No one cares about infantry

[Experimental Designs]

I have grown tired of some of the latest trend in RTS games coming out more focused on tank (or vehicle) spamming than having a well balanced force of armored vehicles, infantry and army aviation aircraft.

Is it just me or is this trend creeping into the miniature tabletop genre as well? Flames of War has become a favorite of mine recently since I've finally got some time to catch up with a local gaming club and I notice everyone is dumping a bunch of points in vehicles with one thing missing. Where are the troops?!

So has game designers lost sight on tactics of armored warfare even in the modern sense? I dunno about the old tankers here lingering about in the forums who may have driven the old M60 Patton or the new M1 Abrams but aren't infantry more of a threat to tanks than other vehicles now ATGMs have gotten far more lethal?

Maybe I need to do some more research on this but honestly do you think an infantryman with a $1000+ rocket launcher could wreck havoc on a multi-million dollar tank in order to make spamming AFVs prohibitly expensive in real life? The only country that could spam tanks on the field in a similar fashion are the Russians since they have a gazillion T-72s and T-64s left over from the cold war.

Discuss.

 

[Rogerio Silva]

ExpDes

Well, you're forgetting that war is a mix of a lot of possible resources. Besides, there are many different doctrines out there.
Nowadays, resourceful armed forces use a doctrine simillar to the one USA usually does (I'm NOT criticizing, just making my observations): which we call here in Brazil as "smoothing". You send you airborne force and bomb the enemy, and THEN you send the infantry (protected by the mechanized cavalry, i.e., tanks) to finish the job.
Other forces will rely on their naval support to try to smooth the enemy before launching an amphibious assault (marine infantry, here we go again) or maybe just an incursion.
It's true that a man with a rocket launcher COULD disable a tank, but then again, armor-piercing ammo has been evolving, and so has the armor of the tanks. New materials are making tanks more resistant (or resilient), without adding (much) weight to them.
Infantry is important? No doubt about it! They're the ones who will consolidate any conquer, but they alone won't be able to do the job. War has become a lot more complicatd than that...
Of course, I may be mistaken, this is just my opinion, and I'm no expert in this matter.
All the best,

Rogério

 

[zathros]

Those Rockets you are talking about are more in the million dollar range, the good ones, but it is much less expensive than a tank. I think a lot of people do not want to see "Human" shapes killed, and parents play a part. Ido not let my son do any first person shooter. I will take him hunting, and we will bag a drr, skin it, strip the meat and eat it. Then he can know what death is really about. I was an avid pilot and enjoyed General Aviation, and of course, miitary jets, but for different reasons.

Just getting tired of seeing so many people killed, and we seem to be killing a lot of innocents with remote control planes. That will come back to haunt us. I don't care what older people play, that is their right. For kids, different story. IMHO

 

[micahrogers]

Just getting tired of seeing so many people killed, and we seem to be killing a lot of innocents with remote control planes. That will come back to haunt us. I don't care what older people play, that is their right. For kids, different story. IMHO

I agree Z, adults can play their games and politicians can play theirs, but kids should be taught first hand about life, and death, not "learn" it from a game.

 

[Experimental Designs]

Those Rockets you are talking about are more in the million dollar range, the good ones, but it is much less expensive than a tank. I think a lot of people do not want to see "Human" shapes killed, and parents play a part. Ido not let my son do any first person shooter. I will take him hunting, and we will bag a drr, skin it, strip the meat and eat it. Then he can know what death is really about. I was an avid pilot and enjoyed General Aviation, and of course, miitary jets, but for different reasons.

Just getting tired of seeing so many people killed, and we seem to be killing a lot of innocents with remote control planes. That will come back to haunt us. I don't care what older people play, that is their right. For kids, different story. IMHO

I had a feeling that was some of the reasons why in game design that is a trend since you don't exactly see human life lost versus vehicles being blown up even though when you think about it the personnel inside are getting killed but you're not seeing just people getting chewed up in a vicious firefight when it is just vehicles. The way these graphic video games are made these days I can understand parent concerns versus tabletop games where you imagine it rather than seeing it on a tv screen. You make an excellent point kids don't learn the concept of death from a video game but through experiences such as hunting deer. Is there is a different between seeing and imagining? Maybe but I'm not a parent I can't be the one to judge. Then again I see many 12 and 14 year olds play Warhammer 40k and that is a gritty dark future tabletop game so go figure on that one.

The really good ATGMS you speak of like the Javelin and the TOW, yes those are more expensive but consider the damage they can do versus that multi-million dollar vehicle crewed by 3 to 4 people. Correct me if I am wrong but I notice this with a lot of Western designed armor it is more focused on crew survival rather than effecient use of personnel seen in Russian and Eastern designs. I'm just saying these wargames seem to have a lopsided outlook on modern warfare that infantry are just these things to soak up shots as some Stalingrad-esque cannon fodder which isn't true today even in the modern Russian army.

As far the subject of "droning" terrorists I rather risk using a machine because at least that's easily replaced versus human life by putting our troops in danger needlessly. Drones in low intensity environments has its uses but like everything else in the military it cannot do it all. The word innocents can be used very loosely considering the type of ideological enemy we are fighting in these modern times. This isn't like world war II when we knew who the enemy was. Do not forget this enemy won't think nothing of using children as human shields or worse as human bombs. I don't want to step on anyone's toes on this and don't want to start a heated political debate but if it were up to me a part of the Middle East would be a glass parking lot. Politics be damned you fight terror with terror because this being the good guys in the white hat business isn't going to cut it anymore it just gets more of our people killed. Patton had it right that you don't win a war by dying for your country you win a war by making the other poor ******* die for their country.