Inf firirng at buttoned up tanks

[Bartokomus]

I *know* this has been discussed; i just don't recall and can't seem to find if it's been addressed/going to be addressed.

2 man team zook team sneaking up on a Panther; after 20 minutes, i finally hunt them at the start of the turn and they make contact. the zook soldier starts aiming, and just to be helpful his good friend beside him decides he's bored and shoots at the buttoned up tank. ridiculous.

I like fighting against tanks with inf; i like the challenge and planning. There is no intelligent defense for the AI's behaviour to shoot a Garand at a buttoned tank.

[Ranger33]

I'm playing a PBEM of Carbide Carbide as the Germans and I can certainly say that this issue is not as bad as it was. There are Shermans rolling all over the map but my infantry have resisted the urge shoot at them for the most part. I remember in the initial release infantry would just hammer away with everything they had at a tank 800m away and buttoned up.

[Bartokomus]

I'm sure you're right; but there is still a great deal more improvement to be done. but the concept of tank hunting is fairly broken right now.

[sburke]

I'm sure you're right; but there is still a great deal more improvement to be done. but the concept of tank hunting is fairly broken right now.

Not so sure I agree with that as a blanket statement. Last night I had instances in 2 separate battles. In one I had an At team lying in a tall grass tile do a nice job of taking out a greyhound without first revealing their position by taking potshots at the exposed gunner. The second is a dawn scenario and another team took out a vehicle that was already surpressed by mortar fire. This At team was behind a hedgerow and I expect that crew never saw where the shot came from. I think so much depends on circumstances that generalizations can obscure factors that influence the behavior.

Overall I have had pretty good luck hunting enemy units and bad luck with them hunting mine so often that I am really shy about putting my vehicles in harms way without infantry if the terrain offers decent concealment. Usually I am smacking my forehead as I hear that distinctive sound of an AT round being fired.

[Amizaur]

Well, for me it's not an argument that "it doesn't happen always". It just shouln't happen at all (or once in 100 cases - that could simulate a very stupid soldier).

The algorithm of two-man AT teams atacking a tank is not working corretly, it has been admitted.

Sometimes not all conditions for "open fire with small arms" are met and the suporting soldiers do not shoot, but on the other hand quite often they do when they shouldn't and it's VERY frustrating...

It just should be fixed.

Even multiple-man teams with AT capability, should stay quite and show some self-preservation instinct if there is a tank nearby. The priority is to stay undetected and get the tank by suprise, untill it's destroyed and then they can return to "normal mode".

Sure, if the tank is unbuttoned, buttoning it by shooting at the commander is a good way to help the AT team in their task. But NOT!!! buttoning BY THE SAME TEAM which is going to do the AT work !!! By shooting they would just bring tank's attention to their direction and likely get killed or supressed, also drastically decrease chances for succesfull AT-weapon launch.

Other teams, that are not directly involved with AT (have no AT weapons or are out-of-range of their AT weapons) can and maybe should fire small arms at the tank to help the involved team. But the team (dedicated AT team, or ordinary infantry team with AT capabilities) that is going to aim and shoot at the tank, should stay quite and not reveal their position.

It could be some rule like - IF the team has AT capability AND a tank is in their range, THEN other members of the team just stay low and do NOT shoot at the tank (even unbuttoned one), the only involved man is the AT shooter. They can shoot only to other infantry if threatened.

It's obvious that it's better to face an unbuttoned tank that do not see the AT team, and get's a HEAT round by surprise, than a tank buttoned but aware of the threat that rotetes the turret and starts to spread fire on the "buttoning" team....

The unawarness of the tank and surprising it is MORE important and BETTER than "buttoning" it, if you have to choose one.

There is also the other side of the story - I think the tank commanders should be more prone to buttoning up when first bullet ricochets from the turret. If they were not fanatic SS members, they would rather value their life I think !

Instead I often see them unbuttoned for long periods (several seconds, up to 10) while intense small arms or even intense MG fire is hitting all over the turret !!!

Then they have lot's of time to notice, where this smalls arms fire is coming from.

If they just dropped down (saving their lifes) on first sign of someone trying to hole their heads (first bullet striking the turret), they would have much less time to notice where the shots are caming from and the "buttoning" work of enemy infantry would be less likely to reveal their positions.

Do we believe than in real life a commander riding on a noisy tank, would immediately know the source of a single shot that ricochetted from the metal near him or just whizzed by his head ? I believe that he would rarely look in the right direction to notice the muzzle flash, and rarely be close-enough to hear and locate the shots by ear. He would just know "someone is shooting", maybe with some very general info about fire direction.

P.S. It would be _NICE_ if the teams/soldiers which found themselves looking directly at the hole in the tank's barrel - stopped shooting and hit the dirt (maybe activated the "hide" mode) - to reduce casualities. It's quite easy to tell, if you are threatened by the tank or not - if the barrel is looking in different direction, you can expose yourself and fire at it relatively safely. If the barrel is rotating and pointing at you - better hide if you want to live. Even the most stupid soldier on a battlefield would understand this, I believe.

So - question to BF - would it be much coding, to make our pixel heroes stop shooting and hide, if a barrel of a tank (for simplicity - not ANY tank, but a one tank closest to them that they can see) is pointing the gun within 10 degrees from their position ??

I believe such small modification would make infantry much more survivable against tanks, and tanks much less "infantry slaughters" than now.

[MikeyD]

I'm trying to recall the last time infantry has fired at a 'buttoned' tank of mine. When I've got tanks moving across a field the bullets fly. I button-up and it stops. Unbutton, it restarts, button up it stops again. Like flipping a switch. I've seen infantry shooting at light armor, but that's because paper-thin side armor is vulnerable to small arms fire. But not shooting at a buttoned Panther.

If I had my d'ruthers I'd like to see more TCs get nailed by incoming fire than happens now. If you were just able to nail the TC and suppressed the crew more often you wouldn't be quite so against firing against enemy tanks.

[GreenAsJade]

I think that this is not about "any old infantry", but about AT sqauds.

I think they do fire small arms at buttoned tanks, as the OP said. I will try to catch a movie next time it happens to me.

GaJ

[Bartokomus]

I want BFC to know i personally blame them for the death of Pvt. Rawls and his unnamed idiotic squadmate. They were KIA'd in the line of duty, with the last words from Rawl's mouth being "WTF, why did you do that?"...