Introduction
Greetings and salutations, friends!
Right now, the current “APCs” in the tech tree are not actually ‘armoured personnel carriers’. Ever thought about that…?
They are essentially trucks or truck-like transports, with no meaningful armour or armament. While they do allow for infantry transport, they do not represent the kind of vehicles that historically defined mechanised infantry during the Second World War.
At the same time, the few vehicles that do resemble traditional APCs are limited to Premium squads. Interestingly, many of those premium vehicles also feel like somewhat specialised or unusual choices, rather than the historically prominent APCs one might expect to see first.
The one clear exception is the German Sd.Kfz. 251/1, specifically the D model, which is the most common German domestic APC. Aside from that, it almost feels as though the premium APCs were chosen in a way that left room for more historically prominent vehicles to appear later.
This suggestion aims to fill that gap - both in terms of capability and historical representation.
More specifically, it proposes the addition of a new squad type - APC III - designed around armed and armoured infantry transports designed to carry six or more soldiers, not including crew (my working definition, mainly to avoid clown-car “APCs”). The goal is to bring proper armoured personnel carriers into the tech tree, expand mechanised gameplay, allowing for further variants to appear beyond BR II, and allowing future content additions to be added through more implementation methods than just Premium content (such as tech tree and event rewards).
This suggestion also builds on a previous proposal by @GasMasters-live , which recommends moving the current truck-type APC II squads in the tech tree from BR II to BR I (amongst other things). That change is an important part of the overall concept, as it would allow those vehicles to represent early/basic troop transports, while the new APC III squads would introduce true armoured carriers at BR II and above.
The focus of this suggestion is therefore the squad class itself, rather than any single vehicle. A template for possible vehicle implementations will be included later, as advice, not as the purpose of the suggestion itself.
Defining APC III
I think it would be beneficial to define the concept of an APC III vehicle. For the purposes of this suggestion, an APC III should be:
An armed and armoured vehicle designed to transporting six or more soldiers, not including crew.
This definition is intentionally simple, but it establishes an important distinction. APC III squads are meant to represent proper mechanised infantry transports - vehicles designed to move a meaningful infantry element under armour while also providing some degree of supporting firepower.
Higher passenger capacities will naturally be favoured later in the implementation template, but the “six soldiers” threshold is a compromise. It allows for a wider variety of historically appropriate vehicles across all factions while still preventing very small carriers from filling the APC role.
Passenger capacity is also where the current APC landscape in the game becomes somewhat strange.
Over time, several Universal Carrier “APCs” have appeared across multiple factions as event rewards. While the Universal Carrier is a perfectly interesting, historically relevant, and neat little vehicle, it was never designed to function as a traditional armoured personnel carrier. It was a small utility carrier, typically used for transporting weapons, ammunition, other equipment, small crews, or wounded, as well as for towing.
When pressed into the role of transporting full infantry squads in-game, these vehicles end up functioning less like APCs and more like clown cars, carrying far more infantry than they were ever intended to.
Establishing this distinction helps give APC III squads a clear and meaningful role, separate from light carriers and improvised transports. Vehicles in that category would likely be better suited to something like a Rider II concept (appearing on a forum post near you, Soon-ish) - slightly larger Rider I squads operating armed and/or armoured light carriers that would also carry additional ammunition for nearby allies.
What would the APC III squad structure look like?
This part is actually quite straightforward.
Rather than introducing something entirely new, the APC III squad would simply follow the structure already used by existing Premium APC squads. These squads already provide a solid and functional template for mechanised infantry gameplay, so there is no real need to reinvent the wheel here.
Fully upgraded squad layout:
- 1 × APC Driver
- 2 × Assaulters
- 3 × Specialist slots (separate from Assaulters, preferably the player’s choice between AT soldiers, MG gunners, and radiomen, maybe even a Sniper somewhere. No Engineers, obviously).
Total: 6 soldiers
Example of what a fully upgraded APC III squad might look like:
These squads would become fully capable mechanised assault units in their own right - which is the whole point of the class - but without making Assaulter squads superfluous. Assaulter squads would still have:
- one more maximum soldier,
- more Assaulters (4 instead of 2),
- same ammount of specialist slots,
and, - access to Engineers,
The suggested APC III squad composition would therefore be no stronger than what many players already run in their line-ups:
At the same time, keeping the squads on the same strength level as current Premiums would be entirely fair. We don’t want to facilitate “Pay to Win” now do we…?
APC Driver III - The “new” soldier class
In addition to the new squad, the introduction of an upgraded Driver class soldier would naturally come with it.
APC Driver III would function identically to the current APC Driver II, but with a slightly increased maximum perk point potential.
What about current Premium and Event APC IIs?
A natural question that comes with this suggestion is: what happens to the current Premium and Event APC squads?
The answer is simple: nothing changes gameplay-wise.
These squads would remain functionally identical to how they are now. The only changes would be minor and purely beneficial:
- The squad type should be retroactively renamed from “APC II” to “APC III”
- This is purely a UI change, aligning them with the new squad classification.
- The APC Driver II should be upgraded to an APC Driver III
- This is a flat upgrade, giving slightly higher perk point potential while remaining the same soldier in practice.
That’s it.
No removals, no nerfs, and no mechanical changes that would negatively affect current owners. If anything, this would be a small bonus for players, like me, who already own some (or even all) of these squads.
Poll
With the core concept explained and out of the way, here is the forum mandated poll:
- Aye
- No
- I’m not that interested in mechanised warfare (neutral)
What the APC III means for Enlisted
- Multiple vectors for inclusion
Currently, most historically relevant APCs are either not in the game at all or locked behind Premium content, I would argue that this is not enough to represent the true historical footprint of such vehicles. Adding APC III squads would allow these vehicles to appear in the tech tree, event, and premium formats, ensuring players can access them without paywall restrictions while still keeping options for special content.
Additionally, with current APCs being premium-only - with very few event inclusions - would needlessly slow their implementation, since few players are willing to purchase the same type of vehicle multiple times within the same faction. This limits the game’s ability to represent historical vehicles and blocks future content. APC III squads, appearing in tech tree, event, and premium formats, provide a practical solution, future-proofing the concept and making further additions viable and interesting rather than repetitive.
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Line-up identity
As a core part of the game, line-up identity is a huge factor to consider on its own. APC III squads strengthen the player’s ability to customise line-ups. Rather than being limited to a single truck and possibly a Premium APC, players could assemble multiple APC III squads to create cohesive armoured formations, reinforcing the thematic sense of a "personal military company” and allowing line-ups to reflect historical armoured/mechanised units. -
Expanding mechanised warfare
While frontline combat would still be constrained by enemy tanks and AT weapons, APC III squads offer greater resilience during transport against explosions, shrapnel, and small arms fire - compared to unarmoured trucks. In addition, these squads are designed to be useful assault units in their own right once infantry dismounts, making them more effective in objective attacks than current tech tree APC II squads.
While this suggestion is expressly about APC III squads, it is part of a broader vision of mine for mechanised warfare in Enlisted. I also plan to propose another upgraded squad type in the near future, Rider II, which would expand gameplay through smaller vehicles carrying smaller squads. Unlike APCs, these would function less as frontline assault units and more as quick response and resupply platforms, providing ammo, mobile firepower with mounted weaponry, and rapid assault capability from a deployable small but capable infantry squad (for when you’ve just captured a point and wish to capture the next one quickly), all to prove that vehicle combat does not have to be a multi-kill shortcut. Vehicles should be so much more than that in this combined-arms game.
Why Sub-Faction Support Matters
Sub-factions like Italy in the Axis and the Commonwealth in the Allies exist as compromises: splitting the playerbase into several minor factions would be bat for queue times after all. But as a compromise, it is still expected that these sub-factions remain visible and fully functional, rather than acting as tokenized representation.
Currently, that compromise is not being kept.
Including free APC III squads for both parent and sub-faction is a matter of fairness, making sure all nations represented in a faction can meaningfully participate in the new mechanised gameplay. It’s also for functional reasons, as these subfactions had their own interesting APCs that deserve to be in the game as well.
Conclusion
The current implementation of “APCs” in the tech tree leaves a clear gap when it comes to true mechanised infantry vehicles, the introduction of APC III squads would address this by:
- bringing new and proper armoured personnel carriers into regular progression,
- expanding the game into the realm of mechanised warfare,
- allowing for greater line-up identity and variety,
- enabling a more sustainable and varied content flow of future vehicles (than every APC being a Premium),
and, - ensuring fair representation for both parent factions and sub-factions.
In short, this suggestion is a clean, straightforward extension of existing mechanics that would improve both gameplay depth and historical representation.
Thank you all for reading. Until next time, dear reader, and remember; if it’s going to be called an APC, it really ought to behave like one.
Signed,
Lt. Ogge King, 3rd Experimental Tea Infusion and Small Arms Appreciation Company, Home Guard (Reserve),
God save the King.
