Hand grenades K.O.ing buttoned tanks.

[Doug Williams]

Curious, I did a quick search and found this brief article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_warfare#Infantry_close_assault

[James Crowley]

Posted in wrong thread

[James Crowley]

If we make an assumption that hand grenades are not powerful enough to destroy tanks then the obvious conclusion would be that infantry in Combat Mission shouldn't have a close assault ability at all.

Against a buttoned tank, with just grenades, I would agree. Some small possibility exists to immobilise it or to cause the crew to bail, but not to actually destroy it, IMO. There was simply not enough HE charge to do any real damage.

However with demo charges, i.e. ordnance with considerably more than a few ounces of explosive, close assault should definitely be possible. As would the use of grenades, or even bullets, against an unbuttoned or open topped vehicle.

[BadgerDog]

The only thing that would happen assaulting a Sherman tank (closed down) with a No.36 period hand grenade, would be some paint scratching ...

Regards,

Doug

[Doug Williams]

As has been pointed out several times, the game abstracts infantry close assaults on vehicles. Just because all you see are the animations of men throwing grenades does not mean that the game is only simulating men throwing grenades. It's a limitation of the game engine, and I would imagine we will just have to accept it until future versions of the engine are released.

As for the close assaulting through bocage, I can understand your frustration, Jim, but again, it's the game engine abstracting things. Is this worth BFC spending coding time to try to correct? I dunno. How often does it happen? I've personally never seen it happen, but I'm trying my best to make it happen right now in a tourney game. ;-)

As far as the In Real Life did infantry ever close assault tanks with just small arms and grenades in WW2 question, I dunno. This makes me ask the question, just how "buttoned up" were buttoned up tanks? Were the hatches all locked from the inside, or could a man crawling on the outside of the tank open a hatch, throw a grenade in, and jump off? I would imagine a grenade exploding inside a tank would effectively be a KO.

[James Crowley]

Our dear Mr. Crowley seems to be completely hung up on the grenades point.

He does not accept that grenades are used to abstract various manufactured or improvised AT-weaponry like the gammon bomb or grenade bundles.

Why?

Well for the simple fact that he believes it would be accounted for in the inventory of the units if they were, in fact, present.

I'm not hung up on the use of grenades at all, just as to their AT effectiveness. And yes, I do believe that if other weapons were available they would be in the inventory; there is nothing in the manual, AFAIK, to suggest otherwise.

So let me ask you one thing then Mr. Crowley:

Have you ever seen a single piece of AT weaponry in the game beyond the 3 big ones? (that is Panzerfaust, Rocket Launcher (Zook or Schreck) and Demolition Charges.)

I believe the answer is no.

Assuming that you are including the PIAT in your list, I would agree. These were the weapons developed by their respective nations as viable man portable AT weapons and have a known track record of being able to do the job fairly often. They are also referenced as equipment that was issued, on a regular basis, to front line units from June 1944 onwards.

Crowbars, bits of string, sticky bombs and the sergeants dirty underwear weren't and, as such, I am discounting them.

Now, do you also believe that there were no such weaponry present in the entire western theatre of operations during the period depicted in the game?

If the answer is that you do belive they were present, we must assume that these are also abstracted in the grenade allotment of the troops.

Especially since BFC has stated that the act of infantry throwing grenades at tanks and vehicles is an abstraction of them close assaulting the vehicles.

I believe that there well may have been odd bits of kit floating around but, compared to standard issue, they would have been scarce to say the least.

If you believe that they have been abstracted into the inventory, then every single squad, section and sub-section is, by definition, equipped with them and has the ability to take out a tank. And yet, for instance, a British platoon is only be equipped with one or perhaps two PIATs.

If they were that common, I believe BFC would have put them in as inventory items (as were grenade bundles and AT mines in CMBB - and that game was, by BFC own admission, abstraction personified).

BFC have indeed stated that close assault has been abstracted but my understanding of that statement was that the necessary animations of troop climbing on vehicles would not be shown. Which is why we don't have tank riders. I cannot recall them mentioning that such an assault used any other ordinance than that listed in the inventory.

I can happily accept troops assaulting buttoned tanks with grenades provided they are actually close to the vehicle; that the vehicle is stationary or travelling very slowly and that the possible end results are immobilisation or evacuation. Anything beyond that is, IMO, not a accurate abstraction.

[Doug Williams]

Jim,

Sh*t happens.

The more you belabor this, the more strident you are starting to sound, IMO.

[Freyberg]

I think having tanks invulnerable to infantry at close range is much more unrealistic than the situation being described. A WWII tank would have been extremely vulnerable to infantry at point-blank range, buttoned-up or not.

[Doug Williams]

I think having tanks invulnerable to infantry at close range is much more unrealistic than the situation being described. A WWII tank would have been extremely vulnerable to infantry at point-blank range, buttoned-up or not.

Agreed.

Back when CMBO was first released, I noticed that even lightly armored vehicles, such as halftracks, were extremely resistant to infantry that were located in the adjacent action square (assuming the infantry did not have any game enabled AT weapons). By "extremely resistant" I mean they were almost invulnerable. This was very unrealistic, IMO, and I pointed it out in at least one thread in these very forums, which is now probably lost in the dustbins.

Fast forward to today, and now we have a thread complaining that armor may be too vulnerable to infantry close assault.

Personally, I would much rather have it as it is today, than the way it was back then.

[Oddball_E8]

I'm not hung up on the use of grenades at all, just as to their AT effectiveness. And yes, I do believe that if other weapons were available they would be in the inventory; there is nothing in the manual, AFAIK, to suggest otherwise.

Assuming that you are including the PIAT in your list, I would agree. These were the weapons developed by their respective nations as viable man portable AT weapons and have a known track record of being able to do the job fairly often. They are also referenced as equipment that was issued, on a regular basis, to front line units from June 1944 onwards.

Crowbars, bits of string, sticky bombs and the sergeants dirty underwear weren't and, as such, I am discounting them.

I believe that there well may have been odd bits of kit floating around but, compared to standard issue, they would have been scarce to say the least.

If you believe that they have been abstracted into the inventory, then every single squad, section and sub-section is, by definition, equipped with them and has the ability to take out a tank. And yet, for instance, a British platoon is only be equipped with one or perhaps two PIATs.

If they were that common, I believe BFC would have put them in as inventory items (as were grenade bundles and AT mines in CMBB - and that game was, by BFC own admission, abstraction personified).

BFC have indeed stated that close assault has been abstracted but my understanding of that statement was that the necessary animations of troop climbing on vehicles would not be shown. Which is why we don't have tank riders. I cannot recall them mentioning that such an assault used any other ordinance than that listed in the inventory.

I can happily accept troops assaulting buttoned tanks with grenades provided they are actually close to the vehicle; that the vehicle is stationary or travelling very slowly and that the possible end results are immobilisation or evacuation. Anything beyond that is, IMO, not a accurate abstraction.

Well, let's see here. (just using british forces here for brevity)

Gammon bomb was used by special forces (such as airborne) througout the war and even into the early 50's.

Not seen in the game ever, so either abstracted or omitted by BFC for no good reason.

Hawkins grenade. Used by both british and US forces well into the post war time.

Not seen in the game ever, either abstracted or omitted. Again, no reason why it would be omitted.

These two grenades were made specifically as anti-tank grenades (although often used in other purposes as is often the case in war).

They were also used througout the war on the western front (and other fronts).

Yet they are not included in the game.

So either BFC abstracts them in the effectiveness of infantry close assaulting a tank with grenades, or they omitted them from the game completely (which I doubt they would do).

Now, as for why they don't index them in the game and instead chose to abstract them, who knows?

Maby because it would get too cluttered to include them as separate enteties instead of just being listed under "grenades" (just like grenades aren't separated into different models and makes with different effectiveness)?

Or maby because they don't have any exact numbers on how many were issued to each unit?

Until BFC answers, we won't know.

But it is my firm belief that infantry close assaulting a tank is abstracted to include not only AT-grenades and AT-mines, but also improvised AT weaponry like grenade bundles, Molotov Cocktails, Pouring petrol on the tank and lighting it on fire and other improvised methods of destroying an enemy tank.

[Freyberg]

The vast variety of ways infantry could attack a tank, with all the multiple interacting variables that each involves, sounds like an impossible thing to model without abstraction, short of having an AI that can model a real human mind.

I'm cool with abstraction - the important thing is that tanks will die in close terrain without infantry support (hedges or no hedges), which is the realistic outcome.

[SlowMotion]

It would be nice if one day we could achieve something like this (or is it already possible?):

infantry soldiers run to tank, throw their available grenades and run to a safer place so they can avoid tank's MG firing and Nach-something-waffe. In a game I played my infantry units tried to do this, but:

-one unit had 2 grenades. They threw one, then decided to switch to Medic mode. Maybe getting ammo from a nearby dead soldier. Only after quite some time had passed they threw the other grenade.

[c3k]

Another abstraction: I am pretty powerless against a car. My UI shows no anti-car weapons. Yet, if you drive near me, and don't see me, I can attack and disable your car. Brick through the windshield; sugar in the gas tank , flame pit across the road, swinging tree-trunks on rope ala Star Wars Ewoks, etc. You get my point?

As much as my above example has (almost) nothing to do with attacking a buttoned up armored vehicle, you do recall the Hungarian uprising when unarmed civilians used high power lines to short out tanks? (They, apparently, burned them by that technique. Live wires, hand held (wooden baton) pressed agains tanks. Possibly anecdotal.) Human ingenuity should not be discounted. Sure, good intentions are a poor weapon against 4" of armor, but it's a start.

A chunk of wood CAN immobilize a tank. A crowbar CAN destroy a machinegun. A bottle of gasoline CAN destroy a tank. Etc.

At some point, something needs to be abstracted. The determination of where to draw that line is subject to debate. You may disagree with where that line is, but it's important to recognize that it exists.

Ken

[SlowMotion]

Sometimes it's easier to recognize an abstraction as such when the abstracted weapon doesn't look like any real weapon.

[Freyberg]

I don't mind the little grenade animations. It's always possible to imagine something better, or a variety of animations, but I wouldn't want to have no animation at all.

[SlowMotion]

That's what I meant: if it looks like a hand grenade, you think it's hand grenade. But if it doesn't look like grenade, you know it's an abstraction and you're supposed to imagine that one of all sorts of weapons are used.

[Seedorf81]

That's what I meant: if it looks like a hand grenade, you think it's hand grenade. But if it doesn't look like grenade, you know it's an abstraction and you're supposed to imagine that one of all sorts of weapons are used.

A bunch of flowers might do the trick, then?

[SlowMotion]

Or maybe one of those cartoon bombs:

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/CartoonBomb.jpg

[James Crowley]

Seems the consensus is that the 'close assault' abstraction involves ordnance not listed in the inventory, which may include various AT grenades, mines, cans of petrol, crowbars or whatever, with 'grenades' arbitrarily representing any or all of those things.

So, if a squad or section has 8 grenades listed, each of those could, in theory, be one of those aforementioned items.

The problem with that abstraction is that it gives an infantry section far more AT capability than it ever had in reality. I essence the eight grenades become dual purpose; all eight could be used as AT grenades or all as anti infantry; or any combination thereof. While there almost certainly was odd AT grenades and the like assigned to some units, it is unrealistic for a any section to have potential access to so many.

The Paras in the battle for Arnhem certainly had some Gammon bombs - there is an account in Martin Middlebrooks book where one is thrown out of a window but it hits a railing instead of an SP - but, as far as I can see, no record of one actually killing an AFV there. Lots of recorded PIAT and 6 lb'er action but almost no mention of close assault type kills. And there were was plenty of opportunity!

In fact there seems to be very little evidence of tank kills from close assaults in the West in 44/45. Both sides seemed to rely on their respective AT projectors, which could be very successful. The notion that tanks were vulnerable to infantry attack stems more from, I think, the danger of those types of weapon than from the notion of close assault with grenades.

Surely it would be better to, say, assign one or two 'grenades' as generic 'AT grenades' to some, but by no means all, sections. In that way there is a realistic limitation as to how much AT activity that sections can get involved in. In CMBB there was not only a variety of close range AT weapons but a 'follow' command so that tank hunter units, armed with those devices, could actually hunt tanks. That type of AT behaviour is well documented on the Eastern front in 1941-43 but I cannot recall seeing anything remotely like that level of close assault activity on the Western front from '44 onwards. It's pretty much all about piats, fausts schrecks and bazookas and, very very occasionally, satchel charges.

[Oddball_E8]

Seems the consensus is that the 'close assault' abstraction involves ordnance not listed in the inventory, which may include various AT grenades, mines, cans of petrol, crowbars or whatever, with 'grenades' arbitrarily representing any or all of those things.

So, if a squad or section has 8 grenades listed, each of those could, in theory, be one of those aforementioned items.

The problem with that abstraction is that it gives an infantry section far more AT capability than it ever had in reality. I essence the eight grenades become dual purpose; all eight could be used as AT grenades or all as anti infantry; or any combination thereof. While there almost certainly was odd AT grenades and the like assigned to some units, it is unrealistic for a any section to have potential access to so many.

The Paras in the battle for Arnhem certainly had some Gammon bombs - there is an account in Martin Middlebrooks book where one is thrown out of a window but it hits a railing instead of an SP - but, as far as I can see, no record of one actually killing an AFV there. Lots of recorded PIAT and 6 lb'er action but almost no mention of close assault type kills. And there were was plenty of opportunity!

In fact there seems to be very little evidence of tank kills from close assaults in the West in 44/45. Both sides seemed to rely on their respective AT projectors, which could be very successful. The notion that tanks were vulnerable to infantry attack stems more from, I think, the danger of those types of weapon than from the notion of close assault with grenades.

Surely it would be better to, say, assign one or two 'grenades' as generic 'AT grenades' to some, but by no means all, sections. In that way there is a realistic limitation as to how much AT activity that sections can get involved in. In CMBB there was not only a variety of close range AT weapons but a 'follow' command so that tank hunter units, armed with those devices, could actually hunt tanks. That type of AT behaviour is well documented on the Eastern front in 1941-43 but I cannot recall seeing anything remotely like that level of close assault activity on the Western front from '44 onwards. It's pretty much all about piats, fausts schrecks and bazookas and, very very occasionally, satchel charges.

Yes, and not a single one might be an AT grenade too. Hence the possibility of lobbing 8 grenades right on top of the tank with no damage done at all...

It is abstracted (meaning there is a certain chance that the tank will be damaged, but by no means does it mean that every grenade is an AT one)

[womble]

Surely it would be better to, say, assign one or two 'grenades' as generic 'AT grenades' to some, but by no means all, sections. In that way there is a realistic limitation as to how much AT activity that sections can get involved in.

A limitation that's pretty much entirely unnecessary. The number of times a single element gets involved in more than one CA in the same game is so vanishingly small that it's really not worth considering when planning a game's development. Hell, how many dedicated AT teams with the explicitly modelled ManPAT in the game even get to shoot at more than one tank, let alone get more than one kill? Which is realistic, as you point out: the kills from CA are rare. Not because infantry weren't dangerous to tanks at close quarters, but a) because by the end of the war, the infantry were dangerous to tanks way out to 100m or more (so CA became less necessary) and the tankers knew they were vulnerable up close and so tended to make doubly sure they had gropo support.

[James Crowley]

Yes, and not a single one might be an AT grenade too. Hence the possibility of lobbing 8 grenades right on top of the tank with no damage done at all...

It is abstracted (meaning there is a certain chance that the tank will be damaged, but by no means does it mean that every grenade is an AT one)

You may well be right, I don't know. It isn't mentioned in any documentation that I am aware of.

Knocking out a tank at the tactical level is a big deal, whatever does the job. A close assault, by it's very nature, is a really big deal. So surely any information pertaining to what weapons can be used to carry out that task needs to be documented?

A lot of posters are espousing on how close assaults work but I have yet to see any link or reference as to where this 'information' is coming from. I'm not trying to be a doubting Thomas but it's not unknown for some posters on these forums to get their 'this is how it all works' facts befuddled.

[James Crowley]

A limitation that's pretty much entirely unnecessary. The number of times a single element gets involved in more than one CA in the same game is so vanishingly small that it's really not worth considering when planning a game's development.

A single element, agreed but a platoon can be split up into, what 12 sub-units including HQ's so you could have all of them acting as AT hunters in the right environment. How many specific AT assets that are not in the platoons inventory are they supposed to have access to?

And surely BFC are striving very hard to get away from abstractions and get closer to WYSIWYG. Why on earth, on that basis, wouldn't they want to improve that sub-system in the engine, providing the 'cost' in time and resources is not too high. CMBB, which was pretty high on abstractions, still managed to include multiple types of AT ordnance and I'm pretty sure most of the teams that used them didn't last more than a single encounter either.

[sburke]

And surely BFC are striving very hard to get away from abstractions and get closer to WYSIWYG. Why on earth, on that basis, wouldn't they want to improve that sub-system in the engine, providing the 'cost' in time and resources is not too high.

Exactly. Same reason we don't have tank riders and fire yet. Patience, if it can be done and it has risen high enough in the to do list it may yet happen.

[womble]

A single element, agreed but a platoon can be split up into, what 12 sub-units including HQ's

10, max that I've seen.

...you could have all of them acting as AT hunters in the right environment...

True, but irrelevant (because that "right environment" doesn't crop up/isn't creatable that often against competent opponents, even the AI) and distracting, because those "designed" AT assets were accompanied by improvised ones which could be more widespread. Not that there have been any numbers supplied for the prevalence of either. Your opinion is that they weren't widely available. My opinion is that all these things were widely-enough present in theatre that in any given situation, the abstraction "accounts" for them.

Perhaps you could consider that a chunk of the "failed" CA attempts (including situations where CA was tactically possible but not attempted) were failures because there were no AT assets to hand for that element or because the improvised ones couldn't be deployed in time. When CA works it's because the items to hand, and the men employing them were adequate to the task. Hooray.

How many specific AT assets that are not in the platoons inventory are they supposed to have access to?

It doesn't matter. The abstraction covers that. Without having to trouble you with it.

And surely BFC are striving very hard to get away from abstractions and get closer to WYSIWYG. Why on earth, on that basis, wouldn't they want to improve that sub-system in the engine, providing the 'cost' in time and resources is not too high.

Well done for answering your own question.

CMBB, which was pretty high on abstractions, still managed to include multiple types of AT ordnance and I'm pretty sure most of the teams that used them didn't last more than a single encounter either.

Splendid attempted comparison, there, of chalk and cheese. The overhead for dealing with CA in a WYSIWYG way in CMx2 is orders of magnitude higher than for the way it was dealt with in CMx1.