Units unloaded from a helicopter question

[Jack Ruetty]

Playing the Assault on Ben Suc scenario in which units arrive in helicopters. Rulebook on page 110 states
loading/unloading costs the passengers one-half of their Movement Factor, round fractions up. Does this imply that movement for units is still possible after unloading? Can't seem to do it in the digital game.

Jack

 

[Tom Proudfoot]

Yes, they still should be able to move, and they used to be able to be selected but I think it broke as another side effect of the fix to the leaders-moving-over-units-and-scooping-them-up bug. All that activation/move eligibility stuff is very intertwined, I'll look at it today for passengers.

 

[Jack Ruetty]

Thanks Tom.

Another part to unloading from a helicopter.

Landed a helicopter with a squad. Received small arms fire from a MG Weapons Team at a range of 11. The Helicopter and unit were targeted separately. A couple things here. By page 111 small-arms can fire on helicopters using the procedure outlined in Small-Arms vs. Armored Vehicles on page 96. From the rule book "Small-arms firing on a hex that contains both vehicle and non-vehicle units must either target a specific vehicle (in this case the Huey) or all non-vehicular targets in the hex" and small arms have their range halved. Therefore, should the MG weapon Team only have been able to target either the Huey or the squad not both? And it really should only have been able to target the squad as the Huey was out of range (normal range 14 halved to 7).

Jack

 

[Stéphane Tanguay]

Passengers are always considered to be riding inside the helicopter (page 109).

And just below your above citation, the following can be found:
Passengers (16.0) are considered part of the vehicle in/on which they are riding. (page 96)

Thus, when you fire on a vehicle, you are firing on the vehicular target and if the vehicle fails its opposed die roll, both the vehicle and any passengers not riding in a buttoned armored vehicle must make a DC.

In the specific case of helicopter:
If the attacker’s modified die-roll is greater than the helicopter’s modified die-roll, the helicopter AND any passengers it is carrying must take Damage Checks as per 5.0. Both helicopter and all passengers (helicopter first) roll 1d6, adding the difference between the attacker’s modified die-roll and the defender’s modified die-roll, and consulting the DFT. Shaken passengers are not required to dismount. (page 11)

 

[Jack Ruetty]

Thanks Stephane. Does it make any difference that I had unloaded the passengers? So in the hex was a squad with a move marker and a helicopter in hover mode. The fire occurred in the VC impulse not in OP fire.

The other thing is the fire of the MG WT which was 11 hexes from the helicopter/squad hex. Should it have been able to fire on the helicopter?

Jack

 

[Stéphane Tanguay]

Yes it does make a difference if the passengers were not passengers any more In that situation, the attack can target either the vehicle or the leg units but not both (unless it was from a tank, for exemple, where the main gun could target the chopper and the MG could target the leg units, or a unit firing an ordnance SW, where the unit could target the legs units on the DFT and the SW could target the chopper on the OFT)

And yes, under the rules as they stand now, small arms fire range should be halved, whether the helicopter is hovering or flying

 

[Jack Ruetty]

As always thanks. I need to be more complete in my descriptions of potential bugs.

 

[Stéphane Tanguay]

Sure but this is mostly because there are so many subcases in the rules which, I'll repeat, you seems to know very well or, at least, read carefully. I like that!