# of people in AFV crews?

[Guest Scott Clinton]

Hey Steve:

Are vehicle crews always 'broken' when they bail out of thier vehicle? I don't recall ever seeing any NOT 'broken'. I seem to recall them all having a littl "!" next to them after they bailed out.

If they are NOT broken, should'nt/couldn't they be? I mean they were shook-up enough to abandon thier vehicle in combat...and this would also help prevent the mis-use of vechile crews IMHO.

I'm sorry, but I STILL don't like the way it appears to me vehicle crews will/can be used in CM. Holding victory locations, drawing fire, etc...

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Please note: The above is solely the opinion of 'The Grumbling Grognard' and reflects no one else's views but his own.

[wadepm]

What if the vehicle bogged not under enemy fire and the crew had plenty of time to abandon the vehicle, would they get their full complement of weapons then? If not, what are they carrying that stuff for?

[Guest Scott Clinton]

The fact of the matter is simply that when vechile crews 'bailed-out' in combat (even when only bogged in a combat zone) 99.9% of the time they did ONE thing and ONE thing only, they high-tailed it to the rear as fast as possible.

If you try to make a game where that little .1% chance can be modelled when the crew did not just head for the 'rear', then I can promise you it will be abused by players in the game.

I personally would just rather not have bailed-out crews AT ALL then to have them abused to the extent I have seen in games like Close Combat (all) and Steel Panthers.

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Please note: The above is solely the opinion of 'The Grumbling Grognard' and reflects no one else's views but his own.

[Guest Big Time Software]

I'm with Scott on this one. Sure, in theory some crews would have the time to bail out with their weapons. For example, I just had a Sherman whack itself on an AT mine in a non combat area of the map. But this is just the sort of except that tends to screw things up for the rule.

Scott, there are several things about crews that are different than normal infantry:

1. They are always marked with "!". This means they are extra brittle. But decent crews that bail out with no casualties, or perhaps one, will be phazed but not broken. But it doesn't take much to change that.

2. Crews can not hold Victory Locations, period. The equations that determine ownership of the Victory Locations only looks at combat effective units. Panicked/Broken units do not count, and neither do crews or rescued captured units. So this cheat is 100% out

3. Crews are always spotted as crews, so there is no way to run them around and make the other guy think they are squads. This was done up after Fionn tried (without success I might add) to do this against Martin in the old Alpha AAR battle.

4. They are armed with ineffective weapons with a small quantity of ammo.

5. They are worth much more alive than they are dead. This might not be readily obvious to the player, but the scoring system doesn't care about ignorance

6. In Operations you lose the potential for gaining back the vehicle which was knocked out.

Honestly, I am not sure what more we can do to discourage abusing crews. I have a feeling that most people will try this and then stop after they realize there is more to lose than there is to gain.

Like I said, we can't 100% stop abusive behavior, but we have knocked out most of the usual incentives for doing stupid tricks with crews. So we shall see

Steve

[Mark IV]

CREW ABUSE: It's Everybody's Problem.

Since the discovery of AFVCVL Syndrome, hundreds of armored crewmen have died and thousands more have been injured in senseless attacks. Some gamers seem to value a mere flag more than a digital life- please don't be one of them.

Let's give AFV crews a fighting chance- and help stop Crew Abuse forever!

A public service message from The National AFVCVL Foundation.