Why are abandoned weapons un-killable?

Tommy · Post by **Tommy** » Wed May 31, 2000 9:49 pm

It was my impression that, in real life, a soldier would attempt to destroy or disable any enemy weapon found on the battlefield that he could not use himself. What was the thinking here in SPWAW that made abandoned tanks and weapons un-attackable. When a crew bails from a tank, I'd drive up and put a round up the tailpipe or drop a grenade down the hatch. Now, I'm forced to chase the crew all over the map to snuff them out to make sure that they don't re-man the tank or weapon.

Tom

Drake666 · Post by **Drake666** » Wed May 31, 2000 10:01 pm

I think you got it the rong way around. It was the enemy who would try and destroy or disable weapons that they had to abandoned on the battlefield. The Germans were masters of useing enemy equipment that they got their hands on.

The one thing I think should be done in this game is that at the end of a battle any abondened equipment should count as being destroyed. I think that would be more fair.

Larry Holt · Post by **Larry Holt** » Wed May 31, 2000 10:34 pm

Right on Tommy. In previous SP games you could move on top of an abandoned enemy unit (vehicle, gun, etc.) then on your next turn, it was destroyed. I do not know why it does not work anymore but your are correct that it causes a lot of unrealistic chasing down of crews to insure that they don't recrew their abandoned equipment.

Paul, bug fix??

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An old soldier but not yet a faded one.

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Wed May 31, 2000 10:56 pm

Not sure what the result will be or which patch, but its on "the list"

The initial thought i believe was that the gmae is smart enough to know that the abandoned vehicle is not a threat, and ignores it.

U235 · Post by **U235** » Thu Jun 01, 2000 1:52 am

I think you should be able to use the captured equipment the next engagement (campaign)or have the option to destroy it. It seems to me, they are approx. 15-20 abandoned AFV's/guns left on the field in a typical battle during a campaign game. Maybe we could use some tractors to pull the abandoned tanks off the map!!!

troopie · Post by **troopie** » Thu Jun 01, 2000 5:09 am

If enemies could take over equipment I've abandoned, I would like to be able to booby trap it. Say have an engineer squad work on it for a turn. Of course, then the enemy could have engineers look at it first to see if it is booby trapped. Is this even possible?

troopie

Larry Holt · Post by **Larry Holt** » Thu Jun 01, 2000 5:21 pm

Originally posted by U-235:
I think you should be able to use the captured equipment the next engagement (campaign)or have the option to destroy it. It seems to me, they are approx. 15-20 abandoned AFV's/guns left on the field in a typical battle during a campaign game. Maybe we could use some tractors to pull the abandoned tanks off the map!!!

Well you can. Just upgrade your core to the captured stuff. Remember, just because you can haul some captured struff off the battle field, you don't get more crews so you can't use it to expand your core force.

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An old soldier but not yet a faded one.
OK, maybe just a bit faded.

Larry Holt · Post by **Larry Holt** » Thu Jun 01, 2000 5:23 pm

Originally posted by troopie:
If enemies could take over equipment I've abandoned, I would like to be able to booby trap it. Say have an engineer squad work on it for a turn. Of course, then the enemy could have engineers look at it first to see if it is booby trapped. Is this even possible?

troopie

Supposedly engineers can lay mines during a game. I've not tried this (has anyone?) but if it works, just lay a mine on top of the enemy equipment. IRL, mines are easily rigged as booby traps.

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An old soldier but not yet a faded one.
OK, maybe just a bit faded.

Charles22 · Post by **Charles22** » Thu Jun 01, 2000 6:43 pm

Larry: My, Larry, how you do have some fascinating ideas (laying mines on abandoned vehicles). Yes, laying mines does work, but you have to change all of your engineers in the unit data screen, from what seems to be it's default of "clear mines from the unit facing". I was so blown away that I could lay mines, that I've made sure, since, to have those expensive engineers, two platoons worth, as part of my core. I've yet to have any of the enemy enter any of the engineer-created mine hexes, but some of my earlier battles definitely would have found the enemy in them. It's rather fascinating when you're being attacked, to buy some mines and then try to build a certain amount to back up the original line or bolster previously non-mined flanks.

BTW, you CAN'T upgrade/switch in WWII Campaign, to captured equipment, or at least being 4/41 into that campaign has yet to offer Gerry any, who definitely is a nationality that used some. I'm not sure whether it's a good or bad thing, not being able to put them in core, but it would be fascinating to have a limit of captured equipment in core, like maybe one or two units, just to play around with say a T34 with a Gerry crew. Of course if doing so would make Gerry tanks available to Ruskie, and the AI bought them en masse, that would spoil everything.

Seth · Post by **Seth** » Thu Jun 01, 2000 6:59 pm

Some things to remember about captured equipment. Not everything that's abandoned is left in even close to working order. Quite often, crews will only bail after after their vehicle has been beat up quite a bit. It's not going to be easy for your guys to find replacements for the destroyed systems, it might well be impossible. Also, it's not just a matter of replacing the broken system, there's probably a fair amount of strutural damage too. Of course, the game isn't always specific enough. If, say, you have damaged the turret, it's pretty clear from the unit data what's broken, but when you immobilize something, it's really unclear what exactly you did to it. They may just decide it's not worth the effort to fix, and it may take so long that you won't see it for a few battles, IF HQ decides to give it to you. Capturing artillery is different, because the game does not reflect damage to the gun, just the crew. Obviously, IRL, not every gun that has been abandoned will be in pristine condition, and it's my understanding that it was fairly quick and easy to disable them by removing some breech components and the optics. That said, I do think it's a big flaw that you don't get credit for forcing the abandonment of equipment, in battles that you WIN. If you lose, the enemy will doubtless be along shortly to collect and repair them. Maybe you should get a few points for damging things, maybe you already do? Well, this is kind of a different issue, so I'll stop here. As a last note, I would be surprised if there weren't data somewhere about how many vehicles/guns/whatever people had to capture before they could put one in service.

[This message has been edited by Seth (edited 06-01-2000).]

Charles22 · Post by **Charles22** » Thu Jun 01, 2000 8:51 pm

On the other hand, I've had a PZIVC crew bail after it was hit the first time, and it seems the round didn't penetrate. Even so, I rallied the crew and they got right back in the tank, and there appeared to be no damage (and then drove the tank further on). There are a few times when fire put on a tank obviously has little or no effect (which can be determined easily if the target has never been hit and the asterisk damage meter shows no trail) and the crew will bail.

Now that I think about it, that PZIVC incident which I spoke about seems to work very contrary to my other experiences with crews bailing and then my attempts to recrew them. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind as to what happened with that incident. I rallied the unit (which bailed on it's own) and hit either the '9' or 'g' (or perhaps it's the 'L') key, and they got right back in. It seems to me, considering that incident, that the program may not allow you to reinstate crews on your own, IF you're the one who bailed them. In other words, either the crew has to bail on it's own, or they have to reoccupy on their own, so that I crew which bailed on their own could be recrewed by the human, but a crew which had bailed by human command, could only recrew through the crew's own initiative. I suppose this feature is there, to prevent people from bailing so to escape AP fire, such as from the 2 pdr. guns which only fire AP rounds, and then when the AP-only gun is knocked out, to put the crew back in. Also, even if the enemy gun has HE rounds, it's unlikely that a bailing crew, done by humans, will generate op fire, made even more unlikely that the enemy gun already fired a round at the tank (with VERY near bailouts being a possible exception).

[This message has been edited by Charles22 (edited 06-01-2000).]

U235 · Post by **U235** » Fri Jun 02, 2000 1:10 am

I realize, as Larry said, that you can "purchace" captured equipment at the end of a battle, before the next.

I guess a feature like tank recovery would work best if you had to draw from a pool of available equipment. It's a bit unrealistic to be able to upgrade to a shiney new Tiger, etc. as soon as they become available (but I'm not complaining

). Between turns your "mechs" could salvage parts and make damaged equipment operational. I would rather pay the cost of a crew to man an AFV/gun than pay the full price. Of course this would add to the total amount of core units and could be come overwhelming in a long campaign. Imagine having more T-34's on the field than the Soviets!!! (bad idea)

Grumble · Post by **Grumble** » Fri Jun 02, 2000 1:15 am

FWIW, I think being able to add captured equipment to your OOB is probably not worth the coding effort to make it work. There's other factors at work here about using enemy equipment. As another poster said, one doesn't know EXACTLY what the damage is and what it would take to repair. Second, is the simple fact of "how does this damn thing work?" Are you going to have sufficient ammunition? Does the vehicle even use the same fuel (diesel v gasoline)? What about spare parts? Can my troops keep this thing running not only in combat but day-to-day use. There's also the fraticide issue. In the stress, dirt and dust of battle, silhouette and sound ID enemy v friendly not national markings if any.
Yes the Germans used a lot of enemy material. But that was because they a: captured boatloads of weapons and ammunition b: Found that certain weapons (76mmZis) would easily take German ammunition and c: were desperate as their own production was inadequate.
I would say that the availability of captured arty and tanks for the Germans (don't know if the Brits have captured M13's) is probably sufficient to simulate this at this scale.

Charles22 · Post by **Charles22** » Fri Jun 02, 2000 1:30 am

I wonder if those who say you can purchase captured equipment are correct for the WWII campaign, because I've been as far as 4/41 and haven't seen hide nor hair of captured stuff, be that core or support. I don't recall if the Gerry forces in the total force encyclopedia showed any Polish equipment for German use, but I sure haven't seen any. Perhap I'll fire up a WWII campaign starting 10/41, to make sure that would take in the captured stuff from when Barbarossa started, adn see if I'm able to get ANY Russian stuff during a campaign. Perhaps failing that, I'll try another at say 10/43.

U235 · Post by **U235** » Fri Jun 02, 2000 1:41 am

Charles, believe it or not, the upgrade to captured equipment is in the truck section of the upgrade list, if I'm not mistaken. I'm in Nov 41 of my campaign and French S-35's and Soviet T-34's are available. They even have German crosses painted on the sides (nice touch). I haven't used them yet, however I did upgrade one unit for my next battle to see how it works out.

Desert Fox · Post by **Desert Fox** » Fri Jun 02, 2000 2:28 am

You defintiely can get equipment from other countries in the WW2 campaign. Whether you want to call it captured or not is up to you. Its much easier to buy units from another country than to stuff all kinds of crap into an oob.

Charles22 · Post by **Charles22** » Fri Jun 02, 2000 5:31 pm

I founf out that y'all are right. That's pretty neat, once they're available, you can get that French deal or the T34. I did a pretend campaign and picked some T34's to see what was involved. The crews has typical Gerry experience/morale, and the cost was similar to the Gerry tanks of the period. The only setback was that their ammo was probably about half of what it would have been under the Russians. I suppose if you picked one, you would station it, straight away by an ammo unit and hope it draws supply to at least get another ten rounds in it.

Panther · Post by **Panther** » Fri Jun 02, 2000 8:30 pm

Speaking of mines can non engineer units or units that do not specialize in de-minig take causulties while trying to demine a mine hex.
Ie two man crews that can demine a hex after their vehicle gets destroyed or disabled.