How to make mechanized infantry dissembark and advance in front of vehicles?

[Colebrook]

How to make mechanized infantry dissembark and advance in front of vehicles?.

With last version you only had to give a route order and choose slow speed,but now doesnt work.

[Volcano]

The easiest way to do it is:

Mech unit arrives at a waypoint with a slow speed route. At that waypoint (before the route) right click on it and change select Troops --> Dismount. Once they dismount, they will adopt the PCs next route.

That said, if the route is slow then the infantry will be crawling now, so they will get left behind. You can make the route Fast speed to avoid that, but the infantry will tire and get left behind by the faster moving vehicles. You can make the route March, and the infantry will walk but the vehicles won't be on optimal behavior if you expect contact with the enemy (they will be in a column, you can change the formation though to line on the route though). My suggestion is: make the route where you want the infantry to walk be:

March

Line

Fast

The complex way to do it:

So, the even longer answer is that now that infantry can move in all sorts of movement types and speeds, it makes the idea of infantry walking in front of PCs very difficult to do, if not impossible. HOWEVER, you have much more flexibility now. The absolute best way to do this is to have the PCs reach the waypoint, then have the dismount order on the route but set the route to be "embark if" and the condition to be delayed by either time (minutes) or something more complicated. Then, create separate routes with whatever speed you want, and these will be for the infantry. Set those routes to "embark if" and specify that the A and B team of the infantry will use it. In this way, you can have the PCs actually move to a spot, dismount troops, then wait while the infantry move on a flanking or sweeping pattern until a certain amount of time, or until the infantry reach a certain objective. You have the flexibility to have the PCs overwatch an objective (ie. a town) and have the infantry close in on the town and clear it while the PCs cover (just an example). Just about anything is possible now.

Whew, I didn't plan on typing all that. I will upload a mount/dismount demo scenario somewhere...

[DarkAngel]

right click on the route. Set it to slow speed and set the troops to dismount.

[Gibsonm]

Do you want them to just "advance in front of the vehicles" or attack somewhere?

If you are attaching I tend to:

1. Give the APCs an assault route (speed fast) with quite a few waypoints.

2. At each waypoint setup a condition (dismount if ... the unit has lost a vehicle). This reflects taking "effective anti armour fire".

3. After that way point, two routes:

- one if they didn't dismount, so the mounted assault continues (fast assault)

- one for all the dismounts and the vehicles (slow assault) reflecting the fight through that has begun. Each of these need an "embark if ... callsign = X" type command. If you lost "a" vehicle and its dismounts then the extra routes are the least of your worries.

You will need to adjust these as usually the vehicle (and passengers) lost are no doubt the ones covering the centre of the Objective and you now need to cover that "gap".

4. Go back to "2" and repeat as required.

Not simple, but then again the thing you are trying to replicate isn't either.

Wait til you want to script the assault formation getting bogged down and you want the depth/reserve to "push through".

Edited November 2, 2013 by Gibsonm

[Colebrook]

Its working. Thanks!

[Tjay]

All answers cut and pasted into my personal 'How to be a good infantry commander' file. All I have to do now is remember them in the heat of battle. (Not the mission editor tips, of course).

[Volcano]

BTW, I uploaded a scenario showing how to script infantry mounting and dismounting. It should be helpful to anyone interested in making scenarios...

http://www.steelbeasts.com/Downloads/p13_sectionid/258/p13_fileid/2544

[Tacbat]

Thanks.

[Joe]

Thanks for this sce, just like the "mine breaching" thing it explained more than thousand words: the most important note is written in red letters concerning the behaviour due to set waypoint and route. (Btw: a small fault: the "secondary" randomly picked up inf. is following the attack route from WP 10 to 11 after having been dismounted at WP 10. I think it was not intended to happen )

Just another question: what has to be edited to have a PC following a route and dismount the troops in case of contact or fire and mount the troops again if there is no more threat? I just tried some "mount/dismount if..." variants but actually the troops won't mount whenever they left the vehicle. Any idea?

[Ssnake]

Dismounting troops while on a route will ALWAYS leave them behind. This is done by design. The dismounts will NOT adopt the vehicle's route but stay at the dismount location. It's the only way how you can actually leave them behind.

[Joe]

Dismounting troops while on a route will ALWAYS leave them behind. This is done by design. The dismounts will NOT adopt the vehicle's route but stay at the dismount location. It's the only way how you can actually leave them behind.

That is what I noticed, btw. does "ALWAYS" mean: they keep dismounted when it is set by "dismount, if...", but I don't wanna have them dismounted all the route, I want to mount them again, when there's no more threat to them (if dismounted in case of any threat, but the WP at the start of the route and the route itself is given "mounted"). Or do I think in a wrong way, not having fully understood the concept of mount/dismount?

[Lt DeFault]

...they keep dismounted when it is set by "dismount, if..." [...] the WP at the start of the route and the route itself is given "mounted"...

Yes. I think he means if the troops dismount on a route, for whatever reason, they will be left behind.

[Joe]

Schade

[Ssnake]

Look at it that way: It's an option to make them dismount and remain in place. On waypoint dismount command they will always adopt the routes going out from the waypoint. Without the behavior of the route dismount you could never separate troops from vehicles by script.

[Joe]

Then pls explain the functions "Mount, if.." or Dismount, if..." vs. Mount/Dismount without "if" (Schützen=> Absitzen/Aufsitzen/keine Veränderung vs. => Absitzen, falls.../Aufsitzen, falls...) (The path in the pic belongs to a Cougar.)

Thx in advance

(Actually I intended, as described above, to have them dismount depending on the presence of enemy forces or fire, and mounted again continuing the route after the situation is cleared- e.g. on a road through a forest)

[27Saxophone]

Probably off-thread, but

Wait til you want to script the assault formation getting bogged down and you want the depth/reserve to "push through".

But why do we "push through" the reserve into the same area that had the aslt element chopped up? Shouldn't we avoid reinforcing failure and use the reserve (aka depth) on an alternative axis? All you have to do is script something to ID the source of trouble and flank that ...

[Grenny]

Probably off-thread, but

But why do we "push through" the reserve into the same area that had the aslt element chopped up? Shouldn't we avoid reinforcing failure and use the reserve (aka depth) on an alternative axis? All you have to do is script something to ID the source of trouble and flank that ...

There comes the art of sce design ;-)