The 'umble PIAT...

[Harry Faversham]

Much maligned by them as don't know, highly thought of by them as do.
I'm in the middle of adding these hard hitting (in both directions!) little weapons to my new 20mm XXI Independent Parachute Company.

A couple of very nice figures are depicted carrying these weapons at the port with a bomb on board, which wasn't a very clever idea. I'm towing as to whether to use them anyway, as one, they look good and two I want my PIAT Bombers based singly... we're going 'Old Skool' with our WW2 rules. Back to the old days of hiding naughtiness under lichen bushes and haystacks to trap unwary German tank commanders.

It says in the PIAT manual that the cardboard bomb carriers were marked with a series of red crosses to denote live rounds, white or yellow stripes for other rounds... smoke, HE or drill I'm presuming? Anybody got any suggestions of a novel way of deploying PIATs from ambush if you were gaming solo, so when one let's fly it comes as a nice surprise to one side and a nasty one to the other!!!???

[CapnJim]

IIRC, white bands on the tubes were live, and yellow inert.

As far as gaming a PIAT ambush, I'd use some pre-programmed actions/reactions for the AI side.  Of course, that will depend on if you're playing the Germans and the AI as British/Canadian, or vice versa.

If you are playing the Germans, then have a table you can roll a D4 or D6 on each turn a piece of the Germans' armor approaches a possible ambush point.  The PIAT may not be there, may hold, may fire, etc.  That'll make you as the German armor commander very wary, without knowing when/if a PIAT may rear it's ugly head.

If you are playing the PIAT, do something similar for each time the Germans approach a possible ambush point.  They may proceed as planned, have infantry check it out, blast the spot with HE or MGs, stop and ponder things, etc.  That way, you us the PIAT guy will have to be careful about siting your ambush.

Both tables could range from blissful ignorance to total tactical awareness.   Maybe have a couple modifiers to reflect AI troop quality, your troop quality, type of cover, etc.

Just my initial thoughts....

I will say that in our games, Bazookas, Panzerschrecks, etc. come and go, but for reasons known only to the dice gods, our PIATs seem to always do yeoman's work....

[Westfalia Chris]

Chaps, as per the forum rules, please mind the slurs, even mild ones such as Jerry (on principle).

[CapnJim]

Oops.  My bad.  I'll keep it in mind for future reference.

[dadlamassu]

In solo games I place small markers at various places to mark points of interest and I have set of small cards that cover random events - ambush, sniper, stray dog, booby trap, dead body, something useful, even a non-event (nothing happens) etc. as appropriate to the game and period.  I lay them out then shuffle a deck of the cards usually a few more than the markers.

So in your solo games you may like to have 2 events on each card - one for infantry and one for vehicles some will be the same for both.  This way I have to be alert to the enemy and also the "fog of war".