British guns and 360 fire

[Gumby1]

Help me please. The british bofors 40mm AA Gun was mounted on a crucible platform and had a fast traverse system to fire at a
Fast moving planes.

Yet I can see no rule allowing it to fire outside its arc on an advance order without suffering the -1 penalty. Surely this is an oversight?

Same with the british 2 pdr AT gun. Once deployed the gunner sat on the gun platform which was itself on a swiveling base. This made it fast to shift to new targets. It too should have “platform mounting” as a special rule, correct?

[Richard]

The Bofors certainly should have it as it’s an AA gun and designed for tracking fast moving targets. Oversight I’d suggest.

The 2 pdr is a special case as it’s pretty much the only AT weapon of this style. The PAK44 also has a cruciform platform but would not be easy to swing around!

I’d suggest the 2Pdr should have the same rules as a platform AA as a special case but this would need an Errata entry.

[arcole]

Don’t forget to also remove the HE round from the 2 pounder. I know one existed, but as far as I know it was never issued for actual use by the Britsh army.

If you look at the MRB, page 184, the Bofors is shown there as being platform mounted, whilst on http://boltaction.easyarmy.com it is not, so I suspect there are a few errors here somewhere!

• This reply was modified 5 years, 8 months ago by arcole.

[Stuart Harrison]

Not so much an error as a second edition rule that needs to be reflected with an errata adjustment to the corresponding entries in the Armies of series of books.

There is an FAQ making that errata very necessary: “Can all AA guns fire all around? No, only the ones that are described as mounted on a pintle, turntable or rotating platform.”

Currently the only ones to benefit from the rule are the Germans, players using MRB lists, and any new entries that may be in campaign series books.

The FAQ for the 25 pounder not getting it makes the intent failrly clear:

“Looking at the 25-pounder model, it looks like the model is platformmounted, but in the Armies of Great Britain it doesn ’t have the platform-mounted rule. So is the 25 pdr platform-mounted or not? No it is not, that rule refers to guns mounted on fast-rotating platforms designed to track aircraft in flight.
Looking at the 25-pounder model, it looks like the model is platformmounted, but in the Armies of Great Britain it doesn ’t have the platform-mounted rule. So is the 25 pdr platform-mounted or not? No it is not, that rule refers to guns mounted on fast-rotating platforms designed to track aircraft in flight.”

now the errata is needed to follow through on that intent.

[Gumby1]

Thanks for the responses.

I saw the faq and though I disagree with their ruling on the 25 pdr, it is at least clear. What’s not clear is the ruling on the bofors AA gun!

All british 2pdr AT guns shouldn’t have HR shells until ‘43 whenforcthe most part, the hubs were retired in favor of the 6 pdr anyway, but the 2pdr AT gun should have 360 degree platform fire.

It also needs a rule to make it slower to deploy since they had to disassemble the wheels. Perhaps a -1 to hit after deploying or something.

The 25 pdr is weird too – the gun rolls around on that circular base, making it faster to reposition than a gun like the 6 pdr. Most game systems give it 360 degree fire.

Warlord seems to be in a period of indecision about simification and standardization of rules versus historical unique features that add complexity.

[invisible officer]

That 25 pdr discussion is as old as the 1/72 Airfix model on gaming tables. Or older. ;-).

It was a medium gun that got that wheel to make AT work a bit easier.
But if you watch the old training movies from WW II you see that it’s still slower turning than a light AT gun. Like the German 3,7 cm Pak. Surprising how fast even a 7,5 cm Pak 40 was turned . In training with gas mask and pack!.

Even the 8,8 cm Flak or late war AT gun on cruciform turned fast. For over 90° the coupling was unlocked and the gun turned by hand. No slow turning with the adjusting handwheels. No cranking. Same with smaller AA guns.

Fast turning a light or medium gun was much more a question of training than any technical devices

• This reply was modified 5 years, 8 months ago by invisible officer.

[Gumby1]

Yes, old argument: 25 pdr training video https://youtu.be/RDXEhquhcaw

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