Radio

11.1. All player tanks are on one net. One station transmits at a time; others wait.

11.2. A commander transmits when one of these happens, unless a stopped reporting reaction is in force.

11.3. Delay from trigger to transmission: a few seconds always, longer for an undisciplined man, longer again under stress. A commander at stress above his reaction threshold omits the transmission some of the time, and this is logged as a reaction.

11.4. A transmission copies the sender’s knowledge entry, errors and all, to every tank on the net as a reported contact naming the sender. It does not correct the recipient’s own contacts; a tank that has seen the gun keeps its own plot and gains the report alongside it.

11.5. The lieutenant’s transmissions are events on the net and are what the commanders act on.

11.6. The replay. When a period is executed the lieutenant is shown, in tick order and at a third of a second per tick, only what tank one could perceive: contacts tank one gained or lost; shots by the platoon’s own tanks within earshot of tank one, both where they stood at the tick of the shot; enemy shells landing near where tank one then stood; hits, casualties, major and extreme reactions, immobilisation, bogging and thrown tracks on tank one; any platoon tank brewing up, knocked out or bailing out; and the commanders’ reports at the ticks they were sent. A hit on an enemy is voiced only when tank one’s own crew had that contact in view at the very tick it struck: a later look does not reveal an earlier strike. A knock-out or a brew-up is voiced at the first tick from the event on that the crew had the hull in view, since it is there to be seen bailing or burning, and that is the tick they witnessed it — in the period being replayed even when the event fell in an earlier one out of everyone’s sight, and never twice: a kill voiced once — seen by his crew, or carried to him by a report (11.4) — is not voiced again in a later period, though a sign of his crew’s own eyes on the same hull is still struck at their first sight of it. Each only by the identity the crew held for it at that tick (4.3) — the one they had refined to by then, not one they refine to later in the period — and never the truth: their own round striking it, a round from a platoon gun they heard fire (4.4) striking it, without naming the tank, and the contact knocked out or brewing up. Enemy-only events never reach the screen. The period’s observations and reports are kept in the radio log afterwards. During the replay the plot moves with the platoon tick by tick. The replay counts its ticks from the period’s start line: tick 0 is the start line, and each tick after it, one a second for the thirty seconds of the period, shows each tank’s sign where the tank stood once that second had run and voices and draws what that second brought — nothing is shown on the frame before it happened. A platoon tank’s sign flips its status at the tick of the event that flipped it, to bailed out at the tick its last man climbed out, and its note carries each piece of damage from the tick it was done — immobilised, bogged, a thrown track, the gun out, the turret jammed, a fire — and drops a bog or a thrown track at the tick the tank recovers. A contact appears on the plot at the tick tank one’s crew gains it or a report of it reaches him, where it was gained or reported, moves and is relabelled at the tick his crew refine it (4.3), comes out of grey at the tick a fresh report of it reaches him, and stays there until the period ends; a sign of tank one’s own eyes is grey on every tick his crew do not have the hull in sight and plain on every tick they do; a kill is struck through or set burning at the tick it is witnessed, the tick this section voices it. The after-action report’s plot counts the same way, so the two agree tick for tick. Between Execute and the replay’s first tick the plot stands as it was when Execute was pressed, however the sheet is moved under it. When the replay ends the plot settles on what tank one knows at the period’s end.