AFV hull/bow mg

A question raised at a gamer yesterday concerned use of the bow mounted mg on an AFV. From the rules we under stand that to fire the main armament and hull gun the AFV would essentially need to be stationary and employ the open fire rule. The question is why cannot the hull gunner be allowed to fire concurrently? The thinking was this is his job and does not necessarily need to be directed to do so. I must confess I and the others struggled to up with a counter argument. Any thoughts on this?
Thanks

Mike

You must fire one type of weapon with each fire order.
So, on an Open Fire order you could:
- Fire twice the main gun
- Fire twice the MG´s
- Combine one fire action with MG´s and one fire action with the main gun.

As for the reason,

EDIT: historical reasons are given further in this threat

Do you think you'd see much to fire a hull MG when someone is firing the main gun?

It kind of forces you to think on your tactics, order given, and situations. Along with game play balance and some realism. After reading Spearhead: an American tank gunner, his enemy, and a collision of live in ww2. I have a better understanding that a bow gunner/radio operator was way more confined. And when the tanks started firing the big gun rapidly, the best he could do was just hold on. He couldn't see from the dust/smoke and from the bounce of recoil he couldn't aim. So makes sense that in the game the hull mg can't fire if the other guns are.

Exactly Nino...

It's almost as if we try to reflect reality in the rules more the people think...

I just came across this topic. I my opinion the hull mg mainly plays a defensive roll - Remember all the stuff written about the Elephant and its lack of defence against infantry because it had no hull mg? The hull mg would really come into play when the tank is assaulted by infantry, and that is covered in the infantry anti-tank assault rules.
The hull mg/radio operator's main job is comms not shooting. The guys in the turret do that and they do it better because that's their job.