The Bishop Says: Good Order Vehicles

This article stems from a discussion with a reader. In my article on Mandatory Fire Groups a reader asserted that A7.55 as originally written did not apply to vehicles since they were not “Good Order.” I admit to being a little flabbergasted by this assertion as it seemed self evident to me that vehicles shared the status of the manning crew. Sadly, the rule book never states this directly as he pointed out. So I had to dig further. Let’s see where I got to and why I believe vehicles must be Good Order.

Keep in mind, while everything I say in this article has some basis on the rules, it is my reading of the rules and thus informed opinion absent pending clarification.

Rule Book Definition Of Good Order

The Index and A.7 define Good Order as “a Personnel unit or vehicular inherent crew which is neither broken, berserk, captured, stunned, shocked, or held in Melee.” Historically, “inherent vehicular crew” wasn’t part of A.7. A replacement page added it in later. Still, the definition of Good Order in both instances included “stunned, shocked” which only apply to inherent vehicular crews. This wording strongly suggests vehicles which have Stunned/Shocked crews cannot be in Good Order.

In my personal experience, I find it easier to view the AFV as sharing the same status as the manning crew. The reader however said he views them as different things. He said the inherent crew could be in Good Order, but a vehicle never has a “status”. A vehicle could not be in “Good Order” and so the original A7.55 did not apply to vehicles.

What Is A Unit?

According to the index, a Unit is “Any game piece or counter with its own MF/MP allotment and normally capable of movement without being portaged, pushed, or towed. Infantry, Cavalry [but not horses], Dummy stacks, and vehicles (even if Immobilized) are all different units.” While this is pretty clear, it raises a question. Is an Abandoned vehicle still a unit? It has a MP allotment and is normally capable of movement but does Abandonment change that? According to Q&A, it does not. An Abandoned vehicle is a unit.^[1]

This gives some credence to my reader’s belief that inherent crews and vehicles may just be different in determining Good Order status. Perhaps my shorthand view that vehicular status reflected the crew is wrong.

But as a reader, you probably know I wasn’t quite ready to give up yet.

Concealment To The Rescue

In A12.1, it says we should consider a vehicle without an inherent crew “Broken” for Concealment gain/loss purposes. Unbroken units can stop Concealment gain. But to strip Concealment, a Unit must be Good Order. The Concealment Gain/Loss chart reflects this division in its columns; RED (Concealment Loss) and BLACK (Concealment Gain). If an AFV cannot have Good Order status, it cannot strip Concealment. Recall, the index says Good Order refers to “… a Personnel unit or vehicular inherent crew which is neither broken …“. If a vehicle without an inherent crew is “Broken”, then one with an inherent crew is Good Order. This follows my experience as players use vehicles to strip Concealment all the time.

So now, the question is does the vehicle share the status of the inherent crew or does the vehicle have its own separate status? For this answer, I have to appeal to logic while I await an answer from Perry. If we believe vehicles have their own status, then we have accepted that vehicles with inherent crews are ALWAYS Good Order units regardless of the inherent crew’s status. This means vehicles always strip Concealment, even if Shocked or Stunned. In my experience, we do not play like this.

My Take

I think the intent of the rules are that a vehicle shares the Good Order status of its inherent crew. Good Order has always included the “stunned, shocked” language. If there was no intent to share the status of the inherent crew then adding “stunned, shocked” to the definition of Good Order isn’t necessary. It makes far more sense if vehicles share the same status as the crew than it does otherwise.

At the time of this writing, I have submitted a Q&A and I am waiting on a response. Still, I feel I am on firm ground. I have asked players that I know from around the globe and they agree with my assessment. This doesn’t make it correct–only Perry can do that–but it gives me confidence that I am on the right track. While players may disagree on verbiage and the path I took to support my claim, we agree on game play.

An Aside

Take a moment to read the Q&A included in footnote 1 (for those reading the PDF, I am sorry you’ll have to go to my blog to read the footnote). Notice how the Q&A states an Abandoned vehicle is a unit belonging to neither side. The index describes “Friendly” as “having to do with the Nationality controlled by the player”. If an Abandoned vehicle belongs to neither side, it is not friendly to the side Abandoning the vehicle. According to A4.14, “Infantry may not move into the same Location containing an unconcealed enemy unit during the MPh …” with some exceptions. So how does Infantry enter the vehicle under D5.42? Infantry can’t enter the Location of an enemy unit during the MPh and the vehicle is not “Friendly”. Perhaps it just isn’t an enemy. Since it isn’t friendly, is entering a vehicle only possible via CC with the Q&A?

A21.2 reads (in part): “An AFV can be captured only if Abandoned (D5.42). If there are no enemy Personnel in the Location with an Abandoned enemy AFV, it may be captured automatically by any Infantry unit in the same location at the end of a CCPh but Ambush is NA.” This rule explicitly implies the Abandoning side retains control of the vehicle. The abandoning side controlling the vehicle makes perfect sense in the context of the other rules. Because of this, I believe the response isn’t consistent with the rules. I still honor the response despite my confusion and rules to the contrary. You can not pick and chose which Q&A you believe in and still claim Q&A are authoritative. You have to accept the (almost universally) good ones with the (very seldom) not so good ones.

Conclusion

In my opinion, a vehicle counter includes the inherent crew in its “normal” state. When the crew is manning the vehicle, the vehicle can “normally” move and shoot. Even when Bogged, Immobilized, Shocked, Stunned, etc, the vehicle could “normally” otherwise move and shoot. This “normally” moving and shooting makes it a unit. Remove the crew, the vehicle is an inanimate object incapable of anything. In spite of its printed MP and Firepower, it has no capabilities without a crew. Thus, the combination of an inherent crew manning a vehicle makes a vehicle counter a unit.

With that in mind, we go back to the A.7 and Index definition of “Good Order”. Now including “stunned, shocked” makes complete sense. Of course, this whole article could be wrong depending on how Perry answers. And when (and if) he does, I will be sure to let you know.

— jim

GET TO THE CHOPPA…!!!

Footnotes:

¹ A7.4 & D5.4
Is an abandoned vehicle still a unit? If it is a unit, is a previously friendly vehicle which was abandoned still a friendly unit, thus preventing another friendly unit to fire on it? If it is not a unit, may an abandoned vehicle be fired upon?
A. An Abandoned vehicle is a unit, but it is neither friendly nor enemy and can be attacked by either side.

Jim has graciously given us permission to publish and archive “The Bishop Says,” so it never disappears as an ASL resource. The articles, containing invaluable ASL insights and learnings, will appear here, over time, unchanged from their original versions.
This article was originally published August 23, 2023 (v1.0).

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