Supressing tanks with small arms

[gollummen]

It would be nice if it was possible to supress tanks just a little with small arms.

It should only reduce morale a little and only be effective at close range, but I bet it was not fun to be inside a tank and hear the bullets hit the armour, so I think it would be realistic to supress at least unexperienced tank crews with small arms.

Thanks for a great game by the way

[Ryben]

I agree. Not sure about tanks but at deffinitely on open topped vehicles (halftracks and Marders)

[LOGAN5]

I think this is a bad idea. It would probably ruin the game.. maybe I don't understand how tank crews work, but if i am coming under fire you would think I would be more aggressive and step up my attack, after all I am a sitting duck in the middle of a field, to just park the tank and not return fire wouldn't make any sense even for the most boneheaded tank crew.

[Ryben]

There´s a history involving a T-34 attacked by MG fire that had to retire because, as a crewman said, "it was like being inside a church bell".

Even inside a lumbering steel metal, being fired will make you nervous. After all, visibility inside is very limited and...could you be sure that those MG firing at you are not tracer rounds from another tank taking aim at you? Is infantry trying to distract you while an assault party is crawling behind the tank? Couldn´t a stray bullet smash an optic leaving the vehicle blind?

[LOGAN5]

I think the situation that you are describing could happen, but it is not the norm. It would take a very lucky shot to disable the optics on a tank. It is possible to knock out the the optics on a M1 Abrams with a .45 cal handgun, but we are talking some serious Chuck Norris type action, I don't think this should be in the game.

[junk2drive]

Sounds like a crutch for poor gameplay.

A 50 cal MG should be able to damage a halftrack though.

[pipfromslitherine]

If memory serves a 50cal does have some small anti-armour capacity specifically so it can hurt halftracks, but Iain would need to confirm.

We didn't want to allow smallarms to affect armour, and I think it's a pretty solid decision.

Cheers

Pip

[LOGAN5]

Pip: you can kill halftracks with 50cal, happens all the time if they get close enough in range. I don't see a problem with that. The whole purpose of the invention of the tank was to cross trenches under heavy machingun fire without getting shot, so its safe to say for the most part small arms have 0 effect on tanks and armor.

[pipfromslitherine]

Iain can speak more to his design decisions, but if nothing else we want to avoid the RTS convention of being able to wear down armour with enough smallarms.

Cheers

Pip

[gollummen]

Iain can speak more to his design decisions, but if nothing else we want to avoid the RTS convention of being able to wear down armour with enough smallarms.

That is a good point. Another option would be to allow small arms to reduce the tanks visibility, because they have to "button up" (close the hatches etc.).

Or have very supressed tank crews bail out and make its own little infantry unit.

...or we could just stop trying to change a gameplay that works great. I guess that is the best solution. I just get carried away

[IainMcNeil]

We've tried to concentrate on the core concepts and avoid all the special cases like this. Technically these things did happen but they were the exceptions rather than the rule. We find if you try to model all the exceptions you end up having unforeseen impacts on the core rules and it can feel very unrealistic. E.g. we could up with tanks being scared of infantry with small arms only if we're not careful. We're looking for a good overall interaction rather than an exact model of every detail and we find it much easier to balance this way and keep enjoyable. It's also very hard to feed back all these special case rules to players and one of the main aims was to make the game approachable. So in summary while we agree that it might be realistic to simulate this we have no plans to do so

[Sleet]

Glad to hear it!

[SirGarnet]

Heavy shooting at a tank does have an effect - slightly decreasing its morale. It takes a lot of fire to have a significant impact, so this seems about right.

[MrsWargamer]

Shooting at a tank should only result in one result, slight morale loss as it tells the crew 'oh by the way, you have infantry nearby, and they usually get in close and mobility kill your tank if nothing else'.

Being in an immobile tank while not immediately lethal, does tend to make you vulnerable to eventual elimination.
And the crew would recognize this.

[LOGAN5]

I still think this is a bad idea.
How about infantry when it sees a German tank headed straight for it? Would its reaction be to fire rifles hoping to "disrupt" the crew, or would they take cover and hide to try and stay alive? Seems like the mere presence of the Tank would suppress most small arms fire just for fear of being spotted. I don't think these are something the game should touch on.

[Ryben]

With the new "supply" function that we are likely to see in the France expansion i think this question may become irrelevant. I think the point was to give infantry some kind of offensive/defensive capability beyond the AT charges since, once they are expent, infantry is very vulnerable in a tank rich enviroment as BA is.

With the option to "refill" the charges and the introduction of AT rifles our grunts would feel more confident.

[bones65]

With the new "supply" function that we are likely to see in the France expansion i think this question may become irrelevant. I think the point was to give infantry some kind of offensive/defensive capability beyond the AT charges since, once they are expent, infantry is very vulnerable in a tank rich enviroment as BA is.

With the option to "refill" the charges and the introduction of AT rifles our grunts would feel more confident.

definately agree with ryben on this point.. i remember playing 'panzers' long ago .. (yes i know it was rts ) but when infantry had 'used up' their attack capability they were useless, whereas i played 'soldiers' ..(yes i know another rts but what fun ) and it kind of gave the idea that even 1 infantryman if given long enough could eventually take out a tank..( dig a big camouflaged pit lol!.. wait for them to have a pee ) .. while niether of these conceptions is quite on the money, a squad of infantry would always be a threat to a tank in some way , so the re arm function is well overdue,.. on saying that i do think there should be some cap on how many times you can use it (say once every 2 turns or so)..a bit like drill sgt,..at the moment on the bonus scenario it is almost seemingly inexhaustable.