One solution I have thought about is to use seperate clients.
The infantry client is somthing along the lines of Americas Army.. The range is shorter and therefore the geometry can be greater. (ie foxholes etc) while the Armor client disregards all the little dips and valleys and only really takes into account trenches, cliffs, etc.
The assumption always has been that the infantry and armor have to use the same client.
Both Armor and infantry use the same server which manages the battlespace and interprets the results.
For example. Your commanding a Javalin platoon and you are setting up an ambush. An approaching scout platoon threatens your location and you order your men to difilade/hide. The AI directs the men in your platoon to enter hiding positions which are clearly obvious to you. IN other words, when you look at your men, they are actually in holes, depressions, etc. The server equates this much like ATF does abstract. It then passes the information to the tank client. The tank client does not model the ravines, holes and depressions because the range is greater and it simply cannot reproduce the geometry without huge computing power (20Ghz processor and 10G ram) SO if you switch to the tank POV (point of view) and look out the hatch, you see a flat polygon with a texture that represents "rough" ground.. A calculation is made and the tank crew either sees the men or it does not. If the men are seen then they are seen, if they are not seen, then they are not seen.
Just because you have 2 (or more clients) and a server doesnt mean it has to run on a network (but it can) it simply means you have 3 different ways the game is "rendered" It only really renders 1 version at a time (your POV) and the rest is abstract.
Using this paradigm you could easily run a Battle sim that would allow you to hop in a Bradley.. Race across the desert, stop engage, dismount your troops and easily switch to the Platoon leaders POV who then sees the world in a totally different way.. Since the visability is less, and range of the weapon isnt as great its all possible.
But wait! you say, what about the Range of man portable AT missiles?
Simple, when using the sights on these things, its a totally different client.. Probably the same client used in the tanks.
It all works on the same premise used in online gaming. For that reason, it could all be easily used with online gaming OR solo play with AI.
Years ago I asked a programmer at Steve Jackson Games how feasible it would be to play a new game that was just out called "Castle Wolfenstien 3d" (heh) over the internet. THe guy was an incredible programmer. His reply was. "impossibly" Given the limited bandwidth of the internet, it would be impossible to send all those graphics across the pipe."
Wow. It wasnt untill 2 years latter someone started thinking about Clients and servers and Internet Head to Head DOOM was born.
For some reason people still think that the clients connecting to the server have to be identical. Nowhere is that "required" furthermore, the clients can all run on the same machine, the only difference really is the Level of detail on each client.
wow.. sorry to get so off topic, I just started rambling.