Combat Mission Final Blitzkrieg

[Elvis]

I agree.... Can a TC get plinked from 600m? Sure. But it shouldn't be easy or the norm. The MG almost instantly opening fire , absent other targets, feels OK to me. I'm probably going out on an unpopular limb but the AI having a MG locked, loaded and looking for something to shoot at....especially something in it's LOS already but without something worth shooting at, seems like a good game AI default. It's the effectiveness that I question.

[Redwolf]

I agree.... Can a TC get plinked from 600m? Sure. But it shouldn't be easy or the norm. The MG almost instantly opening fire , absent other targets, feels OK to me. I'm probably going out on an unpopular limb but the AI having a MG locked, loaded and looking for something to shoot at....especially something in it's LOS already but without something worth shooting at, seems like a good game AI default. It's the effectiveness that I question.

In the above example.  You blast away with a vehicle cannon at some infantry.  That same infantry shoots back and instantly kills you (although you are minimally exposed).  Doesn't sound right to me.

[Redwolf]

Nuts....

Keeping with the Bulge spirit of things, I see    ;)

I see what you're saying and had not thought of this before, though it seems like this may be the crux of the problem. In my view, the AI over-reacts to unbuttoned tank commanders or hanomag gunners, and perhaps does this precisely because they suddenly present a 'soft' target that their weaponry can tackle, as you say.

The thing that I think badly needs fixing is threefold -- (A) the precision with which the AI seems to be able to take out tank commanders with uncanny accuracy from *long* distances, (B) the way unbuttoned tank commanders seem to be highly prioritized as targets by the AI, even preferred to easier targets, and (C), the tank commanders lack of responsiveness to being under fire. It's an all-too common occurrence to see tank commanders under fire and taking *way* too long to respond but buttoning up. And say what you will, but an MG taking out a tank commander in his cupola from *beyond* half a kilometer in a couple of bursts strikes me as far-fetched to say the least.

My argument is not that tank commanders should be invulnerable. If you unbutton in unsafe close quarters, then yes, you're asking to get killed or maimed. But in CMx2 as things currently stand, it's essentially unsafe to unbutton *anywhere*, which is why I most often follow a policy of never unbuttoning. It's just not worth the risk, esp. since tanks seem to be able to spot pretty well even when buttoned up.

The question also is how worthless a buttoned up tank should be.

I don't think it should be nearly as bad at spotting and tracking things as CMx2 makes it.  Namely, most crew members spend their time using their vision devices, the same way whether the thing is buttoned up or not.  The gunners in particular seem to go insta-blind the moment the hatches close. Doesn't sound right to me.  Probably has to do with BFC not wanting to model the narrow angle of vision (much less switchable magnification).

Then, what happens when you open up because you have to, and there is enemy? You expose yourself minimally. CMx2 seem to have a very binary model where any crewman exposing themselves partially is exposing large amounts of body. They wouldn't do that. Self-preservation.

The most important thing is that I used a copula in real life.  Round vision is actually pretty good as long as it isn't too close to the tank.  Moving things are actually very easy to spot - in good weather. 

If there is rain then you are effed with the copula. No wipers.  On the other hand, most gun sights are unaffected by rain because they are recessed.  This would be complex to model and BFC seems to make no attempt at it. 

As a result visibility on the closed tank is unrealistically pessimistic in the game and the crew is unrealistically vulnerable when exposed, which you have to unreasonably often. To top it all off there is a lack of both player control, and of tacai person self-preservation.

[Elvis]

I agree.... Can a TC get plinked from 600m? Sure. But it shouldn't be easy or the norm. The MG almost instantly opening fire , absent other targets, feels OK to me. I'm probably going out on an unpopular limb but the AI having a MG locked, loaded and looking for something to shoot at....especially something in it's LOS already but without something worth shooting at, seems like a good game AI default. It's the effectiveness that I question.

In the above example.  You blast away with a vehicle cannon at some infantry. 

That supposes they the tank sees you. If you have even moderate concealment, I would expect the get a lot of lead in the air before a tank targets me and starts laying down some hell-storm. Which is how the game plays.

Killing a TC as soon as it opens up?.............

[RyanE]

I have run many a test of MG firing in the open at a company's worth of infantry running in the open.  At 500m, an MG42 will kill/wound about 3 over 100 yards.  A lot of cowering happens as well.  But at least 15 men continue running towards the MG.  Now someone is saying it is expected that a maxim can kill a TC showing with about 1/3 of his body exposed with a few bursts?  Something doesn't sound right.

I saw that Chris said they were going to look at it.  So why did Steve keep arguing for another 3-4 pages.  His arguments were totally confusing.  It comes across that he doesn't see the need to look at the issue.

After just a couple pages, some adult should have stopped the whole thing by just say it would be looked into.  Instead, Steve drove the entire discussion down a hole.

[Grim.Reaper]

Btw, check out what a new modder has done to enhance FB's winter landscape -- really amazing work

http://community.battlefront.com/topic/122613-winter-bulge/?_fromLogin=1

Will install this for sure when released.

This does look great...

[Sir Slash]

The lack of response of AFV crews to in-coming fire is more difficult to understand when there really wasn't a problem in CM 1. I know, they're different games but in CM1 crews would react to enemy threats sometimes even before they were fired on and immediately 'button-up'. Since CMBN this has not been the case except in cases of "Crack" or "Elite" commanders who seem to be able to realize they're being shot at. There's also the threat from arty shrapnel to consider which AFV crews also seem to ignore. It's a minor point but has great effect on gameplay.

[sandman2575]

Agree with all the points being made here. Just as another point of comparison -- the way Graviteam Tactics handles buttoning/unbuttoning, which doesn't have any of the problems currently associated with CM.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a TC killed by being unbuttoned and exposed. When under fire, tanks immediately button up. There are no 40 second delays while TCs ponder whether it would be wise to shut the lid, the way they do in CM.  Similarly, the Hanomag gunners in GravTactics are not routinely killed within seconds of manning their guns the way they are in CM. In fact, if anything GravTactics errs a little too much in the opposite direction, with HTs being a little too effective as assault weapons. I think CM has the better balance in terms of moddeling the fragility of HTs -- but the lethality of manning MGs in CM is just ridiculous. It's a death sentence. It's so bad in fact that I wish there were a button to *prevent* HT gunners from unbuttoning. They tend to unbutton automatically when under fire or when a target is presented, whether you give them the specific order or not - and it seems like 9 out of 10 times, they just wind up getting killed for exposing themselves.

[Grim.Reaper]

I have had my first crash ever playing a Combat Mission game while doing the tutorial campaign....was a pretty hard crash too, where it took me out of my session and really screwed up the screen where I had to reboot.  Hoping just a one time thing since so far enjoying what I am seeing.

[Elvis]

.  Now someone is saying it is expected that a maxim can kill a TC showing with about 1/3 of his body exposed with a few bursts?  Something doesn't sound right.

I haven't seen anyone say that.

I saw that Chris said they were going to look at it.  So why did Steve keep arguing for another 3-4 pages.  His arguments were totally confusing.  It comes across that he doesn't see the need to look at the issue.

After just a couple pages, some adult should have stopped the whole thing by just say it would be looked into.  Instead, Steve drove the entire discussion down a hole.

Hhmm.... I don't think that is either fair or true. On the second page of the thread, just a few posts after Chris' post Steve said:

As I said, you can not find me one TacAI behavior that doesn't have someone voicing a complaint, concern, or suggestion for change.  Because of that we tend to ignore more-or-less one off, marginally important, or situational specific complaints because if we didn't we'd never get anything else done.  Instead we look for ones, like this, that spark a significant conversation backed up by attempts to quantify what the problem is/isn't.  Now that this issue has risen to that level... we're now looking into it.

This is how we've handled things since 1999 and it's a system that, while not perfect, works pretty well.  Hindsight is always 20/20 and generally speaking anything we fix today probably was mentioned by someone before.  Probably more than once.

Steve

I didn't go through the whole thread but the gist of the rest of what I read he was explaining the balancing act that has to be done so that you don't get unrealistic results (like a TC getting kilt from 600m on the first shot) and a crew self buttoning up when it shouldn't need to and not being able to use all of the weapon systems. Certainly nothing that I read, explicitly or implied,  said that it wasn't an issue and nothing needs to be done about it.

[Michael Dorosh]

Ok, so the obvious question I have after reading the last couple of pages is - how often were exposed tank crews made casualties in the real deal?

I expect the easiest info to find would be anecdotal but I'd not be surprised if someone like Belton Cooper addressed this. I'll have to see if Graves talks about it in his history of the South Alberta Regiment, which fought Sherman tanks from Normandy to Germany.

I'd guess the smartest thing to do would be to fight tanks historically, by combining with infantry, suppressing defensive fire, etc. but the comments above suggest that you can do all that and still have odd occurences such as long range fire.

It's easy to forget that the AI doesn't "think" - it just provides a bunch of scripts and probabilities. I'd be confident in BFC finding a fix (tank commander 600m from an MG pops up, you dial down the likelihood that the MG will target it). As pointed out above, the hard part is demonstrating what the exact nature of the problem is, finding consensus on that, and demonstrating what the new behaviour "should" be in a way everyone will be happy with.

[RyanE]

He was talking about the balancing act, but at the same time being fairly dismissive of anyone who seemed to tink it was in an issue.  How much discussion from Steve went on AFTER a pretty solid test was done.  Instead of arguing for 5-6 pages of the thread, why wouldn't Steve just take the test and run it.  Instead of picking apart someone's test, just be a real developer and run the test.

[Rayfer]

Ok, so the obvious question I have after reading the last couple of pages is - how often were exposed tank crews made casualties in the real deal?

I expect the easiest info to find would be anecdotal but I'd not be surprised if someone like Belton Cooper addressed this. I'll have to see if Graves talks about it in his history of the South Alberta Regiment, which fought Sherman tanks from Normandy to Germany.

I'd guess the smartest thing to do would be to fight tanks historically, by combining with infantry, suppressing defensive fire, etc. but the comments above suggest that you can do all that and still have odd occurences such as long range fire.

It's easy to forget that the AI doesn't "think" - it just provides a bunch of scripts and probabilities. I'd be confident in BFC finding a fix (tank commander 600m from an MG pops up, you dial down the likelihood that the MG will target it). As pointed out above, the hard part is demonstrating what the exact nature of the problem is, finding consensus on that, and demonstrating what the new behaviour "should" be in a way everyone will be happy with.

MD....you're opening sentence asks an excellent question. I wonder what real life statistics there are for numbers of TC's who were killed while exposed. A significant number, an insignificant number? Enquiring minds want to know.....!!

[Michael Dorosh]

MD....you're opening sentence asks an excellent question. I wonder what real life statistics there are for numbers of TC's who were killed while exposed. A significant number, an insignificant number? Enquiring minds want to know.....!!

There is apparently some operational research extant, at least from the Commonwealth side. I posted the question at my own forum, and received one reply so far.

The Laurier Centre has this in their archives:

http://www.archeion.ca/medical-research-council-team-for-survey-of-casualties-among-tank-personnel-casualties-among-tank-crews-in-11-armoured-division-in-operational-veritable-27-feb-4-mar-45

And this:

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a265499.pdf

I don't know if it would be of much help since studies may deal only with armour penetrations rather than small arms/MG fire affecting exposed crew.

[Rayfer]

Very interesting MD...thanks for posting. I had no idea this sort of analysis was done, no less available, in such detail.