Treeburst155

The manual, which has been known to be wrong before, says, "you can of course target mines manually" on page 64. One would assume this would speed up the process, or why do it? Now my full strength pioneer squad has no satchel charges. All three have been thrown at the minefield. It will be interesting to see if the minefield ever clears now that the charges are gone. Treeburst155 out.

I've been having some trouble with mines too. I targetted one APERS mine from 17 meters away. The engineers threw three satchel charges and shot up a lot of their ammunition, like they were in close contact. The mines are still there. Treeburst155 out.

That's a great idea, Michael! We need some kind of an event to trigger reinforcement arrival. It will be great when that gamey Treeburst has to start playing right. Joachim, I'm currently playing Kingfish's "All Is Fair". It takes a very long time to crunch the movies. I think this is because the defender has LOS to practically every move the attacker makes during his approach. Anyhow, if you need a tester, let me know. Treeburst155 out.

Thanks, Sergei! This is my new signature!

In defiance of the newly formed impartial United Nations, the Allied nations have decided to dissolve the entity, by force if necessary, with the explanation that their only crime was in creating the UN in the first place.

Yes, the hull up situation will not be rare, just less common than I originally thought. I don't think I'd want my Mark IV hull up against a Sherman 75 at much less than 900 meters, though some might chance it at 700. I'm temtped to test that. Generally, the red flag for possible hull up preference will be when you encounter the lighter guns with your Mark IV.

Actually, looking things over in the editor, here are the ranges a Mark IV would start to want to be hull up against various American weapons which don't have tungsten. These are judgment calls based on the in-game tables: 57mm AT gun - 1,000 meters 37mm AT gun - 400 meters 75mm/L38 - 900 meters 76.2mm/L52 - over 2,000 So, it's not until the range gets fairly long, except in the case of light guns. BTW, at very long ranges, I'm getting the Chance to Hit to drop by 50% when going hull down. I've never seen it drop more than that however.

We're into the realm of tank gunnery to the point where we would need experts who have actually fired WW II tanks, or at least an M60 era tank. Still, the fact remains that the Mark IV, and any others with a weaker turret than hull, are better off avoiding hull down at any range greater than x, where x is determined by the specific matchup. I can live with it. I just hope I'm hull up when I discover your Sherman at 700 meters with my Mark IV.

Michael, If we like 75% of hits on a hull down tank to be on the turret, and 33.3% of hits on a hull up tank to be on the turret, the thing to change would be the difference in basic Chance To Hit when going from hull up to hull down. In my Sherman example above, the difference is only 22% (35% reduction from hull up chances). Perhaps the formula that determines this difference in Chance to Hit needs to be changed so that it becomes more difficult to hit a hull down target compared to the same target at the same range when hull up.

As range increases, our AFV with a weaker turret than hull is more and more likely to benefit from being hull up. As we extend the range, a point is eventually found where the hull is highly resistant, but the turret is still vulnerable. This is the point where hull up becomes preferable. This point is of course dependent on the type of enemy gun we're dealing with.

I don't think I have a problem with that. Assuming that with a hull-up target the aim point is center of mass, with increased accuracy the hull is going to start receiving hits faster than the turret, though the latter will increase as well because there will be fewer clean misses over time. But with a hull-down tank, the aim point will be about where the gun is and the increase in accuracy will accrue to the turret alone. I think I've got that right. Michael </font>

CMAK Hit Distribution Percentages (with interesting fractional correlation that falls within 1.4% of my tests in the worst case) Hull Up Target Lower Hull - 1/6...(16.7%) Upper Hull - 3/6...(50%) Turret - 2/6.......(33.3%) Hull Down Target Lower Hull - 0/4...(0%) Upper Hull - 1/4...(25%) Turret - 3/4.......(75%)

Translating all my tests into a very typical CM situation: Mark IV vs Regular vanilla Sherman at 400 meters in good visibility with a breeze. Let's see if the Mark IV should prefer to be hull down. According to the editor, the Sherman's chance to hit is 62% when the Mark IV is hull up. When it is hull down, chance to hit is 40%. Hmmm....this is only a 35% decrease in chance to hit...interesting. If we keep our Mark IV hull up, the enemy has about a 20.6% chance of hitting our highly penetrable turret (.62 x .333) with the first round. If we go hull down, he has about a 30% chance of hitting our turret (.40 x .75)with the first round. This makes staying hull up very tempting. However, the 75mm on the Sherman has a decent chance of penetrating our 80mm hull at 400 meters. The actual chances of this happening are unknown. We can only guesstimate by the penetration charts. So, it's difficult to really know what to do in this typical case. Add a few hundred meters to the range, and things become very clear. Hull up is what you want to be. [ February 04, 2004, 12:30 AM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

Mr. Tittles, I'm leaving the grog realities to you grogs. I'm only analyzing the way things are in the game. Armed with this info, you grogs may be able to spot things that need changing. I report in-game facts. You guys get those facts changed if need be.

Hypothetical: 1st shot Chance to Hit hull down vehicle: 25% 1st shot Chance to Hit turret of hull down vehicle: .25 x .75 = 18.75% 2nd shot Chance to Hit hull down vehicle: 29% 2nd shot Chance to Hit turret of hull down vehicle: .29 x .75 = 21.75% 3rd shot Chance to Hit hull down vehicle: 33% 3rd shot Chance to Hit turret of hull down vehicle: .33 x .75 = 24.75% ______________________________________ Corresponding chances to hit if same vehicle NOT hull down: 1st shot chance to hit: 50% 1st shot chance to hit turret: .50 x .33 = 16.5% 2nd shot chance to hit: 54% 2nd shot chance to hit turret: .54 x .33 = 17.82% 3rd shot chance to hit: 58% 3rd shot chance to hit turret: .58 x .33 = 19.14% _______________________________________ The chances of hitting the hull down turret improve faster than the hull up turret hit chances. This makes it even MORE important to avoid hull down if you don't want your turret hit, and can repel hull hits.

Actually, with a fixed percentage increase for each shot, the ratio of the two hit chances changes. The hull down hit chance gains on the other proportionally. For example: 50/25 54/29 58/33 62/37 66/41 EDIT: Whoa!! This increasing accuracy would aggravate the hull down turret hit situation. The likelihood of the hull down turret getting hit increases with each shot at a faster rate than the hull up target. Must think for a minute..... [ February 04, 2004, 12:04 AM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

I did not consider the improved accuracy with each shot. I'm not sure it matters. My testing involved only first round hits. Are the improvements proportional to the original chances? IOW, if the chance to his is 50% when hull up, and 25% when hull down, is this 2:1 ratio maintained as successive shots are fired?

Hypothetical, Chance to Hit hull down tank: 25% Chance to hit same tank hull up: 50% Chance of any single round hitting turret of hull down tank = Chance to hit x .75 (.25 x .75 = 18.75%) Chance of any single round hitting turret of hull up tank = Chance to hit x .33 (.50 x .33 = 16.5%) With these example chances to hit, the hull down tank's turret is MORE likely to be hit than the turret of the fully exposed tank. This is with a 50% reduction in chance to hit when the target is hull down. In CM, this reduction is probably less considering my Regular 37mm gun crew only got a 40+ % reduction at 700 meters. EDIT: To summarize, the high chance of a hit being a turret hit when hull down (75%) more than compensates for the reduction in Chance to Hit due to the hull down status. If you want to minimize the chances of your turret getting hit, and don't care if the hull gets hit, you want to be hull up. This goes for any vehicle in CM. The important question being, "Do I care if he hits the hull?" [ February 03, 2004, 05:16 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

Here ya go, Michael, the answers: In the previous hull-down hit distribution test, 377 hits out of 512 hits were on the turret. I've just run the same test, but with the hull down status removed. Out of the same number of hits (512), only 171 were on the turret. The number of turret hits was more than cut in half with the hull exposed. Here's the full results of the hull UP hit distribution test: Lower Hull - 15.6% of all hits, or 80 hits Upper Hull - 51.0% of all hits, or 261 hits Turret - 33.4% of all hits, or 171 hits Track hits were counted as lower hull hits, and Gun hits were treated as turret hits, unless coupled with an upper hull hit, which does happen occasionally. It should be kept in mind that these figures deal only with hit distribution, not chance to hit. Given a hit, these figures tell us the chances of that hit impacting on any one of three plates on the target. So, a hit on a tank is less than half as likely to be a turret hit when the tank is fully exposed; BUT, this fact must be coupled with the increase in Chance To Hit with the fully exposed tank. My brain has not yet processed this relationship yet. I'm taking a break now before thinking about it. [ February 03, 2004, 05:04 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

With center of visible mass aiming, you would only have a higher absolute number of turret hits on a hull down vehicle if the Chance To Hit did not go down enough to counteract the center of visible mass aiming. The percentage of hits that impact the turret SHOULD be higher because you can't hit the lower hull at all.

I remember that CMBO discussion too. CM gunners ALWAYS aim at center of VISIBLE mass. In the case of hull down they will hit the turret with 75% of all hits. How much is this turret hit percentage reduced when the target is NOT hull down? This is the real question I think.

My next test will answer these questions, Michael. :cool:

You're welcome, Michael. I'm just trying to improve my game here. I figured out a good way to test hit location percentages!! It's tough to explain, but fairly easy to do. I'll go into the details if somebody REALLY wants me to. The results of Test One (hull down Mark IV): Out of 512 hits on a dug-in Mark IV, 73.6% were turret hits. This is counting "Gun Hits" as turret hits, which seems logical to me. So, Panzer76 was correct in his assertion that about 25% of hits on hull down vehicles is to the upper hull. It will be interesting now to see what percentage of hits are on the turret when the tank is NOT hull down, all else being the same.

If you remove the TRPs from my test scenario, and change the elite 37mm gunners to regular, the Chance to Hit the dug in Mark IV is 19%. C to H goes up to 34% when the tank is hull up. This represents a 44.1% decrease in Chance To Hit when the tank goes hull down. This seems about right to me for a regular gun crew at 700 meters. I'm happy with CM's treatment of hull down as far as Chance To Hit changes are concerned. It's the weak turret armor on the PzIV compared to the hull that makes hull down of questionable value. If hull down tactics are to be rewarded, the best fix would be to beef up the PzIV turret in some way IMO.

At some fairly close range, the exposed turret of a hull down tank would be big enough in the sight reticle that Chance To Hit would not be much less than if the same target were not hull down. In such a case, if we assume the gunner is aiming for center of visible mass at all times, the weaker turreted tank is better off exposing the hull, thus lowering the enemy gunner's aim from the weak turret COM to the turret ring. The question then becomes one of how much hit percentage should fall off for a hull down target at various ranges compared to the same target at the same ranges with the target hull up. What should the curve look like? In my test situation above, Chance To Hit dropped from 93% to 76%. This 17% drop (18.3% of original chance) does not seem like enough at a range of 700 meters considering about half the target is now hidden; but I'm only going on intuition here. Also, the fact that my 37mm was boresighted and elite may account for the fairly small drop in Chance to Hit. More ordinary circumstances are easily checked in the editor. I will do this today. As for the front armor thickness of the PzIV, I'll let you grogs debate that issue. I'll concentrate on the actual effects hull down status has on enemy gunners in the game. [ February 03, 2004, 12:09 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]