Unarmed close assault?
 

I recently was playing a battle, february 1991, USA assaults Iraq, after some turns, a platoon of abrams ran on my reserve company on my rear area, most of the squads were equipped with AKs, grenades, my heavy weapons got supressed by small arms fire, and i had to assault the M1 platoon since no rpg there, using my pinned infantry to button the tanks, one squado threw a grenade, non-penetrating hit, but mobility kill, by no pen grenade!, then i finished him off, gone for the second tank, assaulted him, with no weapon(it was written: Rifle Squad Assaulting M1... BUT no weapon was selected by the squad) and DESTROYED it, so how could they do this? Did they hopped over the tank, opened the turret and killed the man in there? is this a "bug"?

Re: Unarmed close assault?
 

No bug. Any infantry unit can kill any tank by assaulting them, even crew counters can do this. Hatches can be pulled open and even pistol bullets pinging around inside is detrimental to the tank crew's health.

Hand grenades can detrack vehicles or penetrate thin tin.

If there are no special weapons, they use grenades usually. However units without a proper A/T weapon will often have a bad result and run away in tank panic based on morale, suppression and experience.

Assaulting troops use whatever weapon they want to, totally ignoring any switched "off" by the human player.

(You did the correct thing in suppressing the tanks before the assault, as being buttoned adversely affects the defending factors of the tank in a close assault. As does being disabled, damaged or in rout or worse status. Being open-topped is about the worst case scenario for an assaulted AFV)

Andy

Re: Unarmed close assault?
 

i learned to button/damage the enemy armor so i can assault them the hard way xD

Re: Unarmed close assault?
 

I've learned that in game its better to treat "kills" at all levels (with the possible exception of shot down aircraft, rotary and fixed wing) as simply rendering the unit combat ineffective. Infantry "killed" might not actually be dead, but be critical casualties, or any of a number of possibilities rendering them ineffective as members of their unit.

Vehicles and their crew can be though about in much the same way. The problem is that the "destroyed" counter in game for this shows the vehicle burning, when this might not necessarily have been the case. Assaulting infantry need not necessarily blow up a vehicle for it to be "killed" in the game sense.

Re: Unarmed close assault?
 

yea, they can open the doors kill the crew and take the vehicle :D, but the game doesnt lets you capture an enemy abandoned vehicle :(

Re: Unarmed close assault?
 

You reminded me - the abandoned vehicles`re also untargetable and invulnerable to artillery fire.

Re: Unarmed close assault?
 

Abandoned units are merely battlefield decorations, unless the original crew mans them once again.

You can flame an abandoned enemy unit by leaving a unit in the same hex for a turn.

Those are the only 2 interactions the game allows with them.

You can tell an abandoned unit is no longer marked as an active piece if you have ID tags on. They don't have an ID tag.

Cheers
Andy

Re: Unarmed close assault?
 

too bad we cant "capture" abandoned vehicles, it would be great, especially on a para/glider insertion

Re: Unarmed close assault?
 

Because I'm sure a regular infantry squad would be extremely proficient in using a modern main battle tank.

Re: Unarmed close assault?
 

ooops, forgot that, but what about apcs, soft skinned vehicles and guns?

Re: Unarmed close assault?
 

It's not going to happen.

Don

Re: Unarmed close assault?
 

how would you model the very real possibility of anti tank friendly fire on captured units ? In MBT, you might say ubiquitous radio, but I don't think the devs would be happy with abusing the networked "features" :)
I would counter that you don't know the code to speak on the open channels, and certainly can't speak native on their encrypted channels when they appear.
in WW2, even worse, as you most likely have to rely on messenger or signals to communicate back with HQ.

Make it too easy and without consequence, and you break the game from a balance perspective, as without reworking the AI, it might never be able to see the captured vehicle as a proper enemy.

This would be a major change (unless I'm sorely mistaken)
Not worth the headaches and reworking of existing content, I think.

Re: Unarmed close assault?
 

You think right... :D

Don

Re: Unarmed close assault?
 

None of them are the original crew of that weapon, so there is no way to re-man it. The vehicle and the crew are the same thing to the game. End of.

And that is not going to change into any RTS "pick up the enemy Tommy gun and blaze away" stuff unless we rewrote the game as an RTS.

Nor would it jibe with the specific warnings we got in training to never use or even play with enemy kit. That was to be safely destroyed or otherwise disposed of post battle, but not for us to touch as it may be booby trapped, or otherwise be dangerous to handle. (See AK47, use AK47, see all friendlies in area open up on the distinctive "enemy" AK47 noise, quite likely. See your nice friendly platoon sergeant jumping up and down on your bones as he just had to cancel the contact report your Pl commander had only just sent to coy. Pl commander joins queue behind Sgt.. :))

EN weps usage was only under brigade or most likely much higher authority, only where deemed absolutely necessary, and only after they had been cleared as safe by the armourer. And also when all own troops (and neighbouring forces) had been briefed to expect such, in case of blue-on-blue.

En vehs are even less likely to be usable by A.N infantryman, including the USA. Driving skill was more common in the USA forces at that time than the ROTW, but even such things as common or garden soft MT quite often had completely different driving control arrangements. The world had not yet standardised the basic 4-H gearbox shift, or where the pedals were yet. (And nowadays, USA tourists are often confused if they get a hire car in the UK as they are manuals unless you specifically ordered an automatic. Automatics are rare here, used by grannies or others who cannot handle a manual transmission ).

AFV were a completely different case from a truck, and even a farm boy with tractor knowledge would need a few hours to-type training to deal with an AFV. Any draftee that knew how to drive a bulldozer pre-war would likely be in the engineers or tanks already.

Guns/mortars of various nations used different dial sight systems, mils rads, grads, versts or whatever. As school cadets, we had 3 days of basic gun drill on the 25 pounder before we even got to load a live one up the spout, and that was a 7 day short course for CCF cadets. There are too many ways to nip your fingers off on an arty piece if you don't know what's dangerous. heck - it took about an hour to be taught the correct way to ram a projectile into the beastie. (You need to use the non-obvious little short bit of wood rod lying nearby to the captured gun to serve and seat the shell, the brass is then put in with a closed fist "punch" before the breech is closed, or you risk mangling your fingers..).

If you don't know what you are doing with a mortar, then you can do yourself severe damage (I vaguely recollect eyeball damage as a warning) from the muzzle blast if not trained to keep properly clear. Sights are not in "yards" but are gun-type sights, you get the range by comparing charge and elevation on the firing tables chart and applying the correct elevation. If the enemy left that lying about the position for you, and you can read his language, and if you know how to use that sort of sight (ie you are already trained as a mortarman or gunner).

You also need to know how to arm the fuzes on the gun and mortar, specifically how to remove the safety circlips and covers etc. If you capture a gun that comes with separate fuse and shell - how to marry the 2 up. If you don't know the specifics of extracting the shells, fuses and cartridges from their packing crates/steel carry box thingys then that can cause puzzlement and broken fingernails too.

Enemy grenades can work in a completely non-intuitive way from your forces ones. They will have completely different safeties, or none at all (Japanese strike-to-arm ones for example). They may have fuse times much shorter/greater than own troops were expecting, too. If found in packing cases, you will need to know how to arm them (fuses can go off if wrongly inserted). The mills bomb had to be taken apart and the protective grease removed before use or it was unlikely to function.

You can be confused by "legend" as to proper usage of unknown kit, like the ones who tried a "knee" mortar against their shin soon found out.

Other nations do things differently with small arms too. The "safe" position on an AK47 is at the opposite end from what a NATO soldier would expect, and the first fire position is auto, not semi. (As far as I recollect from handling one 30 years ago).

The casual usage of picked up EN kit is only a Hollyweird movie or RTS sort of thing.

If you have not been specifically trained up on a piece of kit (and that includes own forces kit!) then there are too many ways to kill or maim yourself, or your friends.

Andy

Re: Unarmed close assault?
 

SPMBT is not meant to reproduce special operations actions or highly unusual situations like the ones in which you use enemy hardware found on the scene...
Sure, there have been a few operations in military history where units took the enemies hardware and used it immidietly, but almost always it wasent planned or wide sclae use.
The IDF staged a a raid on Egypt with T-55s and BTRs that were in Egyptian marks and so on. It would be great to be able to play this raid on SPMBT, but the game is just not up to it, and probably never will be.

Re: Unarmed close assault?
 

Well, it is possible to simulate it atleast a bit - lower the enemy "spotting" setting (maybe also morale) to simulate the confusion caused by "own" tanks rolling against you. But that's more a job for a scenario than for "regular" gameplay.

Re: Unarmed close assault?
 

German use of captured equipment such a tanks as an example, was only done after crews were trained and even modifications done and certainly well marked as German. After that they were only used to support infantry units without other German Armour and the units were well briefed to expect them.

US troops were known to use the odd German Halftrack, but IIRC they were marked with big white stars and mostly used in the rear areas. Hey it beat walking to be sure.

As for picking up small arms and other enemy kit, under normal conditions a sure fire way to get dead as mentioned earlier. When you see regular soldiers carrying enemy weapons it's usually a sign all is not well!! In combat conditions you want to be one with your weapon not just learning about it!! IMHO

Bob out :D