How do I stop this from happening?

[Der Kuenstler]

Here I have a whole platoon of men safely unspotted in some woods with 30M cover arcs just waiting for an unsuspecting T34 to stop by. Sure enough, one pulls up and parks within 20 meters of one of my fully armed, rested, in-command squads. What do they do? Instead of assaulting the tank with grenades, they shoot at the commander with small arms, causing the tank to button up and every T34 in the area to target them.




This will likely result in mass area firing and my entire platoon lost for nothing. What orders could I have given to prevent this?

[keif149]

What qualities does your leader have? Just curious. If it would have been a tank hunter team, then you would also have the option "cover armor".

[Liebchen]

Perhaps if you had made the open fire range even shorter, and then used it to assault instead, you might have had better luck...:(

[keif149]

Yes, that's probably it, 26 meters or less.

[PoorOldSpike]

'HIDE' WITH 15m ARC TO STOP YOUR MEN FIRING AT TANKS
In this series of tests, a T-34 trundles on 'Move' from top of map.

1- No arc, no hide. The infantry try to blow away the tank commander when he gets to 37m range.




2- 30 metres arcs, no Hide. This time the arcs make the inf hold their fire until the tank enters the arc at 29m.




3 - 30m arcs, Hide. The Hide has no effect, the infantry un-hides and opens up when tank enters arc. Obviously his desire to defend himself overuled his order to stay on Hide.




4 - 15m arcs, no Hide. The inf hold their fire but are spotted by the tank which begins turning its turret to fire.




5 - 15m arcs, Hide. At last the infantry hold their fire and the tank trundles by without them shooting at it, and without it spotting them.


Conclusion- To force your inf to hold their fire you must slap a 15m arc AND a Hide order on them, otherwise they'll fire to defend themselves when the tank gets to within about 30m, because at that range they know the tank will possibly spot them anyway, as pic 4 showed.
(For the record, in some tests the TC became a casualty, in others he was unharmed)

[Chipmunk]

Conclusion- To force your inf to hold their fire you must slap a 15m arc AND a Hide order on them, otherwise they'll fire to defend themselves when the tank gets to within about 30m, because at that range they know the tank will possibly spot them anyway, as pic 4 showed.
(For the record, in some tests the TC became a casualty, in others he was unharmed)

I think DK wanted to know if there was a way to get the infantry to chuck their grenades at the tank when it entered their arc instead of firing small arms, not hold their fire altogether.

[Ratzki]

I think that because assaulting a tank with AT weapons is abstracted in the game, the closer you are to the tank, the better chances that is what will happen. At the far end of throwing grenades or whatever, the tank activates the squad through the covered arc, but then a series of rolls have to be made to abstractly get a man to run the distance and throw something at the tank. I seem to have much better results when i set the covered arc down to <25m.

[Der Kuenstler]

This discussion makes me wonder if this is true: perhaps infantry will not chuck grenades at a tank unless it is buttoned first. If unbuttoned they will shoot small arms to button it, then try close assault.

Can anyone recall their men chucking a grenade at a tank that was unbuttoned? I can't.

[Colonel Talvela]

It is a frustrating problem DK. I wish inf units had armor arcs as well.

[PoorOldSpike]

I just noticed one of my 5 test pics vanished, I've corrected it now but that's the second time in a week one of my pics has vanished from the forum, maybe somethings glitching, I dunno..