RoughRoad

This is a good work-around when you are the one attacking the gun. Of course the bug/limitation/quirk (whatever) can still totally spoil games when it's your gun vs. the AI's tanks-- the AI will still hold all its armor back and hopelessly pound away at your gun until the cows come in. The required work-around when it's your gun vs. the AI (if you don't want to risk a wasted game) is to make sure to set up your guns OUT of defilade. At least then the AI has a chance to make things interesting. Of course, this means that your choice is between invulnerability (in defilade) or very vulnerable (out of any type of defilade). I know the BF crew is extremely busy with the new game engine and all that, but I do hope they can find the time to fix this.

I'll be anxious to hear the final results of YankeeDog's tests. But in the meantime, let me ask the question in reverse: Has anyone running v1.02 ever had a situation where: 1) A gun in defilade was engaging a large number of AFV's 2) For say, 7 or 8 turns, the AFV's fired away with HE but had no effect rather than overshots or digging the proverbial trench a few meters in front. (This may sound like a long time, but it's nothing compared to the 23 turns w/o a hit from the situation that originated this post. Besides, if the gun gets hit before this, it might be an indication that the level of defilade was not comparable to the ones discussed here.) 3) On say, turn 9 or so, without changing position, the AFV's suddenly score a direct hit with HE and knock out the gun? If the answer is yes (and I don't expect this), it would seem to me that this would make a pretty strong case that this is not a bug-- that instead defilade just creates an incredibly low probability shot. But if people aren't seeing hits like this occuring, it would seem to me to be yet another indication that were dealing with a legitimate bug.

Referring again to the original post, here is the final "post mortem" on the situation described there...[Which was one (1) defiladed German 105mm artillery piece vs. what ultimately turns out to be twelve (12) T-34's and six (6) Kv-I's that can't seem to hit the gun for their life]: After 23 turns of constant bombardment by a couple companies of Ruskie armor (over 250 incoming HE rounds), not one HE round lands within 8m of the gun (although the short rounds have dug a 10' deep slit trench leading up to the gun's defiladed position). In the meantime, the gun slowly picks off one T-34 after the next, finally capping 11 of the 12 (somebody else got the 12th before the gun could get to it). Personally, I'm convinced that there was more at work here than good tactical placement-- I think that the gun could hit the Russians but that was completely impossible for the Russian armor to hit my gun. Of course, the Russian AI didn't "know" this-- that's why the Russian armor sat back and hopelessly fired away for 23 turns while the 105 picked them off one by one. As others have also said, I believe that there is clearly a bug with the LOS/LOF mechanisms when it comes to armor firing at guns in defilade In light of this, when attacking an enemy gun in such a defilade position in CMBB, the obvious answer is to try to take it out with other types of fire (indirect, MG fire, infantry, whatever)-- but if those options aren't available and it's not possible to maneuver to a non-defilade angle on the gun, it seems to me that your stuck either trying to avoid the thing entirely, blinding it with smoke (if your tanks carry smoke), and/or charging the durn thing. When you're attacking with tanks, you seem to have a much better chance of hitting a pillbox firing slit than upi do of hitting a defiladed gun. If you're defending with guns against an AI armor attack (as I was) the best answer is probably to avoid setting-up your guns in defilade at all, or else run the risk that, no matter how big the force increase or experience bonus you give the AI, it will still devote all of its energies on completely hopeless game-long effort to hit your "unhittable" gun.

Referring again to the original post... I've played another turn, and noticed that, surprisingly, the gun IS now getting hit by a fair amount of MG fire from the distant Russian armor, even as their massed HE fire continues to dig craters or whiff through the air harmlessly. I'm not sure that this was happening all along-- it might just be happening now because the Russian armor is slowly advancing and thus possibly changing the gun's defilade. Otherwise, it sounds suspicious that MG's are hitting, but not the guns. Anyway, this lone 105 field gun has now survived 14 turns engaging over 18 Russian KV's and T-34's, individually killed 10 of them now, been shot at over 200 times by HE with 0 hits-- but somebodies MG is finally getting morale results.

To add some more info to the original post... * I'm running v1.02 * The Scenario is "Katukov Strikes Back" (WWB) with my Germans playing against the AI. * My artillery piece is regular quality and under command of +1 morale leader. Don't think it's fanatic. No German shell has landed w/i 8 meters of the gun (which makes some sense since, due to the gentle slope, that's about the distance the gun is from the crest) * A neighboring gun (with less defilade) was taken out in one turn by the Russians-- the same Russians who can't seem to touch this guy. I really think this is a bug, a possibility that was hinted at in an earlier thread. With all due respect to Fionn and others, this thing has been shelled for 13 turns! by lots of bad guys. I could see good tactical placement buying it a turn or two against that kind of fire, but 13? Counting shell holes, there must be between 150-200 misses, with 0 hits. My humble, non-Battlefront-insider, could-be-all-wet theory is this (also hinted at by another poster): 1) to score a true "hit" on a gun, the incoming shell needs to land at the gun's "base", even though the gun's own outgoing fire is figured from the gun's muzzle height. 2) in certain "hull-down-like" postions like the one here, the gun's base is totally out of the enemies LOF (effectively protecting the gun from a hit) even though the enemy is within the gun's elevated LOF-- allowing the gun to blaze away. My interest in determining if this is a bug is not to whine at Battlefront-- the fact that a game on CMBB's scale has so remarkably few bugs is amazing to me and a testimony to their outstanding work. But if this is a bug, it would be helpful to know so that I can avoid creating future situations where my guns are unrealistically invincible.

I am playing an early war scenario and have dug in an axis 105mm artillery piece just behind a gradual rise-- in such a way that the gun can fire over the crest of the rise, but it's base is behind the crest (sort of like the artillery equivalent of hull down). On turn 3, my gun opens up, and within a turn or two its location soon becomes the focal point of a large Soviet armor attack-- a group of 8 or so KV's and T-34's started shelling it from 600m, and another group of 5 or so T-34's shelling it from around 200m. With the gun's location discovered and facing odds of 13-1 or so, i'm think that I'll be lucky if it can survive another turn. BUT... The Punchline: It's now 13 turns after the gun was first discovered, but in spite of the fact that this gun has been targetted by half the Russian Armor on the Eastern Front, it is virtually unscathed as it continues happily firing away from its "behind the crest" position (it just killed its ninth T-34). The Russian tanks have fired so many rounds at the gun that the area on the rise leading up to the gun's firing crest looks like the surface of the moon (with other Russian shells overshooting the gun and pockmarking areas well behind it). But in spite of 13 turns of continuous shelling and 150+ incoming rounds, not one Russian shell has landed within 5-10 meters of the gun's position behind the crest. This makes me wonder if there isn't some type of subtle software bug/problem at work here. If so, I have a theory on what might be causing it, but I'm curious: Has anyone else has come across an "unhittable gun" situation like this before?

For what it's worth, I tried the this follow-up experiment. Starting from the aftermath of the situation described in the original post, I managed to move all infantry at least 15m or so away from the AP minefield. This left an unsuppressed pioneer 15m away from the field-- and I had him simply sit there (didn't give him any orders). Low and behold, on the next turn, he *finally* tossed a single demo that cleared the field, with no additional side-effects on any friendlies that I could see. The Russian hordes were then at last able to run through the breach (singing and toasting one another as they went). This leads me to believe that either: 1) the presence of friendly troops really close (< 15m) to a minefield can indeed interfere with clearing it, or 2) My pioneers in this instance were just exceptionally slow

Thanks everyone for your responses. For what it's worth,using a saved turn, I tried to "area fire" with the "use explosives" on a spot 1 meter away from the minefield-- this was with my pioneer who was 15m out. The pioneer did (surprisingly?) go ahead an throw all three of his demo charges (and took two casualties)-- but the minefield remained intact! My theory is that this particular minefield has gone fanatic. I guess the way to clear the field is the old fashioned safe/slow way (though not slow compared to MOS's experience) 1) get all friendlies away from minefield (at least 20m) 2) park one engineer about 20m out. 3) WAIT PATIENTLY 4) DO NOT target the minefield unless you want to waste all of your ammo, possibily kill a lot of friendlies, and still have no guarantee that the mines will be cleared. In my case, where I had to exploit quickly and couldn't afford waiting 4+ turns, I think I should have just advanced/crawled everybody through the minefield and accepted the casualties.

Becket: I didn't notice the text "Use Explosives" (didn't actually realize this was a possibility), and hadn't tried targetting nearby. I'll have to look for this next time-- thanks! Mud: Good point. I didn't try crawling the friendlies out of the field (guess I should have). Perhaps not have done so prevented the "Use Explosives" text from appearing-- or maybe I just didn't put the cursor in the right place. Of course the irony is that whatever damage the pioneers might have done to friendlies with explosives, I can't imagine it being too much worse than what their small arms did. And at least the demo might have cleared the minefield!

Night scenario, tight terrain, poor visibility: my Russian infantry and pioneers are assaulting the outer perimeter of a German fixed position. They run into an AP minefield right in the critical line of advance-- no good way around it, I have to clear it. A pioneer squad (plenty of demos), company CO, and rifle squad are all pinned in the minefield radius. I'm expecting the pioneer to clear it, but after waiting 3 turns (with pioneers pinned the first two of them), nothing happens. All Germans in the immediate area are now kaputt-- I've really got to hurry up and clear this minefield and exploit, so I move a second pioneer (plenty of demos)to within about 15m of the marker. Another turn goes by (the fourth turn), minefield is still there, in spite of now 2 pioneer squads sitting next to it doing nothing. Being a mine-clearing noobie, I pull out my manual, read on page 64 that "You can of course also target the minefied marker manually" Ah-hah! I now have both pioneers target the minefield. On the next turn, disaster! One pioneer does nothing, but the other opens up with small arms on the minefield. Minefield is unhurt, but the fire wreaks havoc on the other units that are still in the minefield-- the CO is killed out-right, the other pioneer squad takes casualties and is pinned, and the infantry squad takes casualties, panics, and runs through the minefield and dies. Note that at no time did either pioneer expend a demo. Questions: 1) Is it typical for a minefield to be this hard to clear? 2) Why did my 2nd pioneer squad open up with small arms and put so much hurt on my own guys instead of just clearing the darn thing? I realize that you can accidentally target friendly units at night (which this was), but throughout the whole disaster, the pioneer's target line stayed on the minefield, so it seems like the devastating friendly fire was just collateral damage. 3) Is targetting a minefield with an engineer/pioneer ever a good idea? What does it do for you vs. just sitting next to the thing? (except cause collateral damage on friendlies nearby) AND FINALLY, 4) This is obviously NOT the best way to clear a minefield-- how would you have done it? Thanks in advance for any words of wisdom.