Infantry in buildings

[iggi]

I noticed that infantry in buildings can receive a large amount of punishment before they retreat.

In LD, I had the tiger and a stugg fire about 4-5 rounds into the building before the US squad retreated. I noticed that once the US squad targeted my infantry, it seemed that it was even more stubborn. Some tank rounds didn't even budge the US squad as it was dishing out fire to my infantry.

I know this is a beta. I was thinking that if it was myself,(I can't speak for veterans), and a tank round ripped into my hiding place, it would be a good time to move.

I would be thinking that I have been spotted and the next round will hit home. I play alot of multiplayer half-life and once a bazooka round lands near you, you had better move to hope he loses sight and then try to aquire him before he can fire on you again. If you stayed still, you are 98.95% dead.

So are infantry squads more sensitive in the final version than in the beta to incoming tank rounds?

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"Don't tickle with the fingers, hit with the fist"

-Heinz Guderian

[Lanzfeld]

Yeah I noticed this too. In CE when one of my MG42 crews just stay put and target a buttoned sherman. Gee...what a great way to draw HE shells. This is NOT realistic to me. Sometimes I get lucky and this happens near the end of a turn so I can Withdraw them at the start of the next turn. Sometimes not. All I know is.....HE shells start to land on me and my crew??? Time to go.

[Brian Rock]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I noticed that infantry in buildings can receive a large amount of punishment before they retreat. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

A feature, not a bug.

If it only took one tank round to empty a building clearing a town would be a piece of cake. Infantry can be very stubborn, and IRL it usually requires sending infantry in to clear a building.

If you really need to clear buildings with vehicles then send in one packing a *big* gun - an M7 Priest with its 105mm howitzer works in treat in direct fire.

[This message has been edited by Brian Rock (edited 04-22-2000).]

[Bakker@home]

Well,clearing buildings can be interpeted as 'clearing the town of buildings' so bring in the stuh42 !

[iggi]

So are infantry squads more sensitive in the final version than in the beta to incoming tank rounds?

[Kraut]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Brian Rock:

If it only took one tank round to empty a building clearing a town would be a piece of cake. Infantry can be very stubborn, and IRL it usually requires sending infantry in to clear a building.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Unless of course you're playing CC3/CC4. There, one 75mm round will clear out any building, not to mention those terrible 37mm "super-mega-killa" anti-infantry HE rounds ...

MK

[iggi]

I will see how this plays out in WW2 online since I don't have any combat experience. I'd like to see how many players will stay in a building shooting at other infantry when a tank 200 meters away has just let loose a round in thier hiding spot.

From my halflife experience, players move alot. If I was in a squad and my sgt was ordering me to keep firing while a tank's turret is slowly adjusting it's aim...well who's going to figure out what nationality's round killed him .

[Moon]

Iggi - it is VERY dangerous to use Half-Life experience (or any other first-person shooter) as a basis for judging real-life behaviour. Due to internet lag, survivability in FPS games (Delta Force, which I am playing from time to time comes to my mind - I don't know Half-Life) is always better when moving around and shooting like Rambo.

When I was in the Army we had an instructor who earned the nickname "Crazy". During a grenade throwing drill, we were getting quite bored, so he promised to spice up the excercize. We were throwing live grenades from behind an earth wall onto an open field (with balloons marking the targets). So he said "put the grenade on top of the earth mound and hunker down". The grenade went off right above your head, maybe 4 to 5 feet away - lots of dirt came down and it was loud, but that was it (besides being sheer stupid).

While a tank HE round packs a lot more punch than a handgrenade, I just wanted to point out that sheer proximity to the blast is not the final judge with regard to survivability. Unless it goes off right in your face, being prone behind (and under) cover should allow you to take a lot of fire. The units in CM become pinned for sure and maybe eventually panic, but an HE round is certainly not an automatic kill.

[iggi]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>an HE round is certainly not an automatic kill<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sure, not an automatic kill but at least go down and stop firing for a bit. The US squad in LD was firing at my infantry *while* it,(the US squad), was taking tank fire. Sometimes it would hunkerdown and finally it would retreat. I would think the squad(visually)would go down always, right away.(unless of course there are things going on that are not visual being displayed).

I tried it again, I placed a tiger roughly 200 meters from a US squad in LD. I placed some of my infantry around the tiger to attract the US infantry into showing themselves. The US infantry pay too much attention to my infantry while the tiger pounds away at them. Selecting the US infantry shows yellow lines leading to my tiger with a red line leading to my infantry squad. That must mean they are paying more attention to my infantry while my tiger is about to kill them.My infantry was behind my tiger. Again the US infantry squad did not always go down when tiger rounds landed around them.

Is this effect still in the game or just a beta effect?

In your example moon, you knew that your instructor was called crazy. You knew it was a show if not a surprising one. When that HE round lands next to the US squad, they should understand that they have been spotted,(ie are now being actively hunted). Was the US squad too afraid to move? If so, why was it firing on my infantry while taking tank fire?

[This message has been edited by iggi (edited 04-23-2000).]

[Moon]

"If so, why was it firing on my infantry while taking tank fire?"[/]

It's called war, I guess. If all of your soldiers would go down when somebody is firing at them, the attacker would have quite an easy job. You, as the commander of your men, ordered them to stay in this house. They cannot do anything against the Tiger being there (at least from a distance and without AT weapons), so they are trying to do some damage to the infantry. As you say, they go prone when fired at and when the HE rounds land close enough. But they won't move out unless you as their commander tell them to or until they decide that it's too much (panic) and disregard what ever you ordered them to do (be in that house).

[iggi]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>If all of your soldiers would go down when somebody is firing at them,<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well if they aren't visually represented as ducking,(immediately), when they receive incoming HE rounds, is this represented in underlining statistics that the player can't see?

[SS_PanzerLeader]

IGGI

I Love to attack in CM; something that came more naturally to me than in CC2 I have found that unit survivalbility in CM is more a relative thing, as some rounds of HE are MUCH better placed than others - Alot of times I find that Targetting the wooden building RATHER than the UNIT themselves is less time consuming than actually trying to route the unit with direct fire.

The point being is that with direct fire, the tanks will often overide your targeting for a more favorable target - leaving that same unit to continue being a problem. I've seen this happen frequently with direct fire

- Unless You are shooting a stone building or infantry with a hi %kill ratio I highly reccommend using indirect and take out the building. This must be done carefully tho or you will run out of HE fast

Just my experience

[iggi]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>or you will run out of HE fast <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, my experience is that I have loads of HE left over. That's why I like unloading my HE rounds into buildings. I can't waste them fast enough Strangely, I found that my tiger likes to fight more at the beginning of a fight. In LD, the tiger takes more direct orders to shoot as the game continues, it seems to fire less on it's own with time. Thanks for the tip though. I avoid my tank's desire to switch targets by trying to present him with one target at a time(ie keeping his field of view resricted to what I want him to pounce on).

[This message has been edited by iggi (edited 04-23-2000).]

[iggi]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>You, as the commander of your men, ordered them to stay in this house. They cannot do anything against the Tiger being there (at least from a distance and without AT weapons), so they are trying to do some damage to the infantry<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That may sound logical for a wargame but I highly doubt that in such a real life situation a commander wound tell his troops to not worry about the TIGER TANK 200 meters in front of them that is adjusting his fire to kill you while your laddies play on the shooting range and take popshots at the next available infantry squad. If the tank seems like he didn't see you maybe but his barrel is pointing straight at you and you want to attract even more attention?? Bist Du kaput,mein Kapitän ?

If there's a tank that close, you have lost that piece of dirt that you are on and if a HE round goes off next to you I just can't see how an infantry squad behind my tank can be of interest to you.

Has any veteran seen this happen in real combat?? I have some military experience but no combat myself.

I have easily repeated this scenario over and over and can easily provide a movie to anyone interested I'm sure.

[This message has been edited by iggi (edited 04-24-2000).]

[JoshK]

Iggi,

I would answer your question in two ways.

First, midway through this thread you slightly alter your question to take issue with the targeting decisions of the U.S. squad. As I understand it, Tac AI targets (to a limited extent) has been altered. More importantly, units are now less likely to switch targeting against your will. Therefore, it is more likely in the final version that if you target your squad on the Tiger your men will not fire at the infantry instead.

Back to your first point. Here you seem to indicate that infantry would flee buildings once they were fired upon by heavy weapons (Tank HE, Bazooka, etc.). While I am not a combat veteran, I just want to point out that there is no shortage of WW II history books that deal with this sort of scenario. To keep it within the CM scope, I would suggest picking up a book about Market Garden (Frost's battalion was battered by Tank HE for days and held out); or about the battle of the bulge, where small U.S. rearguard actions often centered on small villages, held out against armored assault by hunkering down and taking HE fire.

Just two very general examples, as all of my books are at home.

Regards,

Josh

[iggi]

I was playing the Germans. I had placed a tiger tank 200-250 meters from a US squad in a house in LD. The house on the opposite side of the wall. The side where the halftracks appear. Try it yourself and place infantry behind your tiger. I'm not saying that I wanted to control where the US infantry were firing. However, it seems that the US infantry want my infantry so bad that they are not affected by multiple HE explosions from my tiger tank. They don't even duck until they receive 5+ rounds. This was not a large appartment complex. They must be really brave , I guess.

[Ben Galanti]

Perhaps what part of it is, Iggi, is that when a squad lies down in CM, it represents that the unit is suprressed (or hiding). It doesn't litteraly mean that each member is lying on the ground.

If the unit is just sitting there, all it means is that they have not been rattled enough to considerably lower their rate of fire (though, I think the rate does get lowered somewhat). Ducking their heads, hiding behind tables, or whatever is all abstracted in. If the HE fire from the tank isn't causing any casualties, I would expect the grunts to keep firing at a somewhat normal rate of fire (though, obviously, not as high as if they were under no fire at all). Now, that being said, I seem to remember that one of the things that goes into moral checking for a unit is whether it's recently been fired on by an AFV (though, I might be confusing that with CC, hrm, a beta tester will have to chime in...) Anyway, if that's the case, then a unit will be a bit more rattled by tank fire, and will be more likely to break. Again though, if the tank fire isn't hurting the squad any, I don't see why they would leave... Now, if you try this same expirement with the squad in open ground, you obviously get a completely different result. Again, becuase the squad will actually be taking casualties.

Now, if your question is why they weren't taking any casualties from an 88 250m away, that's a different point

[iggi]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>It doesn't litteraly mean that each member is lying on the ground.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>That must be true. The abstraction makes it look like the explosions don't bother them.

[Doug Beman]

I agree with Ben. If you have a 10 man squad in a house, they're not going to be packed into one room. A couple guys will be in the kitchen, a couple in the living room, etc. A HE shell hitting near the kitchen will cause the men there to duck and cover, but the guys behind the table in the living room will be less affected. Sustained fire will eventually force all the men to cover (and then to panic) because it takes a lot longer for the soldiers to recover from suppression than to be suppressed in the first place (the first units to take cover won't recover before the next group takes cover, and so on)

DjB

[Dschugaschwili]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Bakker@home:

Well,clearing buildings can be interpeted as 'clearing the town of buildings' so bring in the stuh42 ! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Is that what you're doing in Riesberg at the moment?

Dschugaschwili

[Fionn]

I've attacked a number of heavily defended villages in the latest betas and about the best I can say is that at no time did I feel that the modelling of infantry vulnerability in buildings was wrong. It "felt right".

Since no-one really has figures and statistics about how many HE rounds it takes to clear a squad out of a 10 metre by 10 metre house etc all we can go on is our "feel" of the situation. Personally I think we all have to remember that the 1 storey buildings in CM can actually represent two-story houses 10 to 15 metres wide and up to 10 metres deep. Those are BIG houses and take a lot of pounding to bring down. If you think of it logically any house of that size can easily hold an infantry squad while being shelled with minimal risk of the squad being injured.

[spider]

How to clear a building of infantry effectively and efficiently, surround building with 2 companys upwards of pzgs

cover them with 2-3 platoons of tigers and shoot point blank with a platoon of brummbars,

that should do the trick

(all urban operations should be covered by at least 1 regiment of heavy artillery and a few 120mm mortars and wurframmen.

anyone who cant suceed with that method should try an infantry assault...

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This is my rifle,

this is my gun.

This ones for killing, this ones a tasty alternative to turkey at christmas.....

[Fionn]

Given the horrible inaccuracy of werfs you'd probably lose most of the 2 companies to your own "shorts"

[tss]

Brian Rock wrote:

If you really need to clear buildings with vehicles then send in one packing a *big* gun - an M7 Priest with its 105mm howitzer works in treat in direct fire.

Or use the Soviet method of bringing 122mm and 152mm howitzers to fire direct fire...

Iggi wrote:

That may sound logical for a wargame but I highly doubt that in such a real life situation a commander wound tell his troops to not worry about the TIGER TANK 200 meters in front of them that is adjusting his fire to kill you while your laddies play on the shooting range and take popshots at the next available infantry squad.

Well, exactly that happened in numerous battles during the Winter War. The Finnish infantrymen were facing combined (though poorly coordinated) attacks of infantry and tanks without having AT guns. The Finns then had to concentrate on killing the infantry and hoping that either the tanks will turn back when the supporting infantry is gone or that close defence patrols could destroy them using demolition charges and Molotov coctails.

Admidtedly Finns were facing T-26s and T-28s and not Tigers but from the infantryman's point of view the differences are pretty much academic. In fact, in certain situations T-28 would be more deadly because of its two MG-turrets (this advantage over Tiger is partly negated because a Tiger crew had much better visibility).

- Tommi

[Fionn]

Tommi,

The 150mm Infantry Gun is in .. I used one in a PBEM game on the defence. I set it up so that once the Americans entered the first row of buildings they'd enter a crossfire from two 150mm IGs.

It didn't quite work out as planned but one highlight of my defence was when one of my 150mm IGs took down a Light Building with a single shot and wiped out the entire US squad cowering inside .