Project Reality Forums

I'd first like to point out that, yes, there are plenty of threads pertaining to APCs in this sections of the forums, but all are quite specific, usually talking about a specific vehicle or problem.
Also if this is too long, just scroll to the end.

My intent here is to discuss their effectiveness in their supposed role, transport and fire support, and the conditions that need to be met in order for them to fulfill that role.

Let's start with their supposed primary purpose: transporting infantry. So far, in my experience (feel free to disagree), I've only ever seen them used for transport in 2 situations and neither of these happen very often:

1. Immediately after a JDAM for short distances, and it often feels like it's done more for show than anything else.

2. When there are no FOBs and transport helos are down. If your team is ever in this situation and not at the beginning of the round, well, you're probably not going to get transport either .

The way I see it, APCs have 2 advantages: speed and firepower. You'd think they make perfect assets for wide flanking maneuvers, as yours will be the only infantry squad close by and the APC can make up for that lack of fire support. But when 1 LAT can score 8 kills and 10 tickets (or whatever value they have now) worth of damage, combined with the fact that they make a TON of noise and you need to cover a distance that much bigger, it's not hard to see why infantry prefer moving on foot. I think Wanda Shan was sort of a lesson in that.


Now onto their second role, fire support.

You'd think they're doing this very well as it stands but they really are acting more like mini-tanks fighting a battle parallel to that of the infantry. Sure if they get enough kills they will make a difference, but you rarely see them consistently covering infantry, which is to say, they aren't very reliable.

This is because no APC driver in their right mind will stand around because that's where the infantry needs them to be. Mobility is their greatest defense, standard "procedure" is to always be on the move, stopping for very short periods of time, all in a not very predictable manner. It's good for harassing the enemy, but not to suppress on command. It's no surprise that infantry don't bother coordinating with APCs since these need to do their own thing to survive.

The reason this happens is that taking a LAT shot virtually anywhere will pretty much kill you (getting tracked is, in most cases, a death sentence). Surviving a LAT without losing mobility is something that happens very rarely and thus hardly inspires any confidence.


So my conclusion is that APCs are too vulnerable to a weapon available to practically all infantry squads in order to accomplish teamwork oriented goals. I understand PRs general idea of promoting caution, but as it is now you're either forced to stay well back with minimal impact on the outcome, or do your own thing without much input from the infantry, or just hope the enemy team is blatantly incompetent.

Having 2 shots to the side completely destroy an APC, with one taking out the turret control, and 1 to the rear to make it burn would give them enough leeway to attempt to get their hands dirty without turning everything with legs into their metaphorical b****, and even get rid of their reputation as metal coffins for whoever is in the back.
I'm not sure how realistic this is, but I feel it would make gameplay much more varied for both infantry and APCs.

Actually I prefer the APCs attack the enemy and get them pinned down, afterword infantry moves up on foot to capture or kill the objective, killing a cashe or securing a flag. APCs resoponsiblity to transport infantry in minimal because, APCs are east to kill can if a squad is in it your team stands to lose about 25 tickets. Also because most of the more common APCs like the Stryker/LAV-3 have no ability for the infantry in the back to look out and get a tactical awareness that you can only get on foot or in a light vehicle.

Exactly my point, if APCs could afford to close in on the enemy, you'd see them used more as transport.

When your vehicle is made of paper, you don't have much choice in your tactics.

I was thinking the same thing the other day while playing some Muttrah.

APCs are great at providing transport and some infantry fire support. However, especially on Muttrah but not exclusively, the APCs can have a very limited lifespan near the front. With 2 HAT kits per 32 players and now the added TOW emplacements, it is just too easy to lose this great asset.

I think its great though to get hit by a LAT and limp back to a repair station as its great for gameplay.

I like APC's to have the role of armored personnel carrier personally.

"An armoured personnel carrier (APC) is an armoured fighting vehicle designed to transport infantry to the battlefield."

Armoured personnel carrier - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"An infantry fighting vehicle (IFV), also known as a mechanized infantry combat vehicle (MICV), is a type of armoured fighting vehicle used to carry infantry into battle and provide fire support for them."

Infantry fighting vehicle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I like the second one more.

APCs suck for a reason. They're 2.5 ton trucks with bullet shields on them. An IFV is supposed to work with the inf.

My main issue with people saying an APC (*cough* IFV) isn't effective at the front is because people don't work with them in an appropriate manner.

Example: Muttrah - In a dense urban setting armor is never supposed to act alone or ahead of infantry. They are incredibly vulnerable to shoulder mounted and static Anti-Tank weaponry in this setting. The standard solution to this issue is to use the IFV to lock down the streets and advance with the infantry rooting out enemy AT threats in the surrounding buildings. In Muttrah the APCs or IFVs or whatever do their part of this, and so does the infantry. The problem is that they don't work together very well. Most of the time if you can get an APC to stop shooting stuff and running around like an idiot they just drive you somewhere and the relationship ends there, even when you're on mumble together.

Mumble affords us the opportunity to use the combined arms aspect of the IFV properly. You can have squads talking to the crewmen clearing the roads or agreeing on how they'll move ahead. No HAT kit is gonna waste a round on infantry when armor is in the area and at the very least infantry can spot enemy positions and locate likely AT positions and work with the APC crews to attack them in a way which negates or limits the AT threat.

Its not perfect and I'm not saying that it'll magically improve APC survivability in urban settings, but it can work better. Often infantry in buildings get cut off and assaulted in turn while cut off. APCs can keep them safe from the street while they use the elevation to scout with binos and lay fire from their positions knowing they're relatively safe. APCs can use comms to cautiously advance knowing the infantry have at least tried to clear likely AT positions rather than just sit back or go balls to the wall driving ahead hoping they dont get HAT'd.

Another thing to consider is that if you're in a non urban or mixed terrain situation, like a map with open ground, heavy brush and forest, and urban spawl all mixed together the APC offers a fast and safe way to get to a point where the infantry can proceed to attack a position while the APC sits back and puts fire down from a position or an angle that limits or prevents returning AT fire. This works really well in any map like Dragonfly or Shijia (or whatever its called).

On the other hand, going back to the APC versus IFV definition, some of these vehicles are definitely not IFVs and just APCs. Warrior is the obvious candidate. Its weak, its slow, its loud, and its gun isn't much compared to say a BMP. This vehicle is definitely best used to transport to the outskirts of contact (usually on extra large maps something like Burning Sands) and can then use its gun with thermals to do some long range suppression or area damage. In this situation its better to let the MBTs do what they're good at.

Finally, as for the preference of having a chopper ride cause then you don't need a logi to follow you, well thats just part and parcel of having a coordinated team. If you can get the crewmen to play along with you past dropping you off then you can probably get someone to drive a logi up to you. Not every bit of infantry maneuvering is about establishing FOBs. Sometimes you want some armor to push up with you and use the big guns to help you take a position before you think about burning a free bundle of tickets in a vulnerable mad charging Logi truck on the horizon.

I've seen plenty of examples of APCs acting like proper IFVs in organized play before. It works, it just takes people who understand the tactical and strategic limitations of the armor piece. It also takes a willingness to actually coordinate. Its not the asset thats broken (usually) its the players and how they approach the game.

End thesis.

Mech inf squads are sometimes very succesful.

If inf could stay infront of APCs it would be a good move.

Trouble is that the flanks in PR are never protected.. The APC is always an island even with infantry, meaning they have to worry about 4 sides instead of just the objective.

Hopefully in 128 servers there is enough support to allow for a 'front line' of sorts? That would at least allow fire to be directed on the assault objective.

Either that or 'Mech Inf' squads should have an APC and two full squads of inf, one for security and the other for assault. But I think this is far too complex and will/can never happen.

PFunk,
The problem is that there is no such thing as "likely AT positions". On urban maps like Muttrah, sneaking up with a LAT on APCs providing fire support is surprisingly easy, and on bigger maps they can be absolutely everywhere. Heck, a favorite tactic on Shija is to make a 2 man squad, grab HAT and a Puma, then just drive close to the front and wait for armor reports. Combine that with the jack in the box move (crouch close to embankment or obstacle, wait for deviation to settle, the stand up and shoot), and they'll never see you coming. AT is completely unpredictable in this game.

And right now, in Mech inf squads, it honestly seems that APCs need more firepower to protect them than they actually deliver.

HAT isn't the point though, you can't really do anything about that, there's only 2 on the team and the TOWs are static anyway so neither are that big a problem when supporting infantry. But giving the APC the ability to defenselessly limp back to a repair station after a LAT hit would give them a much easier time working with infantry, without making them unstoppable.

apcs IMHO just need their cannons to be more powerful against inf behind cover, and tracked apcs need a bit more armor compared to wheeled ones since for them their speed is their shield.

it would be nice if some kind of engine damage could be done (either through tracking or some other way) so the apcs can actually limp back to a repair station.

i think the MTLB has the best AT damage system for all apcs except for its self, it can be killed by small arms, but a lat hit in the back doesnt kill it

karambaitos wrote:i think the MTLB has the best AT damage system for all apcs except for its self, it can be killed by small arms, but a lat hit in the back doesnt kill it

Yes it does. It is insta-gibbed in fact.

The problem is that all armor in PR is extremely dangerous to drive in and there is no room for error to screw up.

For comparison, in Steel Beasts Pro Personal Edition, the infantry almost never engage armor unless it's at less than 200 meters, and even then the chance of a hit is shaky. On the flip side, one can identify infantry heat signatures as far as a kilometer away. Simply put, armor in general needs to have a serious effectiveness buff.

I've driven armor in PR for long enough to know that dueling with TOWs is not something to be trifled with. Even if they aren't paying attention, it takes steady hands and quick reflexes to take out the threat before your vehicle ends up a smoking wreck when in reality it takes a lifetime for a TOW to reach targets far away, and a very very steady hand to not waste precious rocket fuel. Every twitch of the joystick burns off energy, and if the target is constantly moving abeam to you it's very possible you will force the missile to run out of energy before it can reach the target.

To be fair, people seem to be expecting an IFV to be able to run them into the middle of a firefight, RPG's bouncing off it, and then allow them to assault a building 10m away and blast the **** out of everything.

It is my understanding that IFV's are APC's until they reach the battlefield, whereby they become a heavy gun emplacement capable of repositioning if needed. They won't carry troops around under immediate effective fire, they will drop troops off to fight as infantry and simply provide fire support.

I.e this is not an infantry squad attached to a tank -> This is an armoured gun attached to an infantry squad.

Hence if you take a map on PR as being the battlefield, in actuality the troops would, 99% of the time, be dismounted and covering the flanks/possible HAT empowering sand dunes. The two would be fighting together as they currently do..

What PR does not cover is travelling the preceding 40 miles 'buttoned up' in the back of the IFV, which is presumably what they would be doing until they reached contact.

APC's with any sort of weapon on them are and always will be used as light tanks, as is their most effective role. Celestial hit the nail on the head:

IFV. Bradleys/BMPs are some of the most versatile weapons in the game. To underestimate their application as light tanks is to ignore their ample armament.

It all comes down to ticket count. Players with the best K/D ratios are doing the most for the team, if victory is the goal. A mortar team who has got 40 kills has already cost the enemy team a whopping 80 tickets. The exact same situation can be applied to an APC crew, hence why you often see Bradley's and BTR's - vehicles designed to support and transport infantry - being used solely as attack platforms, a valid tactic which helps the team which can only be shown through the EOG ticket count.

I personally love APC's to bits when they transport infantry, but feel no discontent that an APC will deny transport requests in order to ground pound.

Thankfully, the GPO editors have appeared to identified this was more important than infantry transport, with maps such as Karbala having overloads of vehicles so the Stryker's can operate as tanks without worry of squad transport. This same asset layout is present on Kozelsk, Ramiel and Al Basrah.

Be sure to Search next time please. The threads below aren't 'specific' as you've outlined, rather following the same vein as this thread.

https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f10-pr-bf2-general-discussion/83971-did-you-hate-apcs-otherwise-love.html

https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f10-pr ... chine.html

https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f10-pr-bf2-general-discussion/78950-love-god-apc-ifvers-transport-squads.html

https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f10-pr-bf2-general-discussion/73527-apc-btr-mean-transport-support.html

For me the job of any APC/IFV is to:

1. Transport and work together with Infantry.

2. Be "Ticket Effective"

I would say that a lot of APC crews in PR are not Ticket Effective, which means they do no inflict an equal or greater amount of ticket damage on the enemy than they take themselves. E.g. if a BMP crew makes 12 Inf kills and loses 3 BMPs in a round, they have lost tickets for their team.

For me, because any armour piece in PR is essentially a glass cannon a lot of of the time (they are often very easy to destroy), being Ticket Effective does not mean trying to get more kills, it means trying to stay alive.

Bleh, I searched the vehicle feedback subforum because this thread is exactly that, feedback on vehicles.

And I agree with Web_cole in that, as far as I could tell, most APC crews just barely break even in tickets, which makes me skeptical of their use as light tanks. Even if they did have a real impact on the round by acting as light tanks, it'd be more because a friendly infantry squad probably decided to attack near the same time the APC started firing, maybe leading to capturing whatever flag they're moving on. But it seems this happens mostly by pure coincidence rather than actual organization, so it's disappointingly rare.

I'll say this again. My problem with APCs now is that their damage model is preventing them from being used as reliable fire support for infantry. I just can't call out to an APC on my team to come and suppress building x while I advance. Way too many a time I did that, or someone near me did that, it ended badly for the APC.

I'm not contesting that they can do fine on their own, it's that they're not doing fine when infantry is relying on them.

Jerkzilla, perhaps the problem also lies in the availibility of RPG's/LAT's. Fewer RPG kits would possibly make the APC's bolder.

Would perhaps make them too invincible though.

Mikemonster wrote:Jerkzilla, perhaps the problem also lies in the availibility of RPG's/LAT's. Fewer RPG kits would possibly make the APC's bolder.

Would perhaps make them too invincible though.

We're already at 1 per squad and an infantry squad still needs something to fend off harassing armor, even if just temporarily. With one shot disabling the APC, the infantry can get it off their backs while the APC can afford the risks of providing reliable fire support.