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When it comes to grazing fire, there is no need to dig through manuals, for it's right here. The "cone of fire" referenced may be thought of as akin to a jet of water from a hose, and like it, diverges from the main axis as range increases, except the "water" is now copper jacketed supersonic  lead and lethal. The definition of grazing fire and associated diagram are straight from FM 3-22-68 CREW-SERVED MACHINE GUNS, 5.56-mm AND 7.62-mm The below is taken from the named portion on the GlobalSecurity.org site.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/3-22-68/c05.htm

5-6.   RESPECT TO THE GROUND

Fire with respect to the GROUND (Figure 5-3) includes grazing and plunging fires.

a.   Grazing Fire. Grazing fire occurs when the center of the cone of fire does not rise more than 1 meter above the ground. When firing on level or uniformly sloping terrain, the gunner can obtain a maximum of 600 meters of grazing fire.

b.   Plunging Fire. Plunging fire occurs when the danger space is confined to the beaten zone. Plunging fire also occurs when firing at long ranges, from high ground to low ground, into abruptly rising ground, or across uneven terrain, resulting in a loss of grazing fire at any point along the trajectory.

Figure 5-3. Classes of fire with respect to the ground.

Figure 5-3.  Classes of fire with respect to the ground.

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited by John Kettler
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15 hours ago, IanL said:

Something is off here. In the scenario design editor you can add what ever forces you want - no restrictions. You can even add forces form the other side to fight with you.

Could you be talking about quick battles instead?

Hehe. Of course you're right. "Problem" solved. Out of total negligence, I made myself believe that unit selection in the editor is the same as in quickbattles. I can only hope that you're asll getting used to my misguided improvement suggestions by now. But even a blind squirrel will find a nut once in a while! :)

@ arty fire plans: It's not that important since scenario designers could still write down a historical/scheduled fire plan in the briefing for the players to issue themselves at the start of the game. But still it would be more convenient.

 

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19 hours ago, IanL said:

 

Quote
  • Minor thing for scenario-design, especially for WWII-titles: let the scenario-designer set a fixed artillery-plan (no control for the player over pre-planned barages). It seems as if artillery fire plans were sometimes decided beforehand on higher HQ-levels than those represented in the game (company).

I think that would be brilliant actually. I am not sure if that has been asked for before or not.

 

It has :)

 

 

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9 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

@ arty fire plans: It's not that important since scenario designers could still write down a historical/scheduled fire plan in the briefing for the players to issue themselves at the start of the game. But still it would be more convenient.

Agreed

6 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

It has :)

 

Cool - more people asking means more visibility.

2 hours ago, Combatintman said:

The workaround for the artillery thing is, in a scenario designed to be played Axis vs Allied AI, give the Axis side extra artillery and have those units shell its own positions as part of an AI plan.

Oh very clever. I would be inclined to go with the write it up in the briefing but this has potential uses too.

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3 hours ago, Combatintman said:

The workaround for the artillery thing is, in a scenario designed to be played Axis vs Allied AI, give the Axis side extra artillery and have those units shell its own positions as part of an AI plan.

Hello...

Sorry for nit-picking here (and i appologize if i missunderstand your  intension with this answer...)

but i think you ment to say that the - ALLIED - side should recieve extra artillery...

right ? B)

If soo...i agree...This is a neat Little trick to simulate friendly artillery ordered by higher ups. I have used it a couple of times in scenarios a have made.

It works quite well and ads a nice touch to the immersion.

 

There are a few Little things though to keep in mind (atleast i have not found a good solution for them):

- If you want to specify  a certain artillery unit to be part of this initial barrage ordered by your higher ups you will need to set all other AI artillery assets (i think also the onmap mortars...) to arrive as reinforcements ( min 5 perhaps). If they are avaliable to the AI at the start of the scenario any of those units may take part on the initial barrage...kind of random. If you want the barrage to be from a 10.5 cm battery or two...Only those artillery units can be part of the AI force from min. 1.

- One downside (minor) with this idea...The artillery Shells can be seen comming from the wrong direction....

 

 

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  • 1 year later...

It would be great if we in the Units Section - > Activated Troops of the Editor could move units (Formation, Fortification, Special Team, Vehicle) up and down to make everything look cleaner so it's easier to find what one is looking for. It sometimes happens that when one has choosen a couple of units there's all of a sudden need for something else which comes far down on the list of Activated Troops. And when there are different sections of units (for example units on the left flank and units in the centre), it would have been nice to be able to move units up and down the list to have each unit in those sections together.

If I for example choose to put the foxholes in place on the map first, before I choose soldier formations, and later on find out that I need a few more foxholes I'll have them both in the beginning and the end of the list. Or if I find out that I don't really want that Breach Team on the left flank but a Pioneer Team instead I'll now have that new team down in the end of the list. If I could move units up and down the list I could've had units in the same section clustered together.

Another thing is to be able to copy and paste a unit in that list. If I for example want to have three infantry battalions and remove loads of stuff I feel is unnecessary in the battalions, I'd rather not do that tedious stuff over and over again. If I could remove the unnecessary stuff from the first battalion and then copy and paste it I would save so much time and not have to go through the same task many times.

Edited by BornGinger
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1 hour ago, BornGinger said:

If I for example choose to put the foxholes in place on the map first, before I choose soldier formations, and later on find out that I need a few more foxholes I'll have them both in the beginning and the end of the list.

Yep, this can be a bit of a jumbled mess.  No matter how carefully you plan things out something is almost always added out of order at some point.  One thing I found with fortifications that help to keep things organized is to name the fortifications in the editor.  The name is only visible in the editor and helps to remind me where it is used on the map. Example: Foxhole (crossroads), Barbwire (West Obj.) etc....... 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 8/30/2018 at 3:25 AM, user1000 said:

M40 GMC should switch to 155 HE if out of HEAT rounds, but still firing at tanks. Even that  size HE shell would destroy enemy tanks.

Maybe the HE shell wouldn't even need to explode? It's 45 kilos at 853 m/s... Not sure if the shell would just shatter on impact, but the force of the blow might even flip over an enemy tank or knock off the turret?

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I'm still hoping that the infantry's inability to use cover (in particular depressions in the ground, ditches) while retaining good LOS will be fixed by a glorious patch some day! The more I tried to make it work and delved into the problem, the more it became a deal-breaker for me, which affects all CM titiles and makes infantry die like flies. :(

The problem is described (including some screenshots) in my Gerbini project, especially in the posts on page 3: 

 

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On 9/1/2018 at 10:45 AM, Kaunitz said:

I'm still hoping that the infantry's inability to use cover (in particular depressions in the ground, ditches) while retaining good LOS will be fixed by a glorious patch some day!

I read the comments in the thread the link leads to and agree fully. I tried to make some "natural" trenches in the scenario I'm making and not one soldier stood on the bottom of the trench. All of them were just as the ones in the pictures on one of the posts in that thread. If it was possible to make foxholes and ditches by lowering the ground or using deeper craters and at the same time have the soldiers stand up or sit/lay down porperly in them, it would be harder to spot the defenders.

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On 8/31/2018 at 5:01 PM, Bulletpoint said:

Maybe the HE shell wouldn't even need to explode? It's 45 kilos at 853 m/s... Not sure if the shell would just shatter on impact, but the force of the blow might even flip over an enemy tank or knock off the turret?

The result would be catastrophic for the tank

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • You can't make units disembark from a bunker/shelter and move them on in the very same turn, which can be fatal very quickly. It would be nice to have that option.
  • Soldiers who die while being in a bunker/shelter disappear (no buddy aid/retrieval of weapons available). This does not just apply to losses to heavy calibre AP or HE fire (in which case the soldiers would probably be totally obliterated...) but also to losses to small arms fire.
  • It would be nice to have a "typical only"-toggle for quickbattles, so that players cannot select the experience/morale/leadership of their troops individually but have to deal with what they get. I think that this level of fine-tuning is rather annoying sometimes. (It's great for scenario design, of course!)
  • I suppose it has already be mentioned before several times, but just to make sure: An option to dismount and remount crew-served weapons is desperately needed. The lack of the  option makes crew-served weapons a very bad choice in many situations (e.g. you can't let them use an artillery shelter).

----

  • More a weird idea to be discussed rather than a serious improvement suggestion: Maybe it would be interesting to give players (or just the defender?) the option to buy reinforcements at a reduced price? The later in the game the reinforcements appeared, the fewer points they would cost? Maybe this would increase the uncertainty of battle a bit (right now, players often know exactly how many tanks the opponent has and can advance freely and carelessly once they know they've been knocked out). And maybe lead to more plausible engagements, with the defender's (more expensive) fast/motorized units showing up as a reaction to the attack. 

----

  • Also, I wondered if there is some reason why onmap short-barreled/low-velocity assault guns/howitzers/sp. arty cannot fire indirectly? Is it because the trajectory would not be curved enough to fire at the "comparatively" short distances on the typical CM battlefield? The onmap crew-served infantry guns can fire indirectly, by the way, and the game even considers their line of fire (you can end up with a "no line of fire" error message when your gun's trajectory arc does not allow it to fire over an obstacle). EDIT: I looked up some candidates in the Command Ops II database, which seems to be very well researched, and indeed it lists a minimum distance for bombard missions (indirect fire) of 2.5km, which is too far for most CM maps. (looked up the 10.5cm leichte Feldhaubitze 80/40, used on the "Wespe"). Also, it seems that by doctrine, they were not supposed to deliver indirect fire, but direct fire (in which case, however, the arced trajectory would still be handy, which might also be the case in CM - http://community.battlefront.com/topic/112114-reverse-slopegrazing-fire/?tab=comments#comment-1763218 )
Edited by Kaunitz
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3 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

More a weird idea to be discussed rather than a serious improvement suggestion: Maybe it would be interesting to give players (or just the defender?) the option to buy reinforcements at a reduced price? The later in the game the reinforcements appeared, the fewer points they would cost? Maybe this would increase the uncertainty of battle a bit (right now, players often know exactly how many tanks the opponent has and can advance freely and carelessly once they know they've been knocked out). And maybe lead to more plausible engagements, with the defender's (more expensive) fast/motorized units showing up as a reaction to the attack. 

Sounds kinda cool actually. I am not sure how high on BFC's priority list that would get but I can defiantly see the fun there.

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Some appeals of the reinforcement idea:

  • More plausible and slightly more assymetrical engagements - the defender could start with just infantry and AT guns (because they're cheap enough to use them from the start) and face a force of overwhelming armor in the first phase of the battle. The second phase would see the counter attack by mobile reinforcements. 
  • Time is a bigger factor- related to point 1. As a defender, you'd try to delay the enemy long enough for your reinforcements to arrive safely and while the attacker is still in a bad spot. 
  • Overall, it would make engagements a bit more dynamic. I personally don't like probes and meeting engagements because I don't think that these engagements occured very often in WWII. But the engagement types with fixed roles (attack, assault) sometimes feel a bit static. With reinforcements, there is a lot of uncertainty and some dynamic. As the attacker, you'd need to break through and then - this is new - hold on to the objective. The defender would also need to be more active and incorporate the reinforcements in his overall plan (when and where shall they arrive? Can they use covered routes to their fighting positions, etc).

Here is a video to get you in the right mood for reinforcements! Here come the Panzergrenadiers! (I like the Panzerjäger-Austrian guy at 09:39 and 19:54 :) such a great actor lol)

[some errors in the english captions; Note that the leader of the PG/halftrack platoon uses flares in two situations: 1) to tell the arty to shift their fire forward (to cut off the enemy breakthrough from further reinforcements from the rear) and 2) to mark an enemy AT-gun position for the tankdestroyers (that were supporting the counter attack from the crest of the hill) to take it out]

Edited by Kaunitz
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Add Tall boccage to the editor, seeing as many of the quick battle maps have tall boccage in them, though it is passable by infantry for some reason in FB. Maybe its just a tall hedge now.

Makes me wonder how they made these quick battle maps have Tall boccage at all if it's not in the editor. Or did they just import some of them from the other titles, as evidenced by some of the buildings lacking walls, and the preview screens featuring Normandy summer terrain or mountains from FI.

FB seems to be able to cope though, it even has editor icons for Tall boccage, but alas we were deemed unworthy.

Also we have "Holland" as a location but suddenly no windmills. I know all windmills in Holland were destroyed by October 1944 so why did they include the windmill in the .brz files then? Maybe we get to pay for it later.

 

Also fix the shadows on the sandbags on the wooden bunker (shelter) pls. Red Thunder's are fine, the other titles all have the same bug. Interior of building 105 level 0 window is broken too - I replaced the model with Fortress Italy's 105's (though this lacks chimneys).

Edited by Jace11
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3 hours ago, IanL said:

More a weird idea to be discussed rather than a serious improvement suggestion: Maybe it would be interesting to give players (or just the defender?) the option to buy reinforcements at a reduced price? The later in the game the reinforcements appeared, the fewer points they would cost? Maybe this would increase the uncertainty of battle a bit (right now, players often know exactly how many tanks the opponent has and can advance freely and carelessly once they know they've been knocked out). And maybe lead to more plausible engagements, with the defender's (more expensive) fast/motorized units showing up as a reaction to the attack. 

Not weird at all.  IIRC CM1 had a feature that included Bn, Div, and Army level reinforcements that arrived depending on the casualties one suffered.  It was automatic rather than manual.  But, it was a great feature - unfortunately very seldom used.  It was a great way of balancing out scenarios so that less-experienced players could have fun without being destroyed and having to replay over and over again.

A system in which reinforcements could be summoned by the player while taking a points penalty would be a wonderful feature.

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