Modern wargear limits ?

[Fubar]

For me one of the big draws of MBT is all the modern gear you get to use, but lately i find more and more people saying 'no air strikes', 'no CM's' or 'no ATGM's', to me this seems a shame as thats one of the appeals to me of the period covered by MBT and i sometimes feel i may as well be playing WW2.

On the other hand i know exactly what they mean, i've been on the wrong end of more than one opponent armed with nowt but ATGM's, Javelin armed Spec forces with a healthy dose of CM armed arty.

What do you guys think is a playable limit for these types of wargear. For instance i have no problem with say one ATGM/AT section attached to each Infantry Coy purchased.

[Iwo Jim]

Hi Matt,

I don't mind the ATGM's so much they can be dealt with and the air strike birds really don't have much of a shelf life if there are some decent SAM's about, but I do not like using the CM's they just devestate entire formations kinda takes the fun out of the game if you never have the chance to fire and manuver on your opponent.....:stir:

[Vesku]

https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards...?tid=43366

I think this is quite good ... at least this has worked so far.

[wulfir]

What do you guys think is a playable limit for these types of wargear. For instance i have no problem with say one ATGM/AT section attached to each Infantry Coy purchased.

I'd like to go with historical/actual OOBs as much as possible and buy full company formations. If you play as Sweden with realistic OOBs (late cold war and on) you'll very quickly exceed such a limit - however the Swedish OOB suffers ammo reductions for every upgrade of the game - now ATGM teams have only two 'shots' per team making their use, well, limited. Especially without ammo supply...

I can see the problem when using countries where actual OOBs are hard to find or unknown...

[shortreengage]

I am in complete agreement with Wulfir. Research is the best way to go. For example
If you are playing 1978 US, a Mech Infantry company had 9 Dragons and 2 TOWs. And this does not take into account any of the 12 TOWs in the Combat Support Company.
That gives you 45 ATGMs (not counting 3TOWs the scouts have) in one Battalion.
Some armies will just rain ATGMs on you. The French will do it too.

OTOH What if you are playing Angola or Cuba in 78? certainly they would have only a few if any.

That said, limits are all well and good, but some players try to manipulate the game to their style of play. IE " Lets play 1944 Germans vs US, no air or 2 air......" Then he shows up with a horde of Tigers and Panthers. Or 10% ARTY, no Air, low points, 30 turns. Let me guess, you like infantry........Or "lets use this map" the one with lots of terrain so my FC 3 tanks can sneak up on your FC 15 tanks oh, and no helos...

Buyer beware:)

[Grumbler]

I blame the ladder. Unfortunately, there is no better way to keep score.
It's all for fun, it's just that winning is more fun then losing.
And just think, the warbots haven't made it to MBT yet. There are over 40,000 warbots in use in Iraq. Think about what it would do to the game when EVERY rifle platoon has it's own micro UAV. You can run but you can't hide, and you better run pretty dam fast.:pig:

[Weasel]

Well hopefully the experimental rules we are working on will provide some game parameters which will allow for such things. So far Vesku and myself have found that if you want to get to the battalion level to achieve those benefits, then you have to sacrifice either infantry or tanks. In our experimental game I went with a balanced forced, and thus achieved neither a battalion in infantry or tanks, whereas Vesku went with an armoured battalion and thus could buy ATGM but with less infantry support. This was with around 8K pts in 1975ish.

Still early though to fully comment.

[Fokkov]

What is mostly counting is any player ability to limit himself in purchasing units.
What in a meeting engagement is unrealistic can be justified when playing a attack battle on prepared defences.
If playing some one in a meeting engament and he brings 4 mrls batteries it will be the last game i play with him , but if he does the same in a full scale prepared attack i think thats not onrealistic.
(but don't like to be on the receiving end).

Also annoying is players that push bailed out crews forward as scouts or bait. and other such things.

[AlienXXX]

I like the fact that the game is so flexible: it allows for any strategy or unit combination to be tried in the battlefield. It is so flexible that we find ourselves imposing limits to it: "no airstrikes", "only 1 ATGM per company", etc.

Of course, I would be as annoyed as the next guy if I end up playing someone who decides to bring 50 snipers to battle and I prefer people who buy unit formations... On the other hand I can understand the desire to max out AT weapons, especially if playing an enemy with stronger tanks.

However, I believe the issue is not with the flexibility of the game or individual preferences for units. I think the unit prices are unrealistic.
For example, airplanes in WW2 and (at least) early MBT are quite unexpensive.
Ammo supply units should cost a lot more than they do.
One of the few exceptions is good quality snipers who are actually fairly priced versus infantry.

Higher prices for the more desirable "toys" should result in people who buy unrealistic ammounts of ATGMs, for example, having to sacrifice so much on other unit types that the resulting army would have easily exploitable weaknesses.

[Grumbler]

AlienXXX, the unit costs are NOT meant to be realistic. They are there to give balance to the game and make it playable between two humans.
IIRC, there is a FAQ some place on the Shrapnel forums that explains it;

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads...ds.php?Cat=

It might be in one of the manuals. Basically, armor ( RHA and HEAT) values, speed, vision range finders, VVSS, ammo load, men, etc. ALL are ran thru a formula to produce the units cost. That is why a standard infantry unit doesn't cost as much as a MBT. Add 40 vision and a GPS laser targeting system as well as a ManPAD or ATGM and see what it does to the cost of an infantry unit. Or look at a standard BTR type armored truck (battlefield taxi) compared with an upgraded unit that has 40 vision, and ATGM, AGL, VVSS and reactive armor and see what that does to the unit cost.:pullhair:

You gets what you pays for. And you should be able to slaughter an Opfor composed of Snipers. Decide where you want to go, follow a rolling barrage along that route, area firing as you go. All that hot metal flying around will cause suppression on the sniper, which will allow you to spot it. Then you kill him and move on to the next target.
Size zero targets are all psych-ops weapons. They are supposed ti work on your mind first and foremost. The best defense is to not let them, or in my case, not have a mind.