Buttoned tanks still possess telepathy.

[Apocal]

Playing a quick battle, just to get various drills down pat. This time infiltrating a single team w/ bazooka into "can't miss" range in order to take out a top of the line AFV. I have a solid sound contact, maneuver my team through the terrain and into a nearby building, setting them up for a shot only 15 meters away, off the port quarter in nautical terms. The tank is totally buttoned and partially damaged from previous hits, I don't know if the optics are kaput as well, but it shouldn't matter. All supporting infantry who could have passed a spot to the tank were off riding bicycles three hundred meters away, having never spotted the bazooka team and out of contact (radioman shot) anyway. 

Somehow, as my team was lining up their shot, the tank spotted them. They managed to put a bazooka round into the tank but were promptly machine gunned for their trouble.

The all-seeing eye of CMx2 armor remains. Is there any fix on the horizon?

[Wicky]

Can you replay the turn (and calculations) a few times and see if this outcome repeatedly occurs.

[A Canadian Cat]

You need to see the calculating progress bar otherwise you are just watching the same video over and over.

Having said that, I doubt there will be any desire to change anything further (a big change has already already been made regarding tank visibility). Unless I am missunderstanding your description and your team was towards the front which is the location that the tank crew sees the best.

[mjkerner]

Port quarter would to the left rear.

[Apocal]

2 hours ago, Wicky said:

Can you replay the turn (and calculations) a few times and see if this outcome repeatedly occurs.

 

2 hours ago, IanL said:

You need to see the calculating progress bar otherwise you are just watching the same video over and over.

I play in real-time. Yes, the behavior repeats itself. I have a save game from the moment I sent the team over, just because the situation  seems like something I might want to practice.

QB, solo zook vs panther.bts

edit: the trick seems to be if the distance between bazook team and Panther closes to within 15 meters, they are automatically spotted, at least from two more playthrus. 

Edited July 7, 2017 by Apocal

[Wicky]

Tactics tactics on a decidely risky mission...

I played through it a few times - essentially trick is to get right behind it to minimise the chance of being spotted and shoot at the weakest point up its bum - one shot one kill.

Shooting from buildings to the panther's side wether ground level or higher floors the result is mainly partial penetrations and the discharge puff brings a destructive rain of revenge / or it can take out a tank crewman or two and send the hulk off seeking shelter to lick its wounds without firing a shot back.

 

[Apocal]

1 hour ago, Wicky said:

Tactics tactics on a decidely risky mission...

I played through it a few times - essentially trick is to get right behind it to minimise the chance of being spotted and shoot at the weakest point up its bum - one shot one kill.

Shooting from buildings to the panther's side wether ground level or higher floors the result is mainly partial penetrations and the discharge puff brings a destructive rain of revenge / or it can take out a tank crewman or two and send the hulk off seeking shelter to lick its wounds without firing a shot back.

Yeah, I figured out the hows of getting it done and putting the cat down. Obviously one of them is "just fire from slightly farther away," accepting the modestly higher risk of a miss or non-penetrating hit. Another is two teams, relying less on luck.

But in this thread, I'm here to discuss the fact that the tank can apparently detect infantry in a way that doesn't seem too realistic. I accept this particular incident is an edge case for the most part, but it is an annoying one. It would probably be a lot more annoying in CMRT, with Soviet infantry having nothing like a bazooka equivalent and relying on close assault for AT self-protection, but it was a game of CMFB I was playing.

[Wicky]

Well in game I can sneak the bazooka team into the buildings undetected and get a shot off before the tank MG shoots back at the now exposed tube guy.

Have you allowed them to get one bazooka shot off and paused the game and given an immediate scarper order to try and give them the chance to escape before the provoked turret swings their way if it's not killed outright.

It was a risky mission in RL same if you try it in game.

 

 

Edited July 7, 2017 by Wicky

[Michael Emrys]

5 hours ago, mjkerner said:

Port quarter would to the left rear.

Or about 7:30 in clock code.

Michael

[Xorg_Xalargsky]

53 minutes ago, Wicky said:

Well in game I can sneak the bazooka team into the buildings undetected and get a shot off before the tank MG shoots back at the now exposed tube guy.

Have you allowed them to get one bazooka shot off and paused the game and given an immediate scarper order to try and give them the chance to escape before the provoked turret swings their way if it's not killed outright.

It was a risky mission in RL same if you try it in game.

 

 

This is why I think we should get a Shoot And Scoot command. One of the top items on my wishlist, a command that lets the unit shoot a given number of times then run away! It's currently possible to reproduce this command with a Pause order, but it's not reliable, it's based on time, and you never know how much is required for a unit to shoot.

[Wicky]

This a real time game the OP is egaged in (not what I usually play) and it allows more subtle timing control to come into play. But yes in turn base games what you suggest would be useful.

[MikeyD]

Whenever my tactics rely on my luck holding out before anyone spots me I tend to lose. Then again, I tend to lose anyway.

[Michael Emrys]

4 hours ago, MikeyD said:

Then again, I tend to lose anyway.

Re Wicky's sig line.

Michael

[Xorg_Xalargsky]

7 hours ago, MikeyD said:

Whenever my tactics rely on my luck holding out before anyone spots me I tend to lose. Then again, I tend to lose anyway.

You can always nudge luck to your side, bazookas and panzershreks will fire up to 200m, but I find they only start to be useful under 150m. Even at that range, a first shot hit is 50/50.

[Apocal]

7 hours ago, Xorg_Xalargsky said:

You can always nudge luck to your side, bazookas and panzershreks will fire up to 200m, but I find they only start to be useful under 150m. Even at that range, a first shot hit is 50/50.

I'm pretty sure it is lower than that.

Anyway, is anyone seeing the same behavior I noted in the opening post? I'm almost certain I am not crazy and this tank is spotting me in places it has no effective means of observation. If it is just a nod toward playability, OK, fine. I'll argue that point but first I need to know I'm not the only one this happens to.

[user1000]

Whenever I try to sneak up on a tank more than often I get nailed by enemy infantry just trying to get to the tank.

Edited July 9, 2017 by user1000

[Apocal]

7 hours ago, user1000 said:

Whenever I try to sneak up on a tank more than often I get nailed by enemy infantry just trying to get to the tank.

I thought that was my problem too, but it really wasn't. There was no way I could have been spotted by the single infantryman left in my QB (the AI's force picks are absolutely bonkers, in case you didn't know) and so it was all up to the Panther. I'm so sure of it that I've thrown together a test scenario to confirm. It is actually a bit worse than I initially figured.

Far from being safe at modest distances like 20 or 30 meters, buttoned-up tanks can occasionally (roughly 20-25% for a contact marker, 10% roughly for an actual spot) sense approaching infantry from their rear at over 50 meters. While sometimes they remain oblivious even as bazooka rounds go off in front and behind them, it is more common that the tankers close to immediately detect the firing team if it fails to knock out the tank or panic the crew enough for them to bail out.

I don't think this is realistic.

A Tank Spotting Test.bts (run in two player hotseat, not scen author test, or the Panthers will unbutton at  the start for some reason)

Edited July 9, 2017 by Apocal

[Wicky]

As mentioned earlier - whenthe tube guy enters the building using hunt command, he'll generally stop when he see the tank , only after he takes a pot shot off is he spotted presumably by the smoke from his weapon and the tank machine guns back at where it was attacked from using MG fire. 

You can try sneaking into the building with hides and tight cover arcs  and they won;t be detected - they can be sneaked up to higher floors to ge a shoot down onto weaker op armour and what I found was that they can get one or two shots off but if the tank isn't destroyed quickly then yes the tank will exact revenge. 

[Apocal]

15 minutes ago, Wicky said:

As mentioned earlier - whenthe tube guy enters the building using hunt command, he'll generally stop when he see the tank , only after he takes a pot shot off is he spotted presumably by the smoke from his weapon and the tank machine guns back at where it was attacked from using MG fire.

I have all the bazooka teams set with target armor at 50 meters (circular) range. None of the bazooka teams have fired yet. There are thirteen lanes total, all visually isolated. So far: one hard spot, four sound contacts.

edit: I don't have a problem blowing up the Panther in my QB, I posted this thread because I thought there was something funky going on with spotting.

Edited July 9, 2017 by Apocal

[Muzzleflash1990]

Are the Panthers' engines on - are they hiding? If they are buttoned up with engines on, should they get sound contacts from non-firing infantry?

[Apocal]

15 minutes ago, Muzzleflash1990 said:

Are the Panthers' engines on - are they hiding? If they are buttoned up with engines on, should they get sound contacts from non-firing infantry?

They are not hiding, no. I don't believe they should be getting sound contacts from non-firing infantry but CM is full of surprises.

[Erwin]

Sounds are not acted upon by AI.  eg:  If you have friendly AT team hiding behind a wall and a noisy enemy tank is on the other side, the friendly AT team will not notice and pop up and shoot.  (At least not in the games I played.)

However...  I have several times seen an AT team QUICK move and in the middle of that QUICK move, they spot an enemy tank and the AI has them stop, aim and kill the enemy tank(!) before running to the next waypoint  Wonderful to see that happen.

[Apocal]

30 minutes ago, Erwin said:

Sounds are not acted upon by AI.  eg:  If you have friendly AT team hiding behind a wall and a noisy enemy tank is on the other side, the friendly AT team will not notice and pop up and shoot.  (At least not in the games I played.)

I know. I'm arguing they shouldn't be getting sound contacts though, since they are buttoned-up, looking the wrong way with their engines running. And there is still the matter of one or two every test getting an actual spot on the approaching infantry.

Edited July 9, 2017 by Apocal

[Wicky]

13 minutes ago, Apocal said:

looking the wrong way

Are they?  The panther has a cupola with viewports permiting the commander to scan around at the outside world even though buttoned up.  Ineffectively if you slow crawl the tubeguy into the building.

Edited July 9, 2017 by Wicky

[Erwin]

I agree that tanks seem to spot infantry way too easily - no matter how much smoke there is (not sure if degraded AFV systems make spotting nearby inf harder).