During the End Phase of the turn, each player should check each 'Mech and vehicle that they own for widowed armour. This is created when upper layers of armour are undercut by penetrating hits. Any such armour is marked off, whether it has been hit or not. Widowed armour is created when any block of armour remaining on the armour diagram cannot trace a continuous path of armour to the bottom row. Armour blocks must connect at the side and/or top or bottom of the block, not on a corner.

The diagrams show three examples of widowed armour. The black represents the damage that occurs to the 'Mech in the turn, and the grey patches are the resulting armour locations that will be lost to widowing at the end of the turn. Note that in the fourth diagram, there are four potential widow locations.

If there is no line of Internal structure for armour to anchor to, then it too will become widowed.

Note that widowing only occurs in each armour location, and doesn't overlap to other locations.

Below the armour line, there lies the 'Mechs internal structure. Internal structure is treated exactly like armour hits, but is not effected by, and can not widow.

Note that, due to the torso diagram, it is possible for hits penetrating the armour of a torso to spread into the internal structure of an adjoining location before all the armour of that section has been destroyed.

The diagram shows a medium laser hitting the side torso of a 'Mech, followed by an AC/5 hitting the same location. The AC has managed to avoid hitting the centre torso armour, but still damage the centre torso internal structure (as represented by the grey areas).

Under the internal structure lies the critical hits section of the 'Mech. Damage into these areas destroys the affected location. While each slot has two internal boxes, only one point of damage is needed to destroy that location. Empty slots are treated exactly as internal structure. Effects of destroyed critical slots is exactly like normal BattleTech, with the exception of Ammo Explosions.

When a 'Mech gets an internal ammo explosion, work out the amount of damage as normal BattleTech rules. The owning player is then allowed to distribute this damage around the torso location as they feel fit, within the following limitations:

Firstly, the critical location exploding must take the full brunt of all damage, and thus the first points of exploding damage must be used to completely destroy this location.

Secondly, while the player has free rein to distribute the internal damage as they choose, all damage must be linked together so that a solid (no diagonals!) line can be traced between all bits being damaged, ie, the explosion must be continuous and cannot be used to cause damage in two seperate unlinked locations in the torso.

Thirdly, all damage must be restricted to the location where the explosion occured. This location must be completely gutted before all damage may be transfered to another location.

Damage transfered to another location follows the same guidelines, once a start point has been determined. This start point can be any point on the side of the new location that either joins the previously destroyed area or is where transfered damage comes from.

If a 'Mech has CASE, then once the location with CASE in has been gutted, all excess damage is applied against the locations armour (rear, in the case of a torso), as described under Misc. Damage (below), the width being the complete width of the location (i.e. 6 boxes).

Some locations require more than one hit to completely destroy them, just like normal BattleTech rules. These locations include the Engine, Gyro, Sensors and Life Support. When any of these locations gets hit for a first time, cross off one of the circles on the Armour Diagram for that component. A 'Mech then suffers any effects for the destruction of one of these locations. Note that for a critical location to be considered destroyed, only one point of damage has to enter that location.

If the 'Mech then receives a second hit to the internal structure, then for it to effect an item that has already been hit, the damage must be scored to another critical location containing that item. Hitting an already damaged critical location gives no extra effects.

Note that weapons require just one hit in any of their multiple critical locations to render them inoperable.

Also note that due to the template damage, sometimes a single weapon hit can destroy multiple critical locations.

Optional Rule: Using the template system does mean that generally a 'Mech will not suffer internal damage until the armour is blown away, which is not strictly true to the Battletech feel. Thus as an optional rule, critical hits can be achieved whenever a 2 is rolled on the Hit Location table as normal. In this case whenever a critical is achieved, roll for a centre point as normal and then go down that column until an internal component is found. Then give it one point of damage.

This will render the item inoperable (or be one hit towards multiple hit items (like Engines and Gyros) and be the equivalent to a critical hit). If there is no critical location, apply a single point of internal structure damage at the first spot instead.

If using the floating critical rules from Maximum Tech, then simply roll for another location before apply a centre point.

A torso location is considered destroyed when there is a breach running uninterrupted through the entire internal structure of that location. This means through the front internal structure, through the critical slots and then through any rear internal structure (or vice versa). A limb location is destroyed when damage runs into the thick black Destroyed secttion.

If a limb is destroyed, then there is a chance that it will actually be blown off. Roll 2D6 whenever this even happens. If the result is a 12, then the limb succumbs to gravity and falls off, with all normal consequences.

If a location is destroyed by the above method (but remains attached), then it can still be damaged by weapons fire, although this probably wouldn't have any other appreciable effect on the 'Mech (unless playing in a campaign with salvage and repairs that cost money). However if a limb is blown off, or ALL internal structure in that location is destroyed, then, and only then, does damage get transferred to the next location in, as normal rules.

If a slightly quicker game is desired, then once a location has been dsetroyed (by any damage entering the thick black destroyed area), then further damage may be transfered to the next location, regardless of how much armour is left.