Phil's new rule that vehicles with turrets can rotate hulls towards anything infront of their 180 degree arc, where before they had to turn their Turret.  They now only turn their turret when shooting at things behind their 180 degree arc. 

FIELDS OF FIRE
Infantry weapons - no changes

Vehicle Weapons and Guns
Both Vehicles and Guns now have 2 Fields of Fire.  A 180 degree arc, and a 90 degree arc.  With some varying differences.

All Vehicles and Guns can fire their weapons at anything inside the 90 degree arc with out penalty.  The unit can adjust to point at the target.  The only proviso is that vehicles may only rotate their turrets or their hull towards the enemy, not both.  There is now more strategy to which direction you face your hull.  So, a sneaky player could adjust the hull for a advantageous but different direction then the target, but then still move the turret.

You can still shoot at anything between the 180 degree arc and the 90 degree arc.  But there are now penalties for doing so.  

Hull mounted weapons and guns, (remember this includes man-packed guns) will have to rotate their guns towards their target, but are then considered to have moved and shoot at a reduced RoF.  Anything behind the 180 arc they still can't shoot at. 


Vehicles with turrets can choose to rotate their turret or their hull.  If they rotate they they shoot with their full RoF.  If they rotate their hull, they must rotate towards the target (not reposition as they like) and they would also be considered moved and shoot at the reduced rate of fire.  Anything behind the 180 arc they must rotate their turret. 

Treat each weapons arc separately as in the example to the right.  The blue line is the hull MG arc, and the red line is the turret Arc.  If the Hull MG points to something outside the blue arc, The vehicle is considered moved, and even the Main Gun could only fire at a reduced RoF.  The Red arc for turrets would mostly be used for Slow traverse and  limited vision.  And in the case of limited vision and slow traverse, the T-34 in the example above would have to use limited vision if it shot with its main gun at the StuG to the north.  But could shot normally with the hull MG. 
The hull MG would have to use slow traverse and considered moved, if it shot at the lower Panzer III, where the Turret guns could shoot normal.

You CAN aim different weapons at 2 different targets as long as they are in the same platoon.  For example a hull MG and the Main gun in a turret.  Treat each weapon as if it had its own arc.


If a vehicle you are shooting at is straddling the line, consider it inside the 90 degree arc.

Slow Traverse & Limited Vision
These are no based on the 90 degree arc of the weapon that is firing, and not the 180 degree arc.  Even if they turn their hull. 

Something I never thought of, was if vehicles had already moved, how does this affect the arc.  Hopefully this wouldn't come up much because the player would have adjusted what they would shoot at during the movement.  But, I guess it should be noted just in case. 


If a vehicle (or gun) moves and shoots outside their firing arc, they will already only have a 1 RoF so would have to add 1 to the score needed to hit.  Just as any ROF 1 weapon needs when it moves. 

Weapons that already only have a RoF of 1 and move, would not be able to shoot outside their 90 degree arc at all. 

Also, if a vehicle or gun has to shoot outside its 90 degree arc and is in difficult terrain it would have to make a bogging check.

You can never shoot bombardments outside your 90 degree arc...although I think this is pretty unlikely since most things far away will end up inside your 90 degree arc. 


SIDE ARMOUR
Now, if you shoot at an armored target OUTSIDE its 90 arc, you are shooting at its side armor.  This is determined by the barrel of the gun and not the tank itself.  So, the laser line could run through the middle of the tank.  But if the end of the barrel is outside the 90 arc, you shoot at side armor.

In the example to the right, you can see that the arc clearly cuts through the KV-1s.  But as soon as he turns his turret, the gun barrel will be on the other side of the line, and he will shoot at the side armor of the StuG F/8.

I am undecided what to do about hitting the side of turrets.  If I should give them the 90 degree arc, take out this rule all together, or leave it at 180.  For now I'm going to leave it at 180.

I think this makes for a far more strategic game.  At least positioning your vehicles anyway.  I actually still found it hard to get a side armor shot, but not impossible.  It was all about how your opponent positioned his vehicles.  2 platoons could work more closely together, to force an enemy platoon to show his flank to 1 of your platoons.  All while still being in front of the old 180 degree arc.

It makes StuG's not as strong...and different from tanks with Turrets.  Take a look at this example.  The StuG's have some choices.  They can just shoot at the T-34's with a full RoF, but leave their side armor exposed.  Or they can rotate and shoot at the KV's.  The problem now is that in order to shoot at the KV's the StuG's would end up shooting with a reduced rate of fire for shooting something outside their 90 degree arc.  And more so, the close StuG could not even target KV #1 because its behind the180 arc.  And the StuG's would have to make a bog check to turn toward the KV-1.

Luckily, the T-34's and KV's have the same anti-tank rating so it doesn't matter...they might as well use their full RoF.  

The more complicated situations are already covered in the regular FoW rules.  Like if you have some units of the same platoon with side armor exposed and others are showing front armor, lower armor gets allotted hits first.

All in all, I really like this.  I still have to do some tinkering and testing, but I think this about covers the rules idea anyway.  It took a little more time, because you have to be a lot more careful how you position your vehicles.  You can no longer just drive up, because EVERYTHING is always behind your 180 degree arc line.  you now want to position so that you can cover as much as you can.

In the next example, before the Panzer IV's would have moved forward as they are.  everything in front of their 180 degree arc.  But now you can see that they leave themselves exposed to the T-34's on the hill.

The SU's were a little smarter.  You know...if they had different front and side armor...which I totally forgot.  But for this example we will assume.  They knew a Tiger was coming from the north.  So, they positioned themselves, so that their 90 degree arc covered the tiger coming, and the Panzer IV's.

There is just way more maneuvering to get to that side armor.  rather then just sitting in a tree line shooting at each other until someone rolls good dice.

I've probably forgotten something, but I welcome everyone's input.  If something doesn't work or I've forgotten some obscure FoW rule, let me know, and I'll come up with a solution to work with the 90 degree arc.

I've been playing games for a very long time.  And one thing I usually don't do, is house rules.  I've never really found that games need house rules.

I find most people play a game once and immediately say "this game is broken".  Go on any game forum and you are sure too see a hundred topics on how a game is broken and suggested house rules.  How about adapt to the situation and learn.  Most games you don't get a good feel for strategy and rules until you've played it several times.

Having said that,  the one thing that has always bothered me about Flames of War is how useless turrets are in the game.  And until recently Hull mounted guns had an advantage over turrets.  They could just turn their hull but tanks with turrets had to turn their turret.  This made turreted tanks more vulnerable to side armor attacks.  But at least you were using the turret.

In a topic on the FOW forum Phil (creator) came out and said that now if targets where in front of the 180 degree firing arc turreted tanks could also turn their hulls.  They would only have to turn their turret if targets were behind this 180 degree line.  Well now this makes turrets even more useless.  How often are you shooting at targets behind you?  and even if you do, you might turn your hull anyway, or part of the platoon is in front, and you don't need to.

The same thing pertains to Front armor.  If you are in front of the 180 degree arc, you still shoot at the front armor.  Playing a few weeks ago with my friend Quach, he had a tank sitting right on the 180 degree line.  He could not fathom, he still had to shoot at the front armor.  Especially for a game that is WYSIWYG.  For those that don't know this stands for What You See Is What You Get.  In the rules they talk about getting down at eye level to see if you have line of site and stuff.  Well you can't even see any of the front armor from that angle never mind hit it.

I understand this is all for simplicity, but you have these beautiful models, and you are making the game so simple that there is zero point to even having turrets on these tanks.  You might as well glue them down.  I have these beautiful tanks.  I want to see the turrets turned in pictures. Not to mention the rules for turrets that you'll NEVER use.  Like Slow Traverse and Limited Vision.  There was never any point to spending money on the cupola for soviet tanks because the rule never came up.

So, I've come up with a solution that adds a LOT more realism to the game, and makes turrets far more useful...

Change the firing arc to 90 degree's.  45 degree's out each side.  Also change this for determining if you hit the front armor or not.

How are you going to figure that out you say?  Easy.  I have 2 laser levels I used for line of site for other board games.  You put them perpendicular to each other, and boom....instant 90 degree arc you can place on top of your tank.

In the little play testing I've done, I'm finding this to be far more realistic (not that FoW is realistic), puts some choice into the players hands, and makes the turret (and turret rules) useful again.

Take the Diagram to the right as an example.  Lets say the tiger at the top of the triangle wants to shoot at the 6 pdr no. 4 over to his right.  He has 2 choices.  He can turn his turret and fire with his full rate of fire. Or, he can turn his hull and count as being moved (for shooting outside his 90 degree arc) and fire with 1 RoF.  The player now has a choice because if the 6pdr shoots, he will now hit the side armor form there (for shooting outside the tigers 90 degree arc).  And now Slow Traverse also comes into effect because he is turning outside his firing arc. 

If the Tiger was an assault gun in the same situation,  He would have no choice but to turn his hull and be considered moved and shoot with a 1 RoF.

I have also found that rotating your vehicle after moving matters more now.  with the 180 degree arc it never really mattered.  You would just basically face your vehicle forward and pretty much everything is in front of your 180 degree arc.  thus again, always shooting at front armor, never using the turret. 

I find this triangle adds more realism to articles I've read about combat.  Especially against Tigers.  I always read that T-34's and Sherman had to get very close to destroy a Tiger.  You can see by the Triangle, the further away you are, the more likely to hit the front armor.  the closer you get, the more likely to hit side armor.  Where before, you would have to get all the way past the tank, (never mind close) and survive to get a side armor shot on a tiger.  And you'd almost likely have to move at the double to get past it. 

You can also think about it from the point of view of the gunner looking through his firing slit.  He is going to see things of to the side that are farther away, where he won't see things off to the side that are close up.
Since artillery and anti-tank guns would follow the same rules, they would have to really crank their guns to shoot something to the side.  therefor considered to be moving if they are outside the firing range.  Makes movement and placement far more interesting.

The only thing, I think, that I have to work out, is how things will work if the turret is already turned.  but don't think it will be to tough.  I'm going to do some more play testing and then post my official house rules on this in part 2.

This new rule really makes Panthers vulnerable...and not as scary. 

I know the hardcore FoW people will think I'm crazy.  But I'm a gamer as much as I am a historian or hobbyist. The best games are always the ones where there are difficult choices.  Simply adding this firing arc, adds so much choice to how you move and shoot, and makes turrets mean something again.

The more I play with it, and think about it....the more I like it.

Stay tuned for part 2.