c3k

I have not noticed this. What was intel set to?

FWIW, back up your drives. Then run a SMART check. If your hard drive(s) are faulting, it's MUCH easier to swap 'em out while they work than it is to wait for a total lockup and then try to recover. (Google/Bing S.M.A.R.T.)

Hmmm, show a weakness, inviting the enemy to counter-attack through that area with HIS tanks. If they explode, there were anti-tank mines present. If the tanks slice through your forces and defeat you, there were no anti-tank mines present. If he does not attack, it's only because he's trying to lure you onto the anti-tank mines which are present. He won't expect you to actually attack there, so that's where you should go. Unless there are anti-tank mines present. Does that help? Or, what the others have said. Arty can sometimes detonate them, if it's heavy enough (no testing). Scout vehicles get sacrificed to fine them. Pausing engineers may find them. Or, just attack and deal with it.

FWIW, I was surprised to learn that early Typhoons had 12 .303's. I was skeptical of the information and double-checked it.

Scout teams, XO teams, teams which are a bit shattered, teams which you're saving for later, spare teams, bare teams, teams which go boom boom boom. I always try to get the .50 into the fight. It's worth a team out of the firing line to get the Ma Deuce barking. Ken

(The chance for second round hit would, I think, strongly favor APCBC. It was rare for anyone in the tank to "sense" the fall of APDS when it missed. APCBC was more easily seen when it missed. Now I just need to find the references where I picked that information up.)

The unit accepting the surrender has to be in command. The surrendering guys disappear, simulating that they've been passed up-chain and out of the area. If the accepting guys are not in command, then they surrendering guys can't get passed. All the above is "as I understand it" and may be wrong. Ken

I agree with the OP that sometimes vehicle pathing produces bad results. BUT, the vast majority of times it works very well. Yes, some micromanaging is needed. Let's take the truck on the road example from upstream. The poster complained that the truck mistakenly drove on the raised bank instead of the road. Solution: let the AI "tweak" how you interpret what you plot. Okay, next game you have a road which the enemy can fire upon. You plot your vehicle to parallel the road, but not to use it. Well, if the AI gets to interpret your orders, it'd figure that you "meant" to use the road. Now your truck goes and gets shot up. Bad. Solution: the AI must never deviate from what you plot. Do I really need to give an example of how bad a solution that would be? Right now it works pretty well. I'd like to see the OP's plotted movement path as well has his replay. He may not like how to plot orders, but I'm willing to bet that "proper" plotting would've avoided what he had happen. Any savegames? Ken

I've run a few preliminary handgun tests. I also tried some testing with the game. Real life will lighten up, in a relative sense, after Wednesday. I'll fine tune my parameters and then post my results, hopefully on Friday. Ish. (It takes close to 30 minutes to just begin one test run. Ugh. The test and collection takes about 45 minutes. That's one run, one gun.) Ken

Sooo, the British infatuation with tea was because they had to brew up kettles of hot water to clean their rifles?

Here's a link: It shows a guy - unknown - shooting and hitting a man-sized silhouette with a 1911 at 100 yards. (Caveat: I have NO idea what was edited, if anything, or if the "ding" was faked. You pays your money and you takes your chances. It's youtube.) Holdover doesn't seem extreme. MV/load is unknown, etc., etc.

Oh, now that was just mean.

First test: Targets were 12 men US Squads, Fanatic, +2, totally out of ammo. They were in a 350 meter long, high walled, cobblestone lane. At the end. The only opening was at the far end. The 5 man, .45 armed, regular, regular, 0 US Sherman crew entered. They'd up-ammo'ed from a truck and had 95 rounds. The crew advanced to 100 meters. They were told to "TARGET LIGHT". Oh, there were 20 lanes. After 1 minute, there were 1,227 rounds of .45 expended. The US took 102 casualties. (5 were yellow, but, c'mon, a hit's a hit.) On average, 12 shots per hit on a man-sized target at 100m. No incoming fire, no suppression. (Everyone out of command.) Next up, some riflemen. (Oh, this kind of testing is not fun. Ugh.) Purely a test a accuracy.

It's the first step towards implementing the cool new hand-to-hand combat animations someone suggested! Sweet!

It would be interesting to see if removing the bocage would change anything. It would also be interesting to see if placing the tanks abeam one another, such that they're 90^ off-axis, would change anything. (Note that you're testing how a PzIV spots a Sherman and how a Sherman spots a PzIV. To compare PzIV spotting to Sherman spotting you'd need to have them spot the same kind of target.)

Someone posted a link to a 5 part youtube series examining who killed Wittmann (sp?). Part of that showed the location of a Firefly, ~800m, firing at Tigers from the Tigers' 2 o'clock. 3 shots, 3 hits. The Tigers were advancing. That's a real world result, backed up with some impressive post-battlefield examinations. No comment on the KT accuracy (or frequency of being put hors de combat), purely a commentary on the Firefly accuracy. First round hits at 1,000m should not be a rarity. It seems they are not. (The rate of evacuation seems high, but may be balanced by the knowledge that Fireflies are getting hits and the KT is vulnerable to the Firefly.) C'mon, put it at 2k. Ken

...for so long that I thought an official report had been made a long time ago... But I can't find hide nor hair of one. Consider it sent up the official BF.C chain. Frankster65, thank you for presenting this. Vanir Ausf B, thank you for the test and screenshots. Sending a report now... Ken

BF.C:CMx2:CMBN:CW

Fun stuff, eh? Now, put 4 or 5 of those KT's up on a small rise, partially hull-down. Start a battalion of Shermans about 3 or 4 kms out, all on open ground. Have the Shermans try to close. I demand at least 10 runs of this test. (Then, to be fair, have the KT's run out of gas. How well do they fight the next day?)

Remember, the "target" unit doesn't matter. It needs to be consistent. Your shooters are what are being tested and compared to one another. You cannot compare a German 1/2 squad to the pistoleros until you've had the German 1/2 squad fire at, and be fired upon by, the same guys the pistoleros were tested against. I'll run a quick setup test over the next few days. Real life is going to put a lid on serious testing for at least a week. So, a week's delay, one week (or so) for iterative testing, compiling, and analysis. Give me about 2 weeks to post something. Meantime, not that our tests would need to be complementary, it will be useful for me to use the same ranges that you use. I'd suggest 20m (16?) for the close work, and 100m for the long range. (Close enough to 100yds; regardless, that's where so many open source accuracy tables have an entry. Using a "standard" range will help correlate game results with firing range numbers.) Ken Edited to add: crossposted with akd. Akd has hit it upon the head. That's why the test YankeeDog has set up will not prove anything... Until other units try to win a gunfight and we see how they do.

Okay, my suggestions (for what they're worth): Run the current test at 1/2 and double the current range. Next, run the same 3 series with identical vs. identical. (Bolt action, mostly, against bolt action.) Next, substitute Garands. (Always keep the "target" side the same: 4 K98k's and 1 MP40 since that's what you started with.) In each case, all 3 ranges. If it is the semi-auto nature of the handguns making a difference, the Garands will tell. Bolt vs. Bolt will show that pattern. Changing ranges will give a clue as to relative accuracies. Yeah, it's easy writing this, very hard to run all the iterations. I know! (I'll run some tests. My tests will be different than yours, I'll post my setup after I've tweaked it.)

Ah, I think sburke has grokked the essence of BF.C.

I am distressed that there has not been a groundswell of support for my implementation, upstream. C'mon, I've already done all the heavy lifting. I will now withdraw upon myself, pout, and refuse to press F5 for at least 2 minutes. Ken

As glad as I am that YankeeDog took the time and effort to undertake these tests, recognize that this is a test about relative combat superiority of 5 handguns vs. 4 K98k's and 1 MP40 at 45m with low walls as cover. That's it. It tested "A" vs. "B". Or, it tested an apple against an orange. More tests would need to be done to validate the gut feel that pistols are too good. For example, swap out the .45 armed crewmen for another infantry team, identical to the first. This would give you 4 K98k's + 1 MP40 vs. 4 K98k's + 1 MP40. In other words, it would give you a comparison for the handguns. (Yeah, if you've followed my comments, I think slysniper is too generous with an 8m headshot "allowance"! ) Before crying "aha!", a lot more testing needs to be done. Ken

LOL. I was totally fixated on the FO team. I didn't even notice that the OTHER team was the enemy. Expectation bias. Glad we've gotten the insulting language (and attitude?) eliminated. Here's a quick idea about how to leverage existing animations into - what I think - will be cool hand-to-hand combat animations. 1. The engine must come up with an algorithm to determine who fights with whom. (I'm biased to a 1:1 matchup, with spare men dogpiling on an existing 1:1.) 2. Determining who wins. Obviously numbers would count first. 2:1 would favor the two men, very strongly. 3 on 1, etc, should be result in the lone guy dying (or surrendering?). Fitness/fatigue should be next in importance, perhaps tied with experience. 3. Trickle effect: If it's 7 on 4, then that'd be 2:1 x3, and 1:1 x1. Once a 2 man group kills their opponent, they should "tag in" and help their solo buddies. This would create a cascading effect favoring the larger group. 4. Finally, the engine would have the results. Say 7 guys (A, B, C, ...) fight 4 guys (1, 2, 3, and 4). It could start as: ( A+B v. 1, C v. 2, D+E v. 3, F+G v. 4) Next round, just a few seconds later, after poor 4 dies, (A+B v. 1, C+F+G v. 2, D+E v. 3) Obviously 2 won't last... (A+B+C v 1, D+E+F+G v 3) Etc... Animations? That's simple. The engine knows who's going to win. That calculation happens at gigahertz speeds. Therefore, knowing the outcome, the fight animation is scripted. Have the unarmed men face each other and use the bolt-action reload animation! C'mon, one arm out (trying to hold a non-existent rifle stock), the other, strong, hand waving around near their chin! It's like the friggin' Marquess of Queensberry rules! You KNOW this is the way it must be... Next, since we know who loses, have that guy fall down like a casualty. The winner(s) would then crowd around him using the "buddy aid" animation. Their kneeling posture with "laying on of hands" animation would simulate choking, brain bashing, or stabbing. The animations exist! I just about wrote the entire code, right above! This is the direction to take! Ken