More on Fanatical Tank Crews

[Wiggum]

But would it not look even more stupid and absurd having them attack with only a few shots for their weapons ?

Sorry, this is way too funny...

Can you imagine a WW2 movie in 300 (Sparta) style about those fanatic uber tank crews winning the war on their own ?

[kulik]

Just on firepower note, on really close range i would bet my money on 5 guys armed with semiauto pistol than 5 guys with bolt action rifles.

[akd]

Bailed-out crews continuing to follow the AI plans is a problem, but a minor one not likely to be encountered often, and when encountered likely to only be an oddity. Consider the following:

1. Only a portion of AI crews will survive to bail out of their tank.

2. Upon bailing, they will be almost always be in "panic" or "shaken" state and be unresponsive until recovered, which can take several minutes, if nothing happens in the interim to break their morale.

3. Even once recovered, they will be fragile and break again easily once put under stress.

4. If they aren't an HQ crew themselves, recovered crews will almost certainly remain out of command for the duration of the scenario, making them even more fragile.

5. Bailed crews are likely to have taken casualties, so the AI may have a 3-4 man fragile team with nothing but short range firepower and very little ammo. In addition, some crews don't have SMGs, so the AI may also have a team armed only with pistols (very short range firepower).

6. Those few crews that do survive and recover sufficiently to continue the AI plan are likely to following a plan specific to armor that will be useless to small teams of men armed with pistols and an occasional SMG.

And considering the above, I'm not concerned at all about human players using bailed crews as infantry. Against a decent opponent, it would be pure folly.

[Wodin]

Haha this is friggin hilarious.

I will DEFINITELY be using this tactic vs human opponents.

I wonder if there will be an option to purchase "tank crew" units without the tank in QBs. Sure hope so.

Your becoming quite noxious.....if you don't like then go back to CMBB and have some fun...if you can't excpet every game will have bugs that need ironed out on release then your deluded...seems your getting great pleasure in seeing anything that isn't right in the game...sad mate

[sburke]

Bailed-out crews continuing to follow the AI plans is a problem, but a minor one not likely to be encountered often, and when encountered likely to only be an oddity. Consider the following:

1. Only a portion of AI crews will survive to bail out of their tank.

2. Upon bailing, they will be almost always be in "panic" or "shaken" state and be unresponsive until recovered, which can take several minutes, if nothing happens in the interim to break their morale.

3. Even once recovered, they will be fragile and break again easily once put under stress.

4. If they aren't an HQ crew themselves, recovered crews will almost certainly remain out of command for the duration of the scenario, making them even more fragile.

5. Bailed crews are likely to have taken casualties, so the AI may have a 3-4 man fragile team with nothing but short range firepower and very little ammo. In addition, some crews don't have SMGs, so the AI may also have a team armed only with pistols (very short range firepower).

6. Those few crews that do survive and recover sufficiently to continue the AI plan are likely to following a plan specific to armor that will be useless to small teams of men armed with pistols and an occasional SMG.

And considering the above, I'm not concerned at all about human players using bailed crews as infantry. Against a decent opponent, it would be pure folly.

As with a couple other game issues that have been cited it would look like we would need a little more data before reaching any conclusions.

I have had this happen a couple times in both CtG and BtB. In Busting the Bocage the panzershreck team that took out the tank then proceeded to gun down the crew in the same turn. Later an American Tk crew came rolling into the sunken lane surprising the handful of men I had left defending the line there. They managed to make the closest landser cower before the other 3 gunned em down. In CtG the couple of German crews that managed to reorganize to attack the town didn't last much longer than the amount of time they were in sight.

I do find it more than a little funny though that after all this there are human players who are doing the same as the AI. Maybe there really isn't anything wrong with the AI and it is PERFECTLY emulating human player behavior. :-P

Personally I agree, crews from destroyed tanks should high tail it to the rear, but I don't know how that would affect being able to dismount to scout or being able to remount a team that had simply bailed a functional vehicle. I would prefer to keep those and the fanatical behavior rather than lose them.

[Baneman]

Bailed-out crews continuing to follow the AI plans is a problem, but a minor one not likely to be encountered often, and when encountered likely to only be an oddity. Consider the following:

1. Only a portion of AI crews will survive to bail out of their tank.

2. Upon bailing, they will be almost always be in "panic" or "shaken" state and be unresponsive until recovered, which can take several minutes, if nothing happens in the interim to break their morale.

3. Even once recovered, they will be fragile and break again easily once put under stress.

4. If they aren't an HQ crew themselves, recovered crews will almost certainly remain out of command for the duration of the scenario, making them even more fragile.

5. Bailed crews are likely to have taken casualties, so the AI may have a 3-4 man fragile team with nothing but short range firepower and very little ammo. In addition, some crews don't have SMGs, so the AI may also have a team armed only with pistols (very short range firepower).

6. Those few crews that do survive and recover sufficiently to continue the AI plan are likely to following a plan specific to armor that will be useless to small teams of men armed with pistols and an occasional SMG.

And considering the above, I'm not concerned at all about human players using bailed crews as infantry. Against a decent opponent, it would be pure folly.

In my case

1. Of the 4 crews, only 1 had taken a single casualty.

2. Yes, it took a few turns before the "Charge of the Tank Crews" developed.

3&4. Hmmm, dunno about this one, all 4 crews charged a good 100+ metres taking fire all the way ( they only took 1 additional casualty total during their mad charge before reaching engagement distance ).

5&6. Well, they caused at least 5 casualties to my guys before getting suppressed over about 3 turns. Now my hold on the town was tenuous and if the AI had had even a single infantry squad, the hurt the crews laid down could well have tipped the balance against me holding it.

A human player could well combine crews with regrouped survivors to do that sort of damage.

Ideally the solution would be to tone down their firepower (ammo?) ( my guys were in a building and they were in the open FFS !! ) and/or hardcode them to head to the rear.

I can't see anyone seriously objecting to the latter solution ( I imagine that one could set this to apply only if their vehicle is KO'd, removing issues with scouting dismounted crew )

[SNAFU]

This is rather strange (scratches head). I've played a few scenarios now and haven't seen anything like what is being described here. The crews from tanks I take out (and from those I have lost) make tracks for their respective rear echelons.

I think I saw it posted in this thread that the player was using lower difficulty settings. I've only been playing on elite setting. Is it possible that this setting has a "ghost" efect on the crews? How many playtesters actually used the easier difficulty settings (I wouldn't have wanted to ).

I sure am looking forward to the full release of the game. I need some more scenarios LOL! I played Road to Berlin tonight and only lost 9 KIA and 12 WIA. Getting to know these maps a little too well I think...

[crowbar]

similar ending to the scenario - what tends to happen is both sides run out of infantry towards the end - shermans were camped on the objective markers and saw german mg teams (mg s not deployed) sent forward into the grinder and oblivion.

Not having more panzerfausts as equipment on german infantry teams is a real problem in this scenario - if more than the one squad had them it would be a closer run thing

also from the german point of view the right flank of the map shows up the low hedgerows as a pain - tried to bulldoze a route through with 2 sdkfz 234/1 and then 2 panthers as an alternative to having your infantry shredded by 3 brownings when approaching the flank objective

seriously not one gap ? had more than enough of that in brothers in arms games

[Rokko]

That pissed me off, too! But I've read that this is intentional so you do not "hug" the edge of the map too much. But as the scenario description says, the use of smoke is recommended. What I did was to suppress the buildings that had LOS on the street with my HMGs and PSWs and then FAST my squads one after another to the forest or the bocage behind that field. Worked quite well...the third time I did that mission...

[Ardem]

Its not so much hugging the map the reason why you want to go over the hedgerows, it is because running down the road in the opening is stupid. I though low hedges would be passable, like cmx1 but obviously not. Not sure why they changed this.

And why wouldn't you want to flank the town, it make tactical sense to get a fire position on a flank. I did do it until the 60mm mortars decided to wipe out a two squads in the woods. Woods obviously don't have the same protection they had in the past.