Leaders Under Fire

Yes!

Its that same as if an adjacent soldiers trys to enter your soldiers hex.  You can take your DF shpt at him in his starting hex or his dest hex.  Same is true of a tank…

Dismounting into the same hex as the vehicles will not trigger DF, and you covered why in your descussion very well.

“…Because these are special abilities with a negative effect that have nothing to do with a plentiful ammo supply”, I may not reroll those 1’s."

You get the re-rolls from Plentiful Ammo first, then look at the dice. If you had plentiful ammo and Guards crew from a T-34/85, you would get to chose which of the two abilities you used first, then use the second. After all that’s done you can then look at the results for your overheat, rapid fire, flamethrower, etc.

@Audacity:

The scenario.  An infantry soldier is in a town hex and a vehicle crosses the open ground and enters the same hex.  The soldier is entitled to defensive fire.

The rule states the defensive fire effects (ie which hex it occurs)  is determined by the defender.  In this case that means the defender says if the effect take place in the open ground hex or if it happens in the town hex.

Question.  If the defender awaits until the vehicle has entered the town hex, can he use his abilities to attack vehicles in his own hex with the far superior dice rolls or is Defensive fire only about direct fire

Yes. You get to chose where the defencive-fire occurs, and if you have any special abilities such as flamethrower or close assault you can use them. Only a few abilities are worded such that they can’t be used for defencive-fire (eg the Goliath’s ). So if your unit is, for example, simply a regular infantry it will probably be best to make the defencive-fire attack in the same hex where it can use its close assault.

Mmm…Daisy Duke.  Sorry, that’s really all Hazzard means to me.  Sounds like he left an impression though.

@General:

But you must remember the hexes are 100 meters from side to side, so even if an infantry squad approaches a tank “from the front” there is a lot of room to maneuver in the hex itself, so your infantry can ostensibly be approaching from the side, around trees and hills, in the FOG OF WAR as bullets are flying and the tank is preoccupied with other things.

Which is the point I was about to make. I’d also like to add to it that though the hex might be a clear, grassy field as far as game mechanics, you gotta keep in mind that the grass is usually very high, has some scrub and trees scattered about, rocks, gullies, maybe even a cottage or two… they’re not flat and empty. So at 100 meters and having some clutter (but not enough to warrant making cover rolls) and such it isn’t unrealistic for infantry to be able to avoid defensive fire from a tank. It’s only when the infantry gets close to the tank (ie: in combat) that the tanks machine guns defend it. Otherwise the infantry isn’t visible to the tank regardless of how many peepholes it has.

-=Grim=-

Here is the rule as reinforced by Avalon Hill.

The Tiger immediately disrupts a soldier unit upon entering the hex (face-up counter).  This happens before defensive force occurs in that hex.  Units with face-up disrupted counters cannot perform defensive fire.

So, in order to stop the Tiger tank from using its special ability (remember- special abilities trump the rules, as explained at the back of the starter set rule book), a soldier unit must employ its defensive fire while the Tiger is in the adjacent hex.  Most soldier units don’t have enough attack dice to equal the Tiger’s frontal defense of 7, so the Tiger will have no problem moving into the hex.