Why can't infantry ride tanks & other non HT AFVs?

[womble]

Why don't we use trucks all the time or keep infantry mounted in HT's all the time? The answer of course is we have learned that a single penetration would likely take out all occupants. Making tank riding less dangerous than riding in a HT or truck and players will use it with impunity. Make riding on a tank just as dangerous as an Ht or truck, will prevent players from using the tactic without reservation.

We'll still use it (as we do HTs and trucks) far nearer the line of fire than it was used in Normandy, or, indeed any place other than the East Front. HTs and trucks serve other purposes, so need to be in. Tank riding does not and therefore is a much lower priority to code.

[Broadsword56]

The only place I can think of in the immediate future of CM where tank-riding would have happened a lot was in Operation Market-Garden.

The British infantry in XXX Corps piggybacked on the tanks a lot in the attempted dash up Hell's Highway. Of course they'd dismount on contact with the enemy, but the nature of this campaign involved a lot of hit-and-run actions and meeting engagements at various points right along the road.

But I can accept not having tank riders in CM, if it means getting the module sooner and having other features that will be more critical to accurate terrain and tactics for Holland (like a fake water tile that would allow us to set land lower than water on a map, for example, making it possible to do canals and dikes properly).

As for tank riders, one could always set up a battle scenario with the infantry starting dismounted, on the highway next to the tanks, as if they had just been piggybacked on the AFVs before the scenario started. One could even give those infantrymen a bit of a "soft factors" penalty to simulate the disorder that follows when tank-riders suddenly come under fire and have had to to jump off straight into combat.

[Baneman]

As sburke mentioned, the ability to peer around the corner of a building would be far far better use of development time than tank-riding.

Just the other day I had a schreck team huddling behind a corner, not quite able to see the armoured car 70m away. So I got them to crawl to the next AS by the adjacent building. Where they huddled behind that corner, still not seeing it. Grrrrr.

That sort of thing affects the course of a game far more than whether you have to rest your men for a turn because they legged it into position rather than rode a tank.

[Jock Tamson]

As sburke mentioned, the ability to peer around the corner of a building would be far far better use of development time than tank-riding.

Just the other day I had a schreck team huddling behind a corner, not quite able to see the armoured car 70m away. So I got them to crawl to the next AS by the adjacent building. Where they huddled behind that corner, still not seeing it. Grrrrr.

That sort of thing affects the course of a game far more than whether you have to rest your men for a turn because they legged it into position rather than rode a tank.

Yes, I worry about this for urban combat in OMG when it comes out. It would be nice if infantry adjacent to a building and not hiding treated it like a wall, with the lead man looking round the corner that they were set to Face.

[MikeyD]

By the time the US got to the heart of Germany they were welding stepladders and handrails to Sherman engine decks. But by the time they got to they heart of Germany they were doing lots of crazy stuff you would never see in Normandy - Prefab add-on armor plates, assembly lines to apply camou screen wire to vehicles, moving the roof .50 cal to the front, roof armor for M10 TDs, cutting off entire Sherman bows and placing them onto another Sherman giving an effectively thicker bow than Panther.

[Sequoia]

There are many things I'd like to see added before infantry riding on tanks, such as AA weapons and the flame weapons and fire, all of which are in competition for Charles time. I'm still not sure these will ever be added to the CMBN family in some sort of upgrade or will there only be one upgrade and to see these in Normandy would require a CMBN II family?

[Fizou]

Just noticed that tank riding is available in CM touch. See the new right from detroit scenario. Wounder what this means for future CM modules..

[Erwin]

Hope they don't feature flamethrowers only on Touch. Visions of everyone deserting PC gaming for playing CM2 on your smartphone. (Aaaargh!)

[sburke]

Hope they don't feature flamethrowers only on Touch. Visions of everyone deserting PC gaming for playing CM2 on your smartphone. (Aaaargh!)

LOL I won't be one. Even if I never get flamethrowers I just don't really have an interest in gaming on that medium. I know, I am such a luddite.

[Erwin]

I don't understand how annyone can play (anything) using such a small screen. Must have very young eyes.

[John Kettler]

Here is a distillation of U.S. combat experience in tank-infantry cooperation. Please note the explicit combat assignments of tank riders and that support weapons may be moved by the same means. Information covers both ETO and PTO.

http://www.efour4ever.com/infantry_tanks.htm

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

I submit this as a step toward justifying use of tank riders in Normandy. These are notes for Doubler's "Busting the Bocage." Please see item 8, which is highly specific on this issue, as compared to what happened when tank riders were NOT used. The stats are telling. Also of interest is mortar observers standing atop the tanks in the bocage, in order to be able to see.

[PDF]

Busting the Bocage: American Combined Arms Operations in ...

www.2ndbn5thmar.com/tank/tirefs/BustingtheBocage.pdf

Regards,

John Kettler

[JonS]

I submit this as a step toward justifying use of tank riders in Normandy. These are notes for Doubler's "Busting the Bocage." Please see item 8, which is highly specific on this issue, as compared to what happened when tank riders were NOT used.

What was it womble said? "Learn to comprehend", I think. Highly pertinent advice.

[John Kettler]

JonS,

If the Armored Infantry's trained to ride on tanks and camouflage itself while doing so, then how is this not germane to tank riding, other than that you don't like me? I do agree, though, the stats apply to properly supported tanks as opposed to tanks with no infantry support, a la the Israeli 190th Armored Brigade during the Yom Kippur War.

Regards,

John Kettler

[JonS]

Infantry is trained to ride on Jeeps too. And trucks. And trains. And ships too. And camouflage them all.

[John Kettler]

JonS,

It's not talking about camouflaging the tank, but the Armored Infantry riding on the tanks, at least, as written.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Rocky Balboa]

I submit this as a step toward justifying use of tank riders in Normandy. These are notes for Doubler's "Busting the Bocage." Please see item 8, which is highly specific on this issue, as compared to what happened when tank riders were NOT used. The stats are telling. Also of interest is mortar observers standing atop the tanks in the bocage, in order to be able to see.

Historical citations aside, not ever game can be modeled with 100% accuracy or needs to be. You can't however discount the technical reasons given for not adding tank riding which are numerous and complex.

Personally I don't think its worth doing unless it can be done correctly which will require IMO a significant amount of effort to implement and if done correctly it would be used a very small percentage of the time.

I am also quite confident that if or when it does get implemented there will be many on these boards who will consider it a flawed model and will provide us no end of links/references pointing out the failings of it.

Kind of makes you wonder why BFC would even bother ....

[Vanir Ausf B]

The East Front is why they will bother, I predict.

[John Kettler]

Rocky Balboa,

This situation reminds me of a witticism my longtime friend and I share regarding software development. It concerns a department found in every firm called Useful Feature Removal. This occurs when a well established piece of software gets issued with various upgrades--but with cherished features, that users are long accustomed to, removed. It's happened to Skype, it's happened to Illustrator, and, it could be fairly argued, it's happened here.

We've had the ability to put men and support weapons on tanks and SPs since CMBO, which covers the same timespan as CMBN and more, yet now we can't carry anyone, whether directly in the fight or not. People said there was no evidence, but I've produced the evidence--without having to even invoke all the Normandy footage of combat loaded German tanks and SPs loaded with infantry.

I understand that complexity of coding has skyrocketed and that BFC's coding staff is tiny. I appreciate that we've now got single man resolution, but it came at the expense of the maddening to me AS issue (how I hate trying to site AT guns, let alone dig them in!), at the expense of a greatly increased wargamer's workload; as an even steeper learning curve than any of the CMx1 games. As it was, I lost a bunch of potential CMx1 gamers even at that, to them daunting, level of complexity.

We seem to have gained much, yet lost a lot, as seen in how the engine handles towed/manhandled guns. Combat footage shows real ones being smartly trundled through the street and brought swiftly into action, yet we can't do that. Nor can we roll a gun into or out of battery without glacial slowness and/or exposing the crew as a result of the insane complete turnaround a simple rearward movement of the gun requires. I suspect this problem is the direct result of the absence of such weapons from the parent game, CMFI.

I believe we're in much the same situation when it comes to pivot turning AFVs, and this 12 years in on the basic issue. We had an LOS tool from the get (yes, I now know about using the Target command to derive this information), and we had a Cover Armor arc by CMBB, which was a real game changer in the armored assault, but we're still waiting for it in CMBN. I don't understand why it wasn't there to begin with.

I do understand that programming resources are finite, budget limited and time to sort things out hard to come by, but I fail to see why we have to reinvent the wheel as to game features we had in the CMx1 games. I would've hoped by now that we would have a great handle on German turret traverse rates (rather important, I think), pivot turning AFVs (recall long discussions on this in CMx1 days) and similar important matters. A StuG which turns in place at a tiny fraction of its real counterpart's rate is very likely dead, so this stuff matters, and we are apparently back to noodling the big cats, too, keeping them turning back and forth between one distraction and another. Thought we'd settled that?

People wonder why so many CW TCs get potted, yet most of the pics I've seen of unbuttoned British tanks in battle show the TCs are generally exposed shoulders up, whereas the Germans are at most head out or even eyeballs out. Makes a big difference!

The high resolution of CMx2 is both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing in that we can now do all kinds of things we couldn't before. It's a curse in that representing anything in the game is a lot of work. Further, going to this level of fidelity carries with it the associated visual depiction problem (see foxhole and trenches because of the mesh problem), and we're already having animation limits, not to mention inviting direct comparison of our limited set with what the big houses and their huge budgets provide.

The modders are doing yeoman work to improve what's there in both men and vehicles (already quite impressive), but they can't fix what's broken in the men or their steeds as to behavior and modeling, as seen in the raging debates on MG effectiveness and DF mortars. Frankly, I'm concerned that we've now entered a realm in which graphics are tying up so much that combat modeling is not getting the time and attention it needs. Unfortunately, we've already entered the high res lists and can't go back, so this is likely to become an even bigger drain in the years ahead.

My understanding was that CMFI was intended to have all the coding bells and whistles in it, and that BFC would remove what wasn't pertinent to get us back to WWII. It's now clear, though, that CMFI simply didn't model certain things, such as towed/manhandled guns.

I fully realize no sim is perfect, but I don't understand is why we've apparently lost so much in terms of our WW II knowledge base. How is it that after a decade plus of the most intricate, detailed and heavily documented discussions, we're once again having the same issues as we did in CMBO? My kingdom for a Withdraw command! And we're still not modeling elevation and depression for guns and AFVs in DF.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Michael Emrys]

We've had the ability to put men and support weapons on tanks and SPs since CMBO, which covers the same timespan as CMBN and more, yet now we can't carry anyone, whether directly in the fight or not.

We seem to have gained much, yet lost a lot, as seen in how the engine handles towed/manhandled guns. Combat footage shows real ones being smartly trundled through the street and brought swiftly into action, yet we can't do that. Nor can we roll a gun into or out of battery without glacial slowness and/or exposing the crew as a result of the insane complete turnaround a simple rearward movement of the gun requires. I suspect this problem is the direct result of the absence of such weapons from the parent game, CMFI.

We had an LOS tool from the get (yes, I now know about using the Target command to derive this information), and we had a Cover Armor arc by CMBB, which was a real game changer in the armored assault, but we're still waiting for it in CMBN. I don't understand why it wasn't there to begin with.

I do understand that programming resources are finite, budget limited and time to sort things out hard to come by, but I fail to see why we have to reinvent the wheel as to game features we had in the CMx1 games.

And so on.

You must remember that the x2 code is so profoundly different from x1 code that according to BFC it is simply not possible to lift a feature out of x1 and drop it into x2. Furthermore, given the 1:1 representation in x2, it may not be at all easy to re-create x1 features in the x2 environment. Hopefully they will arrive at some point before we are all in the ground. I am confident that BFC too would love to have those features present. It would certainly be nice to have those features and more, but of the ones you have mentioned, I wonder how many gamers miss them at present. I guess it depends on what kinds of battles you want to fight and how critical those features are to them.

And BTW, everywhere you wrote 'CMFI' in your post, I think you meant to write 'CMSF', didn't you? Just trying to minimize confusion...

Michael

[John Kettler]

Michael Emrys,

Good points re code differences, and coding is NOT my thing, though I understand the basics. Not my idea of fun to write code.

Re CMFI, in place of CMSF, you are, once again, right! I apparently had a repeating brain interrupt there. Doubtless something to do with all the time I've spent on the CMFI Forum.

Regards,

John Kettler

[PzKpfw 1]

The East Front is why they will bother, I predict.

That would be the most logical place to see tank riders, IMHO as the Soviets made much more use of putting riders on tanks then the West did.

Regards, John Waters

[Michael Emrys]

...the Soviets made much more use of putting riders on tanks then the West did.

And SFAIK they were much more apt to stay on the tanks after the shooting started.

Michael

[Rocky Balboa]

I understand that complexity of coding has skyrocketed and that BFC's coding staff is tiny. I appreciate that we've now got single man resolution, but it came at the expense of the maddening to me AS issue (how I hate trying to site AT guns, let alone dig them in!), at the expense of a greatly increased wargamer's workload; as an even steeper learning curve than any of the CMx1 games.

You say you understand the complexity but I still think there is a disconnect as evidenced by your comments further down.

As it was, I lost a bunch of potential CMx1 gamers even at that, to them daunting, level of complexity. We seem to have gained much, yet lost a lot, as seen in how the engine handles towed/manhandled guns.

These features are still in CMx1 and you can still play Cmx1 although as you point out most gamers have moved on and prefer the 1:1 resolution at the cost of losing some minor features

but I fail to see why we have to reinvent the wheel as to game features we had in the CMx1 games.

when you ask question like this, I don't think that you fully understand the mechanics and complexity of the task, . When BF imagined CMx2 it was redesigned from the ground up because it had to be to achieve the higher fidelity of the battlefield. This meant that every feature in CMx1 was on the table and had to be prioritized for inclusion in CMx2. In the process however CMx2 has features in it that CMx1 never had so while you have lost some minor (IMO) features, you have gained some rather major features. As I said before if the features you feel that you lost in CMx1 are important to you then CMx1 is still a playable alternative however as I'm sure you are aware CMx1 was far from perfect as well.

We all have our personal features that we would like to see added to the game and hopefully BF will get around to adding them in due course and one of the greatest features of CMx2 that you didn't have in CMx1 is the ability to back-port these additions and enhancements into your previous investment keeping it fresh and up to date.

[Childress]

We seem to have gained much, yet lost a lot, as seen in how the engine handles towed/manhandled guns. Combat footage shows real ones being smartly trundled through the street and brought swiftly into action, yet we can't do that. Nor can we roll a gun into or out of battery without glacial slowness and/or exposing the crew as a result of the insane complete turnaround a simple rearward movement of the gun requires.

That was a comprehensive jeremiad of a post, John. But I take issue with your judgment on the flexibility of AT guns. I submit these weapons are currently over-powered based on their ability to move into position and fire away within a few seconds. They resemble slow moving, inexpensive and low profile tanks. No tedious setup time required.