So you're asking "What is a Team Tank Rumble?" Well, cut and dried, the Tank Rumble is ASL at the individual level. Each player commands a single tank, which is part of a platoon. One player volunteers or is selected to be the Platoon Leader (PL). Each turn you are allowed to communicate via radio messages to your PL and another tank commander (TC). You give orders for fire, movement, CE/BU status, etc just as the ASL rules specify. YOU see what your tank sees. Thats the exciting part, you don't know what is over that hill or hiding behind the trees unless a buddy can see something and tells you about it. Do you rush ahead and possibly leave your support or stay close to your friends? Do you go CE and risk MG fire or stay BU and risk getting blind-sided by a tank you didnt see coming?
I'm setting up this page to augment the website that has most of the
Tank Rumble information at Klaus
Fischer's website, and to make available the turn example and some additional
rules that I wrote for Tank Rumble #3.
The Team Tank Rumble is the brainchild of Jack Jones. It is a PBEM system for single tank combat, though it has grown from that. This INTRODUCTION explains what the Tank Rumble is and some of the details.
The CORE RULES explain much of what is needed to know in order to play in a Rumble. The PLAYERS GUIDE explains the additions to the standard ASL turn. The LOGISTICS of play are not difficult, this file explains a few odds and ends about the Rumble. Finally, for those crazy enough to want to GM, there is some explanations of what his duties are. Speaking from personal experience, GM'ing a Rumble is as much fun as playing in one.
I put together this example turn to illustrate how the Tank Rumble system
works. I've tried to cover many of the situations that can occur in a double-blind
umpired game. It's a short example, only uses half a board and 6 tanks,
so it is easy to set and run through to get the hang of the extra phases.
Additional Optional Rules:
For larger scenarios using more than one platoon, the multiple platoon radio rules are an option.
The concealed spotting rules are an option if the GM wants to enable the side moving first to assume a good defensive position.
I wrote the Radioless AFV rules for use in early
war scenarios. I felt the ASL way of using platoon movement was too abstracted
for the Rumbles where each tank was run by one person. I think these rules
give a more accurate representation of how the tanks actually performed
on the battlefield. A word of warning though, one of the fun aspects of
the Rumble is the radio chatter, using radioless AFV will likely lose that.
This breakdown of the Radioless AFV rules shows
how they work.
French vs German 1940
Tom Repetti offers his version
of the French vs German 1940 rumble.
Russian Front, February, 1944 Rumble