Brew Up's Halftracks are detected

Brew Up is nearing its final draft with a final cover, as shown above. UPDATE: Brew Up is published as of December 2023; buy a copy here on Amazon.

We have required more proofreading because of making major changes to improve the rule set:

1. We changed the armor and penetration class letters (A to M) to numbers (1-13). This made determining how many overmatch levels are easier, equating to a bonus modifier to the result. This changed many pages!

2. We added the Team Fire variant featured in Duckbills issue number 3 but matched Brew Up's dice roll and modifier approach (which is the reverse of Tractics). Many gamers focus on tanks, allowing them to incorporate infantry into their games more easily.

3. Mike Reese added numerous updates that he found when issuing the second edition of Tractics.

4. Finally, the detailed Table of Contents and Index takes a fair amount of time but provides much value when using the rule set.

We made a decision not to include a consolidated GRC (Game Reference Charts) as we did in Fast Rules (the centerfold) and Tractics (the last section of the book). Brew Up is smaller, a "handy" size of 6x9", and print would be very small or add twenty pages to the book length. What we are doing instead is:

1. Make available for purchase a separate coil-bound, letter-sized, and landscape-shaped booklet (as seen in the featured image above). This will be a handy table-side reference. Click here to buy this product. Or...

2. Provide a free PDF of the same thing as the coil-bound booklet above so you can print your own or re-arrange it as you see fit. Glue to the wall, pasteboard etc. Download this PDF by clicking here.

In the future, the free Duckbills newsletter will also include other Brew Up and Fast Rules variants. To date, it has had a Tractics focus. However, we realize the potential for mixing and matching rules between the three rule sets. Click here for Duckbills issues.

For example, Mike Reese wrote the following for Brew Up about Halftracks and their weaponry. His information is usable for any WWII game. But it wouldn't fit into the Brew Up book. Find other topics from Mike from the free newsletter, Duckbills issue 7.

Halftracks

USA platoons had a command half-track with a .50 cal AA HMG in a pulpit. M3A1. HQ was a rifle squad. 12 men, including the platoon leader. No BAR, although they often "found one". Two of the other half-tracks had a .30 cal M1917A4 LMG instead of the heavy AA HMG (again, heavy AA were recovered from destroyed vehicles). One M3A1 had two 6-man LMG squads, M1919A4, a light MG, air-cooled belt. So that half-track had an AA HMG and two belt LMG. These, however, require a set-up as they were fired from a tripod. Each was also mounted on the half-track, one per side. The last half-track was an M3, which carried the 60mm mortar and 12-man crew. Most of the crew carried mortar bombs from the track to the mortar. It had to be dismounted to be used. Finally, each half-track had a driver carrying a bazooka and five rockets. These were manned by men in the squad carried by the half-track.

A USA Company had a command M3A1 and three platoons as above. It also had a 3 x M3A1 half-track anti-tank platoon towing 57mm guns. The guns were often discarded as tanks supported them, and the 57mm was ineffective against a Panther tank or Jagdpanzer except from the flank. Losses also often required the AT platoon to be broken up to replace losses in the rest of the company.

A German armored infantry company had a 251/1 (with 1 LMG, light, belt on the armored shield mount), and it carried the Coy HQ (battle HQ, so one officer or NCO commander, and a couple of men. If assigned a PanzerShreck team, it could also carry six men, three Panzershreck, and 15 rockets in the team. There was a 251/3 also in the HQ, with the company's 1st SGT and several radiomen besides the crew. A 251/3 is a 251/1 with extra radios, one with long range. Then, there are three platoons as described above and a fourth platoon with 1 251/1 or 250/5 with the Plt HQ (250/5 is a fire direction version). It then had 2 x 251/2, which carried 8 cm mortars each, which was usually fired from the vehicle, and 2 x 251/1s, which is a 251/1 with the gun shield removed and replaced with a Medium MG, belt-fed mount. That had two MMG crew and carried a second MMG and two tripods. There could also be two 251/9 with 75L24 guns and 1 MG, vehicle crew, and gun crew.