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Two Measly Rounds of Small Arms


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My Chaffee squares away at some infantry occupying a two story building and begins to receive some small arms fire (it’s unbuttoned).  A couple of rounds ‘ricochet into the opening’ (commanders hatch).   Nobody is hit but the crew bails out anyway and the tank shows knocked out with no indication in the damage panel what got hit.  Not real sure how two rifle rounds could K.O. a tank or is this just the worst luck in the world?  Hope this doesn’t turn out to be a bug exclusive to the Chaffee. 

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11 minutes ago, tankgeezer said:

My Chaffee squares away at some infantry occupying a two story building and begins to receive some small arms fire (it’s unbuttoned).  A couple of rounds ‘ricochet into the opening’ (commanders hatch).   Nobody is hit but the crew bails out anyway and the tank shows knocked out with no indication in the damage panel what got hit.  Not real sure how two rifle rounds could K.O. a tank or is this just the worst luck in the world?  Hope this doesn’t turn out to be a bug exclusive to the Chaffee. 

 

Manned by Italian troops perhaps? Seriously, I share your frustration at troops below veteran tending to be very quick to bail out...

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This might be anecdotal, but for the sake of the argument I'll post it. In a QB PBEM I'm playing my opponent has a Panther and a Tiger with Veteran, Leadership+1, Normal/High motivation that act in a cowardly way we haven't seen before. Their biggest threat are regular Shermans. Despite this, as soon as they are shot at by a tank that might miss or hit but no penetration/armor spalling/subsystem damage/injured crew they immediately and repetedly pop smoke and retreat. Even with front facing the threat. It has now in total happened some 5-6 times in short succession every time there is an engagement. Since @tankgeezer mentioned a brief "pop smoke" indication before his crew bailed maybe there is something post 4.0 that triggers the pop smoke/retreat algorithm too soon. We have saves from both sides of our QB.

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I'm the unlucky commander of the Tiger and Panther in the battle with Rocketman. And to reinforce what he said, the first time either of the tanks spotted a Sherman, without taking fire, they popped smoke and retreated. In most cases if they do fire at the Sherman, it is with the MG, not main gun. Now they both have taken ricochet hit with absolutely no damage! Still Veteran with +1 but now Rattled.  It's very frustrating!

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This sounds like a 1 in a million fluke to me, which sucks. However there is no way to confirm that without a save. Testers need the save in order to see what happened and to begin to diagnose the issue, if there is an issue. If there's a chance that the turn is floating around in a drop box or recycle bin somewhere on your computer (if you are playing MP) it would help the testers out a ton. 

Otherwise you might have just gotten extremely unlucky. If you're playing single player and that tank was crucial, you can always restart the battle or revert to a previous save if you have one. 

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I've had crews freak out when they're getting incoming fire that they have no clue where its coming from. In modern war and eastern front titles a hidden AT sniper rifle is especially useful at provoking that. Its unusual for a crew to panic & bail and the vehicle to go K.O., though. Usually its just 'dismounted'. 

A real-world theory, a holed fuel tank and petrol leaking into the fighting compartment might turn a tank interior into someplace nobody wants to be.

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I have seen idetincal behaviour. Can't remember the exact vehicle but it was a turret less tank of some variety. It's appeared in the fourth mission of the Kampfgruppe Engel campaign.

Wasn't amused. Pretty average losing a tank to rifle rounds in a campaign.

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tankgeezer,

Here is the interior of a Chaffee, minus the driver's compartment covered in a subsequent video. A point to consider is human nature when trapped in confined spaces with, say, a hornet. What do you instinctively do? Exactly. Now, imagine the hornets are traveling some 2500 fps or so, have entered a far more confined space than a room and are lethally bouncing about a room consisting mostly of metal, with some humans stuffed inside, too. Logic dictates staying put, but human nature is instinctive, reactive and instantly mandates getting out of Dodge. Now! 

Though I have absolutely zero proof, my suspicion is that something has happened to the tank which isn't being reported out on the Damage Panels (where I'd look were I at BFC), though it would have to be something like a penetration of turret hydraulics to cause such a result. Crews have a great fear of the stuff, since it's highly flammable. There is no exposed fuel tank, oil tank; are no associated pipes and whatnot, for that's in a very substantial firewall protected engine compartment. While the gun could still be used with backup mechanical systems, would you stay in the tank if you'd just been hosed down with high pressure hydraulic fluid, which may well cause choking, too? Imagine three people, at least, in an almost completely sealed tiny space. Pump failure is one thing, but to have what I described happen would be something else altogether. On a separate note, the loading arrangements on this tank may be worse than those on a T-34/76, and I thought those were bad. 

Regards,

John Kettler

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Yeah, we all try to come up with things to try and rationalize game behavior...

My suspension is that there is some sort of coding issue that's overlooked...Hmm, I wonder if it has anything to do with v4 and having troops break easier mid turn under small arms, and it's finding its way into Light/Open top vehicles. 

Joe

Edited by JoMc67
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6 hours ago, JoMc67 said:

My suspension is that there is some sort of coding issue that's overlooked...Hmm, I wonder if it has anything to do with v4 and having troops break easier mid turn under small arms, and it's finding its way into Light/Open top vehicles. 

My suspicion is that you may be on to something there.

Michael

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If the Chaffee was 'Knocked Out" then it's the damage model involved, nothing crew reaction could affect. Small arms fire in the game which gets through a hatch has a chance of immobilizing or, apparently, knocking out a vehicle. How small that chance is, and whether it's set at a level we'd like, I don't know.

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15 hours ago, JoMc67 said:

Yeah, we all try to come up with things to try and rationalize game behavior...

My suspension is that there is some sort of coding issue that's overlooked...Hmm, I wonder if it has anything to do with v4 and having troops break easier mid turn under small arms, and it's finding its way into Light/Open top vehicles. 

Joe

v4 can't be the sole reason as I have seen the exact same occurrence with a different tank (German) from a CMBN module well before v4 came along. It could have even been before v3. The tank was also destroyed so something more than panicky crew is involved.

It was a long time ago but from memory there is some type of penetration warning as well.

Edited by Peregrine
repetition
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