tank ridding

[AlienXXX]

Hello,

I am an unexperienced player, but in usefull discussions with Walrus I have learnt that infantry tank ridding is frowned upon by many players, Russia being the only exception as its tradition of infantry ridding atop and even fightin g from tanks is well documented.

So I would like to ask other players what is your view on tank ridding.
Also I would most welcome any techincal perspective from the historians and militar experts amoungst you.

Thanks

[matxer]

I use tank riding.
Not to bring troops to the front, but to protect the MBT: when dismounted, infantry is a good spotter and can prevent enemy infantry close range attack at the MBT. Sometimes by scouting 1 or 2 hex in front of the tank.
Infantry can also pop smoke.
But beware that MBT attract fire: mounted infantry is cannon fodder.

[wulfir]

So I would like to ask other players what is your view on tank ridding.

If you think it works, use it.


Your opponent is going to bring the best of the OOB to the battlefield - if you're playing the Allies you will nearly always face the armoured element of 1 SS Panzer Corps. ;)

Tank riders are sometimes good if you need to screen your tanks with smoke...
...but in SPWW2/MBT there's a movement penalty for loading and unloading infantry and because tank riders are not protected they suffer if your opponent open up with area fire/arty..., if that happens your tanks will have to slow down or advance without the infantry...

[shortreengage]

Tank riding is still planned for in the US Army. It is however not often used in peacetime as it is somewhat dangerous.

http://www.armyrotc.vt.edu/cadets/FM7-8/782ch.pdf

page 2-125

There is plenty of photographic evidence of tank riding by most sides,
Germans, US, Commonwealth but I believe that the would dismount at the line of contact (LC). That would be found by Scouts or real Mechanized Infantry.

OTOH, using infantry as "ablative armor" does seem a bit cheesy.... as does the "human smoke generator" tactic. That said, I'm just as guilty an the next guy having used one or both ploys at some time.

[Weasel]

On the exercises I was on we had grunts riding on our Leos and cougars. Mostly when their apcs were absent or couldn't go where we went. It did not occur too often though.

Infantry are trained in Canada not to hang around the tanks though, as the tank draws fire that may not kill the tank but could hurt the infantry, so I think in game terms the grunts should be dismounted back of the fight. I could never see them being carried into the fight on tanks.

[Walrus]

Hi Guys
I guess I started to change my opinion of using tank riders all the time, to save on transport, provide smoke cover and spring ambushes, when i was playing Air Master a few years back.
He made some good points about how "gamey" it was to do this.
Just because it works in the game does not make it historical, and that was his main contention.

Once I got over my initial wanting to move up the ladder and that feeling was replaced by wanting the battles to have some historical aspect, or at least some real life aspect, mass tank riding into the heart of the battle was one of the things that I started to do without.

I look at it the same way I do for Weasel's FOO rule.
Up to the point i started using the FOO rule when playing against Chris I had always happily targeted many targets with one FOO...a tube per target, following the enemy around the map with the adjust fire feature.
In the end Chris made a good argument for improving the "real life" aspect of the battles and I am now quite happy to limit my arty strikes using the FOO rule when playing him, or others of a like mind.

I feel that it has improved the battles I play.

The same mentality applies to using many different types of troops in my force, you know, some paras, some commandos, some engineers, some conscripts etc.
It makes sense to do this to get maximum use of your points etc...but eventually you are lead to the way of playing that Hawks perfected so well....small multi arms groups made by buying companies and deleting all but the commander...giving you a tank, an APC, a scout vehicle, an engineer, a sniper, an infantry squad...you get the picture.
These little forces were / are devastating...but in the end they are also truly "gamey".

So, I suggested to Alien that, amongst other tactics, tank riding (unless it was the Russians in WW2 and even then you'd need to use the Tank Desant troops provided in the OOB) was a bit "gamey" and that most players would not be too keen to see it being used.

I fear I may have lead him astray as the initial poll seems to show that it is a tactic everyone still uses.

My apologies to Cesar.

I guess this is yet another good argument for having good communications with your opponents before the battle commences so that both players agree what is "fair" in the context of the coming battle.

I will alway put my hand up for any rule that gives more historical accuracy, and gets us closer to playing a RL battle...considering that is is a game after all, with all it's limitations.

On the other hand, I find it very easy to play "anything goes" battle too...though I feel that they are far less of a challenge to me.

Anyway...that's my 2 cents worth.

Cheers all
Walrus

[matxer]

Interesting !
But is it worth to put all the elements of the combined arms group in the same company ?
A leader is specialized in either arty, infantry or armor. So suppose the leader is paratrooper. He has to rally a tank, fails and can't rally anymore.
Am I missing something ?

[AlienXXX]

Interesting !
But is it worth to put all the elements of the combined arms group in the same company ?
A leader is specialized in either arty, infantry or armor. So suppose the leader is paratrooper. He has to rally a tank, fails and can't rally anymore.
Am I missing something ?

If you are creating a "combined arms group" by deleting all elements of a company except the leader you end up with an in-game army made up of, say 50 "companies" of platoon size (i.e., the only the company leaders remain, all other units were deleted).
I have never played the game this way but understand these units have higher experience and moral so would usually be able to rally themselves.
If you do need the HQ to rally them, then yes, you could get into trouble. Not so much so because of the leaders speciality area (the HQ leader will always be stronger one one of the army branches) but because you have one leader controlling 50 companies...
The thing is, an army created this way, would have a great experience/morale advantage over a more realistic army (made up of standard companies) of the same unit composition and same purchase value.

If your question relates to the value of creating mixed arms units (e.g. infantry mixed with armour) in a classical command structure (say 4 platoons to one company) I guess it depends on the situation.
Say you have enough points to purchase 1 company armour + 1 company infantry, and want to attack throught 2 different routes with infantry supporting tanks.
You can do this by re-shuffling the 2 companies into mixed armour/infantry units. This gives you the command advantage that both attacking elements would be together and close to their leaders. I guess this outweights the inconvenient of having a armour leader trying to rally infantry and vice-versa.
Whether units of this composition are historically accurate or acceptable to other players is a totally different matter...

[Narwan]

Yep, and by picking an elite formation like para's or SS armor or soviet Guards etc, as the 'company' from which you delete all but the HQ you end up with a leader who can rally very well and 'cheap' troops under his command. Ideally you pick about 3 sections to attach to such a HQ for optimal rallying and command. That's about as gamey as it gets IMO.

As to tankriding, my opinion on it has swayed a bit throughout the years. I never agreed with the view that only soviets could use tankriders and even then only desant troops. I felt, and feel, that that reasoning fails to make the distinction between hopping on a tank for a 'taxi-ride' and riding it into battle. As pointed out earlier, just about all nations used tankriding to some degree or another. But using armor as apc's in front line, loading and unloading all the time was indeed a bit too much of a good thing.

Now I don't care much about it anymore. Two reasons; one is the added cost in MP's of mounting and dismounting troops. Not only do the tanks lose MP's, but lost MP's mean lost shots. They usually don't have too many for their main gun so this can be a big drawback.
But the biggest factor was the introduction of splash damage in the game (especially after it got finetuned as vehicles suffered far too few splash hits initially). Before that the vulnerability of troops on tanks was very limited. You needed a direct hit on a tank to hurt them. With splash damage shrapnel and large shells landing nearby can do a world of hurt. As can mmg's and hmg's.

So tankriding into battle has become much more risky than it was. For ww2 games I use it occasionaly, mostly as taxi's, rarely in combat. For MBT just about never; for one less MBT you can buy up to 20 cheap apc's (possibly cheaper than the troops they carrry) so the added value of tankriding is greatly reduced.

Narwan

[Weasel]

I will just expand a bit on my answer. In WW2 I think many sides used tank riding, but I also don't think it was as every day common as we think. Just reading TANK RIDER right now, and even a dedicated tank riding unit like Evgeni Bessonov's spent most of their time walking because either there was enemy air present, or there were no tanks to ride.

Once we get to modern day I feel that tank riding would probably be mostly used by the lesser armies or the world, those that cannot afford apcs and afvs for the boys. However, I think that even in the most modern army you will see tank riding, because in the end what grunt wants to walk when he can get a lift?

I saw this happen in 1990 on exercise. We were supporting C Company, RCR in an attack; well all of a sudden they decided to hell with walking and climbed all over our vehicles. It wasn't planned but it happened and we were only too glad to give them a lift a few hundred yards.

I guess it all boils down to moderation. I would also get upset if in every battle my opponent had tank riders too.

Now as for buying an elite company, deleting everyone but the commander and then buying a crap company, in my opinion, is cheating.