First, mechanised is spelt correctly, no damn z. Secondly, what are they?, well, Infantry trained to get out a series of small door/hatches in a logical order from an unsuitably small vehicle that may still be moving and is probably not well maintained whilst encumbered with Weapons, Armour, Webbing, Bergen and Officers Instructions. And being able to do so under fire, in the wrong order, with unexpected gear, stupid orders and in the wrong place. It’s not as easy as it appears.
3.0 Mechanised Infantry
We define Mechanised Infantry as any Platoon that contains Infantry Squads and Vehicles that can transport them as passengers. Note, as long as you have the transport capacity for ALL the Infantry Squads at the BEGINNING of the game, you count as mechanised, even if during the game Vehicles are lost, you still count as Mechanised (but will have serious coherency issues if you move too far)
As far as the rules go, the only significant difference between Infantry being transported and Mechanised Infantry is that Mechanised Infantry can have an Assault Order issued and Transported Infantry cannot. Why the difference?, well a combination of the training required, and from a gaming PoV, too force players to use realistic formations, preventing players from skimping on buying APC/IFV’s and shuttling them between Infantry Platoons to gain more movement and assaults.
3.0.1 – Assault Orders & Mechanised Infantry
Mechanised Platoon may be Issued an Assault Order. You MUST move towards the nearest visible enemy Formsation, maintaining Platoon coherency, fire at your ‘reduced’ rating and engage enemy Formations. Vehicles AND Infantry may fire AFTER the infantry have dismounted. Vehicles MAY NOT engage enemy formations
Example (ADD IMAGE)
Sov Motor Rifles storm the Ghulam positions.
3.1 – Assaulting Vehicles
You’ve been ordered to attack a Tank, you’ve no Missiles or Launchers to hand, and the bastard is about 20m from you, with instant mechanical death just looming off of it, you should just bury yourself in the ground and wait for some other poor bastard to deal with it, but the Rupert has decided it would be jolly fun for his chaps handle it. You would cheerfully garrotte that bastard. So you and your squad mates dig out the grenades, drop your Bergens and see what can be done. Actually, it’s just one Tank, no Pongo’s with it, and they are very focused on shooting at that hill over a kilo away, maybe you could do this…
Infantry may assault vehicles. The process is exactly the same as 1.6 – Close Combat, with the following exceptions.
Vehicles use their Firepower Value as their Close Combat Value
Vehicles deduct 1 Armour when making Armour Saves (this represents the Infantry getting in close and putting bananas in tailpipes, superglue in the locks and other such sensitive targeted attacks)
Example (ADD IMAGE)
Alien Shock troops attack USMC Tanks