Close Combat

texican · Post by **texican** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 1:08 pm

The close combat, where infantry gets the drop on tanks when in towns or woods, maybe ought to be expanded beyond just infantry. I notice a lot of posts on this forum about King Tigers being invincible or there being too many IS-2's in Bagration (an ahistorical ratio) that are probably just to counter the near invincible German tanks.

But, in the real war, lesser tanks such as Shermans and T-34's did occasionally beat Tigers and they did it by outflanking and/or getting close in. Hence, a "close combat" opportunity, where a much lesser defense value of the tank comes into play, might simulate this.

So, the Sherman outflanking the Tiger II in the woods and getting in a rear shot or the T-34 closing range and running up atop a Tiger I so it cannot move its gun is sort of simulated by close combat. Maybe a 10% or 15% chance per attempt, modifiable by experience of units involved, and maybe only implemented if there is a certain disparity between attack factor and defender's armor (i.e., the only way to kill this super tank is to do something fancy).

Kerensky · Post by **Kerensky** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 1:45 am

Flanking was brought up very early on actually, but there's an issue of scale that conflicts with this idea, among other things.
viewtopic.php?t=21316&highlight=flanking

As for nerfing super heavy armor (king Tigers, IS2, et cetera) to not be invincible, I'm all for it, but we have to make sure we approach this in the right manner, or else we make them obsolete (too expensive if their Achilles's heel is too easy to exploit)

VPaulus · Post by **VPaulus** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 1:48 am

The balance is always so fragile.

Kerensky · Post by **Kerensky** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 2:11 am

Well the way I see it, we have 400 wonderful units packed into this awesome game. Why should a small number dominate the majority of battles?

We agree and we do want to see IVHs, IIIMs, Basic Shermans, Marders, StuGs, SU-76s, Cromwells, and T34s all running around, not just King Tiger, Jagdpanther, IS-2, and M26. So we're working on solutions, fear not!

El_Condoro · Post by **El_Condoro** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 4:05 am

^+1
Big thumbs up from me

Obsolete · Post by **Obsolete** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 6:48 am

I was not aware we needed a solution here?

savic13 · Post by **savic13** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 7:35 am

For me manual ENTRENCHMENT will improve things,like this or similar --- turns for ENTRENCHMENT will be different( depends of unit type and location ) and for tanks will be 3 or more turns and for that turns tanks will not attack or if he does turns for ENTRENCHMENT will be lost. For infantry can be one turn for some units and then infantry will have bonus to attack and defense for hard target or something similar. For AT guns when he is in ENTRENCHMENT, must to chose direction from where he can attack and can provide defense fire and not have penalty for attacking that way.

TheGrayMouser · Post by **TheGrayMouser** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 1:27 pm

Obsolete wrote:I was not aware we needed a solution here?

Me neither, leave the big cats alone, you dont have to buy them ...

texican · Post by **texican** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 3:29 pm

TheGrayMouser wrote:
Obsolete wrote:I was not aware we needed a solution here?
Me neither, leave the big cats alone, you dont have to buy them ...

The issue is if the "big cats" are invincible, it skews the game. These are Tiger tanks not M1 Abrams.

TheGrayMouser · Post by **TheGrayMouser** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 3:43 pm

texican wrote:
TheGrayMouser wrote:
Obsolete wrote:I was not aware we needed a solution here?
Me neither, leave the big cats alone, you dont have to buy them ...
The issue is if the "big cats" are invincible, it skews the game. These are Tiger tanks not M1 Abrams.

I guess it comes down to if you feel the big tanks are actually invincible, I really dont

Is 2's are formidable, but look at stats beyond hard attack/ defence: 4 AMMO! That is huge , it takes no time at all for such a unit to be redlined and you need to pull off the line, which wastes a turn, and then a second turn to supply.
Tiger 2 are better off ammo wise , but are slow and have less fuel 43? vs 58 ? compared to an IS?? A late Mark 4 has something like 80 fuel which means you have a mobile tamk to keep pushing for your objectives which is very valuable.

Perhaps one issue might be in single player or mp games where NEWLY bought units are automaically given experiance to whatver the scerio desighner set. Maybe newly bought units should have 0 experiance instead of 3 bars worth. Might halt players spamming late war super heavy tanks if they are green, more cost effective to buy 2 or 3 other unit types.

texican · Post by **texican** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 4:31 pm

TheGrayMouser wrote:
texican wrote:
TheGrayMouser wrote: Me neither, leave the big cats alone, you dont have to buy them ...
The issue is if the "big cats" are invincible, it skews the game. These are Tiger tanks not M1 Abrams.
I guess it comes down to if you feel the big tanks are actually invincible, I really dont

Is 2's are formidable, but look at stats beyond hard attack/ defence: 4 AMMO! That is huge , it takes no time at all for such a unit to be redlined and you need to pull off the line, which wastes a turn, and then a second turn to supply.
Tiger 2 are better off ammo wise , but are slow and have less fuel 43? vs 58 ? compared to an IS?? A late Mark 4 has something like 80 fuel which means you have a mobile tamk to keep pushing for your objectives which is very valuable.

Perhaps one issue might be in single player or mp games where NEWLY bought units are automaically given experiance to whatver the scerio desighner set. Maybe newly bought units should have 0 experiance instead of 3 bars worth. Might halt players spamming late war super heavy tanks if they are green, more cost effective to buy 2 or 3 other unit types.

I think they are priced appropriately; I never bought a Tiger II and I only had two Tiger I's by the end of the game. I do think that there ought to be "some" chance that a Tiger-to-Sherman (or T34) fight ought to be costly for a Tiger. Maybe when Shermans (or T34's) are throwing themselves upon a Tiger to try to wear it down (i.e., initiating the fight).

Now I'm not talking about flanking on the map, but just a small chance (8% per bar of experience of the lesser tank) that any tank-to-tank fight where the discrepancy is extreme will have this some opportunity to generate into a close combat encounter (maybe the mechanic for this is the bigger tank's armor is temporarily halved). They could even code a table as to which combinations set this off. Obviously, Fireflys vs Panthers are not going to do this, but for Shermans against Tigers, it's their only chance.