Tanks vs infantry: some unbalanced issues

[Deadmoon]

After playing several missions i´ve found that certain units are overpowered in certain situations and would need some tweaking.

a) Tanks & armoured cars usually deal 1 or 2 damage to infantry entrenched in cities with no losses.

Urban terrain is the worst for a tank (limited movement, line of sight and gun traverse) and vehicles in cities are an easy prey for infantry but in the game tanks are just fine for assaulting cities. This is totally unrealistic...tanks are not used this way. They should suffer a lot of losses if attacking city hexes.


b) Curiously same happens with infantry attacking tanks. Basic infantry have a tank attack of "4" against a minimun defence of "11" or so. You would expect they deal near zero damage (or just 1 if very lucky) but no, the AI throws infantry units at your tanks with impunity and many time you suffer severe losses. Even in the open! No fear of armor at all.

This is even less realistic that previous issue. Soviet infantry in 1941 were not provided with AT rifles until November so basically they have no AT capability at all.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Deadmoon
a) Tanks & armoured cars usually deal 1 or 2 damage to infantry entrenched in cities with no losses.
Urban terrain is the worst for a tank (limited movement, line of sight and gun traverse) and vehicles in cities are an easy prey for infantry but in the game tanks are just fine for assaulting cities. This is totally unrealistic...tanks are not used this way. They should suffer a lot of losses if attacking city hexes.

It's worth keeping in mind that units here represent regiment to division-sized forces, which are not going to be entirely homogeneous. Unsupported armor would certainly have a problem in cities, but when supported by infantry it could be quite effective. In general, armor does perform better outside of cities (which allow a much higher entrenchment level) but a Panzer Division with its organic infantry could (and did) take a city without suffering severe losses. The key thing in stopping armor is what you have in terms of anti-tank equipment. Terrain helps but infantry without much anti-tank capability is in trouble even in a city.

The entrenchment level is also the key. If you're fighting against a unit that is well equipped as far as anti-tank strength and is well entrenched, you will take significant losses. But a lighter infantry unit or one that hasn't fully fortified itself in a city will be much more easily dislodged.

b) Curiously same happens with infantry attacking tanks. Basic infantry have a tank attack of "4" against a minimun defence of "11" or so. You would expect they deal near zero damage (or just 1 if very lucky) but no, the AI throws infantry units at your tanks with impunity and many time you suffer severe losses. Even in the open! No fear of armor at all.

I can't really respond to this without more information. You'd have to provide some info on which infantry unit attacking which tank, etc. I haven't seen infantry be particularly effective attacking armor in the open, unless the armor unit is already significantly under-strength. It's worth keeping in mind again, that a unit represents everything in a division or brigade-sized force, not just the tanks themselves.

Regards,

- Erik

[Deadmoon]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
The entrenchment level is also the key. If you're fighting against a unit that is well equipped as far as anti-tank strength and is well entrenched, you will take significant losses.

It should be. But this isn´t well implemented in the game...i´ve just made a little test.

A recce unit (Sdk222) have attacked an well entrenched (3) infantry unit in a city and the ressult was (0 damage taken, 1 dealt to infantry). Exactly the same result as if they have attacked the infantry in the open with no entrenchment at all!

I feel that entrenched units are not as hard as they should be.