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Author Topic: Entrenched infantry behaviour  (Read 5930 times)
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blazingPanzer
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« on: November 28, 2015, 07:03:39 AM »

I've been doing some testing of how infantry taking cover in trenches behave under fire, and noticed a few areas where their behaviour seems a bit off.  They seem to spend far to much time looking over the parapet when under heavy fire. For instance, even when under artillery fire and with a suppression rating of high, they pop their heads up and spend a good 4-6 seconds looking around before getting below the parapet again.  Spending this long looking around is fine when they're not getting shot at but when under fire just doesn't make sense, and results in them getting shredded by shell splinters when they probably would've been fine if they spent less time admiring the virtual scenerey and more sheltered below the parapet. 

This behaviour is especially  noticeable when trenches are attacked by armour; even when a tank is sitting 50 m away pumping coaxial fire into the trench and has already hit several unfortunates in the face the inf will frequently stand up an look around in the aforementioned leisurely fashion, giving the tank every chance to riddle them full of holes!  This allows tanks to exterminate every last infantryman in a trench system using only their MG, as the inf willingly expose themselves to the very thing that trenches should protect them against, i.e. flying bits of metal.  Using the ambush button doesn't help much with this problem either, as although it does reduce the number of inf looking around they still spend just as long peering over the parapet. I think that if the duration of and frequency with which the infantry pop their heads up to look around were somehow tied to the amount of fire which they were exposed to (or the parameters adjusted if this is already the case), it would vastly increase their surviveability under heavy weapons fire and force players to use more realistic tactics to clear trench systems (i.e. not just parking a tank next to a trench system and waiting until it kills them all with coax fire).

Another area where inf behaviour could be improved is how they respond when their trench structure starts to get degraded by shellfire.  The way the terrain can be smashed up by shellfire is probably one of my favourite aspects of GTOS, but I've noticed that as the trenches start to get filled in that the infantry crouching in them for cover are no longer concealed beneath the ground.  This is fine except that they don't seem to realize that they're totally exposed, which usually leads to them getting killed pretty quickly by whatever was shelling their trench.  I think they if they could detect that the trench no longer conceals them and lie down to take cover instead of crouching this would make them a fair bit more suriveable under artillery bombardment.
« Last Edit: November 28, 2015, 07:48:54 AM by blazingPanzer » Logged
hnbdgr
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« Reply #1 on: November 29, 2015, 03:01:16 PM »

Yes very well written. Tanks can indeed dispatch a whole platoon of entrenched infantry like this and imho shouldn't be able to.

here's a post from r/askhistorians about how it was in RL:


https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3pabz0/in_ww2_could_a_single_tank_destroy_a_trench_just/

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hnbdgr
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« Reply #2 on: November 29, 2015, 03:09:38 PM »

I'll add that trenches in this game are visible already in the "initial orders" phase. I wonder if it would be possible to reveal the texture (not the model itself) only after a unit spots them. This would prevent preplanned bombardment of positions and make it a bit more difficult for the attacker.
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waypoint
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« Reply #3 on: November 29, 2015, 07:27:39 PM »


Quote
A properly dug foxhole (a dug in fighting position for a single soldier) will resist machine gun fire, but not direct hits from explosive shells, although it will provide protection against near misses.
Why does that "historian" write about individual foxholes, when the OP question was about squad trenches, that were prepared for 2 days?
Whether the parapet will resist machine gun fire depends on it's thickness, material (clay, sand, earth, snow), MG round used (AP), bullet's energy when it hits. So it cannot be said that the parapet will simply resist MG fire in all cases.

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An infantry platoon might have 30-40 men, each with their own foxhole, which is almost certainly more rounds of HE than a tank would usually carry, and foxholes are very small targets to direct fire.
A full strength platoon according to TOE might have 30-40, but it will soon dwindle in size if it actually participates in any action.
Then it comes to "almost certainly more rounds of HE than a tank would usually carry" which is just wrong. PzKpfw IV Ausf F with 7.5cm Kwk L/24 would easily carry 80 rounds in total, while T-34 would bring 77 rounds. It is impossible to tell how many of the rounds would be HE in any situation. While attacking the position of infantry supported by AT guns it is more than likely that more than half of all rounds carried will be HE.

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However the scenario you describe is NOT how tanks attacked infantry in the Second World War.
While there will be some dispersion with high velocity HE rounds, why can't a T-34 simply start putting shells on targets after several rounds that would be used to estimate range etc? The fact that armor would often play a supporting role in a combined arms attack does not prove that it would be impossible for a tank to use about 50 HE rounds to zero in on a trench and deal some serious damage.
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hnbdgr
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« Reply #4 on: December 01, 2015, 01:20:27 PM »

I take your points. Still it would be fairly unlikely that a single tank would wipe out a platoon by landing accurate fire on every trench or foxhole, especially on flat ground.

There's also the question of detecting the presence of trenches on flat ground. If your vision is restricted to a tiny slit or periscope, or slit windows on the turret - the detection of those would not be immediate.

I imagine if a trench system was detected HE shells would be fired by the tank for a while to suppress the trench. The infantry inside would cover and try to hold on to their dear life and hope that the isolated tank moves closer to them. When it does, platoon elements that are not suppressed and have AT equipment will engage the tank from close up.

There is also a chance they will opt to hastily retreat either in an organized fashion or under panic.

As for the tank, once it suppresses the trench it can either

a) wait for infantry to storm the trench - assuming there are some nearby
b) advance through the trench to use shock and try to collapse section of it - should be a very risky prospect for an isolated tank
c) ignore the trench and move on to a different objective
d) wait and observe from afar trying to engage infantry if they try to leave

However what happens in game, is as described by OP:

you park a tank near a trench and then destroy the whole platoon one by one as they pop their heads out above the parapet for 3-4 seconds(too long). That is to my mind, wrong.

In these situations, 1-2 seconds is enough for infantry to assess what's going on. Also less of them would do so. In here because the timing seems to be generically set to the same interval for all situations(supress stances) the tank can play whack-a-mole.
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waypoint
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« Reply #5 on: December 01, 2015, 03:38:39 PM »

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Still it would be fairly unlikely that a single tank would wipe out a platoon by landing accurate fire on every trench or foxhole, especially on flat ground.
Ground is rarely flat, tanks armament is couple of meters above the ground, and with 76mm HE rounds there is no need to hit right inside the trench. I am not even talking about firing HE with fuze set to delay action, where the rounds would detonate above the trench, after ricocheting from the ground. Even the US manuals (FM 17-12 Tank gunnery) of that period have that as a viable way of engaging targets.

By the way, machine guns were one of the usual targets for tanks of this period. It would be engaged either by the coax or with HE rounds. An MG in a prepared position is an extremely small target, yet they were successfully engaged in order to let friendly infantry move on. Sure, it will not be the first round hit, but bracketing is a perfectly good way to eventually achieve rounds on target.

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There's also the question of detecting the presence of trenches on flat ground. If your vision is restricted to a tiny slit or periscope, or slit windows on the turret - the detection of those would not be immediate.
So there were absolutely no recon, aerial or any other kind? There is no signs of digging or clearing fields of fire? No parapets or they are perfectly hidden? What about binoculars? Commanders periscope sights, as those on a T-34? You are suggesting that a tank just happened by a lonely trench in a flat field? And the infantry is just sitting there without firing, no smoke or flashes?

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I imagine if a trench system was detected HE shells would be fired by the tank for a while to suppress the trench. The infantry inside would cover and try to hold on to their dear life and hope that the isolated tank moves closer to them. When it does, platoon elements that are not suppressed and have AT equipment will engage the tank from close up.

So, he fires some HE shells to suppress the trench, and then for some weird reason he moves closer to the said trench, so that the infantry could engage it? He has great range and firepower advantage, why in the hell would he even consider giving it up? It would be even harder for him to engage the fleeting targets up close.

Quote
There is also a chance they will opt to hastily retreat either in an organized fashion or under panic.
If the player placed the trenches in such a fashion that the retreat is impossible (in the middle of a field, for example) than he can only blame himself. Behavior of the AI could be improved in this regard.

Quote
As for the tank, once it suppresses the trench it can either

a) wait for infantry to storm the trench - assuming there are some nearby
b) advance through the trench to use shock and try to collapse section of it - should be a very risky prospect for an isolated tank
c) ignore the trench and move on to a different objective
d) wait and observe from afar trying to engage infantry if they try to leave
I am not trying to argue about the tactics of this whole affair. There is a single tank and there is a trench. My opinion is that if a tank is aware of a large area target it is physically possible for him to land a few dozens good hits on it, damaging the defending platoon in the process. So a player should not expect to ambush a tank in the middle of a field, to achieve perfect cover once the infantry simply gets down, and should really try to support his infantry with the antitank guns and the like.

Quote
However what happens in game, is as described by OP:

you park a tank near a trench and then destroy the whole platoon one by one as they pop their heads out above the parapet for 3-4 seconds(too long). That is to my mind, wrong.

In these situations, 1-2 seconds is enough for infantry to assess what's going on. Also less of them would do so. In here because the timing seems to be generically set to the same interval for all situations(suppress stances) the tank can play whack-a-mole.
I partially agree with you on this. I have not played GTOS in a while (having fun with Steel Armor), but if i am not mistaken in the ambush mode there is significantly less of this whack-a-mole behavior. And infantry's role is to engage the soft targets that follow the tank. While they should stay down when the trench is being peppered with HE shells, they do need to pop up once in a while to acquire and engage the assaulting infantry, and it may be difficult to spot targets in 1-2 seconds.
« Last Edit: December 01, 2015, 06:03:32 PM by waypoint » Logged
Jethro
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« Reply #6 on: December 11, 2015, 01:30:37 PM »

One man foxholes?  Is that really a thing?
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