Markup View

Author: AgProv

Dec 8th 2013 at 11:58:56 AM

Real Life:
Possibly the worst position to have in an infantry section is to be the guy with the squad light machine gun. You can do most damage, but you're only wearing the same level of protection as any rifleman. The LMG is always a priority target: take them out and the firepower an enemy section can put up is effectively halved. The same thing happens - in spade-loads - to the assault engineer approaching your position with a flamethrower tank on his back. In Stalingrad, captured assault engineers were frequently executed in inventively nasty ways, as a warning to others not to carry a flamethrower. And should the tank on your back be ruptured...

This also applied to heavier kit. In Normandy in 1944, the only Allied tanks that could take on a Tiger or a Panther on anything like equal terms were the comparatively rare Sherman Firefly variants with the dedicated 17pndr  anti-tank weapon. These were issued to conventional M4 Sherman squadrons at a ratio of one per four regular Shermans. The Germans soon learnt to target these first, thus leaving only the relatively ineffectual 75mm-armed tanks. (They were distinguished by a far longer barrel and slightly different turret). 
* [[Tabletop Games]]:
* ''SquadLeader'' reproduces this aspect of WW2/modern combat pretty realistically.