Supermen Infantry?
 

Hi to all,
first, thanks to the authors and the community for this wonderful games.
I playing it many times with various armies and I dont understand what I can do with tank, artillery and so on when the infantry can make all the job. Really, I have played with AI's infantry toughness set to 30 and my to 100 but I can fire with AFV, artillery and my infantry on the supermen and they reply to every shot and fight to the last men without any regard to any kind of suppression fire or casualty http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif
More than this, this iron men are the terror of the enemy tank: also the green troops of the "last" army can knock-out a tank a distance. I think: there is a bug in the game?
Also with this (for me) limitation, I like this game and play it with fun, but I think that the game will be more realistic with a infantry arm a bit less "invincible".
"Ciao" from Italy
P.S.: sorry for my bad english

Re: Supermen Infantry?
 

This question comes up about every so often. Here are two previous threads about it:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...o=&fpart=1

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...o=&fpart=1

Re: Supermen Infantry?
 

yeah this issue comes up quite alot. I think, I brought this up to, comparing infantry toughness in WW2 vs. MBT

Its very hit or miss with infantry, sometimes they can be very resilant and other times they can be very quickly wiped out.

In a recent 1989 battle, I had 2 squads overlook a road interesection. These two squads completely stopped and killed a large portion of the 2 platoon assualt by the enemy. fighting was bettwen 100-250m, while sustaining only light damage. Mortar inderict fire finished off the rest of the enemy.

and next battle, an enemy abush killed a entire squad but one man in a single firing.

Re: Supermen Infantry?
 

I can think that infantry in well prepared positions or in rough terrain can make many casualties on the advancing enemy tank or infantry. But I don't think that a group of men in the open fired many times by HE and small arms (and having loss the 50% of their original force), can reply making damage at near any enemy shooters as well as deadly long range anti-tank shots. The common soldier holds dawn the head when targeting with great amount of fire, this is the reason for suppress fire at suspected enemy locations.
The problem is that my troops is suppressed by enemy fire and not always rallied quickly, but the AI rally his infantry more quickly and with deadly fire in reply. have other players noticed this?

Re: Supermen Infantry?
 

What nations are you playing? They have different morale and leadership ratings which affect things like rallying suppressed troops.

Re: Supermen Infantry?
 

funnily enough my experience has been slightly different...
i have no problem with 1 squad wiping out another in an ambush at >150m in open ground, it is completly plausible. what i consistenly have difficulty with is the protective factor of woods, buildings and entrenchments to both arty fire (various sorts, but especially light mortors) and especially rifle fire. i have often experienced (roughly equal traing/leadership rating/equipment) two advancing squads over open ground force an entrenched squad in woods into suppression and retreat. the expected ratio IIRC for such ops is 1:5 or even 1:6. Casulties for the advancing squad at e.g. 200m are often much too low, e.g. the "supermen" seem to be only work one way...

Re: Supermen Infantry?
 

I think this too. As an old Civilization fanatic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif I think that it's just a little advance given to AI because as we know human is superior against AI. Or then it just might be the odds.

Now in my recent game, random battle S.K vs. China. I'm the S.K and I've pretty much overwhelmed AI.
With one infantry platoon I managed to held victory hexes against AIs perhaps two or three platoons. It was bit of amusing that AI didn't had any kind of reasonable strategy, it just pushed infantry squads towadrs to victory hexes where my infantry groups with one MBT killed and retreated atleast five enemy squads.

Not any kind arty preparations, nothing, nada. Couple of turns AI tried to suppress my troops with pesky 60mm mortars and 80mm which I removed with couple of MBTs while I noticed mortar locations.

Random battles are quite easy to win perhaps with at any kind of army against any kind of army after you get the idea how to fight against AI. For kicks I usually try to win with weaker against stronger.

Re: Supermen Infantry?
 

And most of the time they come in strengh of a InfReg +. Also if you set up AI tank heavy..doesnt matter. Sometimes i think this game should chance his name into MII (Main Infanty Battle) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif and its annouying to win the battle by destroying theyr tanks..HQ..Artillery..and AirDefences... till the first 10-15 rounds and 200--400 enemy still pushing on a target that they never can reach...but they never gave up and you had to play the round till end...means another 15 rounds for nothing just kill the last crewman on the map http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Maybe it make sence against an opfor like China...but thats all.
The times that the russians push fwd with a vodka drunken regiment into german MG fire is over. I think on a modern battlefield you will didnt see a fully armed InfReg ...on foot...will assaulting your company or battalion.

Re: Supermen Infantry?
 

Personally I think this and the "massive infantry" issue got fixed for good with v3.0, for my pleasure http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Supermen Infantry?
 

With only mortars, you can push a huge human wave to retreat and rout, without even risk any of your tanks/APCs. Only one jeep and your mortars are needed. After that Tanks/Mechs can destroy them with very little casualties.
In the opposite tanks/mech are very hard to kill with arty: you have to plan very good targets to hit them. Only aircraft can do easily the job against them:
infantery is not supermen if you use your arty carefully.
The first scen of the Israel vs Palestine (AIW: Kaliliah 10/56) is very good for such stuff: you have mechs against inf/motor inf, and with two 25p batteries, you can kill them all: try it.

Re: Supermen Infantry?
 

I recall playing one of the Vietnam scenarios recently (US Army VS VC/NVA) where I was defending a firebase.

I got really ticked when turn after turn my defensive fire at a moving enemy in the open or tall grass produced 1-3 casulties from the combined fires of a dug in platoon during a turn and forget supressing, pinning, or routing them - never happened. Yet they managed to consistently kill 3-5 of my guys in the trenches every turn with small arms fire.

Then and there I changed the Player Infantry to 120% Toughness and AI to 80% and have left it there ever since. The AI still acts like superman, with a small "s" but at least I can deal with it now.

Re: Supermen Infantry?
 

I tried playing the 5th Marines campaign and in my first 2 battles encountered the following:
1) A VC in a spider-hole surviving a Spooky gunship run..
2) A VC ammo bunker surviving direct hits by 4 airstrikes of 500lb bombs and 1 napalm...
3) The Super VC! A VC 12.7 sandbagged MG Nest on the northern part of the 1st battle. It was down to one man, surrounded 180 degrees by 3 marine squads, 2 M-60 teams, 1 LAW team, 1 .50 cal team, and a marine sniper. EIGHT rounds of pounding later this guy is still alive and inflicting casualties while refusing to be suppressed or routed! I'd say something needs to be tweaked in the realism department concerning these freakin VC!

Re: Supermen Infantry?
 

If you have a chance to pick up Osprey's new book on VC and NVA fortifications and tunnels by Gordon Rottman I would recommend it. 3 miniguns from 1000 feet plus would not have done a thing to a VC spider hole, and from how the fortifications in Rottman's book were described, US military planners themselves ran into the problems you are describing.

So from that you see that in the realism department the scenarios you describe might not be too unrealistic.

Re: Supermen Infantry?
 

Spookies were great as firesupport during humanwave attacks, as were later Spectres (which btw were most often used for truck hunting on Ho Chi Minh trail IIRC) but minigun or not, you have to remember they're machineguns, not 8in guns http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif