benefits from infantry closing following tanks

[Bill Slim]

Hi - I'm working on combinations on the infantry-tank team. There are obvious benefits for tank crews of deploying infantry with tanks in terrain heavy with enemy AT weapons. But do the infantry gain any real benefit from moving closely behind armour (besides having direct gunfire support) - ie, do they benefit from being 'in cover' behind the tank, does the tank's armour add to the resilience of the infanty? I've just played a scenario in which I deployed three M4's with a rifle platoon - and moved a squad behind each tank. The force was fired upon from their 12'o clock (ie, straight ahead) and my infantry immediately hit the ground, pinned, and did not return fire for nearly the entire turn. I would have thought the natural reaction would have been to 'hug' the armour before returning fire.

any thoughts? thanks

[juan_gigante]

The armor does NOT block line of sight, so the enemy was able to shoot right through the tanks and hit your infantry. It is done this way because to have armor and everything dynamically block LOS would be a huge processor drain. I think that Steve might have mentioned something about a sort of workaround for CM:SF, but I don't remember exactly what that was.

[JasonC]

Realistically, the tank itself can't block much fire for many men, from many shooter locations, anyway. Overwatch not physical protection is the main way tanks help infantry. It is perfectly effective, too. Some won't challenge the tanks, and those that do frequently can't keep their fire up very long against the replies. So the infantry advances, gets shot, goes to ground, tanks suppress shooters, infantry gets up again, new shooter drops them again, tanks suppress again, infantry gets up again. Soon the infantry advances into suppressed defenders and digs them out of their holes. That sequence, not physically interposing the tank, is how armor allows infantry to advance.

[Renaud]

I believe the new engine will have vehicles blocking LOS but not shot-path. Meaning shots intended for another target fly through intervening vehicles...or something like that. Anyway, LOS is the biggie. Now those tank-clusters become self-defeating and proper formation and spacing assumes much greater importance.

[David Chapuis]

Originally posted by Renaud:

I believe the new engine will have vehicles blocking LOS but not shot-path.

im pretty sure you have that backwards. i think they block fire, but not LOS.