So, what exactly is a Mechanized Infantry?

[Illusion13]

It should be a vehical unit, but it has attributes of infantry (high def)...

 

[Hornhelm]

Just infantry in different types of armoured personnel carriers. Think tanks with only heavy machine gun turrets, engineer units etc. Infantry don't march in file to the warzone anymore...

 

[Bluemofia]

the mech infantry unit looks like a m1 abarmas tank used in the gulf war

 

[Underseer]

Originally posted by Bluemofia
the mech infantry unit looks like a m1 abarmas tank used in the gulf war

No, the mechanized infantry is based on the Bradley fighting vehicle.

Tanks aren't really designed to work alone. Traditionally, tanks work in conjunction with infantry. If you caught the "dash to Baghdad" on the news, you probably noted that traditional infantry couldn't possibly keep up with modern tanks. The Bradley was sort of developed in tandem with the M1A1 Abrams. It can carry small numbers of troops, thus allowing infantry to keep up with the tanks, and can offer some fire support with its heavy machine guns.

Of course, the oversimplified combat mechanics in Civ III could never model the relationship between the Abrams and Bradley (in RL, they do not work separately like they do in Civ III), so the mechanized infantry is just a hopped-up defensive unit. If a Civ III player uses mech. inf. for anything other than defending cities, he is likely to use them in conjunction with artillery units rather than in conjunction with tanks as in RL.

Ah well, whacha gonna do?

 

[DasScoot]

Well, you could put them in an army together, but that would slow the army down. (Or would it now?)

 

[JustBen]

Mechanized Infantry have existed conceptually since WWII. There was a subtle distinction between "mechanized" and "motorized" infantry, the latter essentially being infantrymen loaded onto trucks for quicker movement, both strategically and tactically.

"Mechanized" typically refers to a mixture of heavily-armed infantry (plenty of anti-tank guns), trucks to carry them, and a smattering of tanks for support. They're there to do infantry stuff and not have to squeal & bolt at the sight of an armored column. As far as I know this hasn't changed much in theory since the '40s, it's just executed with more precision these days -- and in the high-dollar, professional armies of the Western world they've entirely supplanted the traditional kind.

 

[Underseer]

I stand corrected.

Do I get points for being vaguely close?

 

[wilbill]

If you look at the TOE of current American or British armored and infantry divisions, you'll see they're not very different. An armored division has a slightly higher ratio of tanks to AFV-mounted infantry, the infantry division a slightly higher ratio of AFV's.

 

[Goober]

They should have a UU for the USA Civ as the M1A2 tank, replacing the ModArm, with better defense.

(off topic, I know . . . )

 

[Goober]

Originally posted by RealGoober
They should have a UU for the USA Civ as the M1A2 tank, replacing the ModArm, with better defense.

(off topic, I know . . . )

Edit: They should also have a troop carrier that can hold like 4 Infantry or whatever, that can take them Behind Enemy Lines, unload them, and then they attack. Like the Transport, but on land . . .

 

[JustBen]

Originally posted by RealGoober
They should also have a troop carrier that can hold like 4 Infantry or whatever, that can take them Behind Enemy Lines, unload them, and then they attack. Like the Transport, but on land . . .

The trouble is that this has never been done at a strategic level; i.e. the scale that wars are fought in Civ3. You can drive a little APC a few miles and let a bunch of infantry jump out of it, but the idea of getting a division of APCs, loading in 4 divisions of infantry, driving to the far side of Tehran, and then letting the 4 divisions of infantry jump out and then do their thing is... ridiculous.

And how would you load a unit of Mechanized Infantry onto a unit of APCs, anyway?

Are we discussing Srategies & Tips yet?

 

[Rdog]

I wish there was a better sense of scale concerning units. Is the mech infantry a company sized element? Is Modern Armor a battalion? Division? I think Civ IV should address scale. It might solve the spearman killing tanks syndrome.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I use the scales liberally. Usually I alternate between battalion, company and regiment for foot and horse-mounted units. I consider tank units to represent five to ten tanks (the word I'm looking for escapes me), air units squads, and naval units single vessels. I consider artillerty units to be entire batteries.

 

[Rdog]

Yeah, I abstract the sizes internally, too, but I wish I didn't have to do that.

 

[Bluemofia]

In TETkurman's map, he made it a land transport. but the ai never uses them that way...

 

[apparition]

"Battle isle" was a game that showed scale pretty well. When units engaged the animation showed how many individual units there actually were and loosing some affected unit strength.

 

[Rdog]

That sounds better.