How to make Halftracks more useful?

[Sichartshofen]

MG and rifle fire should have a chance to penetrate, the HT's armour is very thin.

Rifle and MG rounds don't have the power to punch through much steel. The 7.92x57mm Patrone 98 s.S standard issue round could only penetrate a max of 5mm steel plate at 100 meters from 0 degrees. Expect less penetration from the Russian regular 7.62x54R ammo. Half track and UC armor range from 8-12mm and the half tracks armor is well sloped.

 

[Dheepan]

Yeah reading up on it your right.

 

[jedinstven-o crni Wuk]

Rifle and MG rounds don't have the power to punch through much steel. The 7.92x57mm Patrone 98 s.S standard issue round could only penetrate a max of 5mm steel plate at 100 meters from 0 degrees. Expect less penetration from the Russian regular 7.62x54R ammo. Half track and UC armor range from 8-12mm and the half tracks armor is well sloped.

that is very right for usual rifles. But the MG, particularly a Mg like the MG42, with its high rate of fire, was able to "penetrate" some more, or to describe it better: The chance to exactly hit the same spot with a bullet, and to penetrate there is way biger with a MG then with a rifle.

If you always shoot straight on the engine from the HT or any APC, you might be able to penetrate at one point. Though, that you can damage the halftrack even from the side and rear with all the bullets is of course a BIT to much. Only if you shoot straight to the engine, you should have at some point a signifcant damage. Of course, I dont know how strong armoured the Halftrack really was, but I trust your informations here.

 

[Cuddles]

We need a animation for the halftrack MGer it looks s awkward and wrong right now. And grenades near, or under the halftrack shold not kill people inside, its wrong IMO and painfull, when a random nade lands near you.



But how vunrable is the clown car, to a MG or a rifle?

 

[Nilsson]

Rifle and MG rounds don't have the power to punch through much steel. The 7.92x57mm Patrone 98 s.S standard issue round could only penetrate a max of 5mm steel plate at 100 meters from 0 degrees. Expect less penetration from the Russian regular 7.62x54R ammo. Half track and UC armor range from 8-12mm and the half tracks armor is well sloped.

The Germans had armor piercing bullets for mg34/42 and K98k . Penetration was 10 mm (S.m.K.-Patrone) .

 

[hansgering2]

Put the halftrack into urban maps =) and little enemy at.. then it can be used for assulting enemy posisions..

 

[MistaCreepy]

For the most part theyre used correctly. The "waiting for additonal crewmembers" wait time ensures that anyone who wants a ride can get one. Whenever I use it and Im alone I slow down near any walking infantryman... if they hop in (they usually do) then good. If they dont, oh well. Im not gonna sit in spawn and wait for it to fill up.

And if were assaulting a position and im alone, Ill usually park in front of the enemy line and spray them with MG fire. I almost always get killed, but it takes their attention off my guys trying to flank them.

 

[Sichartshofen]

The Germans had armor piercing bullets for mg34/42 and K98k . Penetration was 10 mm (S.m.K.-Patrone) .

SMK was not standard issue.

 

[MattyDienhoff]

Well one thing's certain, the halftracks are too weak. If you're lucky enough to get a grenade IN the halftrack, or do an airburst over it, then that should obviously kill/injure the passengers. But the reality is, all too often explosions on the ground NEXT to the vehicle kill the driver, gunner or even passengers, right through the armor.

Also, the shield for the machine-gunner in the German halftrack is pretty useless. I base this opinion on my experiences manning the MG myself, and also fighting others who use it. As a rifleman, more than once I've shot and killed halftrack gunners from the front, right over the shield. And that's with a rifle. If you have a machinegun, all you have to do is pepper the top of the vehicle with bullets and one or two will get through, it's easy to do and the gunners barely stand a chance, unless they can get fire superiority and keep their enemies pinned down, but that's hard to do because of the way the (useless) shield limits their field-of-view.

 

[{Cap-Down}]

Totally unrelated but it seems to me that the RO devs don't like doing animations very much. Like the Su76 there ins't and animation for loading and the MG gunners on vehicles don't look very "into it"

 

[KrazyKraut]

Weren't the passengers on real halftracks able to shoot out of the vehicle? That would be neat...

Above all though I think one problem is that people are hesitant to riding the halftracks is that the exit spot is so random and exiting can get you killed or injured easily and sometimes even without enemy fire...

i don't have to mention boarding and exiting animations like in America's Army would be completely awesome

 

[Cuddles]

Americas army has vehicles?



Anyway I think that the exit spot of the halftrack shold be the rear, like IRL.

 

[KrazyKraut]

Yes, Humvees.

I just installed the newest version a week ago and was kind of positively surprised. Their driving model is overall superior to RO's: Gear shifting (well, really its just r-n-d), animations for exiting and entering and more realistic feel (compared to clowncar and sdkfz madness).

 

[Cuddles]

Oh ok, I havent played AA over a year.

 

[Sturm Brüder]

Weren't the passengers on real halftracks able to shoot out of the vehicle? That would be neat...

It was more than neat, it was AWESOME! .... and then they removed it

They should put it back in....

...and add a 'Walking Stuka' version

~Sturm

 

[{Cap-Down}]

the british army removed rifle ports from their APC's because the accuracy of a soldier firing from a moving vehicle is very neglible indeed. Would only be useful on the halftrack when it was moving slowly in which case it is a target for grenades anyway. Rather they concentrate on exiting animations.

 

[murderous_eagle]

to make halftracks more useful, a map maker would most likely:

1: create an infantry only map with the only vehic the HT
2: No AT weaponry
3: lots of hiding spots for the russians

the infantry would have to use the track as mobile cover and burst through enemy defenses a la WW1 tanks, but in an urban enviorn. Old Hedgehog tried this, but the halftrack just turned into a mobile death fortress apart from the infantry.

 

[Tontoman]

If you want to stop the gamey looking use of APCs/halftracks (driving up to trench and disembarking) just add a realistic disembarking animation. Not just for looks (which would be awesome), but to fix the problem. No insta exit, no line zerging with the APC. If you make it more 'useful' (better armor, MG etc.) it will just be a better line zerger. This is a little different point than the original post, but you could say that line zerging is aready very useful, that's why it's done. So I'm going more the route of not having it more useful, but still useful but in a less gamey way.

When you get the back door opening and a slow exit, then you'll see it being away from the lines and the MG being used to try and protect the passengers as anything else will be a slaughter. Shooting people as they exit one by one as opposed to having all instantly teleport out AND having 1/2 the passengers teleport out onto the opposite side of the halftrack.

Players will use ANY gamey game mechanics that the code allows (just look at clown cars). Insta exit is gamey and is used as such. If it comes about that with a realistic exit it really does become almost useless, then start work on the APCs/halftrack themselves to balance.

T.

 

[Solo4114]

Halftracks are already pretty useful, I think. But they need the right kind of maps to MAKE people want to use them properly. Obviously, they're all vulnerable to the whole "drive off on your own" thing, but that can't be solved. They're still very useful for PROPER usage of the halftrack.

Look, here's the deal. Whether the HT is vulnerable to nades or not, you shouldn't be bringing them to within nading distance. That's not how they're supposed to be used. If that were done, then any jackass could just stand behind the HT and wait for idiot Germans to exit and then mow them down. The HT is supposed to be used to bring troops NEAR the objective, not right on top of it.

What's more, the MG provides covering/suppressive fire while the troops disembark, and acts as a mobile MG nest. If you use the halftracks this way, they're actually incredibly useful. Remember, the main goal is simply to cover the wide open areas in a way that brings troops in close and shielded from small arms fire. That's it. Once they're within sprinting distance, everyone bails out (except driver and gunner) and charges the position. The half track is just designed to get you close enough to do that, not right into the trench itself. If you're taking it that close, you deserve to be naded.

 

[Cuddles]

Still random russian can just pop you or throw a nade(hand thrown mortar) from behind a corner, or even PPSH spam you.