Make Infantry advance in front of their PC

[Koen]

Hello,

What is the best way to make Infantry advance in front of their PC ?

Currently I do this as following, but it's a very time-consuming way and I hope there's an easier solution:

1) PC 1/A is moving in line or wedge formation and arrives at a Checkpoint with a Defend/Hold/ Stay-tactic ...

(if moving in column, the troops will dismount in column as well, so far beyond the PC's who will be all at the Checkpoint in e.g. line-formation)

2) at the Checkpoint, Dismount IF conditional time > 1 minute.

This way, all vehicles have the time to arrive at the Checkpoint BEFORE dismounting starts,

otherwise infantry dismounts again (far) behind the Checkpoint

Problem: Dismount IF exists only in Mission Editor - in planning phase there is only "Dismount" not IF, so dismounting happens immediately when 1 vehicle reaches the Checkpoint ...

3) from this Checkpoint 2 routes depart:

-> route 1: IF this unit is NOT 1/A (so the infantry) and IF conditional time > 2 minute - speed fast

-> route 2: IF this unit IS 1/A (so the PC's) and IF conditional time > 5 minute - speed slow

Problems:

a. all infantry will start to converge to the same route, which will end them up in column & not in wedge of line anymore -> not really desirable

b. the PC's, even with a delay in daparting & slow speed, very quickly catch up with the infantry & overtake them -> so need to make very short routes & add lots of Checkpoints to slow down the PC's, so complex

Is there a better solution ?

THX !!

NB The old solution was IIRC:

PC at slow speed = infantry dismounts and walks before their PC's, that NEVER overtake them.

A very easy solution for the scenariodesigner, but I guess there were good reasons not to do it anymore like this in the last updates of SB

[Koen]

Actually, is it a RL tactic to have infantry advancing simultaneously with the PC's (in front of them), when attacking ?

Or is it rather:

* PC's halt & drop off infantry

* Infantry advances to their objective

* PC's give covering fire (from the drop off point, so out of reach of RPG's etc)

Or what ?

[Gibsonm]

Well it all depends on whatever the commander thinks is the best solution/approach.

Drop short

Drop on

Drop past

Dismounted attack with APCs providing fire support from a flank

...

Are they APCs or IFVs?

What is the terrain like?

Day / night?

What equipment does the enemy have?

How well prepared are the enemy defensive positions?

How much time do we have?

There is no default / cookie cutter solution

[Kingtiger]

We had it in our Mech Coy fighting manuals when we had PBV302. But it was more like the squad split off with 1 team left and forward and 1 team right and forward so there was a gap between the teams where the PBV302 was rolling and firing.

But it is like Gibsonm says, there is no straight answer, it so situation end equipment depending. But my POV is that its a realistic tactic to use.

/KT

[Koen]

RE Tactics:

Roger that, thx Mark & Kingtiger.

I'll have a look at available FM's to learn more about which tactic when to use.

RE routescripting in planning phase:

I just discovered Zipuli's brilliant JAALA RESCUE mission,

whereby 2 CV90 plt attack a village.

In SP it's not easy to script 16 infantryplt in an attack, so I was looking for a more "automated" approach.

Still it turns out that this is also time-consuming, nor perfect (see problems).

Hence the initial question for advice.

[Froggy]

Sometimes dismounts follow the IFV close, to have some protection in the open, and get in front when they reach urban area.

z2iRJ8M0R7s

[Tjay]

I trust you know that trying toscript Mech Inf operations during the mission building process, or actually playing the Mech Inf role in a scenario, is guaranteed to age you at twice the normal rate? Look at me; I appear to be 71 but I'm actually only 33. And I've never done any mission building - just played missions others have so kindly provided.

[Koen]

Sometimes dismounts follow the IFV close, to have some protection in the open, and get in front when they reach urban area.

Aha, of course.

Is this applied as such in MP ?

Still, also time-consuming to script in SP.

I trust you know that trying toscript Mech Inf operations during the mission building process, or actually playing the Mech Inf role in a scenario, is guaranteed to age you at twice the normal rate? Look at me; I appear to be 71 but I'm actually only 33. And I've never done any mission building - just played missions others have so kindly provided.

:-)

:-)

[Froggy]

Sadly, inf goes down when under fire, so they crawl behind the IFV during assault!

[mpow66m]

does anyone have a link to mission,plz.

[Koen]

does anyone have a link to mission,plz.

You mean "JAALA RESCUE OPERATION" ?

Here it is:

http://www.steelbeasts.com/Downloads/p13_sectionid/262/p13_fileid/2417

[Gibsonm]

You mean "JAALA RESCUE OPERATION" ?

Here it is:

http://www.steelbeasts.com/Downloads/p13_sectionid/262/p13_fileid/2417

A YouTube video of it is also in each BG ANZAC promo post as Zipuli recorded us playing it.

Latest instance:

http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbforums/showthread.php?t=21988

Top video.

[mpow66m]

thnx Koen and Gibsonm,got it.

[Gibsonm]

A very easy solution for the scenariodesigner, but I guess there were good reasons not to do it anymore like this in the last updates of SB

IIRC the change was made to allow passengers to get into any nearby unit (not just the ones they started the mission in).

So instead of infantry refusing to get into nearby vehicles and opting to walk a longer distance to get into "their" vehicle or empty vehicles refusing to take passengers, they broke the "parent / child" link.

The down side is you need to do more work to orchestrate an attack, the upside is that there is more flexibility.

[Tjay]

Recently, I've not had much success with this feature. E.g in last night's DoW session I wanted to reposition a missile team. Their parent vehicle wasn't availabe as it had got stuck in a bog about 1km away, so I drove right up to them with my other (empty) Brad but couldn't persuade them to mount up. So the stupid boys had to walk.

Anyone else had similar experiences?

[Gibsonm]

How close?

Did they show up in the 3D world menu (lower right corner of the screen when you click on the vehicle icon, you'll get a "Load" choice [or similar] with a sub menu listing those close enough).

I must say I've been OK loading troops into M113, Bradley, Truck or even Helos using this technique.

[Koen]

... actually playing the Mech Inf role in a scenario, is guaranteed to age you at twice the normal rate ...

So how can we make infantry better perform, in the attack ?

* I for one, will experiment with the Suppression command, see the tactics thread

* Anyone try already if Breach routes make infantry behaviour better in cities ?

(I read a long time ago that it helped)

* Other tips ?

[Gibsonm]

Assuming you expect to conduct an attack as part of the scenario, prepare a bunch of suitable routes off to the side of the map during the planning phase and then copy and paste as required during the conduct.

That will save some time and reduce some of the stress that some people appear to experience.