Infantry Don't Bennfit From Low Walls

[Vanir Ausf B]

I've done some testing. The results seem to indicate that infantry do not benefit from taking cover behind low walls. In fact, they seem to be worse off than if they had no cover at all.

The test is 2 companies of dismounted US armored infantry facing off against each other at about 140m. The terrain is pavement. One company is behind a low wall, the other is completely without cover. All troops are regular/fanatic and each side has 102 men including HQs.

No orders were given to the troops. I just let them open fire and pick their own targets. For each iteration of the test I let them reenact Gettysburg for 3 minutes/turns and then surrendered to record the casualties. I ran the test 40 times.

[u]CASUALTIES FOR COMPANY BEHIND WALL[/u]


KILLED:      1032

WOUNDED:     1574

TOTAL:       2606

AVERAGE:   65.2/TEST, 64% casualties


[u]CASUALTIES FOR COMPANY IN THE OPEN[/u]


KILLED:      1097

WOUNDED:     1034

TOTAL:       2131

AVERAGE:   53.3/TEST, 52% casualties

It's interesting that the company behind the wall suffers proportionately more wounded and fewer killed than the one in the open. But as a practical matter that means little in the game as a soldier is out of action either way.

The bottom line is that infantry are better off with no cover at all than behind a low stone wall. Bug? I don't know. I do wonder if this could in some way be related to the issue some have mentioned regarding infantry in buildings getting chewed up. Here's the files if anyone wants to have a look at it:

Scenario:

http://www.2shared.com/fadmin/20577141/ba1fc2f6/Infantry_cover_wall_scenario.rar.html

Save game:

http://www.2shared.com/fadmin/20577143/5411a3da/Infantry_cover_wall_save_game.rar.html

[Tank Hunter]

Interesting. I have not done any tests but my general impressions is also that walls, houses and other obstacles do not provide as much cover as they really should.

BTW: What weapon silhouettes mod are you using? I can see it includes max range which is really nice to have.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I don't remember the name of it exactly, but it's by Marco Bergman and is available at the Repository and Green As Jade's site.

As for the test, it's not that they aren't getting as much cover as they should, but rather that the cover seems to do them more harm than good. I suspect the fact that the troops behind the wall are kneeling while the ones in the open are mostly prone may have something to do with it, but even then the results would only make sense if bullets were penetrating the wall with ease. The wall is made of stone and appears to be about a foot thick.

[dieseltaylor]

Walls - walls are what houses have so why believe they offer protection? Ok so they look like stone and are probably a foot thick : )

To be fair I am not convinced that shooting prone soldiers is more difficult than shooting men whos head is above the wall. Be that as it may after a minute the same result pretty much as you.

Radio operators and officers seem to take a higher proportion of hits. Useful to know.

[Speedy]

The company behind the wall only has heads and shoulders for targets whereas the company in the open has targets from the waist up?

Also how many casualties where from rifle grenades as opposed to bullets?

I expect rifle grenades will do a lot more damage to kneeling troops as opposed to prone troops.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I did not keep track of casualties from rifle grenades. I would have edited them out if I could, but both sides have them.

[Doug Williams]

Thank you for bringing this up Vanir.

This seems very wrong to me. I know that if I were to be put in that situation, I would certainly opt to be behind a stone wall rather than lying prone in the open. Fortifications in general (and buildings) seem to offer little benefit in CMBN. Bocage seems to be the exception, if you consider it a "fortification".

[gunnulf]

I've noticed this too when a platoon behind a wall got ripped apart. Its probably because the guys behind the wall have to take a knee to fire over the wall while those in the open are kissing the earth.

So, if they are getting more of of penalty for being on a knee than they are recieving benefit from the wall. Given that its a computing game that needs to calculate odds its prob simple maths. i.e. in a completely made up illustrative example:

50% chance of getting hit in open basic

A coy gets -5% for kneeling & -15% for wall = 30% chance of hit

B coy gets -25% for prone = 25% chance of a hit

Even a small difference will add up over 100+ guys firing rapid I guess.

But also possible they are effectively presenting more of a target profile above the top of the wall than the prone guys are. Head, shoulders and half a torso - vs - Head and shoulders. This marginal difference could add up too over the test. In which case its the modelling that exposes too much.

[dieseltaylor]

I have done a little more. If the men hide behind the wall and each of the three platoons fire at a singly point on the waal there was a total of 6 casualties. 3 at ech aim point. The third platoon were firing light and caused no casualties. Therefore my belief is it was the rifle grenades that did the damage.

The test ran for three minutes and the damage occurred in the first minute, after that the two platoons with target orders were out of rifle grenades. It is quite possible if I had spread the fire out equally along the line the casualties may have been lighter.

Firing light uses more bullets.

[Rokko]

I believe there is a problem with targeting prone soldiers. Way too often you see bullets going far over their heads, but almost never too low. It seems to me the ai doesn't aim correctly on prone soldiers

[Vanir Ausf B]

I have done a little more. If the men hide behind the wall and each of the three platoons fire at a singly point on the waal there was a total of 6 casualties. 3 at ech aim point. The third platoon were firing light and caused no casualties. Therefore my belief is it was the rifle grenades that did the damage.

The test ran for three minutes and the damage occurred in the first minute, after that the two platoons with target orders were out of rifle grenades. It is quite possible if I had spread the fire out equally along the line the casualties may have been lighter.

Firing light uses more bullets.

I didn't try this. Am I understanding you correctly that troops hiding behind the wall can only be hit with rifle grenades? If that is so it suggests bullets are not penetrating the wall, and therefore another explanation is needed.

[Charlie Marlow]

Set them to normal rather than fanatic and try again would be my suggestion.

Seems that the way the game represents firing over the wall from the knee may present a larger target than prone in the open. Presumably cowering soldiers would duck behind the wall and gain protection from direct small arms fire, while those cowering in the open could still be hit.

If CMBN uses the actual figure positions to measure exposure, the soldiers firing over the wall may be exposing too much of their bodies.

That said, shooting over a nice straight wall isn't exactly the safest firing position in the world. Your head makes a nice obvious target on top of that well defined wall. Like plinking tin cans.

[Steiner14]

People have been playing CMSF for years and haven't noticed that low walls are useless?

Maybe here also lies one of the answers why foxholes do not provide enough protection:

Is the aiming/shooting soldier way to much exposed? For example now he has an exposure for aiming and firing of roughly 50 cm, while in reality the silhuette is only 15-20 cm high and therefore much smaller (helmet VS helmet + throat + shoulders)?

[Vanir Ausf B]

Set them to normal rather than fanatic and try again would be my suggestion.

Seems that the way the game represents firing over the wall from the knee may present a larger target than prone in the open. Presumably cowering soldiers would duck behind the wall and gain protection from direct small arms fire, while those cowering in the open could still be hit.

If CMBN uses the actual figure positions to measure exposure, the soldiers firing over the wall may be exposing too much of their bodies.

That said, shooting over a nice straight wall isn't exactly the safest firing position in the world. Your head makes a nice obvious target on top of that well defined wall. Like plinking tin cans.

Is it more obvious than guys laying down on the ground? This test was run in a parking lot. The guys in the open have no cover of any kind.

The point of the test was to see if it is better to shoot from behind a wall or with no cover. If I wanted to test how vulnerable they are when cowering on the ground behind the wall I would just have ordered them to hide.

If it is true that lying down in the open is a safer firing position than behind a wall then that has major implications for tactics, especially in urban areas where you may be safer on the sidewalks than in buildings.

[Charlie Marlow]

Not what I ment. Walls should be better protection than open pavement, for sure. Just that firing over the top of walls may not be the best cover.

I did say that it appears that the "way the game represents firing over the wall from the knee may present a larger target than prone in the open." This is possibly why the walls look to be less safe to troops that don't duck. Probably should be looked at.

[dieseltaylor]

I can live with walls. Apparently bullets at 140 metres do not go through stone walls so the next test must be are soldiers hiding in small houses as well covered at that range. Walls of even small stone houses are thicker than stone walls as they are taller and carry a roof.

Putting your ahead above a parapet has never been wise. However if one prepares a wall by knocking out a few stones here and there and making slots you are on to a winner. Arguably your best bet is to rubble the wal to a degree. However that goes against the biggest benefit that you can move unseen if you traverse along it or a short distance away.

[zukkov]

i think some of the problems we see in the game, such as this one, has to do with engineering vs. design for effect. engineering has to be done exactly right or we get strange results. if any of the factors taken into account are off, even a little bit, it doesn't work. and then the developer has to look at each of those factors and find out where the problem is. i would imagine much of the programming time involved in this game was finding these kinds of errors. lol..

[Niessuh]

Also, soldiers in the open are ALWAYS exposed. Soldiers in walls expose only when firing/spotting

[YankeeDog]

Walls of even small stone houses are thicker than stone walls as they are taller and carry a roof.

I would not assume this. Loose stone walls of the type you often see bordering pastures etc. are often quite thick, especially at the base (over 2', often). They're also often made of fairly large stones, which resist small arms fire very well. Mortared stone walls, in small one story houses of old construction are not necessarily this thick, and may use smaller stones for part of their construction; the interior of the wall may actually even be packed loose rubble.

Multi-story stone structures of older construction are a different matter; with more primitive architectural techniques, the only way to make a taller building stable is to increase the thickness of the wall, and/or add buttresses. So exterior wall thickness on the first floor of buildings like this can be quite thick indeed, though the walls do often get thinner at higher level.

...

As to the rest, it does seem like there's a problem here, and it make sense that it may be the result of the fact that soldiers have only three "heights" to choose from -- prone, kneeling, and standing. If the kneeling position is unnecessarily high relative to the height of a low wall, this would result in unnecessary exposure for a soldier shooting over a wall. IRL, a soldier would of course be able to come up into a lower crouch and/or lean against the wall, getting just high enough to shoot/see over the wall, and minimizing his level of exposure.

Perhaps this is something that can be fudged with some sort of abstract cover bonus for low wall er sumfink in a future patch...

[Georgie]

Maybe this problem in CMBN wasen't a problem in CMSF because in SF the walls are made of mud bricks or cinder blocks which can be penetrated by small arms fire and the US troops wore body armor. Where as in CMBN the walls are stone and the houses are usually stone which can't be penetrated by small arms fire and the troops didn't wear body armor. So in SF it was normal for the buildings to offer scant protection from small arms fire and the same for walls but the body armor made up the difference for US troops. Hope my wording wasn't too screwed up.

[Michael Emrys]

If what was posted up thread about most of the casualties behind the wall being from rifle grenades is the case, then most of this discussion is pointless. Being behind a wall may in fact be excellent cover from incoming bullets, but no cover at all from fragments of grenades exploding on the same side of the wall. And since, as has been noted, the soldiers behind the wall are in a more upright position, their vulnerability to such fragments is actually increased.

Michael

[c3k]

Vanir,

Thanks for running the test. I can't do it now, or I would, but I will ask you to do another test.

The one you ran has a feedback problem. If 1 man is prone behind the wall, the men in the open have more men with LOS. I'd like to disassociate the two units from affecting each other and possibly skewing the results.

Could you fire on the men behind the low wall with, say, a machinegun bunker? Then fire on the men in the open with the same machinegun bunker at the same range?

If you'd like to keep the men behind the wall "up", set up several dozen immobilized trucks as targets for them. Ditto the men in the open.

Such as this:

Test units-------------Bunker---------Trucks

That way the bunker will be shooting at both groups of men.

This may not be perfect, but it will eliminate the effect one test group has on the other test group.

If you cannot or don't want to do it, let me know. I'll run it in a week or two.

Thanks,

Ken

[Vanir Ausf B]

If what was posted up thread about most of the casualties behind the wall being from rifle grenades is the case, then most of this discussion is pointless.

That was a separate test dieseltaylor did against men hiding behind the wall rather than firing from it. Although I did not keep track, I am certain rifle grenades could not have accounted for more than a small fraction of the casualties in my test.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Could you fire on the men behind the low wall with, say, a machinegun bunker? Then fire on the men in the open with the same machinegun bunker at the same range?

It's likely to be a few days before I can get to it, but I'll see what I can do.

[womble]

It might also partially be to do with the frontage of men available to be hit by 'misses'. The chaps in the open will be distributed with some depth to them, some firing from behind where others are, whereas the ones behind the wall will, it seems to me, all come up to the wall and make a continuous, pretty dense, line of helmets to shoot at.

In the open, a miss 'wide' has a better chance to continue to be a 'miss' than it would if it was a 'miss' against a target at the wall.