why buy armor?

[pdoktar]

A Light truck inf company will run into serious trouble, if hit even by 60mm mortars. Trucks will be destroyed and infantry will jump off, not taking maybe much damge, but suppression and thus halting the advance, to get hammered again with those pesky 60mm the next turn. An APC company will survive much better light caliber barrages and keep infantry inside, thus not stopping and having a good chance of avoiding the next barrage.

[DRG]

Uncle_Joe said:

From the looks of it, your increase seems to be pretty good. I certainly dont think it was horribly off before, but a few builds ago the prices of the more capable armor really started to increase while the cost of infantry stayed static. That was bound to create some sort of inequity.

From your example, a ~30% increase sounds about right. That would mean you could get an infantry coy and change for the price of some first line MBTs. That sounds closer to the pricing of the WW2 equipment which I think is pretty accurate in reflecting their capabilities.

Here are some examples then. From the game with Country Training ON. In the infantry company examples I've shown the cost range from lowest to highest as with infantry coys there are always different ways of picking you force

UK Infantry Co 1988 328 - 351 points.
A Chieftan Mk11 is 371 points


Russian Infantry Co 1988 301 - 437 points.
A T-80BV is 294

German Jaeger Kp 347-369 points
A Leo 2A4 is 419 ( the 2a4 has TI which drives the cost up a 2a1 is 306 points )

A US Rifle Co [-AT] in 1988 ( without all the Dragon ATMs ) is 375 - 411 points. ( with the Dragons it goes up to just over 1100 points )
An Abrams will cost from 376 - 416 points

Those are just a few examples but yes roughly a company of infantry is equal to a MBT now. The difference in pricing structure between WinSPWW2 and WinSPMBT is because we fine tuned the price calc when we released the last version of WinSPWW2 and this release catches MBT up with that. The patch for WW2 that will be out in a couple months will bring WW2 in sync with the improvements made to WinSPMBTv3 and then both games will be in sync

Don

[Uncle_Joe]

OK, I've been playing with V3.0 a bit and I think the 'problem' is still present.

What I see is integral to the issue is the 'stealthiness' of AT assets. ATGMs and RR teams etc are almost impossible to spot until they have fired a few times (often even for Infantry and especially if they have even a point of suppression). This greatly magnifies their effects and renders most lighter vehicles/APCs not worth their cost in the face of massed dismounts.

I've been playing a lot of small point meeting engagements (1990, Sov vs WGerm). I tend to buy a nice little combined arms force (Coy of Mech Infantry, a few tanks, some mortars or arty) while the AI usually buys a horde of dismounted troops (with a good group of AT assets like RRs and ATGM teams).

And the result is generally the same. I can take control of key areas and whittle down the initial attacks, but then eventually get overrun in a flood of infantry. Yes, they suffer 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 losses in manpower, but that is irrelevant since they are resiliant enough to keep on attacking. Vehicles are nearly useless in any form of European terrain in situations like this. All it takes is one misstep and a 99% chance ATGM smokes your AFV. Even if its just a glimpse for a half of a second in LOS, that ATGM has a 99% chance of a hit (which I also find very odd).

Once up close, nearly every squad has the capacity to kill light armor and APCs out to 400/500m. Again, it takes turns and turns of pounding to knock out a platoon of infantry costing around 65-70 points, a but single ~40 point APC is annihilated almost instantly by infantry.

The fact that the AT teams are 'stealthy' doesnt help the situation IMO. Its makes it quite possible for those teams to move across fields or other light terrain and get multiple shots off before drawing return fire. Finally, add in the fact that especially in smaller battles, there are considerably less pre-plotted arty points (a good change overall IMO). So, arty is FAR less responsive now at routing out infantry or reacting to the changing battle.

Note that if I go with an Infantry-heavy force, its still extremely easy to defeat similar enemy forces. With a BN and change of infantry vice a company of mech infantry, its usually a cake-walk to win.

I dont know what to say in terms of point cost and whatnot, but to me, its still pretty clear that all things equal (ie, not needing to cover huge stretches of ground) that massed dismounts will tend to win out over a more balanced force for cost.

[wulfir]

Uncle_Joe said:
I've been playing a lot of small point meeting engagements (1990, Sov vs WGerm).

Uncle,

what kind of settings are you using for your MEs?
Map size, build points...?

[DRG]

Or. better still, post an example of a game you have set up ( or even a mid battle save )

Then we can see what you see

Don

[Uncle_Joe]

what kind of settings are you using for your MEs?
Map size, build points...?

About Company sized engagements:

30x50 map
~1250-2000 points
all realism settings on
no tank-heavy AI
standard maps (I usually 're-roll' any that have water or are complete city/forest maps)

I dont have any saves at the moment (I guess there are no 'layered' autosaves anywhere, right?).

But its easy to see IMO. Just fire up a battle with those parameters (say, 1990 Sov vs WGerm...take a Sov Motor Rifle combined arms force).

I'm not saying its impossible to win but I find it FAR easier to win if I also go with a foot infantry-heavy force than with any form of combined arms force. This has been my experience with MBT for a while now (again, excluding conditions that dont allow for foot troops).

And yes, you can tailor a force to beat infantry, but that's not the point IMO. The issue is whether it simply costs too much to field mechanized forces vice much larger leg-mobile forces. I tend to think 'yes'.

[narwan]

30x50 map? Why buy mech units? And not just from a game perspective. Mech infantry is still INFANTRY. They fight dismounted. The are mechanised to give them strategical and operational flexibility. That is not needed on a 30x50 map. You can assume the apc's to have delivered them to battlefield and be just off board.

That map size is simply way too small for the force you selected (both in type and points).

Narwan

[wulfir]

I agree with narwan - too small map.

[Uncle_Joe]

30x50 is what 1.5km by 2.5km?

That is PLENTY of frontage for a company-sized engagement (especially Soviet/Opfor frontage).

So you just assume that the APCs never fight with their infantry? Doesnt that run sort of counter to WarPact doctrine? The Infantry should be advancing ahead of the APCs, but not more than few hundred meters (and only if encountering AT resistance).

I would submit that if the APCs are not intended to fight then they surely cost too much for glorified taxis. But that aside, having tank support still cripples you cost-wise. Or are you assuming that the tanks wont be fighting alongside the infantry as well? And if so, again, what is the point of taking them in the first place? Only for large battles?

[RVPERTVS]

I don´t think the map size is relevant in this issue we are discusing, I think Uncle´s point is some we all have seen and discussed too: the AI tends to buy lots of foot infantry which is very resilient and tends to overrun almost any position no matter the combinedness of the opfor.

Haven´t tried with the new Ai pcklists, maybe something´s done in this matter.

Regards
Robert