New anti-armor system ?

[D-M]

From the GameBlog preview :

Attaquer de front un char extrêmement blindé comme le Panzer Tigre, avec un véhicule trop peu puissant c'est le risque de voir ses obus ricocher joyeusement.

It basically says that firing at an heavily armored target (a Tiger here) with low power rounds may ricochets.

From the PCgamesN preview :

The [supression] system even applies to tanks, which can be forced to retreat by units that can’t even do any damage to them.The system differs slightly to the suppression mechanic that applied to infantry, this is all about stressing armoured units out in order to temporarily force them out of action.

So we learn multiple things here :

• A vehicle can shoot at armored target even if they don't have enough AP (or even AP at all)
• Round penetration may be a RNG-based system

If this is true, this will solve what I consider to be the main issue of the wargame serie : tank combat where the slightest delta of AP/Armor means you are either completely screwd or you don't have to do anything to win and where Quality outmatch Quantity by a very large margin.

[Razzmann]

If I remember correctly, some article stated that even MGs were able to fire at tanks in order to stress them.

[HrcAk47]

This is a great addition to the system, IMO.

[D-M]

If I remember correctly, some article stated that even MGs were able to fire at tanks in order to stress them.

Yes, that's the quote from PCgamesN... wait a bit.
EDIT: there, fix'd

[Selkares]

That's really interesting for Phase A decks,
You are powerfull at the start, take position and then rely on stress and morale to push back the enemy, not on pure destruction.

It can lead to very interesting situations, really hope this will translate well into the game.

[eMeM]

It's also been said that the crew can abandon their tank.

Also that:
There are no health bars, either. If a unit is getting its ass kicked because it's commander has also not read Art of War, the group might panic and cower. Each "unit is able to fight or is not able to." If you send out a recon plane to scope out encroaching enemy territory and it gets fired upon, it's getting destroyed or evacuating.

Do I understand it correctly, no more HP pools, healing etc, just a more realistic binary "ded/not ded" system?

And the planes, it looks like enchanted Wargame system, instead of getting stunlocked they will try to evac. I hope it won't require a few direct hits to panic the planes, tho, especially if there is no HP

[Mike]

If I remember correctly, some article stated that even MGs were able to fire at tanks in order to stress them.

I think the article said a 20mm "machine gun". I think autocannon is more fitting.

[Yakhont]

Early Wargame EE articles described such a mechanic, and modding reveals such a variable exists in the current Wargme engines.

It would be interesting that angling your unit would have tactical considerations, but suggests that scale, pace or some combination of both are lowered to allow for more fine tuned decision making.

The Wargme interface does not easily give the kind of nuanced decision making of hull angling and other what not though.

[raventhefuhrer]

I hope they put a lot of testing and thought into the new system of stressing/panicking/surrendering and so forth. If the mechanic is implemented only to a reasonable degree, and is predictable, I think it could add a lot to the game and allow more asymmetrical engagements - i.e. you don't need a heavy tank or ATGM plane to counter a heavy tank like in Red Dragon.

However, it would be very easy to go too far with these mechanics, and make them frustrating. Having a Tiger tank retreat and show his rear armor just because someone plinked him a few times with a BAR would lead to a lot of screaming and hair-pulling. Or having your infantry push surrender en masse for what feels like no good reason.

[Fade2Gray]

If I remember correctly, some article stated that even MGs were able to fire at tanks in order to stress them.

I think the article said a 20mm "machine gun". I think autocannon is more fitting.

Yeah, it was some sort of 20mm weapon.

Honestly, crew experience should factor into whether or not light weapons stress a vehicle. If you just got hosed down by a dozen 20mm rounds and nothing has gone bad the TC should be able to tell the driver to STFU and stop worrying about it. With elite crews no one would even care. Now, if that 20mm gun actually manages to damage some stuff, like wreck some periscopes, damage the track, or cause the primary weapons system to jam, then yeah, time to start worrying a bit.

Rookie or poorly trained crews, of course, would be much more prone to worrying small stuff that experienced crews wouldn't care about.