[Stuart Harrison]

Vastly different in game ‘units’.

Firstly, snipers have their own order die that they don’t have to share with another unit.

Secondly, a sniper’s main action requires a Fire order while a spotter’s main action is entirely passive not drawing attention to themselves.

[Stuart Harrison]

“In the rules when talking about teams weapons you hint at more than LMG  being used a section level is this possible?” – there are multiple units in the game with team weapons other than LMG at section level – examples include light mortars (eg: Japanese grenadier sections,) and flame throwers (engineer sections for multiple nations).

Light mortars are already an option for British Airborne Sections, AoGB p30, fourth option in the list.

[Stuart Harrison]

I’m not arguing with you on that.  The facts are a sound basis for a house rule.

The authors cementing it in the rules (specifically enabling it to function as a vehicle with transport capacity in an SP gun slot) rather than simply correcting it in first edition means you’re unlikely to get an official change.

[Stuart Harrison]

It’s been the same since first edtion, and rather than correct it when it was pointed out, they wrote it into the rules to enable it –

First Edition Errata – “Page 92-93: Role of Transports.
The following paragraph will be added at the end of the rule:
If a vehicle has a transport/tow capacity, but it is not included in the Transport and Tows section of the force list (e.g. it’s in the Self-Propelled artillery section), both of the rules above do not apply to it. In other words: it is NOT destroyed by being in proximity of enemies and it CAN fire its weapons even without passengers. The rules for mounting/dismounting and transporting troops apply as normal..

Second Edition, that errata was written into ‘Role of Transports’, p114, and in Third Edition it got it’s own sub-heading, Combat Vehicles with a Transport Capacity, p146.

[Stuart Harrison]

The intent is that MRB lists are entirely replaced when the Armies of book is published.  This would include the interim army special rules.

P199, 5th para:

“These provisional Army Lists will be superseded by the relevant Armies of… book when each is published (e.g. the Germany list in this rulebook is replaced by the lists in the Armies of Germany book once released.”

If you don’t have the Armies of… yet, most people have no problem with using the MRB instead for a friendly game.  For an event you would need to check with the event organisers.

[Stuart Harrison]

It is only for the roll on the table, not for rolling the individual results from the table.

[Stuart Harrison]

That’s your arbitrary line between automatic rifle and machine gun.  The Bren is served by two men who can get a significantly higher rate of fire out of it than a BAR, and maintain it.

[Stuart Harrison]

Bolt Action terminology does not align with contemporary 1930s/40s terminology.

In real world terminology, most nations called their rifle calibre sustained fire machine gun on a tripod (often water cooled) a heavy machine gun – ie: Vickers .303, M1917 30 cal, MG34/42 on tripod, Maxim 1910 etc.  In Bolt Action the term ‘heavy machine gun’ is used for weapons of the M2 .50 cal  or similar type, with a calibre between normal battle rifles and light automatic cannon.  All those ‘heavy’ machine guns of rifle calibre are there, just called medium machine guns.

[Stuart Harrison]

I am not saying the answer to his question is ‘yes’.

The crew’s penalties apply to the weapon fired by the crew.  The passenger’s penalty applies to weapons fired by the passenger’s.

The passenger’s only come into it after the single weapon permitted to the crew.  They don’t get to take over all the weapons, just the ones that are ‘more than one weapon’ (and yes, that sentence could be worded better if the second edition discussions had been applied to refine it).

[Stuart Harrison]

” If you purchased a inexperience half-track, it fires as inexperienced regardless of the passengers. Also, page 134 (VEHICLE-MOUNTED WEAPONS) supports this, “FIXED AND TEAM WEAPONS – We assume that vehicles have sufficient crew to employ whatever weapons they carry. “ – This reads to me as you suggesting that the inexperienced vehicles modifier applies to all shots.  That is not what is being said in the rule – the vehicle crew’s modifiers apply to the shots taken by the vehicle crew and the passenger’s modifiers apply to the shots taken by the passengers.  That is why the rule requires you to declare who is firing which weapons.

First edition started out with no special rules for the weapons carried, so always fired all weapons with the vehicle’s modifiers, then that was changed by errata to only being able to fire weapons with passengers, but no mention of using the passenger’s modifiers:

“Weapons mounted on transport vehicles can only be
fired if the vehicle is carrying a unit whose members act
as weapon crew – each weapon being fired needs one
man to operate it. If the vehicle has no passengers, it
cannot fire any of its weapons”

Second edition was pretty much the same as what we now have with third, except for having the proximity rule and weapons rules rolled into one heading, ‘Role of Transports’ – the only difference I could see is third edition also mentions that spotters and medics can’t man guns.

[Stuart Harrison]

@Kar98k – that would be a house rule.

There is a special rule for transport vehicles which over-rides the general rule you cited (specific ‘Transport vehicles have a minimal crew, so each turn they can only fire one weapon’ vs the general ‘We assume that vehicles have sufficient crew to employ whatever weapons they carry’) .  They are limited to firing one weapon, with additional weapons requiring passengers to fire them, and specifically requiring the player to decide which weapon is fired by the crew, and which weapons are fired by the passengers.  Unless a house rule has been agreed beforehand, a player should expect the special rule to be in effect.

[Stuart Harrison]

Yes, another unit can use that unit’s spotter if they don’t need him that turn (firing with their own LOS, moving etc) providing they meet the criteria to use a spotter.

[Stuart Harrison]

… and maybe a few wearing the US style leggings rather than the British style pattern 37 gaiters, as worn by a fair number of Aussies in ’44 and ’45.

[Stuart Harrison]

P131, Vehicles, introduction, second para, last two sentences – “Before looking at the role of vehicles in depth, we will briefly discuss how the various rules already given differ in respect to vehicles.  In all other respects the rules for vehicles and infantry are the same.”

If the vehicle rules don’t specify that something is different/doesn’t apply, it applies the same as it does to infantry.

• This reply was modified 3 months, 2 weeks ago by Stuart Harrison.

[Stuart Harrison]

No.

The pen modifiers from the vehicle rules (p138-139) only apply to heavy weapons firing against armoured targets.

Roll to Damage vs Armoured Targets, second para introduces them with “When shooting against armoured vehicles with a heavy weapon, …” and the third para reinforces that with “Remember, the additional modifiers below do not apply to small arms hits or to hits against soft skinned vehicles, but only to hits from heavy weapons against armoured targets.”

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