Defeating a tank with a spearman *is* realistic...

[Roxinante]

There is a problem with scale, not just the scale of a tank 'unit' v. a spearman 'unit'. Clearly that doesnt mean a guy with a spear v. a tank. It would mean a bunch of guys with spears fighting...a bunch of tanks.
Does it?
Or does it merely a name behind the numbers? A 2 v. a 28. Now we're talking odds, and if you improve the odds - say, give terrain bonuses, experience, then it seems a little more plausable. Its not some guy with a shield attacking a tank, its a couple of Iraqi insurgents who get behind an M1A1 with an RPG, point-blank range, and knock out its engine.
Theres also the aspect of time, which is never accounted for in these posts. A spearman unit attacks a tank unit. Over what time period? Does the battle represent exactly that? A battle occuring over hours or days, or is it something that occurs over a turn - which is likely to be one or two years by the time you have tanks.

So if you look at it like that, then the scenario tank v. spear works like this.

January. T-34 tanks from the 1st Armored Division (The Cossacks) cross the border into Portsmouth, encountering Home Guard units. Few tanks are lost, but late in the month a fuel depot is destroyed.

February. The main city of the region, Portsmouth, is attacked. Since this is a surprise attack, the city is only guarded by Home Guard, a single division's worth. They are poorly equiped, few even with firearms, but are defending home turf, and have the benifit of some experienced army officers (city defeder II). The actual battle is brief, but some tanks are lost to traps set in alleyways, roadside bombs, and snipers. The Home Guard has melted into the general populace, and has begun a partisan campaign.

March. 75% of the divisions tanks are functional, but tank crews are comming under increasing attacks, and resupply convoys are a favorite target of the partisans. Three women are executed in the city center for poisoning a regimental commander, but sniper attacks and bombings continue unabated.

April. A tank platoon was taken by Home Guard insurgents; their crews killed in a surprise midnight attack by machette weilding Guards, and the tanks stolen. The remaining regiment is deployed to the northern part of the city where the stolen tanks have been placed in defensive positions. The Home Guard is defeated, but at a cost of almost 2-1.

May. Division strength is at 50%. There is no tank crew which has not seen at least one death, and many regiments are on their third or fourth commander. Draconian measures have been enacted to surpress the insurection, but the armored division has few men compared to the thousands the Home Guard has, and while replacements come for the tank crews, so too do replacements for the Home Guard.

June. Fuel is at a premium after a suicide bomber destroyed part of a depot outside town. Moral is non-existant as all personell are restricted to fire bases, and many crews sleep in their tanks.

July. The oppressive heat is reducing moral to the point of breaking. Inside a tank, temperatures are rising over 110 degrees, and to add to the incessant danger of snipers, local children are throwing bottles of flamming alcohol over the makeshift walls of the fire bases. Desertion has reduced effective strength to 33%.

August. The largest of the firebases is without running water, as Home Guard partisans destroy a water utility center. While this places thosands of civilians without water as well, they get fresh water from other parts of the city, an option not available to the invaders. The heat is beginning to kill as well as the partisans. Strength is barely 20%.

September. Stregth is reduced to 10%, in a single firebase. The first two weeks of the month saw numerous well-planned assaults on smaller or weaker firebases, and now only Division HQ stands.

October. Fuel and ammo supply are good, but neither can be eaten. By the end of the month, food supplies will run out, and no word on reinforcment has been recieved. The general in charge of the division speaks with the Home Guard colonel for terms of surrender.

November. While thousands of Home Guard infantry have been killed or executed, only dozens of men exist in the shattered armored division, and are forced to surrender.

 

[KingCruz]

Thats just one of the many possibilities... but suicide bombers?
Are we talkin an Archaic tribe vs. a Modern nation? cause this sounds like Modern vs. Modern... in which case it wouldnt really matter......

 

[Lasitus]

A spearman taking down a tank is much more realistic than a spanish conquistador taking down a gunship... This happened in my last game. A dude on a horse with a sword taking down a helicopter ... right

 

[Analog Kid 1.0]

Just picked up the game, browsing for some tips.....could not resist
Long time civ player (since the first ), first time poster....should be playing...

Just had to comment on some of the comments.....

xGBox said
2. However, if the tank was also equipped with a machine gun turret, this enables the soldiers to take out spearmen that the cannon doesn't.

6. Tanks can be disabled by overturning it. If spearmen took all their crap off and just ran, they would have a chance of making it to the tank, under the range of the cannon and machine gun turret. Just let it be known that modern tanks weigh about 60 tons so good luck getting that many people to make it, more or less getting to lift over 60 tons. Also, tanks can move at around 40 miles per hour on good terrain also so overturning it is impossible if it is properly controlled by an engineer. If it was stuck in mud or some really bad position, then spearmen would have more of a chance.

8. A cannon has the range of over 1,000 meters. The world record (maybe outdated?) for throwing a frisbee is only 406 meters of 1,333 feet. The number is much lower for javelins, so think of those numbers when you're going against a tank with a spear.

#2: M1 Abrams tanks have 3 MGs. One for the track commander (M2 .50 cal), one for the loader and one mounted co-axially with the main gun (M240 - 7.62mm). BTW the .50 cal puts tennisball size holes in 3/4in plywood @ 1200 meters. Now imagine a human being, which is essentially a big water filled bag, getting hit with that. It aint pretty.....

#6: Forgive me sir but it is impossiable to flip a tank using manpower alone. 60 tons with a low center of gravity and a wide stance..... About the only way a tank flips is when the driver screws up on uneven terrain and even then needs help from momentium + gravity. ( Please this is in jest ) Obviously, by your signture, you are a English major and not a Physics major

#8: In Desert Storm the M1s were killing Iraqi tanks at 4000 meters. The soviet stuff the Iraqi's had, shot about 2600 meters. The TOW missiles we had on our Cavalry Fighting Vehicles ( Bradleys ) max range was 3750 meters.

slimbo said
How many people do you need to support 50 tank-boys to have their tank rolling? A good guess would be the 1:10 ration of modern armies between support and combat units

At the Division level roughly 35% of its total is considered Combat Arms. Buteven the support troops have quite a few small arms and machine guns and grenades.....

jefmart1 said
Also, Russian troops in WW I tried this. The first troops had rifles and everyone behind them had sticks or pitchforks, or whatever, and when the guy with the rifle in front died, they picked it up and kept charging. Gallipoli, the Turks slaughtered the British and Australian forces with machine guns. WW I, numerous human wave assaults on the trenches failed. ETC ETC.

It is ridiculous to have tanks losing to knights, cavalry to macemen, etc. (ALL of that happens to me on a semi-regular basis.

SOLUTION: Gunpowder units need a +25% VS melee, and Modern units starting with Tanks need an automatic + 100% vs melee to avoid the rush tactics.

People who have never seen modern weapons (in the context of against spearmen I concider ww1 on up to be modern) in action have no understanding of the destructive power that they unleash. Sure on a micro scale anything can happen. On an exercise in Korea me and 5 other guys snuck up on a platoon of tanks ( 4 in a Platoon ) and found everybody alseep. We could have killed all of them easily with spears. ( it was summertime and all the hatches were open, and most were sleeping on the outside anyway...) But on a macro scale I give you this from wikipedia.org about the 2003 Iraqi War.....

The main battle tanks (MBT) of the Coalition forces, the U.S. M1 Abrams and British Challenger 2, proved their worth in the rapid advance across the country. Even with the large number of RPG attacks by irregular Iraqi forces, few Coalition tanks were lost and no tank crewmen was killed by hostile fire. All three British tank crew fatalities were a result of friendly fire. The only tank loss sustained by the British Army was a Challenger 2 of the Queen's Royal Lancers that was hit by another Challenger 2, killing two crewmen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Invasion_of_Iraq#Summary_of_the_invasion

There is just no way that a unit from the Medievel Era on down the would stand a chance against tanks, much less modern Infantry...... For spearmen to defeat tanks, the tanks would have to be basically combat ineffective (wheither supplies or damage) meaning for all intensive purposes they'd already be dead.

The solution IMHO would not allow medievel or lower miltary tech to damage WW1 and up techs forcing everyone to upgrade or disband those units. Would be intresting wouldn't it

 

[screwtype]

A lot of people fancy that tanks are invulnerable, but they're not. They are actually highly vulnerable to enemy personnel and usually have to be accompanied by infantry to keep enemy infantry at bay.

You don't need a high tech weapon to defeat a tank. All you need is a tank trap, a molotov cocktail, the right circumstances. The US has lost lots of AFV's in Iraq to folks armed with nothing but AK-47's and homemade bombs.

 

[Eigenvector]

What you need is modern know-how which is THE WHOLE POINT OF THE THREAD!!!

The previous poster said it well when he suggested that no non-modern unit could damage a modern unit. I myself would compromise and say no non-modern unit could kill a modern unit. But again, and I'll say this in bold so its obvious...if you know how to defeat modern weapons that implies that you know about modern weapons which implies you have access to them - that is you have already researched them.

 

[lifewillsuck]

Hey if the dam Ewoks can kill lazer firing people with their spears, or if the Zulu nation can overcome and kill the British with their spears then it is possiple for less technologically advanced group to kill another. I mean what if it was a navy seals spearman then I am pretty sure he would wip some tank butt... training can do anything. Rambo fought with helicopters, guns, yet still made room for his bows and arrows.

 

[screwtype]

But again, and I'll say this in bold so its obvious...if you know how to defeat modern weapons that implies that you know about modern weapons which implies you have access to them - that is you have already researched them.

I only half agree with this. IMO, one of the problems with the game is that some cultures remain hopelessly backward even AFTER contact with a more advanced civ.

In real life this doesn't occur. There is "seepage" from the more to the less advanced culture. For example, just because some African countries today are backward, doesn't mean you will find them sailing around in frigates, or running around with spears. They *get* modern technology, they just don't get as much of it or the most up to date stuff.

It's only the truly isolated cultures that don't adapt to more modern ways of doing things.

So really, I think the paradigm needs to change somewhat. When a Civ contacts a more advanced culture, it should get accelerated access to more modern techs, leaving it, say, a generation behind the leaders. That would make more sense than the way the game works currently. And IMO, it would make for a more challenging and interesting game.

 

[MRM]

The solution IMHO would not allow medievel or lower miltary tech to damage WW1 and up techs forcing everyone to upgrade or disband those units. Would be intresting wouldn't it

Sounds like more micromanagment ...

would be easier ( IMO ) if the maintaince cost for units would be higher and therefore unit upgrade is automatic ( at much lower costs )

Because - why did this situation happens in the first place ? Most time you build those longbow archers in the medivian and later its to expensive to upgrade them all ( or sometimes you are to lazy )

That would not happen that way in the real world because here the units get better weapons as soon as they are available.

the discussion whether a spearman can beat a tank or not is artifical anyway - so if you want to make it more realistic in that way that an ancient unit can never beat a tank, than other things must changed too to make it more realistic and to balance the gameplay - what about weapon prolifiration ? Once a weapon is invented it will be traded ( legal and illegal ) to all civs that have contact between each other.- So your tank will never see a bronze age spearman ....

btw realism - each unit should cost population too - or are soldiers just robots ?

 

[Wodan]

A lot of people fancy that tanks are invulnerable, but they're not. They are actually highly vulnerable to enemy personnel and usually have to be accompanied by infantry to keep enemy infantry at bay.

You don't need a high tech weapon to defeat a tank. All you need is a tank trap, a molotov cocktail, the right circumstances. The US has lost lots of AFV's in Iraq to folks armed with nothing but AK-47's and homemade bombs.

Tanks were actually mis-used in the early 19th century until generals figured out the proper tactics. At first, everyone (not just the generals) figured that a tank would be an awe-inspiring terror on the battlefield and it would take just a few to rout an enemy composed of footsoldier or traditional cavalry.

But they discovered that it was far to easy to swarm and disable the tanks. Heck, even a simple sledgehammer, applied at the right place on the tracks, would knock a tank out.

The best application of tank warfare they discovered was to attack en masse. 50, or 100, tanks lined up or in a "fighting wedge," in mutually supporting distance.

Wodan

ps Saw an hour-long documentary on the history of tanks on the History Channel (or was it the Military Channel).

 

[Wodan]

But again, and I'll say this in bold so its obvious...if you know how to defeat modern weapons that implies that you know about modern weapons which implies you have access to them - that is you have already researched them.

I know about nuclear weapons, but I don't know how to build one.

Still, I know how to defend against one. Hide under my desk, of course. (You've seen all those horrible movies they showed to kids in the 50's and 60's.)

Anyway, point is there's a world of difference between knowing about and knowing how to make (and having the resources and infrastructure to build) a weapon.

"Knowing about" implies "some ability to defend against" -- I think we would all agree with this.

I definitely disagree with your assertion that "knowing about" implies "capability to create".

Wodan

 

[screwtype]

Yes, but even the "en masse" attack (championed pre-WWII by people such as Liddell Hart and Guderian) was quickly shown to have its limitations, beginning with the attack on France in 1940.

The Germans and their opposition quickly realized that tanks alone are highly vulnerable and need infantry to support them. As the war went on, more and more infantry were added to the tank divisions to protect the tanks. By the end of the war, for example, the Germans had two motorized infantry regiments and one tank regiment per division, which was the opposite proportion of what they had employed in 1941.

 

[Shaihulud]

I bet those bronze spear the spearmen were using are just ceremonial. I mean how expensive can it be to arm all of them with assault weapons. Give them some demolition devices, TOW missles and they good to go.

I rationalize it by equating the resources spent on the spearman and tanks. The resources spent on the tanks doesn't justify a true tank anyway, a tank imo would be millions of times more expensive than any spearman. The tanks I am building must be amoured with cheap aluminium and the rounds they shooting is propelled by a rubber band.

 

[Proteus]

Yes, but even the "en masse" attack (championed pre-WWII by people such as Liddell Hart and Guderian) was quickly shown to have its limitations, beginning with the attack on France in 1940.

The Germans and their opposition quickly realized that tanks alone are highly vulnerable and need infantry to support them. As the war went on, more and more infantry were added to the tank divisions to protect the tanks. By the end of the war, for example, the Germans had two motorized infantry regiments and one tank regiment per division, which was the opposite proportion of what they had employed in 1941.

Of course another reason for the shifting proportions between tanks and infantry aside from tanks without infantry support being very vulnerable (the german army for example had a nice booklet named "Der Panzerknacker" (The Tankbuster) showing ways how german soldiers could exploit the weaknesses of tanks [especially the limited visibility])
was, that the war took its toll on german weapons production, as more and more tank factories were being bombed and the influx of resoruces to build tanks was decreasing during the war (and especially the german tanks needed a long time and lots of resources for manufacturing, more than for example a sherman).
It took much less resources to give a german soldier a Karabiner 38 and a Panzerfaust and tell him to point them at enemy troops than to train a german Panzercrew and build a tank which they could use
(and after all, especially at the end of the war the german tank forces took lots of losses, especially due to allied planes [For example the Panzerace Michael Wittmann whose Tiger probably was destroyed by Rockets from a british Typhoon {although there are still strong debates on wether it was the Typhoon or Sherman Fireflys which destroyed the tank])

 

[Roxinante]

I knew someone would bring up the Ewoks. That was the exact point where Star Wars started to suck. I mean, you're frikkin Imperial Storm Troopers! Its a teddybear with a stick! Shoot it. No. Dont fall down. It just hit you on the head with a stick. You're wearing armor. Shrug it off and fry the horrid little thing! What happened to 'Only Storm Troopers are this precise.'?
Star Wars used to be cool, then George Lucas was seduced by the green side of the Force.
You suck, George.

So speaking of movies - remember Saving Private Ryan? Jurryrigged high explosives slapped onto the wheels of a panzer. Now, the argument will be 'oh, but the Tom Hanks character was an officer, and suspending disbelief that there is such a thing as a competent officer, he had training how to blow up a tank.' Well, if you've never seen a tank, and you see one rolling towards you, the first thing you'll think is 'big gun'. The second thing you'll think is 'no matter what I have it'll bounce off all that metal', and the third thing is 'the vulnerable spot are those treads.'
It might take you a while, but in CivIV - for those of you who missed the point - you have a whole year to figure out a solution to the problem of this thing called 'tank'. Minimum turn - 1 year. A whole year to figure out how to disable the locomotive part of the tank. A whole year to figure out 'well, they gotta breath, how do I deprive them of air?' A whole year to figure out 'Does Greek Fire work on that thing?' A whole year to figure out 'that keg of gunpowder I just bought from the Egyptians. I wonder if that turtle has as much armor on the underside. Hmmm....'

 

[zeeter]

So really, I think the paradigm needs to change somewhat. When a Civ contacts a more advanced culture, it should get accelerated access to more modern techs, leaving it, say, a generation behind the leaders. That would make more sense than the way the game works currently. And IMO, it would make for a more challenging and interesting game.

This is one of the better ideas that I've seen lately. If a culture has seen a tank, they ought to get a little bit of a bonus when researching them.

 

[Roxinante]

[For example the Panzerace Michael Wittmann whose Tiger probably was destroyed by Rockets from a british Typhoon {although there are still strong debates on wether it was the Typhoon or Sherman Fireflys which destroyed the tank])

I'd put my money on the Typhoon - even Pz VIs were vulnerable on their deck armor, and while the Firefly variant was a massive step up from the original Sherman model (the Brits removed the low velocity 75mm for a high velocity 6lb gun, and a couple of other changes), it still had the problem of exploding if its armor was penetrated (hence the nic 'Tommycooker'). If I were an Allied tank commander, I wouldnt close with a Tiger unless I had rear aspect, and even then only if I had to - and I dont care what kind of tank I'm in. Even the well designed T-34 was said to 'tip its hat' to the Tiger (i.e. loose its turret).

 

[MRM]

This is one of the better ideas that I've seen lately. If a culture has seen a tank, they ought to get a little bit of a bonus when researching them.

I'am not absolutly sure but I think there is already a bonus for techs that other civs, you are in contact with, have researched.

 

[jar2574]

I'am not absolutly sure but I think there is already a bonus for techs that other civs, you are in contact with, have researched.

Yes, your Civ researches techs faster if you are in contact with other Civs that have them.

See this thread for a detailed account of how research works, including a discussion of how contact with other Civs affects your research:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=146163

 

[Eigenvector]

Very interesting, so the game does take into consideration knowledge leakage. I had no idea the game was so complicated, I have more respect for it than ever.