BMP-3 commander: how to?

[gnarly]

I recently launched at attack with a dozen or so BMP-3's with just their default 2 man crews on board (I'd forgotten the above issue existed), as fire support for a couple of mounted BTR mech platoons.

 

Within a few turns I realized something was seriously wrong , when I had negligible spotting contacts from them, except from the vehicles with the BMP platoon HQ's on board. Essentially, I had a company's worth of BMP-3's that were useless, and gave up the battle as a waste of time.

 

Question:  aside from the obvious of detaching a team from an associated mounted squad permanently to each vehicle (which I couldn't, as no associated infantry squads), does anyone have any other tips of how to add an effective commander to each vehicle? Preferably not by breaking up a team (unless the other half of the squad can  'Command' another vehicle)? Buy a recon team or something for each BMP?

Thanks in advance

 

[A Canadian Cat]

16 hours ago, gnarly said:

 does anyone have any other tips of how to add an effective commander to each vehicle? Preferably not by breaking up a team (unless the other half of the squad can  'Command' another vehicle)?

That is what I do - break off a scout team from the squad and they get to ride everywhere.

Quote

Buy a recon team or something for each BMP?

Yeah that should work to.  I would personally recommend making sure that the scout team you are planning to use is in the same platoon as the BMP they are going to be "commanding".  No, I have no special knowledge that this is important in some way I would just do it that way .

Edited November 7, 2016 by IanL
Fix smilie

[MOS:96B2P]

16 hours ago, gnarly said:

<Snip> does anyone have any other tips of how to add an effective commander to each vehicle? Preferably not by breaking up a team (unless the other half of the squad can  'Command' another vehicle)? Buy a recon team or something for each BMP?  

This is an interesting topic.  I have been breaking off a scout team from the squad.  However @antaress73 posted some interesting information on the subject.  I am paraphrasing but he basically said: With squad leader led  3 man team inside (Split team in two equal parts) it is faster at sequentially engaging and destroying two targets than with the 2 man scout team inside.  So it's best to use the squad leader led team even if you lose one dismount in the process compared with only splitting a scout team.  Your BMPS will be more deadly and better at engaging multiple targets which is more desirable than an additional dismount.   

From the same thread as I took the above from it was also reported that this tactic (the squad leader split and mount back into the vehicle) is good for all BMPs and all BTRs. 

 

1 hour ago, IanL said:

<Snip>  I would personally recommend making sure that the scout team you are planning to use is in the same platoon as the BMP they are going to be "commanding".  No, I have no special knowledge that this is important in some way I would just do it that way :D.

In the QB purchase screen a veteran sniper team or RPO team are cheaper than a veteran scout team 29 vs 49.  Also the sniper or RPO team will only take up two seats where the scout team will take up three.  If I was going to add a team I would consider sniper or RPO.  I would also make sure they were part of the platoon for chain of command purposes and vertical information sharing.     

[gnarly]

Good info both, thanks guys!  Gives me some good options to consider next time around.

[Erwin]

2 questions:

Will a "Command" unit in the vehicle be as good as helping the vehicle spot as an actual HQ?

When one has an HQ (and/or Command element if the answer above is "yes") and one splits it into two teams...  Will each of the teams be equally good in assisting the vehicle spot better?  (Or, will only the team with the CO help with spotting?)

[A Canadian Cat]

Anyone in the command seat helps. @antaress73 showed that an HQ was better. Those specific variations are untested.

Those are interesting questions though.

[cool breeze]

I started using the leader half of the squad in the vehicle after reading that post. I don't have a lot of time under my belt with it yet, and I would prefer to just have the commander stay and have all 5 or 6 (BMP or BTR/MTLB) other guys out, but I do kind of like the idea of keeping half the squad "safe" in the vehicle while the other half does the infantry thing with just 3 or 4 men, but then I still have the other half if I need it later (and the coffin hasn't blown up yet).  I really want a access to the squad splitting tab while they are in the vehicles tho, its a pain right now.

[Marwek77 aka Red Reporter]

I use sniper team (2 seats) or Scout team (3 seats) or PKM Team (2 seats) - they all have binoculars, looks like they spot better than teams without binoculars.

Also in case i do infantry attack only, PKM Team with MMG gives better fire support then Snipers.. they are totaly blind. All are always part of same platoon because of better info sharing.

But we need info from Battlefront if the crew "speaks" actually with passengers, because many times scout team spots enemy and the gunner is silent! Do they speak directly to each other or scouts must first tell to HQ and then this info comes back to crew? THIS i would like to know...

 

[Aurelius]

As far as I noticed, the added crew member usually spots first, then the vehicle starts rotating towards the target, then the crew spots it and then they fire.

[Kinophile]

This is getting dumb. It's necessary but dumb. We're basically cramming a 5 man team into a 3 man crew, stripping our infantry to skeleton teams to accommodate a crap vehicle's crappy optics. It's a pretty bad flaw, with a pretty bad solution.

Edited November 8, 2016 by kinophile

[Sublime]

Igla plt cmdrs are perfect. theyre a single man.

Also theres a few other redfor units that have a single man as a plt leader.

Also on map mortars or off map the mortar hq units split a scout team off em those make good bmp cmdrs. then ops team xo team etc. split off a couple men if you can

Snipers and rpos shouldnt be used imo theyre too valuable for what theyre made for. theres plenty of extra baggage not really needed on redfors side that make good bmp cmdrs. for example truck drivers. every truck has a bmp commander. empty the truck into your mens pockets and have the driver dotch the vehicle and put him.in a bmp.

People are of 2 minds on the ammo thing. i havent noticed my.men tire that much more easily so i absolutely load down every crunchy with everything frm everyvehicle possible. this means like for us having 1500 556 1500 762 some at4s as many 40mm and javelins they can carry per squad.

I hate seeing a truck brad or bmp go up with weapons inside.

Same with russians. i try to divvy up the ammo and get heavy mgs their ammo but i spread it arnd so every squad has anither thousand rounds or so plus all the rpgs and rpg7 warheads...

Some prefer to keep their men light and pull vehicles up as needed. i often find if my.men are running outta ammo tryn to bring ammo to them or to exfil them will get them killed and more than once the fact they were loaded down let them outlast the opposing team in terms of ammo to firefight with.

One poster on here in particular did a good study and found his men almost always had xtea ammo. me too. but not always and i tend to saylet tanks tsrget lighr for trns and turns on stuff i dnt even know enemy troops are in.

Howeber when my troops DO use up their ammo they tend to need as much as possible and NOW not when a ifv or truck comes. especially redfor bc that bmp will prolly finish ur crunchies wen it goes nuclear wen a mouse farts in china

[A Canadian Cat]

3 hours ago, Marwek77 aka Red Reporter said:

But we need info from Battlefront if the crew "speaks" actually with passengers, because many times scout team spots enemy and the gunner is silent! Do they speak directly to each other or scouts must first tell to HQ and then this info comes back to crew? THIS i would like to know...

Yes, they do.  That does not mean you get "insta spotting" (TM) but they will share spotting information.

 

3 minutes ago, kinophile said:

This is getting dumb. It's necessary but dumb. We're basically cramming a 5 man team into a 3 man crew, stripping our infantry to skeleton teams to accommodate a crap vehicle's crappy optics. It's a pretty bad flaw, with a pretty bad solution.

It is not so much that the vehicle has crappy optics it is that the commanders chair has the best optics and when the squad dismounts the squad leader leaves the commanders chair and goes with his crunchies. BFC are, apparently, following doctrine.  Is there another solution?  Is there some resources that show the Russian army leaves someone in that chair? 

[Kinophile]

1 hour ago, IanL said:

It is not so much that the vehicle has crappy optics it is that the commanders chair has the best optics and when the squad dismounts the squad leader leaves the commanders chair and goes with his crunchies. BFC are, apparently, following doctrine.  Is there another solution?  Is there some resources that show the Russian army leaves someone in that chair? 

I understand the situation, and I believe Russian (also US) doctrine does keep s/o in the chair. But the current solution degrades our infantry in favour of spotting. Yes, in this day and age who spots first kills first. But this workaround just turns Russian IFVs into juicier targets. 

This reduction of the squad to provide extra eyes in the IFV is not a solution really, its just robbing peter to pay paul.

In the end, the only solution can come from BFC and it needs to be an ALL BUT LEADER GTFO button.

Edited November 8, 2016 by kinophile

[Sublime]

Kino- it may not be doctrine however and plus the ppl would complain their squads had no leader. instead of all but the leader leaves i think detaching a scout element is the best solution. you can use them to scout or for bmps.

Theres rlly no way to make everyone happy ajd a ui addition just for cmdr to stay would be a huge waste when we could have say an atgm use only toggle. or follow vehicles. or hull down. or shoot n scoot.

 

[hattori]

Battlefront kind of hacked the loading of Bradleys to fit into their program without major overhauls.  They could also do a hackish solution and just put a crew member in the vehicle in that position to do the spotting, or turn on some boolean flag to tell the engine to treat all the BMPs as if they had a commander in that position for spotting, even when empty.  No idea how they've coded it, that just sounds easiest if they want to address it.

The sniper team, or splitting off a scout team works, but is kind of ridiculous in my opinion.  Even if it's not totally accurate, I would prefer a hacked in commander for the vehicle.  That sounds more realistic than buying and assigning multiple sniper teams to every single mech platoon.

[lapdog33]

3 hours ago, Sublime said:

Kino- it may not be doctrine however and plus the ppl would complain their squads had no leader. instead of all but the leader leaves i think detaching a scout element is the best solution. you can use them to scout or for bmps.

Theres rlly no way to make everyone happy ajd a ui addition just for cmdr to stay would be a huge waste when we could have say an atgm use only toggle. or follow vehicles. or hull down. or shoot n scoot.

 

yes, theres just one problem with that

we wont have atgm use only toggle , follow vehicles, hull down, shoot and scoot  simply because adding that is too hard for bfc and requires actual effort on their part so they just might aswell add non existant spoter in btr/ boost spotting to compensate the vehicle/s . i am sure its much easier than those things you mentioned,

i think its  perhaps even easier than beating russians under 7 minutes with US army and losing only 2 tanks + 1 immobolized out of 10  , without APS 

[Machor]

I just wish to say that I would hate for BFC to give up on realism if the current situation with the BMPs/BTRs reflects an inherent doctrinal limitation.

I checked out how the US does this irl from here: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/3-21-71/appa.htm

The US has separate squad leaders and Bradley commanders, so there's never a dilemma of leaving the squad or the vehicle without a commander. The only guy who gets to choose whether to dismount or not is the platoon leader; should he dismount, his gunner becomes his Bradley's commander, and there's even an alternate gunner riding along to replace the platoon leader's gunner.

I have lately been playing GTOS and getting frustrated at my Soviet border guards dismounting from their BTR-60PB whenever they encounter the Chinese, as in most cases staying buttoned up would expose them to less risk. However, this was indeed the doctrine we had when I was in - something about losing the odd soldier to bullets than an entire squad burning to death from an RPG. Therefore, if CMBS is representing real-life doctrine, I'd rather go with this.

[Sublime]

59 minutes ago, lapdog33 said:

yes, theres just one problem with that

we wont have atgm use only toggle , follow vehicles, hull down, shoot and scoot  simply because adding that is too hard for bfc and requires actual effort on their part so they just might aswell add non existant spoter in btr/ boost spotting to compensate the vehicle/s . i am sure its much easier than those things you mentioned,

i think its  perhaps even easier than beating russians under 7 minutes with US army and losing only 2 tanks + 1 immobolized out of 10  , without APS 

Oh i didnt say they were possible..i said why add a leave plt cmdr only button to the ui before any of those.

[Baneman]

54 minutes ago, lapdog33 said:

yes, theres just one problem with that

we wont have atgm use only toggle , follow vehicles, hull down, shoot and scoot  simply because adding that is too hard for bfc and requires actual effort on their part so they just might aswell add non existant spoter in btr/ boost spotting to compensate the vehicle/s . i am sure its much easier than those things you mentioned,

i think its  perhaps even easier than beating russians under 7 minutes with US army and losing only 2 tanks + 1 immobolized out of 10  , without APS 

lol, did you miss this thread

 over in the CMFB forum ?

See Steve's post about halfway down the page particularly : "*  New vehicle follow capability.  Yes, yes, I can hear the CMBO customers saying “FINALLY!” since they were the first to ask for it’s inclusion nearly 20 years ago.  While this is not an all encompassing “Follow Command” as we wanted (sorry, we tried… it proved unwieldy) it does allow vehicles to follow each other in a column with appropriate “traffic control” behavior.  The UI is very simple. You select Vehicle 1, plot a path, select Vehicle 2, hover the mouse over Vehicle 1 (similar to embarking infantry) then click to associate Vehicle 2 to Vehicle 1's movement.  Vehicle 2 will now follow Vehicle 1 as best it can. "

And in this one :

in Steve's October 12 post :

Holman said : "By the way, in remapping my keys I noticed that there's a new entry call "Hull Down"..."
Steve said : "Good eyes!"
Hilts said : "Yeah, I noticed that too but it doesn't seem to be operative even if you assign a key to it. I'm thinking it may become available in the impending 4.0 upgrade"
Steve said : "Good guess"

 

[Battlefront.com]

14 hours ago, IanL said:

 Is there some resources that show the Russian army leaves someone in that chair? 

That's the key issue here.  If Russian SOP is for the Squad Leader to dismount, then that's what the game should do.  If you don't like the results of it, kindly email the Russian MoD and ask them to change their doctrine

The BMP situation underscores one of the inherent weaknesses of the BMP3 in that it isn't a very good IFV because traditional Soviet designs emphasize small vehicles over functional ones.  Western IFVs are more functional primarily because they are more spacious.  Even then they had to compromise in some ways to make everything fit and function adequately.

Steve

[snarre]

ceep it that way  only thing what i wish to black sea is biger inf formation to russian side , because max ammount of persons in squad is now 6 .

[Marwek77 aka Red Reporter]

So i tried this: I attached to BTR Platoon 3 immobilized trucks and used their drivers as vehicle commanders...

It cost me 43 points for Regulars with Higher morale or 46 point for Veterans with Higher morale

Sniper Team (2 men) cost me 28 points or 30 points for VETS

Scout Team (3 men) cost me 47 points or 50 points for VETS

I think truck is quite expensive choise then... Also i dont know if the driver is good at position of IFV/APC commander...

[A Canadian Cat]

19 hours ago, hattori said:

Battlefront kind of hacked the loading of Bradleys to fit into their program without major overhauls.  

Ah that's not the same thing.  The Bradely hack was to prevent the need to cross load troops in ways that the engine did not support splitting the squads (not to mention having to split in odd ways to load the platoon would be frustrating for us players too).  The capabilities of a commander for the IFV and a commander or the squad is how it actually is.

 

19 hours ago, hattori said:

They could also do a hackish solution and just put a crew member in the vehicle in that position to do the spotting, or turn on some boolean flag to tell the engine to treat all the BMPs as if they had a commander in that position for spotting, even when empty.  No idea how they've coded it, that just sounds easiest if they want to address it.

Ah, no.  If the Russian doctrine is that when loaded the squad leader is the vehicle commander and when the squad dismounts he goes with them then that is what they should do. *We* are hacking things by splitting off guys to stay in the vehicle or purchasing other teams to add to the vehicle.  Doing that is unrealistic. 

BFC no hacks please.

[Sublime]

20 hours ago, Baneman said:

lol, did you miss this thread

 over in the CMFB forum ?

See Steve's post about halfway down the page particularly : "*  New vehicle follow capability.  Yes, yes, I can hear the CMBO customers saying “FINALLY!” since they were the first to ask for it’s inclusion nearly 20 years ago.  While this is not an all encompassing “Follow Command” as we wanted (sorry, we tried… it proved unwieldy) it does allow vehicles to follow each other in a column with appropriate “traffic control” behavior.  The UI is very simple. You select Vehicle 1, plot a path, select Vehicle 2, hover the mouse over Vehicle 1 (similar to embarking infantry) then click to associate Vehicle 2 to Vehicle 1's movement.  Vehicle 2 will now follow Vehicle 1 as best it can. "

And in this one :

in Steve's October 12 post :

Holman said : "By the way, in remapping my keys I noticed that there's a new entry call "Hull Down"..."
Steve said : "Good eyes!"
Hilts said : "Yeah, I noticed that too but it doesn't seem to be operative even if you assign a key to it. I'm thinking it may become available in the impending 4.0 upgrade"
Steve said : "Good guess"

 

Nope i seen em all. hopefully they all come through and dont end up being made then endlessly complained about.... honestly most of those are things others care more abt than me

I want an atgm toggle and no lwr abrams lol.

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, IanL said:

Ah that's not the same thing.  The Bradely hack was to prevent the need to cross load troops in ways that the engine did not support splitting the squads (not to mention having to split in odd ways to load the platoon would be frustrating for us players too).  The capabilities of a commander for the IFV and a commander or the squad is how it actually is.

Thanks for beating me to explaining that   Bradleys have dedicated crews because it makes little sense to have an IFV that is dependent upon dismounts for core functionality, or put the other way dismounts which are saddled with core vehicle responsibilities.  Which is one of the reasons the BMP-3 is a flawed design.

The problem with Bradley dismounts is that in real the Squads are split up in ways the game system can't readily handle, and players quite frankly would hate even if we did it "correctly".  So we shuffled things around so that the player doesn't need to micromanage internal Squad assignments across the Platoon.  As Ian said, this has nothing to do with crews.

2 hours ago, IanL said:

 

Ah, no.  If the Russian doctrine is that when loaded the squad leader is the vehicle commander and when the squad dismounts he goes with them then that is what they should do. *We* are hacking things by splitting off guys to stay in the vehicle or purchasing other teams to add to the vehicle.  Doing that is unrealistic. 

BFC no hacks please.

Don't worry, we won't

Steve