The size of the HE round from a tank matters of course, however if an infantry squad was bunched I would expect it to be killed by almost any tank HE shell. In addition tanks with smaller shells will have a faster rate of reload, meaning the amount of DP dealt would be very similar anyway. Because penetration values do not matter for HE against infantry. UNLESS they are behind cover.
What I want to see is squads/sections (10men) and platoons (30 or so men) taking cover correctly and deploying weapons in cover correctly to give them the best profile for the enemy they are facing. Patrolling and moving forward in formations that don't get them all killed in one enfilade shot. Of course this is not always possible and it's part of the reason why house to house combat was more deadly in ww2 for infantry than more open combat in forests and rural areas.... however in Eugen games infantry tend to be very vulnerable in anything but buildings. That is just my experience, considering I saw tanks assault through heavy wooded areas.
I also hope they have both dense impassible for vehicles forest and other densities of forest to give infantry more cover.
Also the fact that when Eugen has open terrain, generally it is exactly that. A flat football field freshly mowed and perfectly level. Infantry cannot play against vehicles or even other infantry in this terrain. I don't want eugen to magically make line infantry invisible all the time either.
I would like it if as infantry advanced in open ground they were in line abreast, if they are assaulting they should be bounding and shooting as they do it and if they get fired upon enough they could go to ground individually behind cover. That cover in open ground can be shell holes, hay stacks, boulders, slight crests etc. There is so much more cover than just buildings for infantry. Consider though that in the bocage farmland their would have been open fields well tilled and flat, but that hedges in that country would block LOS and that bocage was far more rare in the British area. The British typically had no such cover and were thus using more massed brute force advance tactics.
Infantry vs infantry fights in open terrain should NOT be rare, but I bet they will be. Because there will be so many vehicles that it will be like modern warfare.
I don't think the ratio of vehicles to infantry was very high in ww2. In normandy though it probably was higher than average. Meaning more infantry on infantry assaults? Maybe that was eastern front more because late war I guess the western front would have been more highly mechanised.
Defensively infantry would have been very spread out... depending on their total numbers of course. But if you put one squad in a town. I would not expect them to bunch together in one room.
Which brings me to smoke grenades and their deployment by infantry?
Some pics for educational purposes from my Osprey Elite World War II infantry tactics squad and platoon. By Dr Stephen Bull and Illustrated by Peter Dennis.
Notice how the section separates to attack and the use of smoke? I don't expect this in game of course. Because the scale is larger.
Battle of the Bulge. Also a prepared position that would have taken hours to complete. Don't expect this in game either. Because this is out of scope for a meeting engagement. But this kind of defence was something that perhaps the defending team should be able to deploy before the game starts. Sort of like total war allows you to put some fortifications down if you are not the attacker. Be good to see a scenario based multi game.
Hedgerow defences. Notice how spread out these guys are.
