Shoot and run

[Fed]

Is there away to have an antitank crew crawl (ie move slow) around a corner, shoot at a tank, and then run away all in one stacked order? I've been trying many ways, but none seem to work.

Also, if I get the crew to crawl to the corner and target the tank that is around the corner, the crew just stays out of view and doesn't engage. I have to get them to crawl away from the corner out of cover for them to engage. Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks again,

Fed

[Wicky]

Presume you're referring to a bazooka or 'faust or 'schreck team. Are you giving them a cover arc or a target order and a time delay whilst in position seeing the target object.

Have they acquired the position of the target tank via CC before they embark on their slow crawl?

the crew just stays out of view and doesn't engage

Are they IN a building? if so then they won't fire, as the weapon has quite a incapacitating backblast which dissuades them from shooting from within confined spaces. Allied PIATS apparently work okay as it was spring launched - and have a search on the topic as it has been discussed several times.

Take and post a screenshot so we can see more clearly what you're trying to describe.

[A Canadian Cat]

I assume you are talking about a bazooka or Shrek team here. Start by splitting the AT team off from the squad so you have just the two man team. The rest of the squad can distract the tank and improve the odds of your AT team stating alive to complete this process.

I would recommend a quick or fast move to a way point that will allow the team to see the target vehicle, possibly add a face command to that way point. Do not add a pause here - you do not want these guys hanging around in the open. Then another fast move to safety. @Erwin posted this as a viable tactic in the past. I have used it since. Here is how it works. The team heads out to the way point that will allow them to spot the target. They briefly regroup. In that time the gunner will spot and acquire the target and take the shot. Then both guys start running for safety.

The thing is there are so many out comes that range form dead target and live, safe AT team all the way to very alert and in good order target and a dead AT team plus.

To improve you AT team's odds (both of success and to live) start by making sure that the tank is buttoned. Attempt this technique where you have a side or rear shot on the tank. If that is not possible at least distract the tank from the side before your guys head out into harms way. For example other infantry in the area can, from the flank, shoot at the tank. This will ensure the tank is buttoned and encourage it to face the shooters. To make this work give your AT team a pause before they start their initial move so that the tank has time to focus on the other infantry teams. As you can imagine this is *very* dangerous for those other teams so devise an escape plan for them.

[Placebo]

Moving to a corner of a building does seem to cause the AI some issues. I have never found a way of getting a team to the side of the building i want and have ended up moving them out into the open with the expected result of them lasting <5 seconds in full view of a tank!!

ian - I never considered the regroup time as active time for them to get a shot away, so thanks for the tip i will try this out.

[Rocky Balboa]

IMO it is asking quite a bit to expect success from a maneuver like this. Keep in mind your troops need to crawl or move into position then identify the target, prepare/load the weapon, acquire the target, make an accurate shot, then crawl or move back into cover all within the time span of 1 minute, while possibly being under fire or at best in a high stress environment. With that said, here are the steps you would need to take to possibly pull of this maneuver.

Have other infantry in the area fire on the tank and force it to button up. Plot your waypoint so that your AT team will have LOS to the tank. Click on the waypoint and issue an armored covered arc so that hopefully your team will focus on the tank and no other targets. Also give your team a time delay at that waypoint. After the time delay have them move back behind cover.

Will this work in every situation? No, just like in RL there are no guarantees and the number of variables which could cause this not to work are too numerous to mention however some things you can do to increase the chance of success are: Use a team that is has good morale and good leader ship, make sure your team is in C2 with its headquarters and try to suppress the enemy target before hand. All these things will have an impact on the success or failure of this maneuver.

Note: Sometimes too much suppression can cause the tank to pop smoke or reverse out of your kill zone before your troops can get a shot off. Ideally you want enough suppression to button the tank up not so much as to force it to maneuver.

[Fed]

Thanks for all the replies. Btw, I did search the forum, but found nothing.

I did not acquire the target by CC. How do you do this? Maybe this is what I needed to do.

I did attack from the side. The tank was engaging a machine gun emplacement.

I tried various commands at the waypoint: facing, target, target arc, and target armor.

I tried pausing at the waypoint.

The only time it worked was when I moved into the open, not at the corner of the building, and did not move away (ie no waypoint). If I move away after the waypoint, they just sit the, and then move away after the pause.

What I would like if to 1) move to the corner, not other open, and/or 2) fire from the waypoint, not end the turn in the open.

Thanks again!

[agusto]

I tried various commands at the waypoint: facing, target, target arc, and target armor.

If you issue a face command, keep in mind that this means that the unit will not just look in the ordered direction but also seek cover from possible fires from the direction the face command points to. This means that if the waypoint is close to a building, your infantry will use this building as cover wich makes it hard to place them in a way so they just peek around the corner.

Concerning your initial question, i would think that Rocky Balboas approach should work. 5-10 secs should be enough time for your inf to spot the tank and take a shot. If you are not under stress to kill that tank, you could try to make your AT team move out for the kill near the end of a turn by giving them a 45 secs pause before leaving cover. This way you will have control over them sooner in case something bad happens.

I myself however usually try to make the tank come to me instead of moving out to kill the tank, ie i place the AT team at a corner or behind a ridgeline and wait for the tank to drive by. If i have to actively hunt a tank, i ve found that hedgerows provide excellent cover for infantry antik tank teams. I rarley get spotted before i could take a shot or two, even if the tank does face my troops.

[Pak40]

Unfortunately this is a small weakness of the game. Soldiers cannot "peek" around corners to squeeze of shots, they have to be moved to the action spot around the corner which will leave them exposed.

I personally would give the team 20 seconds pause once around the corner to make sure the shot gets off, but this depends on how much infantry support the tank has.

My best guess would be to use Quick to get your team quickly around the corner, pause 20 secs so they have enough time to take a shot and then Quick back around the corner. You can use the armor arc but I don't think it will make much difference unless there are a lot of enemy infantry around, in which case your AT team will probably get killed or suppressed anyway.

[agusto]

Just to illustrate what i previously said about infantry and the use of cover when issuing face commands at corners of buildings:

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/7262/faceaway.jpg

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/4029/faceaway2.jpg

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/4378/faceaway3.jpg

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/2364/faceaway4.jpg

http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/7670/facebuilding.jpg

If you play around with the face command, you can get them to position themselves at the edge of a corner so they can fire upon things sometimes. In my experience this works better when you let them face away of the building, they will still be able to spot targets if they are to their right or left, although slower.

[mjkerner]

Thanks for all the replies. Btw, I did search the forum, but found nothing.

I did attack from the side. The tank was engaging a machine gun emplacement.

I tried various commands at the waypoint: facing, target, target arc, and target armor.

I tried pausing at the waypoint.

Er, um, did they actually have ammo(rockets)? I've done that before...take a huge chance by running the team into dangerous territory, only to have them sit there, get killed, and notice later that they had no rockets.

[Sublime]

In my experience the absolute best course of action in a case like this is a rush with the 'quick' move. give the team a cover armor arc in the direction of the enemy, and then quick move them across the street. Just because they're ordered on quick doesn't mean they wont stop and shoot, 9 times out of 10 they still will stop to shoot off a zook round. It works brilliantly actually and ensures the team keeps it moving until they're in cover. I used to try doing things like the 20 second pause Pak40 mentioned but that almost always get them killed. I believe Womble initially proposed something like I explained above a year or two ago, upon trying it and experimenting it works brilliantly. Great with fausts too - They'll shoot and then keep running.

[Amizaur]

It would be really nice, if a target command issued from a waypoint for an AT team was interpreted as: "go to the waypoint, if there is a target command then take a shot at the target and THEN continue to next waypoint". And not as now: "go to the waypoint and exectue the order WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY proceeding to the next waypoint"

Even better solution would be to add an optional "number of shots" parameter for "target" command. Then the unit (any unit) would go to a waypoint, stop there, execute the "target" command by shooting as many times as the player requires, and only THEN move to the next waypoint.

It would work good for both tanks and AT teams - any unit with a "primary" single-firing weapon. We usually doesn't want tanks to fire while moving, so the above behaviour would be exactly what is needed - the tank would stop at the waypoint, extecute the "target + number of shots = 1" order (take a shot) and immediately resume it's route. I

t would be much better than giving it a "target + pause" order because a 10s pause is usually too long for single shot (and too short for two), but on the other hand sometimes it could be just too short.

If after arriving to the waypoint with "target" order, the target is not visible, or the target can not be shot at - the unit would try to locate it (or try to take the shot) for "one pause" so 10s and if not succeeded - then proceed to the next waypoint.

Of course there are different solutions possible. For example - the first "pause level" instead of "10s" would be named a "pause for shot" or "5s" or just "pause", and we would issue an "target + pause for shot" order and the unit would only stop for as long as required to take one shot - and then continue movement. The "normal pause" (full xx seconds stop) levels would start from "second pause level" - so it would go like "pause for shot", "10s", "20s", 30s" ect.

It would require no changes in the UI - the only changes would be the list of "pause levels" and the way the "pause for shot" command works for units.

[A Canadian Cat]

OK I decided to set this up to test it. The scenario is a single US squad with their platoon HQ and a Sherman vs a single German squad with their HQ. Each squad is split and the Germans have taken up positions in a village while the US soldiers attack supported by the Sherman. You can download the saved game files here: Two turns zipped up. The game "Shrek Tactic USAttack 001.bts" shows the US orders - have a look it if if you want to see how the US tank is going to move. The next turn is the one that matters for this test - "Shrek Tactic USAttack 002.bts". It contains the German orders for the AT tactic we have been discussing. You can load and run this over and over and see what happens. Experiment with different pauses at the way point to see what works best. Play with @agusto's face commands on the next turn to see if they will shoot from the corner of the building.

Here are the orders as saved in the 002 turn file. The AT team gets a quick order to the middle of the road and a face command towards where the tank is then a quick order to cover next to the building:

I ran this 6 times - detail at the end of this post. The most important thing was that the AT team fired at the tank every time. They missed half the time:

Hit half the time:

and one notable run they actually stopped after causing the tank crew to bail and disregarded the quick to cover order and stayed in the road to reload and brew the tank up with a second shot. That was a really cool moment:

Each picture above is from a different run. You can see that the tube guy is in a slightly different spot on the road each time. Actually is it pretty cool to see them move out and pause to take the shot. I have not tried to add pauses at the road way point but I suspect that would result in a dead AT team.

Here are the results of my six runs:

1. Shreck fired a round - hit wheels, immobilized the tank no casualties
   
2. Shreck fired a round - missed
   
3. Shreck fired a round - missed
   
4. Shreck fired a round - penetration, system damage, panic crew (TC killed by small arms)
   
5. Shreck fired a round - missed
   
6. Shreck fired two rounds - hit causing two casualties, panic and crew bailed, second shot destroys tank and causes an additional crew casualty
   

[Fed]

Great example. Thanks for the images also.

So I am getting the feeling that the best way to do this is to just move them in place, and then they will fire as long as there is a facing or target command. It seems the pause is not necessary.

How about the corner issue. Do you just have to suck it up and move the team into the open for the shot?

[mjkerner]

Ian, have tried not issuing a waypoint in the road, and just having them Quick across the road with no facing or target arcs? Or do they need that waypoint to stop and fire? I know I've had AT teams stop and fire when a good shot is available without any waypoints/orders...wondered if in this situation--armor broadside at reasonably close range--they would stop on their own or not.

[Apocal]

Ian, have tried not issuing a waypoint in the road, and just having them Quick across the road with no facing or target arcs? Or do they need that waypoint to stop and fire? I know I've had AT teams stop and fire when a good shot is available without any waypoints/orders...wondered if in this situation--armor broadside at reasonably close range--they would stop on their own or not.

If you want them to reliably fire, you need the middle waypoint so they are forced to pause. Depending solely on the TacAI in that regard is hit-or-miss.

[A Canadian Cat]

Ian, have tried not issuing a waypoint in the road, and just having them Quick across the road with no facing or target arcs?

I did not - sounds like it would be worth it. I also have not tried the face command on the next turn either.

I am part way through trying it with 5s and 20s pauses. The interesting differences is with a pause they stop and take the shot from the same spot each time. 20s pause has resulted in casualties for the AT team a couple of times. Not sure if you can read too much into it yet though I only have four runs through. Once I have six runs I'll report back but even then I do not really think we can make judgments from only six runs.

Anyone want to take my 002 turn and run it 94 more times and then then add a 5s pause and run that 94 more times etc.

[agusto]

Thank you a lot ian leslie for setting this up. I did 3 test runs without pausing with the shreck team and they took a shot at the tank 3 times, scoring a total 2 hits. I also did a single test run with a 5 seconds pause and they got killed.

I also tried to get my troops to shoot from the corner of a building and it didnt work as intended. Apparently you can only use the face command the way i said during the set up phase. I had only tried this a single time before when i played barkmans corner and it appeared to me as if this would be a useful method, probably that was a misinterpretation of what i saw.

[agusto]

Anyone want to take my 002 turn and run it 94 more times and then then add a 5s pause and run that 94 more times etc.

If we get 20 people to run the test 3 times each, we would get similar results without needing someone to sacrifice 3 hours of his time.

To sum up the total results we have ITT by now:

Set up as done by ian leslie (screenshots):

no pause:

Runs:9

Shots taken by the AT team: 10

Hits: 6

AT teams casualties: 0

5 seconds pause:

Runs: 1

Shots: 0

Hits: 0

AT team casualties: 2

10 secsonds pause:

Runs: 0

Shots: 0

Hits: 0

[Sublime]

If you want them to reliably fire, you need the middle waypoint so they are forced to pause. Depending solely on the TacAI in that regard is hit-or-miss.

Actually, I disagree. If you run parallel to the tank then maybe a face order and waypoint is necessary, however if you run them close enough for say fausts I usually do one bounding order. Close in (less than 50-60 meters) the men will usually see the tank, and the best way to do this is often to have troops rush out to fire, from cover to cover. Good example is troops in a hedgeline not spotted. A tank comes into about 40-50 meters, stops and starts blowing up another position. Their friends are being killed, but they only have fausts - I'll run them close enough to fire on their way to another piece of cover. If they already know about the tank the extra waypoint is unnecessary, and if not they'll often spot it anyways. Especially with fausts because that close is very dangerous, but even with one order they will reliably stop to fire. You can see it all the time with the other weapons as well - if troops are moving and see the enemy they'll stop and shoot then start running again. It's the same with the rockets, etc.