There has been a HUGE discussion here in the forums lately, full of the passion and emotions players feel for the game, and there has even been a vote cast regarding the issue (player poll question) although only 100 odd people have responded so far the vote is split between a clear no vote and a yes/not sure vote.

I thought it might be an idea to make clear what is being put forward here with this issue. Ultra realism or not, the game requires infantry anti-tank ability for the earlier part of the war when there were no bazookas or panzerfausts.

Due to a number of factors, not the least of which being that this is a game and people don't behave in a game like they would in real life, especially when you consider MILITARY life ... we need to control some aspects of gameplay to direct it more to producing a result that works better than it might without those restrictions being used. This is what we intended when first the subject of "sappers without rifles" was first brought up. The sapper when he first appeared in the game didn't have a rifle, despite the fact we know in real life a sapper would normally carry a rifle. We added the rifle to the sapper for the same reasons people are asking he keep it now, because it allows him to "protect himself" when out in the field, and it's more "realistic". However there is another perspective to look at this from.

The rifle allows the sapper to be an all around unit. The rifle is the most effective anti-infantry weapon in the game, more infantry are killed by rifles than any other weapon, by a huge margin. The sapper thus becomes a very popular infantry choice because he can go out in the field, hunt down tanks and kill infantry as effectively as a regular rifleman. Well we here at CRS have no problem with tanks being hunted and killed by infantry when close to town, and especially when in town. Out in the fields though, that's somewhere that tanks should not encounter lone enemy infantry "hunting them" like we see in game. At least not as often as happens in game now. In hindsight, we should never have given the sapper the rifle after first adding them to the game without a rifle.

It's just too easy to be a sapper and "hunt tanks". The sapper should be available to deal with tanks when infantry find themselves facing tanks, rather than be something you choose to go out and hunt them with. However it is difficult to restrict those kinds of unrealistic choices that players make because it's just a game. One cannot argue "realism" when choosing to give the sapper a rifle and at the same time then go and employ that infantry unit in a totally unrealistic fashion. Well you can do this but it means your use of the word "realism" is selective and has now become a personal opinion rather than a guide to what is the correct choice.

People suggest we "reduce the bushes exponentially!" as one solution. Well we probably will reduce them a little in size again (we have already done this twice previously) but the game needs those bushes. ATG's could not operate hardly at all without them as they lack any other form of concealment, and we can't build that concealment ability into the game in any short term manner. Infantry have very little cover apart from those bushes, some berms and clumps of trees ... and those sparser spread areas where woods or forests are present.

People have also suggested we make sappers able to repair tracked tanks so that tankers learn to LIKE the sapper. This is a fine suggestion and one we have considered for a long time here, however we cannot "repair" tracked tanks in the game yet, visually or in code, once they have become damaged ... and the ability to do this may be some time in coming although it will come eventually.

There has also been a suggestions for a new infantry unit, the true sapper unit which can blow FB's ... blow bridges, repair bridges and so on. He could carry a new satchel charge that is HE rather than HEAT. That way we could leave a much reduced number of "AT infantry" in the spawn lists with HEAT satchels that could be like our curent sappers, but with say 2 charges instead of 4. This would blend well with the transition to "AT infantry" when the RPAT (rocket propelled anti-tank) weapons come into the game. Perhaps when we do the RPAT infantrymen, that would be the ideal time to do the seperation of sappers into "sappers" with HE and "AT infantry" with the HEAT satchel.

Maybe we only need to remove the rifle until we have all this other functionality in the game, then we can give it back. Whatever we do, we'll only please some of you. That's the nature of this, please some of you all of the time, and all of you some of the time, but never all of you all of the time. ;)

So, in closing, it's a difficult choice. We are going to increase dramatically how long it takes to "set" a satchel charge on a tank. This alone may prove enough of a change. We do need to discourage the appeal of the ANTI TANK function of the sapper (rather than remove it) so that only the dedicated will choose it, instead of everybody wanting the "do everything guy" which is kind of what happens now. When you REALLY need sappers, for something like an FB busting mission ... they are all gone.

We certainly know that a huge number of people don't want the rifle taken away from the sapper, but we ask you to consider all the other things mentioned in determining the sappers role in the game, and not just answer along the lines of "do you want more bullets or a bigger gun ? = Of course I do!" ... it's easy to say yes or no when you are being asked what you want but try to remember you can want something that isn't as good for the game as not getting what you want might be overall, in the bigger picture.

There is a thread in the forums linked here where you can read all about the discussion taking place on this contentious issue. Try to avoid the rhetoric as some posters are a little on the wild side of possesed but they are just getting caught up in their emotions, in the end it's all good. Maybe you have something you'd like to say on the subject as well, sorry this was such a long read !

S!alute one and all.