unit specifications

[whaco]

I recently purchased the game online and find it very laid back and enjoyable. Congrats to matrix for developing a cross between Panzer General 3D (My all time fav PC WW2 game), and CC.

2 part question about unit specification. The chart which displays the armour value at different hit locations of the vehicle, why is the word hull/turret/track used sometimes 5 times with the same armour value for front, side and rear? Being new to this kind of indepth detail, I would assume Front, side and Rear only refer to 1 hull, 1 set of tracks and one main turret. I referred to the manual on many occasions for an explanation, but was unlucky in my search[:(].

Second question is related to first. Do any of you grogs/wargammers actually base your purchase decisions on these defensive armour values or spend as many purchase points as you can on large quantities of cheap armoured tanks, as opposed to expensive tanks? I realise that a versatile mix of all types of units ie: Arty, Air, Inf is essential for success, but when it comes down to purchasing tanks, is the armour value screen something you give top priority to when purchasing tanks?

[Grouchy]

1. Think to represent area's like the lower hull, the upper lower hull, the upper hull, the upper lower hull, the driver's slit, the gun mantlet, the area next to the gun mantlet. Some area's had thicker armor, where sloped etc and some where not, hence the same numbers.

2. When purschasing tanks I always try to go for platforms that are able to hurt the other side from a long range. Defensive armour values are nice but not nr.1 on my wishlist.

[Erik Rutins]

Yes, those are actually all the possible hit locations. Multiple hull locations are as Grouchy stated, to indicate the various sections of the hull and also to give it a proper distribution among the hit locations. In general, there are 10 hit locations per side. For your average tank, there are 5 Hull locations, 3 Turret locations and 2 Track locations. When something shoots at your tank, it therefore would have a 50% chance of hitting a Hull location, a 30% chance of hitting one of the Turret locations and a 20% chance of some kind of Track hit. Note that from the side, Tracks have two armor values since Track hits can become Hull hits if the shot misses the actual tracks and wheels to pass through to the hull armor behind them.

Your second question is a good one, but there's no 100% right answer. Depending on how you play, "quantity can have a quality of its own". If a map looks like it will have long engagement ranges, I tend to go for more quality. If it looks more confined, I will tend towards quantity as many of the less than great tanks are worth their points if they can get into shorter ranges without being destroyed. Another piece of advice is never scout with your most expensive unit. [8D]

Regards,

- Erik

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: whaco
2 part question about unit specification. The chart which displays the armour value at different hit locations of the vehicle, why is the word hull/turret/track used sometimes 5 times with the same armour value for front, side and rear? Being new to this kind of indepth detail, I would assume Front, side and Rear only refer to 1 hull, 1 set of tracks and one main turret. I referred to the manual on many occasions for an explanation, but was unlucky in my search[:(].

An idea of why the armor is listed the way it is can be found about halfway down on this page from the miniatures rules. As Erik said the AFV vertical aspect is broken down into 10 values. These can be broken down even more when the values are separated by a slash.

Miniature Rules Boot Camp