Roll Up With The Anti-Air Guns & More For Flames Of War
May 9, 2014 by brennon
Flames of War have shown off some more of their releases for the period of May. We'll be starting things off with a look at the Self-Propelled AA Gun Platoons which will find a good home in your German army...
These neat vehicles look awesome for a start and seem massively heavy duty too. This means that the guns are very unlikely to be going anywhere as small amounts of arms fire would just ping off the armoured sides of this thing. Admittedly it's a bit of a sitting duck for anything heavier but it's great to have some mobile AA to deal with that pesky air support.
As well as World War II European fighting there is also a selection of new bits and pieces coming out for the Rising Sun front. Above are the Vickers 6-ton, the Type-96 150mm Howitzer and also the Red Army Artillery Group lugging howitzers and fields guns into battle to support your bigger pieces of kit.
Last but not least we have this sunken Turret Bunker which was the hasty way of erecting some kind of defense moderately quickly rather than waiting to get the materials together to build something like the bunkers we're used to seeing around Normandy. I think this kind of thing is very ingenious!
Anything you'll be grabbing folks?
That self propelled AA looks pretty sexy 😀
in the first pic, those look like 3.7 cm FlaK guns, almost like a halftrack version of the “Ostwind.” Are these SdKfz 6/2s? I’ll head to the Battlefront website to check.
Oh, hell no. Those are 8.8s? Really? See … this is one of several problems I have with Flames of War to be honest. They include 88s as antiaircraft guns, which of course they were, but not against low-flying, tactical-mission planes likes Thunderbolts or Typhoons, the guns could never traverse fast enough when these planes were attacking at treetop level. This is what the 2.0s and 3.7s were for. The 88 FlaKs (and the even bigger 12.8 FlaKs) were for high-flying bombers. When 88s (or the Soviet 76.2 AA, the American 90mm AA, the British QF 3-inch AA) are included… Read more »
They do take that into account in the rules.
Heavy AA guns like the 8.8cm FlaK36 only get a single shot each when shooting at aircraft, while they have more shots against ground targets. That means it’s theoretically possible to shoot down planes with them, but they’re generally more useful against ground targets, especially tanks.
Yes, they are 88s and have the Heavy Anti-aircraft Guns special rule that makes them quite unwieldy against fighters and jabos.
Heavy Anti-aircraft Guns
While heavy anti-aircraft guns like the famous German ‘88’ are very effective against heavy bombers (and tanks for that matter), they are not as useful against fast-flying fighter-bombers.
Heavy Anti-aircraft weapons only roll one die when firing at Aircraft regardless of their ROF rating.
Okay, than these fighter-bombers and jabos are flying at over 1000 feet. Strange.
Agree to disagree.
Whoa, I apologize @drowningharvey. I don’t think I read your whole post correctly. Sounds like we agree on actual tactical uses on the 88 FlaK. Sorry, everyone. Didn’t mean to start an argument. 🙂
Hey, no problem. Glad that it is sorted out.
Personally, I never manage to read anything rules-related correctly on the first try. 🙂
Ah I love that Britfin tank, I’ll have to get me a platoon of those..
Finland had the best army lists lol
On the 88 ‘debate’ why are you shooting 88s at air anyway . they are pants at the role the air is so bad at turning up ranging in hitting etcetc why wate a turn of tank killing randomly shootong at the odd typhoon that hot through.
Get some half tracks use the self defence as on them that’s more than enough to take it the odd one or two plans or the ubiquitous spotter you get in US and British Italy lists (damn that dixierule is amaxing ) ahem
Absolutely not, sir. If I can say this without sounding like too much of a fan-boy, I signed up for BoW BS right after watching you beat Warren with your Irish Guards at FoW FTW. 🙂
Augh! I am screwing everything up this morning! My “Absolutely not” reply was supposed to be in reply to @lafayette‘s comments about his typing, not his comments about the “88 debate.” Okay, I’m going back to the kitchen for more coffee.
I also have Google nexus to type from !makes me sound like a idiot…. Well more of and idiot anyway
You are not an idiot. A bit eccentric but then who isn’t?
88’s – I like those. Yes they have limitations but they have that aura about them that causes opponents to go to absurd lengths to counter them.
Mean time your army is kicking the crap out of theirs 🙂
Absolutely. In some games they can almost act like minefields, “area denial” weapons. They may never get to shoot but they “channel” the enemy into other fields of fire you have prepared for them. My difficulty with 88s is enemy artillery. Okay, my 88s shoot once, Shermans/Crusaders/T-34s are burning nicely, but now they’re spotted and the enemy calls in a fire mission. You can protect against air strikes with lighter, faster-firing AA mounts, but you can’t shoot down an artillery shell. 🙂 At over seven tons, 88s don’t displace or relocate very well (in most games), so now what? Has… Read more »
I love the AA halftracks did the Germans have this for real or is that artistic licence with the armour platting.
Yes, they are real, albeit pretty rare. Here’s what I was able to find: Ten 8.8 cm Flak 18 anti-aircraft guns were mounted on SdKfz-8 and SdKfz-9 heavy halftracks for anti-tank duties. A gun shield was provided for the 88, but the gun crew had no other protection. The driver’s cab was replaced by a lower, armored cupola and the engine compartment was lightly armored. 20 tons, really big for a halftrack (early German TANKS only weighed this much). The Germans built 10 of them, assigned to Panzerjäger-Abteilung (antitank detachment) 8, which saw action from Poland forward. They were reassigned… Read more »
Thanks good to know.
No problem, have a great weekend.
These are a later batch of vehicles (and they were sent to Flak-Abteilung 304 which was AA unit). Also the elevation seems to be much more than 15 degrees in pictures.
http://www.kfzderwehrmacht.de/Homepage_english/Motor_Vehicles/Germany/FAMO/s__Zgkw__18t/8_8cm_Flak_37_Sf_on_s__Zgkw__1/8_8cm_flak_37_sf_on_s__zgkw__1.html
Awesome! Great info. Jeez, these things are even heavier at 25 tons. If I’m not mistaken, these FAMO halftracks were originally armored recovery vehicles, right?
Yeah. They were quite massive for half-tracks to begin with.