T35 for GF9 Tanks!

Yet another addition from my side, this time we move away from the orient, and need to not forget our ushankas and balalaikas - it is cold, and warm clothes and a good dance will save you from red-nosed grandfather "winter" frostbites. Yes, we go back to Russia this time, and now it is the T35 that I have dug my attempt into doing:



Now, to the design notes of the thoughts going through my mind during design stage: if one would expect something like "land battleship" idea (which was supposedly the idea behind those multi-turreted monsters), then it would be able to engage separate targets all at once. I am going to abstract from the problem of coordination and control and just assume everyone has a radio intercom to make things simpler. Lets start with the fact that 6 of the turrets were MG gimbals (7.62 mm DT machine guns to be exact) - so 6 of the turrets are out of game terms - no good MG'ing a tank armour plate. So we really have a main calibre in the rotating turret and a fore and aft gun. The main gun was 76.2 mm gun model 27/32, which really didn't differ much from the 76mm of the T34/76 - just to save space, it had penetration values quite similar so I am not going to go into those details here. The trouble was getting the idea with those fore and aft 45 mm 20k guns whose penetration values were:

100m - 94mm
500m - 64mm
1000m - 40mm

So from game terms, each gun is capable of around 2 hit points of damage to my judgement, again, critical comments are encouraged. However, it may also fire in support of the main gun, in which case it just adds 1 dice. Please note - support is optional, all three guns may fire at separate targets at the commanders discretion. So that is my take upon the "land battleship" idea - you can engage three separate targets on one turn. Now, armour was actually almost paper-thin, 11-30 mm, so no defence dice, and life points I made also small at 4 points - they were mechanically unreliable after all and a serious hit would probably cause some mechanical faults rendering it operationally useless, so I would assume that it's durability is somewhat less than the T34/76 I have done earlier. But, this is really a guess here, any critical comments freely welcome.

Points are a bit of a guesstimate - the idea that I have three freely shooting guns that can engage separate targets is something that is quite non-standard and also seriously requires play-testing - no points calculator about this matter is available at the moment. I don't currently own one of those beasts, but I can go my good old "poor-mans-way" and do a top-down paper counter and play-test once I get the time. But if someone here manages to test it earlier, let me know.

As I said earlier - all critical comments are very encouraged and awaited for. I am happy to discuss any number I have put down and if you think that I missed something, got it wrong, or was inaccurate, let me know.

Anyway, if I don't hear from anyone, have a great week ahead of you all, next weekend will be a surprise development, since I really yet do not know what will pick my fancy till next weekend, so in-fact, it will be a surprise for me as well. Stay tuned....

I've been eyeing up that Zvezda model for a year now, have a feeling you're making me pull the trigger on ordering one to play with this week. Not sure if I should thank you or call you names

Going purely by feel and what research you've shown I think there's enough there to play test and then adjust going forward. The equivalent of 2 or 3 glass cannons for 25 pts makes it cheap and interesting enough that people could be tempted to make use of it.

So this next part is just clarifying creator's intent of rules. Playing devils advocate/nitpicker coming up with questions and going by what my house rule would be for each:

Q: Do all three guns get the Soviet bonus of Coordinated Fire, and does an attached turret automatically count for CF (meaning the T-35 counts as 3 'tanks' so its attack stats are boosted 5/3/3 or 6/3 if its special rule is in play ((and I know in my heart someone would ask about this 'loophole)))?

A: I would make it that only the main gun could get the extra bonus from Soviet-CF and it could stack with fore/aft special rule, in theory giving 6/2 or 5/2/2. (I'm open to changing that though)
And a NO for the T-35 giving itself Soviet-CF, as the rule says a friendly tank shooting earlier, implying a different vehicle, not just a different gun/turret.

Q: Where and how do you determine line of sight?
A: Use the center of each turret to determine LoS for each of the 3 possible guns.

Q:this is where it gets to nuts and bolts, if the main gun has clean LoS and I want to use Fire-Support to get my +1, BUT the secondary gun does not have LoS OR it has covering terrain giving the opponent cover(while the main gun does not) what do you do?
A: *throwing my arms up in the air* "Why would you even think of this situation!"
*ahem* My house rule would be that the Fire-Support is entirely based upon the main gun/turret. The idea being that even if the secondary gun hits a tree or something, it in addition to the big gun could frighten a crew into bailing out. Basically worrying less about penetration value and more of the impact on the attacked tank. This also works in reverse too, so if Big Gun is shooting into cover but little gun is not, we Still use the Big Gun's shot to determine if the defender rules with or without cover.

Q: Its slow so it should have that Slow special rule of only one arrow a turn, right?
A: NOPE! Churchill's were slower and GF9 didn't give them that stat either ((But if we wanted to make it Unreliable and make it move only one arrow or have some other stat so it can't ninja around the board I'm open for ideas!))

Uhm, so I think that's all I can contribute for tonight. Pardon the humor if its not your thing
I honestly don't really mind or caring about just doing an on-the-spot rules agreement with another player, but from reading the old forum as a lurker for a long time I can think rather well as a loop-hole seeker to play the part. If you Tenente or anyone else sees some flaws with my interpretations and see any contradictions with the official rules please don't hold back!

Thank you again so much for putting these cards together, hope the healing is going well, and super excited for next week's surprise!
Cheers!

Oh come on! What sort of person would I be if I couldn't take humour . Yes, you came up with good questions. Now, I will also add, if the main gun and secondary gun fires at one target, then they MUST use support fire rule - this way there is no question left for usage of Coordinated Fire - either they fire together at one target, or shoot separately at different ones, but each is entitled for a +1 if they shoot at previously targeted ones by friendlies and not own turrets.

Also, use LOS of either main or secondary - don't forget, a game is always an abstraction of the real world.

That should clear up the confusions I hope...

Oh! I like that a whole lot. After sleeping on it, I started really leaning towards CF for all three guns and with your ruling on if its the same target it has to be taken as support fire feels perfect.

I also agree with the LoS you're thinking of for it too. Also just realized its slightly less of a glass cannon because of its huge size, nearly 10cm, it will be really easy to park some of it behind a house or in the woods to get the cover bonus for defense but leave the guns out enough that it won't effect its own attacks.

And...... yeah, I'm ordering one to play with tonight, should get it this week or next. Maybe do some operation Barbarossa Behemoths, A T-35 with a pair of KV-2's vs Panzer III longs and a Panzer IV D.
Actually that sounds fun now that I've said it out loud.