Sniping

[chris h]

Is there any point at sniping at a vehicle? An armoured vehicle button up no but anything else should be possible.

[Dudi]

It depends on how thick the armor is that a sniper's bullet can penetrate. Shooting without antimaterial rifle at a tank makes no sense, but shooting trucks and light vehicles does.

[chris h]

True, but a tank leader with half his body sticking out the top or if a tank is carrying units should be viable but snipers don't seem to hit anything.

[DRG]

What sniping at an armoured vehicle does is force the unit to button up which effects it's spotting ability for things like scouts or AT units lurking in the weeds

[Mobhack]

And if buttoned up, it is more difficult to hit things with it when firing, its number of shots etc can be reduced.

Plus a buttoned vehicle is easier for infantry to close assault. So spray down any tank you are intending to assault before the assault if its status is not buttoned (or worse).

And of course, if the rifle section doing the hose-down has big HE lumps - like 50mm D/F mortars - then it may even get an immobilising track hit as well.

And finally - the AI (and some humans!) likes tank riders, especially in WW2. Hosing the advancing tanks when they have not yet debussed turns riders into people pate. I always have heavy MG units out in WW2 to make some pate at 1000+ metres! (MG have the range, and also have a blast effect on neighbouring hexes, so I choose the packs of bunched up tanks)

[chris h]

Originally Posted by DRG

What sniping at an armoured vehicle does is force the unit to button up which effects it's spotting ability for things like scouts or AT units lurking in the weeds

Yes it does that but I've never seen a tank take any damage. e.g. crew kill.

[DRG]

It is very rare but so is crew losses from direct fie AP attacks. but it does happen. The main benfit of sniping at an unbottoned tank is to get them to button up

[cbo]

I've just read Buckleys book about British Army in Normandy and he quotes a few stats on tank crew casualties from the ORS reports.

50% of losses happened to crews while inside their tanks.
13% happened when crews were partially exposed, mostly tank commanders commanding their tanks from an open hatch.
12% of losses happened to crews while bailing out or seeking cover after bailing out.
18% of losses happened to crews off duty outside their tanks.
7% happened outside the tanks in circumstances unaccounted for.

In game terms, I assume that tank being "unbuttoned" effectively means
that some of the crew har their heads out of the hatches, as situational awareness drops when the tank is buttonned up per Mobhacks post.

Still, none ofthis says something directly about the risk of crew casualties while "unbuttoned" in game terms, i.e. how often should the crew suffer losses when an unbottoned tank is fired upon.

But it does indicate that it was not without risk of crew casualties to drive around with you hatches open.

As I understand it, it was normal for the crew members in British tanks to train for at least two and often more crewpositions. And as a tank without a commander would be useless, one would assume, that in case the commander became a casualty, the crew would redistribute roles and, the situation permitting, swap positions.

So, in game terms, the tank taking suppression and buttoning up does reflect the situation where a crewmember becomes a casualty, because it makes the tank less effective, even if a crew casualty is not actually registered. Ideally, the tank taking a crew casualty should remain less effective throughout a game, but given the scale of the game, I think it the current modelling is quite reasonable - you get benefits from firing at a tank, even if your weapons cannot destroy or damage it.

[sigeena]

Just to add on. The AT Rifles are pretty useful to quickly button an armoured vehicle. May just be their higher accuracy, but it usually buttons the target faster than MGs.

They are also usually size 0, so they remain harder to detect as well.

[DRG]

Anything that make a loud CLANG! on the armour.. or a rapid series of lesser ones will encourage buttoning up you just need to find the one that works best with the weapons you have at hand