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Retreating Monster Tanks revealed (monster pictures)


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I think Steve hit the nail on the head when he dicussed the range versus penatration.From day one of playing this game I came to the conclussion that given the relativly short ranges encountered in cmbo[all I have at the moment]all tank's are equal the one to target and get off the first shot usually win's.Like the tactic's the russian's used at the real battle of Prohkahorvka getting in close negated the armor and gun performance of the Tiger and Panther's.Like I said atleast in cmbo I have rarily had a map that was truly wide-opened enough for 1.000-1.500 yard engagement's that is with a reallistic map,even the lowly M-4 with the origanal 75 has a chance at the realativly short cm ranges

[ November 29, 2002, 10:28 AM: Message edited by: kevsharr ]

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Sorry, I beg to differ. If you have the drop on the enemy with a side or rear shot you should be able to take advantage of the situation without your heavy AFV getting the hell out of Dodge just because it's being targetted. This is especially true if the enemy AFV is an Assault Gun or something similar which will take a long time to swivel around to be able to get a shot off.

At the moment it seems that your well laid ambush plans can often go astray because of this propensity for heavy AFV's (for some reason) to reverse out of "trouble" even when the enemy unit that's been targetted has been caught out. Because of this behaviour it obviously becomes much more difficult in subsequent turns to destroy the enemy unit because your opponent now knows where the threat lies and will either ensure his AFV will not be where it was when at a disadvantage or at least be facing towards the now spotted threat.

Regards

Jim R.

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Originally posted by Kanonier Reichmann:

Sorry, I beg to differ. If you have the drop on the enemy with a side or rear shot you should be able to take advantage of the situation without your heavy AFV getting the hell out of Dodge just because it's being targetted. This is especially true if the enemy AFV is an Assault Gun or something similar which will take a long time to swivel around to be able to get a shot off.

At the moment it seems that your well laid ambush plans can often go astray because of this propensity for heavy AFV's (for some reason) to reverse out of "trouble" even when the enemy unit that's been targetted has been caught out. Because of this behaviour it obviously becomes much more difficult in subsequent turns to destroy the enemy unit because your opponent now knows where the threat lies and will either ensure his AFV will not be where it was when at a disadvantage or at least be facing towards the now spotted threat.

Regards

Jim R.

I concur! smile.gif

We agree completely on this one Jim.

The question is can the CMBB engine accomodate a tweak or change to the Tac AI to acount for the "caught with the pants down" factor?

-tom w

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I just ran a test with three KVs coming over a rise on "hunt". On the other side they encounter three Mark IVs at 300 meters facing AWAY from them. IOW, the KVs caught the Jerries with their pants down. They proceeded to kill the Mark IVs.

In another test I turned the Mark IVs around so they would see the KVs coming over the rise. Again the KVs did not back off. They fired at the Mark IVs, missed, and then died. Crews were regulars for both sides.

Treeburst155 out.

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I wonder if there is anything in the code that makes them a little more "aggressive" with a hunt order? In any event, we have too few examples in a controlled testing environment to draw any definite conclusions one way or the other. Whatever biases might exist are too readily masked by the game's "fuzzy logic".

Michael

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I just repeated the test using the "seek hull down" command for the KVs. No cowardice observed.

EDIT: I'm not targetting the Mark IVs in my test. The KVs don't even know they are there until they come over the rise. Perhaps this has something to do with it.

Treeburst155 out.

[ November 29, 2002, 11:12 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

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Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Oh man, this is just too fun! I did another one...

Steve

-----------------------------------------

Steve, you called be a troll but you seem to blinded a bit. Replying to redwolf's example you stated that it was ok to retreat against PZiV because it could penetrate ISU's frontal armor. But why PziV did not retreat? Really a question of statisticks? According to your logic, two meeting tanks able to destroy each other should retreat both.

I played a lot of CMBB games. And while ZiS-5-53

gun was able to penetrate Panther's frontal armor I have never seen in CMBB Panther retreating against late T34, but a lot of late T34 retreating against Panthers even <400m.

Coming on the flank, probably unspoted yet, able to destroy enemy - what your tank usualy does? r e t r e a t s.

Self pres. mechganism is too harsh and now you behalf like a troll. More, even like a heroic Troll fighting to the end in a lost case, which is obvious to all apart from you.

regards

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Originally posted by Cpt.Kloss:

But why PziV did not retreat? Really a question of statisticks? According to your logic, two meeting tanks able to destroy each other should retreat both.

I played a lot of CMBB games. And while ZiS-5-53

gun was able to penetrate Panther's frontal armor I have never seen in CMBB Panther retreating against late T34, but a lot of late T34 retreating against Panthers even <400m.

There is more to tank combat than penetration, and the problem for the russians is (imho) threefold, bad initial hit chance, slow RoF and being able to be penetrated by almost all german tank-guns.

This is a particularly deadly combo in tank duels because if they miss that first shot (and the russian tanks are simply more likely to do that at any range), the slower RoF means the target has ample opportunity to return fire, and it has a better chance of hitting and a realistic chance of penetrating. So even with the IS and ISU' it's not a David vs Goliath situation at all for the russians.

What should really work for the soviets is shoot-n-scoot because that way the AFV gets out of sight during it's vulnerable period.

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Just had a look at this. I don't really know where the problem is. I use shoot and scoot, and unless outnumbered, my SU-122s don't bugger off. They get their shot off, and then retreat as ordered. I had one in a ding-dong fight with a Stug at 371m (the SU won), and what is clear to me is that the Stug is simply the better weapon. The SU penetration even at that very close range is marginal, while the Stug has a good chance for a first hit kill. Pretty much the same story for SU-152 against Pz IVG. If you give shoot and scoot orders, they will execute them. If you give hunt orders, they try to get out, which is fine by me, since the 75L4x is a better weapon for AT combat then the 122 or 152 howitzers.

BTW - I have not seen a single instance where an SU neglects to take a shot at a single Stug in the flank.

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OK lets try this

Lets use an extreme example

In Redwolfs scenario have the PzKw Mk IV's reverse into LOS of the Russian tanks. Lets set up the German tanks with cover arcs to their frontal aspect (away from the Russian tanks) then have the russian tanks hunt into LOS of the Panzers,

Now Facing the rear aspect of the Panzers do the russian tanks back away??

:confused: :confused:

any takers on what the result is here.

I have a few spare minutes now and I plan try it out.

OK that was FUN the reversing Mk IV's did not have a chance smile.gif the ALL the russian tanks hunted forward NEVER retreated and K-Killed all the Mk IV's. Interesting the german tanks never stopped reversing and backed into certian death even when unbuttoned. It was very rewarding to see that all the Russian tanks did NOT back off or retreat from the reversing Mk IV's smile.gif That must suggest the SU's did not feel "threatened" by the rear aspect of the Mk IV's and "knew" they were not targeted.

-tom w

[ November 30, 2002, 11:40 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

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Just to put all this into perspective, if the AI is coded so that slow firing AFV's like the IS2's & ISU 152's etc. do tend to reverse back when threatened due to their long reload time then that is a satisfactory explanation in my mind. At least there's some logic to it now and I can rationalise the situation.

One query though... does that mean the Jagd Tiger will also retreat when targetted by an enemy unit that has a theoretical chance to penetrate it due to its slow reload time? smile.gif

Regards

Jim R.

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First, let me say that I am disappointed in Redwolf's disappearing act. If he doesn't wish to have his work questioned, then why should he question ours? I have no problem at all with people thinking there might be a problem with CM. However, we do ask that it be proven. Or at least show us that there is something to look into further. I did this in good faith for both of Redwolf's threads and showed, quite conclusively IMHO, that his (and some others') observations were not on steady ground.

I do not enter into a discussion like this to prove who has a bigger pennis. All I want to do is see if there is a problem or not. If there isn't a problem, and I can prove it, what am I supposed to do? "Yes customer, your example turned out to be flawed. Your observations wrong. Your conclusions wrong. Your experience in relation to the vast majorities... totally out of whack. But we'll go changing code just to make you happy". Poppycock smile.gif

As the old saying goes... if you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen. You'll just get in the way of the cook.

Tom,

So Steve, can you comment on the "pants down" factor? Is is possible to code the tac AI in CMBB with the ability to "think": "Oh OH! Juicy Flank/Rear shot on turretless AFV MUST NOT BACK AWAY, (invoke nerves of Steel modifier AND) Take shot to K-KILL enemy AFV!" ????
No, there is no unique code that says "I have the drop on this guy, I'll stay and shoot it out for a bit until I think he has evened things up". I don't think this is needed.

A pattern in this thread is to say rather profoundly "factual" statements and then have them rather easily shot down by me or someone else. This new information is for some reason not as valid as the unsubstantiated claims it disproves. At present, this is yet antoher such example.

Before I left for the T-Day feast, I did a quick test to make sure this ambushing thing from the rear was as it should be. I positioned the following, one pair per firing lane:

Axis:

4xTiger 1 E

Allied

4xStuart M3A1

The Tigers were all facing forward, the Stuarts to their rear and facing the rear armor at about 75m to the rear. Two Stuarts were out in the open, one next to Light Woods, and another actually in Light Woods. This was to see if terrain had any affect on the unit's consideration of what the TacAI might do. All four Stuarts had a poor chance of a kill shot.

On the first turn all four Stuarts stood their ground. They fired and fired and fired, but scored no significant hits. The Tiger's slow turrets rotated around. All four Stuarts died. According to some, I am lying because this could NEVER happen. To quote Andreas.. "bollocks!" smile.gif

Capt.Kloss,

Steve, you called be a troll but you seem to blinded a bit.

Not blinded at all. You just keep reminding me everytime I try to forget.

Replying to redwolf's example you stated that it was ok to retreat against PZiV because it could penetrate ISU's frontal armor. But why PziV did not retreat? Really a question of statisticks? According to your logic, two meeting tanks able to destroy each other should retreat both.
Correct, but this is not a game of Rocks, Paper, and Scisors. There are far more factors being calculated than the overly simplistic concept you have fixated on. One of the factors is luck. Another is the subtle differences. The PzIV, simply put, hoped it could get in a killing shot. And according to my tests, it has a damned good chance of it too. Same for the SU-122. Therefore, both of them chose to slug it out. At least for a bit. After trading a bunch of shots and misses, who knows what might have happened. But in this case the match was decided very quickly. Switch the PzIV for a PzIII and I think a very different German behaivor would be noted.

I played a lot of CMBB games. And while ZiS-5-53

gun was able to penetrate Panther's frontal armor I have never seen in CMBB Panther retreating against late T34, but a lot of late T34 retreating against Panthers even <400m.

Sure, just like people said the PzIV was no match for the ISU-122, and therefore the PzIVs should retreat. Sorry, but I have seen for more then 3 years now how "sure" people are of something "always" happening, but oddly enough they can never replicate it reliably in tests.

But one thing you said I do believe... T-34s retreating at 400m from Panthers? You bet your ass they should. The Panther is near certain to kill a T-34 of any flavor at that range. A T-34 has a much lower chance (and in some cases NO chance) of doing the same back.

Self pres. mechganism is too harsh and now you behalf like a troll. More, even like a heroic Troll fighting to the end in a lost case, which is obvious to all apart from you.
This is interesting. The game is accused of being F'd up. A case is made. I show that the case is full of a ton of holes. In fact, my tests and the tests of others show the exact opposite behaviors. But yet I am a "troll" who has "lost" the case? OK, can anybody please explain what I am missing here? So let me get this straight, someone who treats a charge seriously, answers it seriously, and debunks it honestly is a "troll", but someone who has had nothing positive to contribute at all is not? Was the cranberry sauce I ate contaminated with LSD or is Kloss really saying this?

And Kloss... I am advising you to drop the attitude and stay out of threads where you do not feel you can make an intellectually sound contribution to. This is not a warning, yet, but a reminder that there is a certain standard of intellectual behavior that is required of people in order to retain the priveledge of posting here. If you can't figure out exactly what this standard is, even after reading the Forum Agreement and seeing how others post, then you do not belong here.

KR,

Sorry, I beg to differ. If you have the drop on the enemy with a side or rear shot you should be able to take advantage of the situation without your heavy AFV getting the hell out of Dodge just because it's being targetted.
See above test with lowly Stuarts vs. Tigers. If there is a specific combo of events that causes a good ambushing unit to freak out before firing a shot, I'd be interested to see it. But I couldn't find it, and have not seen it myself.

Tom,

The question is can the CMBB engine accomodate a tweak or change to the Tac AI to acount for the "caught with the pants down" factor?
The TacAI already has this available to it. See my comments about the Stuart test. A tank looks at the chances it can kill another tank based on its CURRENT situation. If the situation is that an otherwise crappy tank is facing the rear armor of a big brute, it will likely take a shot or two (or five or six in my example). This is even after the big baddy puts a target line on it. In fact, I would argue that the TacAI should have moved my Stuarts before they all got brewed up.

If there is a problem here, it hasn't yet been correctly identified. Only sweeping, and easily challenged, assumptions have been made. Folks, we need better than that in order to even think about changes. We do not go running around with our heads cut off trying to fix things just because someone says "BTS fix it or do somefink"! I mean no insult when I say, this is about all this thread has come forward to suggest. "Fix it or do somefink about my stupid tanks". Not the best argument for change smile.gif

KR,

Just to put all this into perspective, if the AI is coded so that slow firing AFV's like the IS2's & ISU 152's etc. do tend to reverse back when threatened due to their long reload time then that is a satisfactory explanation in my mind. At least there's some logic to it now and I can rationalise the situation.
If the TacAI evaluates its current ability to hurt when it feels extremely threatened, then yes... it will pull back. To the best of my knowledge this includes if the gun is currently being reloaded.

One query though... does that mean the Jagd Tiger will also retreat when targetted by an enemy unit that has a theoretical chance to penetrate it due to its slow reload time?
Ah... but with that kind of frontal armor, and the relative weakness of most Soviet guns, I doubt it would pull back. Remember, this is a two way calcuation... what is my chance of causing harm to Target, what is my chance of taking damage from Target. If the equation is HIGH and LOW, then no... the unit will obviously stay put.

It also looks like I need to repeat myself inspite of the 4 or 5 posts I made on Page 1:

The ISU-122 did *NOT* back away. Let me repeat that... it did *NOT* back away. It was out in the open firing against a target in cover and it felt threatened for a very good reason. And yet it didn't back away. If someone can show me a test situation that shows the opposite, I will look at it. Until then, this topic is dead.

Steve

[ December 01, 2002, 12:47 AM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

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A clarification of my challenge noted above. What I need to see is a repeatable scenario or save game file which shows a matchup which should reasonably go one way but instead goes another. For example, if someone came up with a situation where at 1000m an ISU-122 pulled back from a PzII, yeah... I would sure like to see that so we can take a look at it.

One offs in games where a player thinks "darn it, why didn't this do that?" might show something, but are less likely to. They are more likely to show a situation that is understandable when examined more closely. Just like the IS-2 save file from the previous thread on this topic.

Anyhoo... if a problem can be pointed out, for real, and in a file... send it along to me.

steve@battlefront.com

Thanks,

Steve

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Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

I just got the upper hand in a QB with a PBEM friend - my captured T-34 targetted his KV-1 for a flank shot THROUGH A BUILDING and got a first shot kill. I was quite happy with that!

You are obviously just an easily satisfied fanboy.
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Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

And Kloss... I am advising you to drop the attitude and stay out of threads where you do not feel you can make an intellectually sound contribution to. This is not a warning, yet, but a reminder that there is a certain standard of intellectual behavior that is required of people in order to retain the priveledge of posting here. If you can't figure out exactly what this standard is, even after reading the Forum Agreement and seeing how others post, then you do not belong here.

I actually like seeing someone stick to his guns. :rolleyes:

Captain Kloss telling the Betatesters to stop testing and read Leon Degrelle's memoirs to better understand East Front History

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Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

First, let me say that I am disappointed in Redwolf's disappearing act.

OK, I think I owe you at least an explantion why I feel that an

absense is better.

I feel directly insulted by the following items. I know in my head

that most of them are caused by too low an attention span, but they

come a little too massive and I know I will get heated when discussing

them.

1)

My ISU is hulldown. There is proof in my screenshots. The proof is

that I gave a "seek hulldown" command to the PZ IV position and it

stopped on that hill. I posted a screenshot why said stopped. It

will only stop when it reached hulldown. The ISU is hulldown.

If you reply to this stating it is not hulldown, then please explain

the standing ISU.

2)

hulldown should not matter here to start from. The ISU is stronger

than the Pz IV lang even hull-up.

3)

Andreas, with all respect, you are getting a little too much pride out

of the fact you have been selected a CMBB beta tester.

In this thread you are not capable of telling the M-30 L/22 howitzer

(the artillery piece) from the L/48 D-25T anti-tank gun, aka an

ISU-122 from a SU-122.

4)

At the distances of my test the kill chances are "excellent" for the

ISU and "ok" to "fair" for the Pz IV. The hit probablities are equal.

It it bejond me how nobody goes into the editor for two minutes and

checks this. Worse, in all humbility(?), it is bejond me how anybody

can assume that I post stuff like this without checking such simple

facts first - I don't.

5)

I never claimed that the ISU always retreats. I only claim that there

is a bug in the CMBB TacAI that for some specific sequence of

spotting and targetting the mechanism is messed up. It may be related

to the missing red line from the Pz IV to the ISU.

It doesn't happen always (and it certainly didn't happen in the

isolated tests I ran before making these test savegames), but it is

not uncommon enough to ignore either.

6)

I tried to do it better than in the auto-sneak-exhaustion thread and

sat down the evening before Thanksgiving to come up with a real

savegame, while I was hearing my cute neightbour having a party (ok,

she fought with her boyfriend all evening...).

For me, it showed the offending behaviour in two of the first three

runs, starting from the last savegame with changing no commands in the

savegame, just hit "go".

All I got out of this was taunting.

It is neither my fault that CMBB doesn't have a "save all autosaves"

functionality not is it my fault that hotseat savegames don't store

the random number generator seed and hence come up with a different

movie each time. My last savegame showed the offending behaviour 2 out

of the 3 times I tried it.

I stated very clearly that isolated tests did never show the behaviour

for me, that is why I sat down and reimported the old terrain. Still,

Steve, you go on and on and state results from other artificial

situations. This will not show the bug, and I

pointed it out. Now you blame me for wasting your

time in these tests I rated as useless in first place.

7)

The retreat is not done because the ISU has a long reload time. In the

example that made up my screenshots the ISU did not shoot at all,

hence it doesn't retreat to reload.

8)

The bug is worth fixing

- it often ruins hit probabilty from firing on the move

- it will make defending vehicles which did not move at all so far

lose their boresighting advantage

- it may lead to bogging

- it may make the situation worse

To see the bug in action, artificial test scenarions don't seem to be

sufficient. But we have reports from real games, and quite a few. I reproduced a real-game stituation with a quite substancial investment

of time and sucessfully reproduced it. All I get is taunting.

9)

Steve, you ask for people sending you savegames which show the

behaviour. What can possibly be better with the savegames I provided?

If you place yourself in my point of view, would you agree that I

provided the maximum of savegames and descriptive screenshots short of

doing it in PBEM (to replay the same movies)?

[ December 01, 2002, 12:28 PM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

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