Am I fighting ghosts?

[JWW]

I just finished playing through Das Tactics's Two Bridges AAR (tm.asp?m=4605905). I used his setup and initial pre-planned moves and then winged it from there, after watching his AAR. It is a Finn vs Russians scenario with the Finns using a mech force to attack a dug in Russian mech force. Both forces are using 1983 Russian vehicles. Finns have to cross two parallel bridges in moving to contact and then take four objectives once across the river. It was my first fully played out Armored Brigade scenario. The objectives were roughly where Das Tactic's objectives were, but the situation was slightly different, the Russians ended up setting up differently, as I expected they would, and I had different challenges to face, including more Russians on my side of the river than he had. Just as Das Tactic did, and as mentioned here, I encountered the ghost units killing my vehicles. It irritated me at first, but then it became a challenge to use my recon units better, to move more carefully, to use mortars and artillery better, and just take my time. One thing I would note about the ghost units. The game is literally real time (unless you speed it up). So if one of your units gets killed and you stop the game or have it set to stop, then you are looking for the enemy unit that took your vehicle out at the instant it happened. And if you are stopping the game a lot, you are taking minutes to play seconds. I tended to forget that at first. That is one problem with the ghost units. Is the game playing realistically? I don't really know. But I could see the game adding another level of interest if there were more clues as to where the fire is coming from and the ability to fire suppressive fire at suspected enemy positions, muzzle flashes if nothing else, as suggested above. In most cases I was able to pick out fairly quickly, in game time, where the fire came from, but there was one case where I moved a tank platoon behind a tree line and rapidly had two tanks destroyed and never figured out where the fire came from until the end of the game. That was frustrating. But was it realistic? Again, I'm not sure. But I do think some more clues would make things more interesting gamewise. In the end I won a tactical victory. I took three of four objectives, and the last one was left contested (I think 'controversial' in game terms), but it was in the middle of an open field, and anything that tried to move into the objective died.

[exsonic01]

That is one problem with the ghost units. Is the game playing realistically? I don't really know. But I could see the game adding another level of interest if there were more clues as to where the fire is coming from and the ability to fire suppressive fire at suspected enemy positions, muzzle flashes if nothing else, as suggested above.

I also sometimes feel that current AB engine makes units too blindish. This gets worse in bad weather or night condition, but still some similar events occur in nice day condition as well. Sometimes vehicles miss the infantry team or heavy weapon team, who were hiding 50~100m in front of them. I guess model for the spotting of vehicle looks good, but the problem is infantry.

Is this realistic? I'm also not sure. But when you think about it, such "blindish" moment might be doable or possible situation. Assuming assaulting forces have no thermal sight, and assuming you are just hiding to observe and report as a recon, or just hiding and waiting for good ambush as a AT guy with RPG. Assuming your training level is good, and you are just hiding as deep as possible in the bush or under the pile of fallen leaves or pile of snow. In this case, vehicles would 100% miss you, passing right in front of you. Fast moving infantry would very likely to fail to spot you. Infantry with normal speed might have a good chance to see something strange or even spot you and engage. For any scenario of early ~ mid cold war, there were no thermal sights, no millimeter wave radar, no UAVs, only reliable source of gathering information is human eye and ear. In this sense, incredible difficulty of finding infantry in this game maybe realistic. But still, I'm not sure how much real.

Also, I think veterans and well trained units would spot enemy much faster than noobs or poorly trained units. I'm not sure if this feature is included in AB.

But this makes the game very slow. I always start with recon, infiltrate infantry recons and spread them as wide as possible. I found that this might be the only way to prevent ambush in this game. Even then, sometimes thermal sight units and infantry miss the hidden enemy ATGM team or HMG team.

Make muzzle flash more visible or detectable might be a solution. In above post, I also suggested an arc around the units to visualize the direction of where the fire came from. AB already have engine to show "arc" to show unit in hull-down position or etc. I think it might be possible to use this feature for 4/8 arc system to represent possible direction of fire for each units, after 3~5 shots.

[JWW]

I remember 11B (infantryman) basic training at Ft. Polk, Louisiana, USA, in 1973. (For any US military, it was combined basic and AIT, called Throughput at that time, 15 weeks, just entering the post-Vietnam era. They kept telling us how we were now training for war with the Soviets in Europe and not for Vietnam.) In one exercise our platoon attacked and secured and objective and formed a circular perimeter. Just as we were settling in, several 'enemy' soldiers just rose up out of the ground we had just walked over and secured and lit us up with M16 blanks. Of course we were raw, clueless trainees, but I learned a lesson that day I never forgot.

[22sec]

I’ve always felt AB rewards the use of real world tactics, but that also means you face real world problems. If you are not looking directly at a muzzle flash, it’s over in an instance. Combine that with the lethal modern weapons, and you can kiss a platoon of vehicles good bye in the blink of an eye. You’ve got to use terrain and cover to conceal movement as much as possible. If you roll out in to open ground, where the sight lines exceed 1000m you better have some eyes over watching your advance. If it is pre-thermal days use smoke, and lots of it.

This is not directed at anyone who posted in this thread or the comments made, because I do think the muzzlesignatures need to be tweaked, but a general observation based on years of playing AB.

[JWW]

ORIGINAL: 22sec

I’ve always felt AB rewards the use of real world tactics, but that also means you face real world problems. If you are not looking directly at a muzzle flash, it’s over in an instance. Combine that with the lethal modern weapons, and you can kiss a platoon of vehicles good bye in the blink of an eye. You’ve got to use terrain and cover to conceal movement as much as possible. If you roll out in to open ground, where the sight lines exceed 1000m you better have some eyes over watching your advance. If it is pre-thermal days use smoke, and lots of it.

This is not directed at anyone who posted in this thread or the comments made, because I do think the muzzlesignatures need to be tweaked, but a general observation based on years of playing AB.

The blink of an eye thing is what I was trying to say earlier, and I agree. I tend to forget the game is playing out in real time. One of my tanks is destroyed. I stop the game and wonder why I can't see who killed it. And in the game world I'm looking around the map one second after it got taken out. I play five more seconds of game time, stop, look around, still can't see who killed it, get frustrated. Stupid game. Maybe not stupid game. Maybe realistic game. And I start thinking about what the unit would be doing in real life in this situation besides just sitting there trying to figure out where the fire came from. I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of the scenario I played above once I got past the initial frustration.

[nikolas93TS]

What I forgot to say is that we increased muzzle signatures, so now it should be easier to spot enemy units engaging your units. It will come with the next patch.

However, as 22sec mentioned, Armored Brigade rewards the use of real world tactics and particularly combined arms approach. That means that for example tanks should be always closely accompanied with infantry (foot or dismounted mechanized, depending on tempo of operations), because they are very vulnerable otherwise, and supported by over-watch positions, artillery, scouts etc.