As you know I'm a vet in this game. I played Campaigns, Scenarios, Mega Campaigns, PBEM and so on. So I thought I knew every little trick and small tactic in this game.
But this one came as a cool surprise.
There is nothing more annoying than having one of your favourite tanks blasted by a mine in the beginning of a battle in a Mega Campaign.
After that, the more annoying thing is having one of such squads paralyzed by a mine in those conditions. I mean, you will not commit an engineer unit to clear all the mines because the probability of the crew be able to repair the tank is small.
Well I had one of my PzIIIe immobilized (an almost elite unit) with a static Matilda II firing at him from the distance.
You know how it is long range fighting with Matildas: a no win situation! So I decided do bail out, lay some smoke with the crew, hide the crew, and eventually come back to the tank 1 or 2 turns before the end of battle.
Bailed out and laid some smoke. I stayed at the same place because I couldn't move anymore.
At the end of the turn I was surprised to see that the crew was able to clear 4 mines. Hmmmmm.
I had some more smoke grenades so I decided to bail out again throw another one and stay. End of turn - 3 more mines
Same operation and the crew cleared the hex :)
Next turn: SUCCESS. They repaired the tank! :D:D
I don't know if the capacity of crews clearing mines and repair vehicles increases with experience. But from now on I will do the same with every crew in a immobilization by mines situation!
That's quite some crafty crew you've got there. I usually don't bail my crews as long as a weapon is serviceable but I will definetly try this out next time! Thanx!
As I said, I don't know if this works all the time, if this is due to the high experience of this particular crew (they had 95 or 96 experience) or if they had some training in the Wermacht Tank Repair and Mine Clearing School :rolleyes: .
in reality, not very many crews were afforded the luxury of smoke grenades or cannisters. Most had small arms or maybe a SMG or a box of grenades stowed away in some cases...but as far as I know smoke was not that common.
Right, I do agree with you. Also I don't think in the real war crews would bail out of their tanks just to trow some smoke in order to hide their tank. But anyway I think it shouldn't be completely denied to crews the possibility to retreat/escape covered by smoke, like other foot soldiers.
Maybe reduce their smoke grenades to just one?
Anyway, that wasn't the main point in my intervention. The main point is crews hability for clearing mines. Here things seem more realistic. I mean: sounds realistic that if a tank is immobilized by a mine that the crew try to clear the terrain around their tank of any mines before they begin repairing it.
In game play I do intent to bail out from now on to see if this increases or not with experience.
Depends on the mine, but its just the opposite ( IMO ) AT mines can be burried deeper and normally take much more to set them off, however I'm not as well versed in WWII era mines as some around the forum
Don't know nothing about mines too, but one is lead to think that AP mines need to be more carefully hidden because the vision of a foot soldier is a lot better than the vision of a travelling vehicle.
Even if AT mines could be buried deeper (makes sense) I don't think the care with camuflage would be so good.
I think i'd agree with viking-AT mines can be hidden deeper because they take more weight to set off and so can be buried a little deeper without fear, and the people laying them can work on camoflauge more after the mines are buried without fear of setting them off, though I am just basing this off assumptions not any facts.
Nothing is as important as it seems, and everything matters.
Don't even need a bayonet, a sharp stick will do. That's a field-improved mine probe, and it won't detonate magnetic mines. But it also won't "clink" when you hit a metal-sided mine either.
So, why are AFV crews different from Infantry? Training.
Tank crews spend an inordinate amount of time on gunnery ranges, and performing vehicle maintenance. Seasoned crews are now probably experts at operator-level repair and maintenance (breaking track, diagnosing mechanical problems, changing lower caliber barrels out). While the probably won't be able to fix most battle damage, regular breakdowns may well be overcome. They train in and on the tank. They train to fire and maneuver, and to become one as a crew. Target is up, identified, fired upon, and destroyed.
They do not train to shoot rifles, hump rucksacks, and clear mines. That is the life of a grunt. Or even an elite grunt. The infantryman is not able to mount an abandoned vehicle and bring it to life. They wouldn't (in most cases) know how to operate any of the systems. Why? because they're not trained to crew. They are instead trained to be experts with their man-portable weapons systems, utilize terrain, move quietly, execute ambushes, and other battle drills.
I could go on and on and on, but long story short, AFV crews are NOT infantry, they're not trained as infantry, and should not have all the default abilities of infantry. Engineers are infantry, but specialized in construction/demolition, mine laying/removal, and building/reducing obstacles. They can (depending on the type of the unit) dig others in faster, bridge rivers, blow bridges, make tank ditches, etc. But they were equipped with mine detection equipment, so it makes sense for them to be able to detect them and remove them. Infantry are trained to remove them. AFV crews are not.
Now, the assumption that AT mines were laid with less care or more obviously than anti-personnel mines is also flawed. Contemporary doctrine is to surface-lay mines, but back in WWII, you could find them deployed in various methods. They were buried (well) and camouflaged, they were surface-laid (typically alongside dummy mines, when time was tight), or they were hidden inside buildings or other areas as booby traps. But where you'd find AT mines set visibly, they would commonly be laid with well-hidden AP mines. Mine fields were also typically observed, and covered by either direct or indirect fire (unless they were very old or the side that laid them had left the region for whatever reason).
AFV crews may be able to "spot" some AT mines, but they would not have the training to disarm them in most cases, or disarm the AP mines laid in and among the AT mines.
Consider that it took 3-4 strong men a good bit of time to repair the tracks on the vehicle, and it takes a squad of infantry a good bit of time to clear a mine field. And then couple that with the stresses of a battlefield (direct/indirect fires, shell-shock, and injuries). It becomes increasingly less realistic and/or likely that a crew of a shot up vehicle can both repair the vehicle and clear a minefield.
SPW@W does an incredible job of realistic representation in almost all instances. So I hope they continue the trend and eliminate this function for crews.
True, Vathailos. On the other hand, while that makes sense, it also might necessitate the removal of mine clearing capabilities from all sorts of other infantry. For instance, I doubt volksgrenadiers would be able to clear mines-some of the disabled vets drafted might have the skills, but on the whole I don't think they would have the training or experience to remove mines. I'm 17 and I know if you gave me a stick and a field and told me to go clear mines I would be far more likely to kill myself than find a mine, though I'm also a bit more of a city boy and so they'd probably be much better than I. As such we would need to be able to decrease the mine-clearing capabilities of such units unless the experience modifiers give enough of a bonus/penalty to accurately describe the difference between experienced and inexperienced units, which I just don't know enough about to make a claim.
Nothing is as important as it seems, and everything matters.
:D:D
I usually don't bail my crews as long as a weapon is serviceable but I will definetly try this out next time! Thanx!
