Infantry Defense Against Tank Assaults In Red Victory?

[Xerxes77]

I see you're an active SB modder, so do you know if there's any mod or way to fix this?  I gather (from an older 2016 post on this subject) that part of this problem stems from how the Vehicle Assault Value is calculated - in addition to giving the assaulting AFV credit for its weapons it also gets heavily credited for its armor, so much so that according to that one older post a Tiger 1 is the equivalent of 66 infantrymen in the assault!  Again I'm not saying the Tiger wouldn't be a very tough nut to crack, but equating two machineguns firing from inside a single, easily pinpointed, slowly moving armored box to two full platoons of assaulting infantry strikes me as a real stretch, especially if the defenders have any sort of covered terrain to work with.  If that's really the case, it might be time for me to dust off Combat Mission and see if that's still playable instead.

In any event, thanks again for your reply and cheers!

Hey gamerguy, glad to help! I really wouldn't call myself a modder, in fact it was only late last year that I got into the series (I do however like to play with data and simulations and do some light programming on the side, so I usually find myself spending more time tinkering with the game than actually playing it!).

I definitely share your concern and frustration. I think the main problem is that we're basically late to the party,  as the series is no longer actively supported and the code is, as far I know, locked and final. That said, if I may suggest, do not give up on SB just yet. It's a beautiful, nearly endlessly expandable system that just needs a bit more love, and there are some actual modders and designers who are still doing a great job breathing new life into it.

This AFV issue seems to be basically a one-two punch of Hard vehicles being impervious to any type of damage and their Assault Values escalating with Armor, which means their assaults are absolutely devastating for infantry. I haven't looked at it in detail and I'm not sure how veterans of the series have handled it over the years. I imagine preventing an AFV rampage should be a challenge for scenario designers!

As for ways to fix this, I don't think we can make AFVs vulnerable again, however I think we can definitely do something about their general lethality. The idea is that by making assaults less profitable, the tank player would be forced to balance their risks more carefully. I'd need to do some more testing before proposing a suitable modification. I'll keep you posted.