Is Syrian Equipment Fixed? Same with C2?

[Taki]

Hello.

i just want to know if there is any chance that the Syrian Equipment gets an overlook? Does the C2 stays that fast or will there be something tweaked in Future Patches?

What did the Dev Team extract from the "Russian Community Thread"?

[Taki]

Once i was impressed, now iam upset!

There are diffrent real good Threats on mentioning some of the REAL Problems of the Game. But there aren`t any more answers from Steve or his Crews on that.

Just: "Everything is fine with it"

So if thats your new information Politics im off here

[MikeyD]

Could you detail what you think is broken? I don't quite understand what you mean by the REAL problems. Command and Control? Equipment? Movement? Specs? TO&E? Interface?

[Scipio]

I just have noticed that the hitrate of the AT-3 Sagger seems to be significantly increased, at least when the AT marksmen is firering. This weapon was nearly useless in previous versions.

[Taki]

In my eyes its the way to optimistic representation of the wohle C2 feature. Sometimes it remindes me of the old Borg Spotting.

On the other Hand there is some Russian Equipment performing way to bad. FOr example: BMPs are blind compared to Bradleys or M1A1 (apart from all that Track&Taget fancy stuff they have in it)

[dima]

Hello.

i just want to know if there is any chance that the Syrian Equipment gets an overlook? Does the C2 stays that fast or will there be something tweaked in Future Patches?

What did the Dev Team extract from the "Russian Community Thread"?

I have requested more information from those russian community members on their russian forum regarding exact issues they were having. All I got back was anecdotal evidence that Russian equipment is artificially made worse in the game because developers do not like russians. When I asked them to provide me specific example test scenarios doing apples-to-apples comparisons I got none of that.

Hence there is really nothing that we can do about their complaints.

[Scipio]

... BMPs are blind compared to Bradleys or M1A1 (apart from all that Track&Taget fancy stuff they have in it)

I'm not sure if I understand what you mean...the BMPs are in reality indeed blind compared to the Bradleys and Abrahams, because the latter do have all the fancy stuff build in. The Abrahams has once been told a computer on tracks.

[Taki]

I'm not sure if I understand what you mean...the BMPs are in reality indeed blind compared to the Bradleys and Abrahams, because the latter do have all the fancy stuff build in. The Abrahams has once been told a computer on tracks.

They are fast yes, but not as fast as they are in Game. It has been talked alot and i dont want to disscuss that anymore.

Only question is:

"Will there be some changes on the Quipment that will change the balance /red/Blue in the Game?"

Or do i have to focus my hopes on the WW2 Title?

[panzermartin]

Well, there is some truth here. Sometimes spotting of red vehilces makes me scratch my head. I know the T-55s are by no means state of the art but i made a scenario with them, (Red vs Red) and had them unbuttoned, opposite faced but couldnt see each other for a minute or so while they had flat terrain in between them and range was hardly 300-400m. It looked buggy to me, since you have a man on the hatch looking straight forward and cant spot a big steel object on perfectly flat surface. Same with BMPs. If you are going to risk having a crew member exposed to fire, you can expect a bit more situational awareness, especially when you baby sit the vehicle to face the threat already spotted by your whole army. Abrams on the other side, seems incredibly fast in spotting stationary, low signature and ready to ambush units on flanking angles. Even in real life, reading accounts from the gulf wars, it is not THAT godlike at least spotting wise. I havent seen in CMSF a T-72 actually hitting 2-3 times an M1 before being spotted. But it happened in the Gulf war.

I thinkt the superiority in spotting should be degraded as ranges lessen. In an urban environment and ranges less than 500m I would expect a little more confused US army and a less blind Syrian one.

[JonS]

I have requested more information from those russian community members on their russian forum regarding exact issues they were having. All I got back was anecdotal evidence that Russian equipment is artificially made worse in the game because developers do not like russians. When I asked them to provide me specific example test scenarios doing apples-to-apples comparisons I got none of that.

Hence there is really nothing that we can do about their complaints.

This was aimed at you Taki. You going to have to provide a little, no, a LOT more than "this is broken" and "I think ...".

[Kwazydog]

Taki, Dima has been a great sound of information on Russian equipment for us, and we have made a lot of changes to the Russian gear in previous patches as well as 1.11 in order to make them operation more realistically.

We have always had the philosophy with our games that we are happy to consider changes to our data providing people can provide sufficient evidence as to why those changes need to be made. For instance I believe we made changes to the T-72 ammo load out in 1.11 based on feedback on on these forums plus further research. If you feel that some changes need to be made to the Russian equipment in game and have the facts needed to back it up, please feel free to pass it on.

Dan

[Clevinger]

I just have noticed that the hitrate of the AT-3 Sagger seems to be significantly increased, at least when the AT marksmen is firering. This weapon was nearly useless in previous versions.

What do you mean?

AT-3B and AT-3C have completely different guidance systems.

- "B" version is MCLOS-guided, with ridiculous chances of hitting the target.

- "C" version is SACLOS-guided, it is much more easier to track.

Are you sure you tried the same launchers?

[Taki]

This was aimed at you Taki. You going to have to provide a little, no, a LOT more than "this is broken" and "I think ...".

Just read Ali-Babas post. Why do i need more then that? Its broken i think. Even a 15 Year old boy without having any idea of modern warfare should recognize that there is something wrong with spotting and Target&Track.

Especially on short Ranges in Urban warfare those BMP (for example performe not good enough). On the other Hand there should be more reaction Time for other Units in Squad (like Tanks, Infantry, Stryker) to see what one of their attached units see.

US Army is strong on the Raw Data Sheets Data.

What about those lighting fast reaction Times. What about Weakpoint of the M1A1 Rear Gas Turbine Hits? What about FF Incidences?

Raw Data Sheet Facts (aswell as US Propaganda) is on the US Side. But read about the Nasyhria accident. There is sooo much that can go wrong with those High Tec Forces.

On the other Hand i can life with the actual balance in Multiplayer if those US Losses are more heavily counted!

If the US Reports are true and there is no single M1A1 lost in FIrefights in GW2 and Nasyria was a Fiasco to the US Forces? Why there isnt a loss of 3 Stryker and lets say 20 KIA not a total loss to the US Side?

As i said, i can live with the dysbalance (aka "asymetric" warfare)

if

a) Losses to the US Boys count way heavier

or

the Syrians and US Troops perform as they should

i would like to mention Cmx1 here.

Raw Data on a Panther G is good. But it had the "Geschossfalle" wich was a Constructionfault and made it vulnerable. There is nothing simulated like that in CMx2.

[Sergei]

Yeah, it's obvious that US armed forces haven't taken part in shooting wars lately and therefore Battlefront is dazzled by propaganda...

[JonS]

Why do i need more then that? Its broken i think.

It's broken.

I think.

Yes, indeed. Why would anyone need more than that as a rationale.

See ... this is exactly what you've been told is an utterly insufficient justification for a change.

You don't say what you think it should be changed to, for goodness sakes. Or why. Or what your proof is. Or even, heaven forbid, what 'it' is.

You just think it's broken. Ok; noted. Taki thinks it's broken. Got it. Thank you for your opinion.

Can we move on now?

[Taki]

never meant to be rude here. Just to say that.

But what about turning that supply evidence thing around.

Can BFC show me some Hard Data on Spotting Cababilitiys of BMP1, 2,3 on short Ranges like 500m angled infront of it? Its reaction time? Maybe some Data on the C2 performance? Some on reation time of M1A1 Tanks? Bradleys anyone?

i would really like to read about it.

[Battlefront.com]

Taki,

"Will there be some changes on the Quipment that will change the balance /red/Blue in the Game?"

We always, and I mean ALWAYS, make changes when evidence is presented that things are incorrect in the game. That goes back all the way to the CMBO Beta Demo. We also have an extremely strong reputation of simulating things as close to reality as possible instead of making things fit people's unstructured beliefs. My favorite example of how well we did this was a couple of discussions back in CMBO where IN THE SAME THREAD we had some people arguing that we were biased against the German stuff and others arguing that we were biased against the Allied stuff. Well... we can't be both

The fact is that most of the Syrian equipment is really bad. I mean 30 year old stuff that was already 10-20 years out of date when it was made. Why on Earth should it perform as well as something made this year (Russian, US, or otherwise)? It shouldn't, plain and simple. And if you look at the individual features of BOTH sides' stuff you can clearly see why.

So unless we see some specific details of what needs to change, no... nothing will change. Why should it? As Dima stated, it appears that most of the calls for change are not based on reality.

Ali-Baba,

I havent seen in CMSF a T-72 actually hitting 2-3 times an M1 before being spotted. But it happened in the Gulf war.

Yeah, maybe once or twice Seriously, the number of times a M1 was hit by Iraqi tank fire can be counted on one or possibly two hands. The number of times that M1s were knocking out Iraqi tanks before their crews even knew the M1s were on the battlefield are vastly greater. And since the Syrians are generally using similar tanks, and the US using vastly improved versions of the Abrams, it should only further widen the gap.

Now, the other day I played a Head to Head battle in a small urban map with a buttoned up T-90SA. I scored two hits on an Abrams before he spotted me and knocked me out. Unfortunately for me, I was engaging the frontal armor and only managed to do significant damage (optics, tracks, and something else IIRC), not knock it out. Had that been a flank shot I would have been much happier with the results

I thinkt the superiority in spotting should be degraded as ranges lessen.

It already does. The problem is that from a game mechanics point of view it's impossible to have every unit spotting every milisecond of the game. Therefore, they spot every so often (a few seconds, usually). This can lead to situations where two vehicles come into view of each other just after one did a check and before the other did. If the other has a higher chance of spotting, then it's likely that it will get a shot off before the other one's chance comes around again. If the vehicle that spots first is also one that has a fairly low chance of missing in that situation, then the chance of the other vehicle avoiding a hit is low. If that firing vehicle is also one with a clear "overmatch" firepower advantage, then it completes the worst of all possibilities... better chance of spotting, better chance of hitting what was spotted, and an almost sure chance of securing a kill first shot.

This is actually quite realistic. The major difference between Western and non-Western forces is their redundant points of superiority. Crew training in the West is generally understood to be vastly superior to anywhere else. The equipment they use is superior in terms of just about everything you can think of that matters. Soviet/Russian (and Chinese for that matter) equipped forces are the opposite. Crew training is generally not good and only one or two aspects of the vehicles are on a par with Western ones. Superiority doesn't generally even come into the equation when talking about tactical engagements.

What the Soviet/Russian equipment has, in terms of superiority, is its lower cost and less complexity overall (simplifies crew training, logistics, procurement, etc.). These can be strategic assets, but generally are tactical liabilities. This was very true in WW2 as well. It is why the Germans could generally win a tactical tank engagement (East and West fronts!) but still lose the war. Not much comfort for someone commanding such forces in a tactical game, but that's reality and we would be wrong to try "balance" things to make it not so.

In an urban environment and ranges less than 500m I would expect a little more confused US army and a less blind Syrian one.

Perhaps, but we'd need to see some firm evidence that the balance isn't correct "as is" instead of anecdotal feelings.

Keep in mind that the Syrians generally rely upon their own eyes to pick out targets, while on the Western side there are multiple systems in place to give them information which doesn't require eyeballs on target. In other words, even if an Abrams and a T-72 don't know exactly where each other is... chances are the Abrams has a pretty good, if not very good, idea what's going on and the T-72 doesn't. Again, redundant and compounding advantages are the key to the West's advantages on the battlefield.

Remember... all of what I say is based mostly on quantitative technological differences between the two sides. It's an extremely expensive advantage that the West has purchased for itself, which is one reason why low level insurgencies are so difficult for the West to afford to fight. The West's expensive technological advantages mean very little for most tactical engagements, but on a strategic level are a massive disadvantage.

Steve

[JonS]

But what about turning that supply evidence thing around.

Because *you* want the change made (and thereby place a demand on BFC's time and resources), it's up to *you* to justify why that change should be made.

[stikkypixie]

Taki, just make a scenario that clearly shows what's wrong and it will get changed. And make sure to run it a large number of times, to have statistical significance.

[Taki]

@steve: thx for the reply. Any raw data or sources where to read about it to compare it with the Ingame behaviour?

@JonS: deleted that "dazzeled by the own propaganda" thing for beeing a tad to harsh. Helps misinterpreting what i actually was trying to say here. Its more like: "They (US ARmy) never faced a real enemy and therefore get a bit too optimistic on their Quipment performance.

Another thing you mentioned in your Post Steve about Tactical and strategical meanings. Like Perforamance on the Battlefield and costs of men and Material. In CMx1 (and i hope with the WW2 Title aswell) we got a Pointsystem that helped find the Value of a unit. As it is hard in modern Warfare to find a value (disscussion on cherrypickings etc.) for a unit. What about talking on how hard Losses for the Syrian and US Boys must be weighted to call it a "draw" or "total victory" for one Side?

And there is the problem again. It have to be done by the Sceneditor and everyone of them interpret it way other. Changing the Hard Facts of the Game (like Weapon or Tank performance) would make changes for everyone in the Game.

Its not easy to say what i want to say because my english is limited.

thx! for the reply again because that was one of the Points (missing statement on the russian community threat) that made me bit angry.

I would like to see some sources on what datas you modelled M1 Tanks in the Game or maybe can explain why you choose such bad reaction and spotting times for the Bmps?

im ready and steady. Really want to know.

Greetz from not so angry anymore

Taki

[MikeyD]

We may be talking about Russian equipment, but let's also remember we're talking about a 3rd world crew manning them. I recall an old 20+ year old report on Soviet training, an ex-tanker complained he got to fire all of three training rounds all year. A present-day Syrian crew is likely to have experienced similar training standards.

The Marine Module Syrian T90 does seem to fulfill many of Taki's hopes: fast turret, quickdraw reaction, high first round hit probabilty, increased lethality and situational awareness. Much better performance than a 1950s technology T55.

[panzermartin]

Steve,

I dont have a problem with late russian stuff like the T-90 or the BMP-3. If the russians had the CMSF's T-90 in Grozny they wouldnt lose a whole army of tanks. So, I even think they are actually overmodelled But so is the US side. I saw a video of an Abrams repeatedly firing on friendly troops in a building in Iraq in broad daylight and close range. The guys were actually desperately shouting to the tanker to cease fire. No lighting fast radio coms that would save the life of that soldier who was killed by the M1 rounds. And that was in a low intensity anti insurgent operation not a full scale war.

Of course nobody wants THAT kind of realism and I fully understand that you cannot finetune spotting calculations down to msecs with current hardware. I myself found even the old elite, now iron mode too tedious from a gameplay perspective. What I'm trying to say is that high tech systems capabilities are bit exaggerated or so they seem to me, especially in confusing urban fighting. There is little randomness and a possibilty that something might go wrong with those super sensors. And its seems the Mk1 eyeball pays the price here. I dont have hard facts just some gaming experience, as with the T-55 example I posted. For me is not a major problem, since the game is aready superb in most areas. I will do some further testing with 1.11 and I'l see if I can come with a save game or something.

[Battlefront.com]

JonS,

Because *you* want the change made (and thereby place a demand on BFC's time and resources), it's up to *you* to justify why that change should be made.

Not only that, but there isn't a lot of hard information to go on in terms of things like "how long would it take a Conscript BMP commander to see an Abrams at 301m, at 12:32 with the sun in back of him, after a reasonable night's sleep, with nobody else shooting at him, while... etc., etc. Combine this with physical properties of the vehicle itself... it's extremely complicated. Much easier for someone to say "I think the behavior is incorrect based on this, that, and the other thing" than for us to say "here are the 1000 possible factors that were in use and their exact variables with the equations that are used. Now, where do you think we went wrong? The 1.2322 value for the front arc of the commander's copula optics a little too low?"

It would be utter madness to try and publish this information in a way that would be useful. Firing up the game, experimenting, then take a critical examination... that's the ONLY way to do it.

Taki,

Another thing you mentioned in your Post Steve about Tactical and strategical meanings. Like Perforamance on the Battlefield and costs of men and Material. In CMx1 (and i hope with the WW2 Title aswell) we got a Pointsystem that helped find the Value of a unit. As it is hard in modern Warfare to find a value (disscussion on cherrypickings etc.) for a unit. What about talking on how hard Losses for the Syrian and US Boys must be weighted to call it a "draw" or "total victory" for one Side?

That's already inherent in the game system. I've lost battles where I (as Blue) had practically no casualties compared to Red. But I managed to lose an Abrams or something else considered expensive.

Changing the Hard Facts of the Game (like Weapon or Tank performance) would make changes for everyone in the Game.

This would be a HUGE DISASTER. We realized this 12 years ago when we started making CMBO. And that's because everybody has their own opinion of what is right and wrong, but most of those opinions are based on no facts at all. So we wind up with 10,000 different games, not just one. We need a common experience for everybody with a single group responsible for deciding what is the most realistic. It isn't perfect, but it's far better than having any individual deciding for himself what reality is.

BTW, we didn't come up with this philosophy out of thin air. We looked at the problems the Steel Panthers and Close Combat communities were having with user altered data. It really was harmful. We will never allow user manipulation of game data.

If a player makes a solid case for change (and Dima has made a LOT of them over the past couple of years), we'll happily make the changes. We're interested in having things be fair and accurate, not make one side or the other better/worse.

Its not easy to say what i want to say because my english is limited.

You're doing fine

would like to see some sources on what datas you modelled M1 Tanks in the Game or maybe can explain why you choose such bad reaction and spotting times for the Bmps?

M1s have better quality/quantity optics for all crew members. Even the loader can act as a spotter. That puts the Abrams at an advantage right there because it has a crew of 4 and a BMP/BTR has between 2 and 3 crew members (depends on circumstances). M1s have "FBCB2" which is a high technology tracking system, which is linked to GPS. The better Abrams have 2nd Generation FLIR (infra red) which can even help in daytime. Generally M1s are crewed by better crews, although that is of course up to the scenario designer. Since crew quality has a huge impact, obviously this matters a lot. M1 sensors are higher up off the ground, which can mean better spotting opportunities (definitely situationally dependent). Radio contact between M1s and other units is superior because of better technology and pretty much everybody having access to a radio. Probably other things I'm not thinking of.

Now, those are things just for spotting. Once a unit spots something the reaction time is driven by some of these same factors (crew experience being a huge one!), but also others such as traverse speed, computer aided targeting, computer aided tracking, automatic boresighting, etc.

Those are just the things off the top of my head

Steve

[Taki]

Thx for taking your Time to clarify that. I understand better now.

Can you give me a link (out of the Book Resources) that you took as source to find out about BMP and Abrams Target and Spotting Hardware?

[Battlefront.com]

Ali-Baba,

I dont have a problem with late russian stuff like the T-90 or the BMP-3. If the russians had the CMSF's T-90 in Grozny they wouldnt lose a whole army of tanks.

They would have because the tactics, training, and preparation issues were more responsible for the disaster than the equipment was.

I saw a video of an Abrams repeatedly firing on friendly troops in a building in Iraq in broad daylight and close range. The guys were actually desperately shouting to the tanker to cease fire. No lighting fast radio coms that would save the life of that soldier who was killed by the M1 rounds. And that was in a low intensity anti insurgent operation not a full scale war.

I saw that video too. Sure, things like that happen because no system is fool-proof. However, how many times have US troops acted in coordination with tanks in Iraq? How many such incidents have happened? I'd say the success to failure ratio is several thousands to one.

This is one of the problem with discussions like this. It's very, very easy to take an isolated incident in warfare and think it is more representational than it really is. The fact is that the more unusual a tactical engagement is, the more that it will be noticed and written about. If you look back at WW2 you'd think that Wittmann's engagement in Normandy was typical of German Tigers and/or that the entire f'n war revolved around that one incident On the grand scale it was what statisticians call an "outlier". Outliers are interesting, but generally counter productive when discussing what the norms are.

What I'm trying to say is that high tech systems capabilities are bit exaggerated or so they seem to me, especially in confusing urban fighting. There is little randomness and a possibilty that something might go wrong with those super sensors.

There is plenty of randomness and lots of chances for bad luck. The Abrams I was facing in the game I mentioned... I was on the move and I spotted and engaged them first. Got two shots off, in fact. But as I described earlier, the average situation is weighted towards the US' advantage because they spent far more money and time making it that way than the Soviets/Russians and Syrians did. It's a very expensive way to achieve tactical victory, but it's been proven for thousands of years that the force which is better led, has greater flexibility, more inherent capability, more inherent diversity of forces/weapons, etc. will likely win the battle. The US, in particular, has spent vast sums of money (generally quite effectively) to make sure that these advantages are on their side. The adversaries don't have those sorts of resources, so obviously they are at a big disadvantage. At least when warfare is conventional and the point is to either take a country or hold one

And its seems the Mk1 eyeball pays the price here. I dont have hard facts just some gaming experience, as with the T-55 example I posted. For me is not a major problem, since the game is aready superb in most areas. I will do some further testing with 1.11 and I'l see if I can come with a save game or something.

Please do! There is always the possibility that something needs to be tweaked. But we need to see more than anecdotal evidence. That's always been the case with us and always will be.

Steve