buildings Buildings & HE / Mods and other stuff.

[JoMac]

4 minutes ago, Erwin said:

But, the rounds have little or no effect on inf behind the building - one has to demolish the building in order to shoot at those inf.

This sounds disconcerting for sure.. :-(

Edited November 27, 2018 by JoMc67

[A Canadian Cat]

33 minutes ago, JoMc67 said:

This sounds disconcerting for sure..

How so? You are expecting explosions at the front wall of a building will have a significant effect on soldiers outside in the backyard? I suppose it would be worse than if it was hitting a building two streets over but I would not expect suppression in the backyard.

[Combatintman]

42 minutes ago, Erwin said:

But, the rounds have little or no effect on inf behind the building - one has to demolish the building in order to shoot at those inf.

Well obviously … that is why they are using the building as cover. You mention this a lot so there is clearly a problem here.

Abstraction plays a part in that only the external walls of a building are visible to a player but the internal walls are abstracted. The implication is that if you want to suppress troops on the other side of a building you are actually shooting through more than the two walls that you can see in the game.

There is also the issue of building construction - .50 will go through most walls but they would struggle to go through the front external facing wall of an old style stone building, a couple of internal walls and the rear external wall to give the good news to troops lurking behind. Even if said external walls were not solid stone but of brick, breeze block or normal concrete then it would be a stretch to imagine that firing against the front wall and expecting to have much effect on troops the other side of a couple of internal walls, some furniture and the rear external wall is optimistic.

If you're so stressed about infantry behind buildings then:

Avoid them.

Use indirect fire.

Use HE on the buildings.

Or some of that fancy fire and manoeuvre stuff.

If the thrust of your numerous posts on the subject is - the .50 inch weapon effects against troops hiding behind buildings model is wrong - I disagree.

[Warts 'n' all]

3 hours ago, Combatintman said:

If you're so stressed about infantry behind buildings then:

Avoid them.

Use indirect fire.

Use HE on the buildings.

Or some of that fancy fire and manoeuvre stuff.

If the thrust of your numerous posts on the subject is - the .50 inch weapon effects against troops hiding behind buildings model is wrong - I disagree.

Perfect advice.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

6 hours ago, Erwin said:

But, the rounds have little or no effect on inf behind the building - one has to demolish the building in order to shoot at those inf.

Just as Erwin said.

Yes the rounds penetrate, yes they moderately disturb the team the other side, but the .50cal levels the building (and commences direct fire) before the enemy team actually suffers any consequences from suppression. 

5 hours ago, IanL said:

How so? You are expecting explosions at the front wall of a building will have a significant effect on soldiers outside in the backyard? I suppose it would be worse than if it was hitting a building two streets over but I would not expect suppression in the backyard.

Explosions?

No.....These are high-density, high-velocity projectiles, apparently passing straight through the building, but they don't seem able to seriously effect the team on the far side before the whole building comes down.

Just an observation and one that surprises me slightly (as it's contrary to what I thought went on, and as you know, I routinely riddle my own urban maps with .50cal fire).....But taking the whole building down is fine by me! 

Edited November 27, 2018 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Combatintman]

Ok - I've actually just run a quick test on this in CMFI because that was the quickest test range I had to hand:

1 x US Regular M2 HMG crew per lane @ 100m. Each lane contains a single building type as per the table below.

Skulking behind the building in each lane is a German Regular Average motivation Panzergrenadier squad with the exception of the commercial building which had the platoon HQ lurking behind it.

Here are the results of a single turn firing:

Clearly I'm not going to plan the next shot to Mars on this data, and my reading of the suppression bar levels is based on a lot of squinting because of their small size, but the reasonable deduction seems to be:

Firing HMGs at buildings from a range of 100m suppresses troops behind them.

 

 

[sburke]

I have suppressed enemy infantry in an adjoining room by area firing into a room while adjacent and outside. It is standard practice now for me to enter a room if I don’t think I have cleared the enemy completely from the area. 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

24 minutes ago, Combatintman said:

Here are the results of a single turn firing:

Interesting, and quite a different outcome to my own experiments in CM:SF1, clearly the modelling is rather more sophisticated in the newer games (no huge surprise there TBH).....Your results are about what I expected to see and generally match my own experiences in play (hence my surprise at my own results).

Did you get any building demolitions?  I used a lot of .50cal in in @MOS:96B2P TOC and blew out the odd building wall, but I don't recall completely demolishing anything with .50cal alone (mostly 'cos when I was intent on demolishing things I used 40mm HE too.)

Edited November 27, 2018 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Combatintman]

3 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Interesting, and quite a different outcome to my own experiments in CM:SF1, clearly the modelling is rather more sophisticated in the newer games (no huge surprise there TBH).....Your results are about what I expected to see and generally match my own experiences in play (hence my surprise at my own results).

To be honest mate, the takeaway I got from this test was the reload time for the M2 

As to the rest of it, it seems that things are there or thereabouts. More testing would be required for sure and at greater ranges, but the thing that does stand out is that the independent house building type seems to be the worst thing to hide behind by a country mile. I would expect it to be more robust than the barn and the commercial building and it is something that is probably worth further exploration.

[MOS:96B2P]

1 hour ago, Combatintman said:

the reasonable deduction seems to be:

Firing HMGs at buildings from a range of 100m suppresses troops behind them.   

 

32 minutes ago, Combatintman said:

the thing that does stand out is that the independent house building type seems to be the worst thing to hide behind by a country mile. I would expect it to be more robust than the barn and the commercial building and it is something that is probably worth further exploration.

Nice test and table. +1. 

In July 2016 I did some experiments with building strength in CMFB.  I compared  how a building withstood direct fire before collapsing.  I also observed how troops took suppression while inside the buildings.  However, I did not test for suppression behind a building.  It seemed buildings could be divided into four groups.  In my notes I have the following: 

Very Strong: Three biggest church structures.

Strong: Modular buildings and independent small church.  

Average: Independent houses, independent commercial, and independent other.  (CMBN & CMFB have an "other" category for buildings.) 

Weak: Barns

[A Canadian Cat]

14 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Explosions?

No.....These are high-density, high-velocity projectiles, apparently passing straight through the building

Ah. I didn't realize we were talking about .50 cal passing through the building. Must pay better attention.

At any rate I see that @Combatintman has done a few experiments and found that things seem to be working as expected.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Yup and his results in the newer engine were as expected, so it's just a legacy issue with CM:SF1, scarcely even a curiosity these days! 

 

[Erwin]

That's good news if one can suppress units that are hiding behind a building (two walls between firer and target). 

However, in the game I find that this is regularly the most deadly place to set a defender as they do not seem to be adequately suppressed by firing into the buildings (even by larger than 50 cal), and when one's troops enter, they are almost always massacred by the enemy behind the far wall.  Even when I expect this ambush I have yet to successfully suppress an enemy behind two walls.  

Am talking about fairly large buildings, not just a single room structure.  Maybe that makes a difference?

 

[Combatintman]

8 hours ago, Erwin said:

Am talking about fairly large buildings, not just a single room structure.  Maybe that makes a difference?

Maybe for smaller ammunition natures - but my CMBS example featured a large building and, as stated, a single 125mm main gun round fired at the facing wall of the building suppressed a dismounted US Cavalry squad behind the building.

[Bulletpoint]

9 hours ago, Erwin said:

However, in the game I find that this is regularly the most deadly place to set a defender as they do not seem to be adequately suppressed by firing into the buildings (even by larger than 50 cal), and when one's troops enter, they are almost always massacred by the enemy behind the far wall.  Even when I expect this ambush I have yet to successfully suppress an enemy behind two walls.

If you are able to get a bit of an angle, I think it's possible to either area MG fire on the square behind the building or on another square that lets bullets travel on and hit that spot.

In any case, flanking is king against that kind of defence. Units are sitting ducks if you flank them while they're sitting behind buildings.

[JoMac]

4 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

If you are able to get a bit of an angle, I think it's possible to either area MG fire on the square behind the building or on another square that lets bullets travel on and hit that spot.

In any case, flanking is king against that kind of defence. Units are sitting ducks if you flank them while they're sitting behind buildings.

Yes, going at an slight angle (say 60-75 degrees) and shooting within 1-2 Action Spots will give HE/Small Arms a greater chance of KO/Suppression.

Edited November 29, 2018 by JoMc67

[Erwin]

12 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

In any case, flanking is king against that kind of defence. Units are sitting ducks if you flank them while they're sitting behind buildings.

If one has that opportunity and/or the designer has provided the appropriate weapons systems that is well and good.  However, that is not often the case.

In the CMSF2 demo "Passage at Wilcox" there was at least one situation where there was a multi room building with enemy in the 2nd room with no chance to outflank.  No matter how much small arms or MG firepower was directed at the first room, the enemy in the 2nd room were able to easily massacre the US troops that entered the first room.  One had to use Bradleys or Abrams main weapons to demolish the first wall (and this was a PRESERVE objective) before there was effect on the enemy behind the 2nd wall. 

Have seen this very successful ambush tactic used many times b4.  I don't know an effective counter in the game (when one cannot for whatever reason flank it) other than demolishing the building - and designers are canny in their efforts to make sure that the player does not possess the best weapon for the job.  But, that's RL for you, so can't really criticize that...

 

[Bulletpoint]

9 hours ago, Erwin said:

In the CMSF2 demo "Passage at Wilcox" there was at least one situation where there was a multi room building with enemy in the 2nd room with no chance to outflank.  No matter how much small arms or MG firepower was directed at the first room, the enemy in the 2nd room were able to easily massacre the US troops that entered the first room.

That is a bit different issue though. I wish flamethrowers would be useful for this situation (for WW2 titles) or special forces breach-and-clear techniques (for modern warfare)

[Erwin]

14 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

That is a bit different issue though.

Actually this is exactly the issue I was trying to describe earlier re fire not being effective through a 2nd wall.  Perhaps my posts were not clear enuff.

[Combatintman]

2 hours ago, Erwin said:

Actually this is exactly the issue I was trying to describe earlier re fire not being effective through a 2nd wall.  Perhaps my posts were not clear enuff.

No they are clear - you want small arms to have an unrealistic effect on troops hiding behind buildings because you don't like losing troops who enter buildings and are engaged by enemy hidden behind the far wall. There will be a way to solve the problem and yes it might mean you have to fire HE at a Preserve objective or use your sappers to blast into the building.

[Erwin]

What am wondering is if all walls of all buildings in CM games are built like exterior walls.  If correct, that would mean that interior walls between rooms which are usually thinner/weaker are in fact double exterior walls.  Hence the problems of firing at an exterior wall, penetrating into the first room, then through what are supposed to be weaker interior walls and having an effect on units inside a 2nd room.  

I seem to recall tests which showed the impressive capacity for even small arms to penetrate significant obstacles like breezeblocks etc which are what most ME building walls are made of (at least those that I saw out there).  So, it should not be hard to have an effect on units in an interior room as described.

[Warts 'n' all]

4 hours ago, Erwin said:

which are what most ME building walls are made of 

My Belgian geography is fairly basic, so to which part of the Ardennes does ME refer to?

[Erwin]

My experience was in the CMSF2 demo - am presuming (maybe wrong) that CM2 buildings have similar walls across all titles and that two adjacent rooms have 2 walls between them. 

If the system uses the same specs for interior walls as for exterior walls, it would explain why it is so hard to have much if any effect when firing at the exterior of building on an enemy in an adjacent 2nd room (ie projectiles would effectively have to pass through 3 exterior walls).

 

 

Edited December 1, 2018 by Erwin

[Warts 'n' all]

Well for those of us that come to the CMFB thread to read about CMFB it is best to leave the modern stuff at the door. You have to remember that I'm 400 years old and get confuddled easily

In the meantime Rommers your comments do hint at your own downfall.  In the summer of '42 whilst your trucks were full of breeze blocks so that you could test the effectiveness of weapons yet to be invented. My Granddad Paddy and his mates were hauling 2 and 6lber ammo up from the Canal Zone in their trusty Bedfords to Alam Halfa. The rest is, as they say, history. 

[mjkerner]

Oh, that’s how things went south for ER!