Why are we firing rifles at tanks?

[Runyan99]

Someone mentioned that AT teams are revealing themselves early because the man with the rifle is opening up before the guy with the schreck gets a round off.

My thought was infantry in general seems far too eager to pluck away at armor with small arms to no purpose or effect.

For example, a 4 man AT ammo crew opens up on an unbottoned Sherman 400 yards away (at least) with 98ks. After the first few rounds, the tank buttons up. The men continue to bounce rifle rounds off the front of the tank, until the tank finally spots the fire and sends a 75mm round downrange killing 3 of the 4.

Why oh why?

[MikeyD]

Funny, I don't ever see infantry firing at tanks - not unless they're unbuttoned and you have an outside chance of kiling the TC or at least getting him to button up. Light armored stuff is another matter. A HMG will go through through a HT at a respectable distance. Tanks in the game start unbuttoned by default so you gotta to something to cause him to button up.

[sandy]

Or in the case of my AT team - SMGs

I have an AT team with 2 Pzfausts and 2 demo charges; they are hiding less than 10 m from an M5, so I order them to attack.

Both men open up with their MP40s...is their plan to use their AT assets after they are dead? But surprisingly enough they do nothing after they are dead...

I never saw this kind of REALLY stupid AI in CM1

[James Crowley]

Had a jeep, passing a burning Stummel, get knocked-out when the ammo blew up. Very cool.

Not so cool was the four man jeep crew (an HQ unit I think), who were panicked, jumping out of the jeep and charging at another MG armed half-track and firing their .45 pistols at it. Needless to say, they all died - very quickly.

[Caesar]

This bugs me too. My HMG targetted a sherman uselessly (well, as far as I know it was useless) while nice soft men ran right by it. Now the stupid git is about to be killed by the same guys he ignored. The sherman was much further away than the infantry.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

Not so cool was the four man jeep crew (an HQ unit I think), who were panicked, jumping out of the jeep and charging at another MG armed half-track and firing their .45 pistols at it. Needless to say, they all died - very quickly.

They're working on that issue for the patch.

[Wengart]

I often see infantry firing at unbuttoned tanks.

Even if they had an outside chance of hitting the TC its still an absurd thing to do. 30-40 Ton tank rolling towards your position, what do you do? Open up on the TC or hunker down and not get shot?

I mean hell even if an HMG manages to peg the TC the end result will almost certainly be a lost position, lost surprise, and a better than average chance of a dead HMG team.

Seriously I've probably lost upwards of 50 men in all my games combined to this stupid decision making, and I've only ever seen one TC go down this way.

[Dadekster88]

I agree. I can see taking that pot shot or even a long rip at some TC bobbing about but once that chance goes bye bye I wish they'd stop engaging and just either select a better target or even wait till the potential threat to their existance goes away. I can see the last part not happening as that kind of AI/probable decision making just doesn't exist yet but better target selection (assuming all other conditions to allow targeting are met) would be great. I spend to much time babysitting units such as the mentioned MG crew plunking rounds off of armour they have no hope of defeating. Shermans/Panzers should not be mistaken for HT's I think so not sure what the issue is.

[RockinHarry]

I´ve noticed in Busting the Bocage demo scen, that some my infantry units (incl. HMG) shooting at buttoned tanks, when these moved into a preset covered arc. But there was also enemy infantry "near" (10-20m) the tanks, so it could be, the infantry was targeted, but some stray bullets hit the buttoned tank as well. Hard to tell, since oftenly one can hardly distinguish who is shooting who (on single soldier base).

[MikeyD]

Its not just you firing at the exposed TC, its you and your full squad and whoever else might be able to get a bead on him. Volume fire. Infantry manuals say to shoot out the optics and shoot at the exposed crew. They don't say to cower and let him pass unmolested. A buttoned-up tank might not be able to spot you, especially with a shot-out periscope and dead TC bleeding all over the crew. An unbuttoned TC has a commanding view of the battlefield from 10 feet off the ground. He'll eventually spot you and kill you.

[Bradley Dick]

Sometimes I set a covered arc much shorter than I have to so that I can prevent my men from firing on tanks. I would prefer them not to engage tanks with rifles and machine guns. On the other hand, I occasionally get an infantry squad armed with only rifles, SMG's and grenades to flush a crew from their hatches.

I guess the price to pay for an occasional screw up by the AT team is the once per career event of a bloodied rifle team taking out a PzIV.

[JG11Preusse]

Funny, I don't ever see infantry firing at tanks - not unless they're unbuttoned and you have an outside chance of kiling the TC or at least getting him to button up. Light armored stuff is another matter. A HMG will go through through a HT at a respectable distance. Tanks in the game start unbuttoned by default so you gotta to something to cause him to button up.

thats not funny and i saw infantry shooting with k98 at a shermann.

i described it here in the forum and got the answer, that its a known bug.

[dieseltaylor]

Infantry manuals say to shoot out the optics and shoot at the exposed crew.

Please can you provide source material linkies . MikeyD

[MikeyD]

Its a known bug I've never seen. Still don't see infantry plinking at buttoned tanks. When I see it I'll see it.

[MikeyD]

Please can you provide source material linkies . MikeyD

Manuals. Go to town:

http://www.90thidpg.us/Reference/Manuals/index.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/FM/index.html

[womble]

Its not just you firing at the exposed TC, its you and your full squad and whoever else might be able to get a bead on him. Volume fire. Infantry manuals say to shoot out the optics and shoot at the exposed crew. They don't say to cower and let him pass unmolested. A buttoned-up tank might not be able to spot you, especially with a shot-out periscope and dead TC bleeding all over the crew. An unbuttoned TC has a commanding view of the battlefield from 10 feet off the ground. He'll eventually spot you and kill you.

However, in this case, it seems to me that the game doesn't model the effects I presume the manuals realistically expected. Buttoned tanks, especially those driven by humans can and will throw HE at any dismounts that can be even vaguely localised, leading to the loss of those dismounts, by and large, and the optics damage and minimal chance of nailing a TC (haven't lost one AFAICT to 'spray and pray' infantry yet) don't seem to be worth the losses that the game engine generates in response to this RL-doctrinally-correct behaviour.

[RockinHarry]

Please can you provide source material linkies . MikeyD

I too have (german) manuals to my avail, but those prescribing tank engagement guidelines are all pre-/early war and quite vague in nature.

I guess this mostly counts for "engaging" early war single tanks with infantry fire power, on an enemy that has little developed, sensible machinery and combined arms tactics, as well as lacking experienced, good morale crews.

I remember some accounts from the french and early eastern campaigns, where amassed infantry fire was applied on single (buttoned) tanks, in order to shake the crews morale, but I do not think that there were many vital parts of the AVF, that could effectively be damaged this way.

Engaging an unbuttoned crew is rather "safe" from return fire, when either single marksmen are used (from well covered, concealed position) or MG fire at greater distance, where the buttoned tank has little to no chance to discover the firer.

From reading various accounts, if vision blocks or similar equipment should be affected, then either AT rifles are used, or rifles/MGs loaded with special AP ammunition. But again, this would be tasked to single marksman (either with AT rifle, MG or rifle) and from concealed positions.

Before all, infantry is to fight enemy infantry, unless it has a reasonable chance to hurt/kill an AFV by close combat means.

[Wengart]

Its not just you firing at the exposed TC, its you and your full squad and whoever else might be able to get a bead on him. Volume fire. Infantry manuals say to shoot out the optics and shoot at the exposed crew. They don't say to cower and let him pass unmolested. A buttoned-up tank might not be able to spot you, especially with a shot-out periscope and dead TC bleeding all over the crew. An unbuttoned TC has a commanding view of the battlefield from 10 feet off the ground. He'll eventually spot you and kill you.

But how often was this advice followed? Commanders would have liked their riflemen to put fire down during an advance even if they didn't have a target, but did riflemen do this? No, because it made them a target.

And without player set SOPs it severely limits your tactical options when the opponent has armor. What if I want my men to fire for 5-10 seconds on the advancing infantry before falling back to a new hedgerow? What if I have the terrain in front of them covered by AT guns or friendly armor?

And on top of all of that the tacai in CM:BN can't judge the situation as a whole well enough. Sure if one tank rolls up buttoning him may be a good idea, but what if its a platoon of tanks? Button one and chances are the squad is as good as dead.

And this may be only anecdotal, but as I've said I've lost upwards of 50 men to this action, and I've only confirmed a single TC kill. It's just not worth it.

On infantry firing at buttoned tanks: I sometimes see troops continue to fire for a small duration after the tank buttons. This is usually at long range, so I just it was FOW in action.

[phil stanbridge]

I think infantry are a little too trigger-happy when it comes to firing at tanks but that's just my opinion. I have to say, I think all of them have been unbuttoned in my case so maybe they were trying their luck. Either way it doesn't stop the 'uber-spotting tank AI' from finding their target pretty damn quick. Does anyone know how accurate it is for a HMG to fire at tanks anyway? I've not played *that* many missions but the ones I have played as German have seen the MG42's fire at tanks at relatively far distances which seems a bit pointless to me. So I've now taken to using cover arcs for virtually all my infantry which is a PITA.

[Runyan99]

For self preservation and concealment purposes, I think infantry should not use small arms against armor, absent an explicit Target Unit command from the player.

The risk/reward for staying quiet in your hole versus plinking away at 300m seems like a no-brainer to me, no matter what the manual says.

[LemoN]

Fully agreed Runyan99!

[Vanir Ausf B]

Its not just you firing at the exposed TC, its you and your full squad and whoever else might be able to get a bead on him. Volume fire. Infantry manuals say to shoot out the optics and shoot at the exposed crew. They don't say to cower and let him pass unmolested. A buttoned-up tank might not be able to spot you, especially with a shot-out periscope and dead TC bleeding all over the crew. An unbuttoned TC has a commanding view of the battlefield from 10 feet off the ground. He'll eventually spot you and kill you.

I want you to be my permanent PBEM opponent. Seriously, that is pure suicide in the game.

[gunnergoz]

Except for the experienced and/or very well trained and disciplined infantry, the natural impulse of many at the first sighting of tanks, is to bolt for the rear, not fire away at the d@mn thing. Seems to me that firing small arms at the tank should be the final act of desperation of an infantry unit that either can not or must not withdraw.

If they are armed with light anti-tank weapons like rifle grenades, bazookas, etc then possibly it would behoove them to wait until ordered and - again, maybe - all open fire at the same time as the AT teams so as to maximize surprise and shock effect on the tank(s) as well as hopefully hit exposed crew, damage optics, and other wild-@ssed hopes of desperation. Sometimes those things actually accomplish something positive.

The other thing to consider is that if the enemy is halfway smart, the tanks will only be slightly ahead of their accompanying foot infantry and that is what your defending infantry should be aiming to preserve their firepower for, and not unnecessarily exposing their positions to by shooting at the tanks with little hope of gain.

If the game doesn't always work this way now, it is something I hope to see improved as it evolves. Hopefully the new cover arc commands supposedly in the works for the Bulge game will address some of this.

[Michael Emrys]

For self preservation and concealment purposes, I think infantry should not use small arms against armor, absent an explicit Target Unit command from the player.

Agreed. Small arms fire at armor should be at the discretion of the player. And even then, there should be some chance, depending on all the usual "soft factors", that such an order might not be obeyed.

Michael

[Ranger33]

Just played a H2H match where I lost at least 20 infantry as a direct result of them firing on Shermans that were 500+ meters away. They plinked away with no discernible effect, until the tank answered with a few HE rounds, shattering an entire squad. There can't be anything realistic about that.