Nikademus
Posts: 25684
Joined: 5/27/2000
From: Alien spacecraft
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Infantry....ah Infantry, possibly the most controversial element of the SP series.
The field seems to be split on the issue. Some say that Inf is hopelessly vulnerable to enemy fire, others say they ar'nt vulnerable enough.
Me? no question that SP-1 and SP-2 was way too vulnerable (especially SP-2..even with INF toughness set to 250%!)
I was orig well entrenched in the 'too vulnerable' field having been with SP from the very start and seeing whole platoons wiped out after two or three 75mm+ hits with HE rounds from tanks etc etc. The latest version of SP:WWII seemed to address this, but after playing that venerable version for several months i began to question whether or not things had gone too far the other way? One could spend turn after turn spraying a hex with rifle and MG fire and only come out with 1 or 2 casualties....rarely one might see 4-5 (very rarely) Flamethrowers were useless (even with Elite exp ratings) and cannon fire almost was'nt worth expending.
SP-3 when it came out seemed reasonable at first, esp since we were dealing with whole platoons so there was correspondingly a huge increase in 'firepower' per fire round. Also, what was 1 or 2 casualties per turn in a full strength platoon of 50+ men? Unless one was careless, in a scenerio of maybe 15 turns? not much.
Still....one thing about the SP-3 engine always niggled at me. The fact that more often than not....too often for it to just be put down to a "lucky shot" With distressing regularity, i would see either long range shots and/or inexp shots with to hit % of 8% or less, often even 5% or less get a 1 casualty rating.
Again, at the Brigade level of SP-3, this was'nt so bad, but in SP:WAW, we are back to the squad/indiv vehicle level so its a bit more frustrating.
Just finished playing the 45 scenerio USSR vs Germany (sorry the title escapes me) but its the one where a small Soviet INF force supported by a platoon of T-34/85, and two sections of SU-122 (+1 sec ISU 152) assaults a German town just before Berlin defended by a scratch German force composed mostly of Green German troops. (of course 'Green' for the Germans is still decent (mid to high 60's) but hardly elite or veteran.
Well, even factoring in my 'aclimitization' to SP:WWII's much tougher inf ratings, i found the scenerio frustrating as all too often, Green troops firing on my either stationary(in cover), or 1-hex moved (again in cover) with an average to hit of 5% or less getting a kill/casualty.
far too many at least to put it down to a lucky or crack shot. The result of course was that by scenerio's end my veteran and highly valuable footpads were pretty much gutted as fighting units.
now i do understand that the 'to hit' % displayed on the screen is subject to adj (like by the leaders INF rating) and is not the final one but still....the frequency of casualties attributed to firing rounds with such a low beginning % to hit (3% - 8%) has always been what i considerd to be a SP-3 fax paus.
I also noticed another holdover from the SP-3 game engine....even squads reduced to 1 man still can fire EACH weapon that the squad has. I suffered yet another couple of casualties attacking a Ger Green unit with 1 intact footpad who single-handedly shot at me with is rifle, then picked up the MG-34, and THEN attacked me with a grenade (whats the German word for RAMBO??? we could have used this guy at Stalingrad!)
Another distressing symptom i noted was that 95% of all squads engaged...even inexperienced ones, did not retreat till they'd suffered 90+% casualties (which usually led to dispersement)
After pondering this for a while, my first thought was to simply increase the INF toughness level, but actually i dont think the system is flawed in that respect. besides which, if the INF 'were' made sig tougher it would severely unbalance most of the scenerios which have average time lengths of 15 or less, which would be impossible to complete if multiple turns are having to be spent trying to root out pesky entrenched inf that are laughing at my efforts. (as it was, by being over-cautious i'd only managed to take half the town by scenerio's end as the Soviet player)
so i guess my main rant/question is not whether or not the INF are too vulnerable, but why is it that the SP-III based engine SO frequently awards casualties to firing units that have such poor firing solutions?
at a guess, i'm thinking it may have to do with the fact that for INF groups the inital main weapon (usually rifles) gets multiplied by the # of men in the squad so your looking at many chances of a hit at x% rate. Only hole in this theory is that the MG weapon (of which there is only 1 usually per squad) also tends to get an inordinate amount of hits with low %'s as well.
one last question too (really ;-)..)
I'm thinking that specialized units like MG squads and AT guns should'nt have secondary weapons to fire. It would seem to me (and i think i've seen other people mention this) that the crew would be too busy assisting with firing/operating the main weapon to be taking potshots with rifles (and with the SP engine the way it is, often getting more casualties than the main weapon scores!)
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Infantry.....a snowball in hell, or an iceball in Helsi... - 
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