Infantry Survivability

[Muhail2]

I've been playing SPMBT for half a year already and it realy starts to bug me that infantry seems to survive many anti-infantry weapons way too good.
A simple example:
A T-95A from Cold War 2020 mod moving at 4 km/h fires 5 HE-FRAG from his 152-mm cannon at chechen scout section, hiding in forest merely 250 metres away. The only casualty he inflicts is the one made with PKT MMG.
Oh Lord, this is almost howitzer shells landing (thanks to FCS and stabilizators and rangefinders and what not...) directly at the infantry positions. I just don't get how it couldn't cause a few wounded from heavy concussion at least. :chin:
I remember reading that tanks, placed as artillery pieces on the hills surrounding Grozny, provided very efficient and useful fire support during the second assault of the city. And that were T-72 with shitty FCS and 125-mm HE shells, firing those from 1,5 - 2 km range! Don't even try this in SPMBT. It seems that main gun fire is effective in inflicting casualies only when at 50 to 0 metre ranges...
The same applies to almost any fragmentary-based weapons. Especially AGLs and autocannons seems strangely unable to kill and wound even infantry advancing through open field.
Well, I can talk on this topic almost for hours, analyzing, comparing and swearing. But the point of the thread is: What can be done to solve the issue with uneffective anti-infantry fire? Tweaking in-game settings proved to be wrong - as the problem mainly lies in low accuracy of all weapons against infantry (while accuracy against vehicles is ok). Are there some configurable values in game files? Is it possible to modify certain OOB's parameters to solve problem without causing side-effects? Or are such changes only possible by developers?

[zeiss]

This question has been discussed many times. I recommend you search the Shrapnel boards, there should be a lot on the subject.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=201

[Cross]

One question I would ask: At the end of your battles, what are the infantry casualty rates for you and your opponent?

My experience is that my infantry casualty rate is often close to 50% especially for my most engaged company, sometimes more, and that's for the winning battalion!

Historically, these rates would be considered very high for a single battle; so personally I don't think infantry should be made even more vulnerable.

But if you think infantry are surviving too well, a quick an easy adjustment would be to change the 'Infantry Toughness' in the Preferences screen.

[Vesku]

If you forget historic and overall casualties and focus on the poor effect of direct heavy weapons fire on infantry, are you saying that it's well simulated? Because I totally agree with Muhail2, it looks like bad comedy sometimes.

[Muhail2]

I recommend you search the Shrapnel boards, there should be a lot on the subject.

Sorry, tried to search by the words "infantry" and "toughness" and found nothing related to the topic.

At the end of your battles, what are the infantry casualty rates for you and your opponent?

Differs - we often play scenarios with uneven forces.
But still, it seems ok to have half a battalion taken out of action in the situation of even forces and fight to death - especially in the high-intensity modern conflict.

Historically, these rates would be considered very high for a single battle

Yes, because most commanders retreated or requested support when things started to get ugly. Also, I suppose "casualties" mentioned in game are both wounded and dead soldiers, not only killed.

a quick an easy adjustment would be to change the 'Infantry Toughness' in the Preferences screen

Alas, It doesn't solve the situation. Adjusting Infantry Toughness even to 200% ruins infantry-to-infantry combat a lot while still giving superficial effect on the discussed issue.

[Narwan]

The effect of both artillery and mg's on infantry is a lot bigger in peoples mind than it is in reality.

If they were truly as effective as people think they were, the historical loss figures for infantry wouldn't have been as low as they are. Being an infantrygrunt was just about the safest combat job (so not counting rear area beancounters etc) there was and is.

As to the original question, I think you're confusing effectiveness with casualties. When you read that tanks were effective/efficient in the fire support role that does not mean the actually inflicted any casualties. You can be very effective in that role without causing a single actual casualty.
The point is to prevent the enemy projecting his power; forcing them to keep their heads down or denying them acces to a certain area, or pinning them etc are all ways to achieve that.

I personally think infantry is far too vulnerable in the game. I have no problem inflicting heavy casualties on infantry, much in excess of what is realistic. Then again, the issue here seems to be not as much the game itself, but what level of infantry casulties is considered realistic. Opinions differ on that. The game is somewhere in the middle.


Narwan

[Cross]

If you forget historic and overall casualties and focus on the poor effect of direct heavy weapons fire on infantry, are you saying that it's well simulated? Because I totally agree with Muhail2, it looks like bad comedy sometimes.

To be fair, Muhail2 is talking about MBT and my comments were more aimed at a WWII situation. I'm not as well read/informed on modern warfare.

It is important to consider if the infantry have 'gone to ground'. Infantry should be very hard to kill if they are dug-in or in some sort of cover. But Muhail2 does give an example of infantry moving across open ground. If he's finding them difficult to wound/kill - then without knowing the details - I would find that disapointing and surprising.

I'm not sure why we should forget historic casualty rates, because if we make infantry easier to kill, we are going to get far higher (even less realistic) rates in our battles, which will have an even greater effect on campaigns. So you'd "fix" or make one thing more realistic but something else less realistic.

Muhail2, If you want to make infantry more vulnerable, I believe you need to lower infantry toughness to 50% not raise it to 200%?

[zeiss]

Here's a few threads on the subject:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthrea...+toughness

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthrea...+toughness

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthrea...+toughness

Muhail2, If you want to make infantry more vulnerable, I believe you need to lower infantry toughness to 50% not raise it to 200%?

Yes, you need to lower infantry toughness to make them weaker.

[Vesku]

I'm not sure why we should forget historic casualty rates, because if we make infantry easier to kill, we are going to get far higher (even less realistic) rates in our battles, which will have an even greater effect on campaigns. So you'd "fix" or make one thing more realistic but something else less realistic.

Take an average meeting engagement, taking 20 turns. Two forces rush into each other without scouting and once they notice (or not) that they are facing an equal force they still keep going at it at full speed for the remaining 15 minutes. Does that sound historical?

[Muhail2]

The effect of both artillery and mg's on infantry is a lot bigger in peoples mind than it is in reality.

Never was under direct mg or arty fire myself. :happy:

the historical loss figures for infantry wouldn't have been as low as they are

As I have already said, there were almost no fights to death of equal forces in real life. Commander would prefer to fall back or request support in case of increasing losses.
And then, take a Kursk strategic operation for example. Were the sides equal? Almost. Was the fighting fierce? Surely yes, fanaticaly fierce in some cases. And the losses were great - with at least 200.000 only on German side, with some units almost annihilated in process. Almost every soldier out of 4 was taken out of action. That's the fighting we almost casualy have in SP series: aggressive, with a lot of firepower concentrated, little time to achieve objectives and with no extra reinforcments or support to rely on. And in SPMBT it should be even bloodier, I suppose, as the weapons are much more powerful.

Currently, infantry attrition rates from artillery, MG and small arms fire are quite believable in SPMBT. But!
In the recent test a platoon of 4 "Cherniy Orel" tanks advanced towards taliban infantry lying in the open ground. Fire was conducted from full stop with ranges from 300 to 400 metres. All settings were on 100%. 16 152mm HE-FRAG shells took a total toll of 5 casualties, and MG fire from NSV and PKT MG's inflicted 6 casualties. Second round of firing produced almost the same results with MG and HE fire incapaciating equal number of soldiers. Interesting to note that displayed accuracy for each (both MG and main gun) shot ranged from 78% to 85%... As the enemy retreated further (one squad was shot while running, with HE round taken out 1 and MG taken out 3(!) enemies) fire was conducted from 500-550 range and in two successive round of firing only 4(!) enemies were killed. Displayed accuracy ranged from 45% to 56%.
As for me, it completly ruins the tank role as a fire support vehicle.
Suppression is the other thing: both MG and HE fire cause nearly the same supression. But, from my experience, MG tend to actually wound 1 or 2 soldiers a round even when firing from extreme distances thus producing much more supression than the main gun does. Heh, I wonder why it was called "main" :)
Is it all right that 152-mm FCS-assisted gun is as effective as a HMG against soft targets? Same question applies to AGLs and autocannons.
It isn't even gameplay-wise: these tanks costs 2400 point which could be used to buy 3 rifle companies on trucks - a whole battalion with RPG-29s, capable of taking out a wide range of armored targets. Or 2 companies with TA-ATMGs with TI in each platoon...
Something should be done to vehicle-to-infanty accuracy.

Muhail2, If you want to make infantry more vulnerable, I believe you need to lower infantry toughness to 50% not raise it to 200%?

Yes, my typo. I acctually lowered inf. toughness to 50% and even 30%. Casualties are much higher but still they are caused only by some random shots. Which is bad, especially when a specops squad gets wiped out by a stray Mosin-Nagant shot from 400m. =\