The Commander Series Forum

hi team. i am running Smolensk 1941. Stalin sent 3500 tanks against 7th panzer and 10th panzer. but no support services of any kind. 75% broke down.

i propose to reduce stamina by 1. what do you think?

Or perhaps roll for the tanks each turn as if they were going through a minefield? Reserves roll even more strictly to see if they come on?

in CWC there are some tanks (early Chieftains?) that suffer a -1 on their mobile deployment roll to reflect the poor engines and the problems of getting them into action. Once in action they operate as per the book however.

Bad CV's would also do the job, but would make for a very boring game. *fails command roll, *fails next command roll, *fails again.

Probably better to assume the broken down tanks are the ones that didn't make it on to the table, but perhaps make them Fragile and roll an extra dice for suppression when hit?

The early WW2 British tanks (A10, A13, A15 cruisers) plus Italians would also need to have some sort of "mechanical" breakdown considered. But I haven't played enough games to determine what that should be.

Also the early American M3 Stuart had a shortened range due to its gas-hog of an aircraft engine. In reading "Tank Commander" by Bill Close, he said that they could only run about 40 miles (or less) before needing refueling with avgas.

Jim