c3k

And I want dueling scars on my German tank commanders! A jagged one over the left eye. It needs to split his blonde eyebrow. Ken

Very sweet. I couldn't help but notice the jeep in the first picture. It must have the ammo cans...with FLARES. Why? To BURN the HAY PILE! Sweet. And the hay MUST burn because we have water. Obviously we will also have buckets. Why? So the sweaty French maids can scoop the water with their buckets to douse the burning hay! Thanks for the update! It sure looks good. Ken

Christmas purchasing funds slipping away... Must not be weak... Kids won't miss what they never get... Surrender CM:N! Darkness approaches...

Every week BF.C finishes half the remaining work...

LOL, just for that LLF, I'm going to have to paste a flaringly obvious link... http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=92544 Thanks for the illuminating reminder. Ken Edited to add: This is Soooo obvious! We need to add AMMO CANS FOR FLARES! Imagine the mayhem when one gets hit! That ought to tie these two threads together nicely...

Not a beta tester, just throwing this in for grins: CMSF on a NETBOOK! Asus eee 1215n Windows 7 32 Intel D525 Atom (dual core 1.8 Ghz) Nvidia Optima Driven 310m graphics 2 GB, single channel memory (Okay, a beefy netbook, but c'mon, this game can be played on a LOT of systems.) Ken

Yeah, heavier and more randomized burst lengths would seem to be more realistic, hence, they'd add to the immersion. As well, I'd think that longer bursts would increase the suppressive effect of machineguns. Ken

Ammo cans. Without ammo cans CM:N will simply be just another BF.C game. Imagine loading up your troops with ammo and then SEEING the effect all that ammo has. Rifles slung, so no outgoing firepower while they're moving. Shoulders slumped, low endurance, out of breath. Jangling bandoliers. It all hinges on ammo cans... Ken

akd, That's an excellent suggestion. +1 to the above post. Ken

Thank you! Ken (Waiting for plunging shells to meet thatched roofs in Normandy!)

Yeah, I'll second the "incredibly frustrating" part. You've got to position the camera INSIDE each room and have the cursor on the wall in question. You then click about a dozen times to get to the blank wall. For just that side. On just that level. A "copy" command to replicate map features would be nice. Ken (Making buildings is almost as much fun as targeting them with artillery!)

Another lump of coal for me...

Here's a link with more on modern fuzes: http://www.pica.army.mil/picatinnypublic/products_services/products19.asp That's just one company's product line. It seems that artillery CAN be used to penetrate structures. One word: Normandy, thatched roof. (Thanks to those who have clarified my understanding of fuzes.)

I think it is worth more than the sum total so far. Thank you very much for posting your relevant experience and observations! Ken

Aaaahhhh!!! A tease by a Beta Tester! I DEMAND to have the other "feature" rolled out now! The game is broken without it... (gibsonm, how about a clue?) Ken

Similar observations (and responses) from a year ago: http://battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=89370

akd, You're absolutely correct about the die-rolling nature. The test results I posted were all repeated dozens of times. The exception, as noted, was my quick bunker test. In that case, 6 bunkers and 6 buildings were targeted. The effectiveness of artillery vs. bunkers opposed to the ineffectiveness of artillery vs troops on the top floor was so pronounced that I posted the preliminary results. I will, next week, run many iterations of that test and post the results. Ken

Fuzing: today's world of high-tech microchips makes fuzing a lot easier than before. I think we can all agree that's true. The old calibrated powder-filled straw sticking out of a mortar shell is a thing of the past. But even those old-timers were able, with enough time and shells, to get shells to burst where they wanted. Sometimes. Fuzing to penetrate a single rooftop is far easier than I believe you're alluding. I am NOT an artilleryman. My military background is USAF. All I know about artillery fuzing is from staying at a Holiday Inn Express. However... Most shells are heard as they fall. They are subsonic. The speed of sound is very roughly 1,000 feet per second. A 1 millisecond delay on a superquick fuze equates to bursting 1 foot after fuze activation (ignoring deceleration due to resistance from whatever activated the fuze). Figure a 10 foot value per floor (including roof/subfloor, etc.), that means you're looking for a 10 millisecond delay after hitting the roof to explode near the floor level of the top floor. Make it 5 milliseconds if you want to explode at chest height. Add 10 milliseconds for each subsequent floor you wish to penetrate. The above is posted with no practical knowledge. I'm sure artillery units KNOW the velocity the shells come down, depending on trajectory. I'm sure they have fuzing tables to penetrate common objects. WWII era shells had fairly complex, accurate, fuzable shells. The old fuze key springs to mind. Does anyone know what the calibration markings were timed to? (They were in milliseconds.) I do not believe modern artillery should face significant issues in penetrating rooftops, no in fuzing the shells to detonate after the penetration. Am I way off? Ken

Agreed with all the above. Of course, we're not stating that the Abbey of Monte Cassino is indicative of typical Syrian structures, although it may SEEM like it in the game when artillery is considered. As to the enhanced defensive benefits of rubble, I humbly would point out the results I posted in the first post of this thread: walled rooftops provide 4 times the survivability of rubble to airburst 105 rounds.

This thread is touching on two issues: the relative immunity of troops on rooftops to airburst artillery and the relative immunity of troops on the top floor of buildings. I believe BF.C is now looking at the rooftop modeling. Thank you. I'd like to muse out loud, as it were, for a bit on troops INSIDE buildings. BF.C has done a phenomenal job on ballistics modeling with tanks as targets ever since CMBO. (No more Tiger's with boxed 11's and 8's for those familiar with ASL.) The ballistic modeling was given a QA check by the incomparable Rexford. (MHRIP). The vehicular armor and penetration model has only improved since then. It really SEEMS quite good. I say "seems" because I have no way of knowing what goes on behind the scenes. However much smoke and however many mirrors BF.C has employed in the coding, the game's ballistics seem like a simulation of reality. That modeling falls apart for troops IN buildings. I will, if needed or wanted, run some more tests, but the test that dan/california requested revealed a lot. Targeting artillery against a target in building is done by selecting the roof right above the target and specifying GENERAL (some say ARMOR does the same, but uses tighter sheafs), rather than personnel. So the target type is POINT. When aiming at a BUNKER, the target type will only show VEHICLE. Troops in bunkers die fast and hard from artillery impacting above them, troops in buildings do not. I assume that BF.C's ballistic modeling of shells impacting vehicles has continued to improve. If so, the game MAY model artillery against bunkers in a "better" manner by treating the bunker like a vehicle. Fuzing, penetration, behind armor effects, etc., are probably more refined. Whereas, my musing continues, the modeling of artillery versus units in a building is much more abstract. Obviously, as BF.C has stated many times before, buildings abstract the many internal divisions and obstructions inside the structure. Are not bunkers built with blast protection or fragment limitation in mind? The greater volume of a building may dissipate the overpressure, but shouldn't the shells still be penetrating THROUGH the roof? If the modeling of artillery versus targets beneath roofs were to the same fidelity as the modeling of artillery hitting a vehicle, I would think we would get radically different results. Am I way off? Again, this is merely my musing (preparatory to testing) and on the secondary issue touched on earlier. Right now the primary issue remains rooftops. I'll peel them aside later... Thanks, Ken

Now you have me blushing. Let's not forget akd's contribution in this thread, as well as all those who've posted about this, off and on. Beta tester? C'mon, you know all I really want is for you to release v1.32 but call it.... v1.c3k!!!

You're pushing, lad, you're pushing it. Fortunately, our Syrians tell me they're cracking to give it a go. Just wait a bit while we build some bunkers... A quick result after less than 1 minute of firing: It is FAR safer to be inside a building on the topmost floor than to be inside a bunker. More later... Ken

An addendum in yellow highlighter. The 155 results are interesting. Each target was essentially 3 adjacent 8x8 meter squares. Each target had approximately 14 rounds fired at it. Let's throw away 2 of those rounds for whatever reason you'd like. We now have 12 rounds distributed amongst 3 squares. Let's say that averages to 4 rounds per square. We are left with 4 airbursting 155mm rounds for each 25 foot by 25 foot zone. Looking around the room I'm in, I'm hard-pressed to imagine ANY way of surviving in fighting shape even 1 airburst 155. Sure, some shrapnel or fragments may miss. Maybe I found an old tin bucket or pile of bricks which also shielded me from the overpressure. But what about the OTHER 3? Not to mention the rounds which are exploding ADJACENT to my little 25 foot square patch. The game allows a 1 in 3 chance of surviving in fighting condition in this circumstance (9 survivors out of 27 at start.). Here's a Youtube link: It shows the XM982 guided 155 round impacting a test target. Ignore the accuracy for which the XM982 was developed. The fuzing and fill is essentially the same as unguided 155 rounds. Notice the shrapnel and overpressure pattern. Notice the ability of the fragments to penetrate. In a similar vein, looking at the 81mm results, we have 60 rounds impacting along a 100 foot line. That's about a round every foot and a half. Some will be long, some short. Let's throw away a quarter of them. We're left with 45 rounds. That's about 1 round every 2 feet. The survival percentage on rooftops is 44% (some lightly wounded). That compares with essentially no survivors on pavement. (Remember, red or brown is considered not to have survived. Green and yellow is okay.) I ran 15 to 20 iterations to gain these numbers. BF.C?

Right. Glad you've all made it back here for the summary on the rest of the test results. We made a few tweaks to the testing grounds due to input from various sources, not least our staff psychologist, Dr. Intropy. Please stand. He suggested that we should allow the Syrian volunteers in the paved areas to have lower walls. He thought that giving them the ability to see over the walls would help them, as well as making the walls the same height as the rooftop walls. We therefore modified our Personnel Enclosure, New and created a modified PEN. Our concern that the low walls would allow "cold feet" and lead to, ah, fleeing, were mollified by the inclusion of alligator infested moats around all PENs. As well, Mr. Assad's representative spoke in private with each group of volunteers. In the end, our fears were groundless: every volunteer stood his ground! A big hand for them, please. None are here right now, the infirmary is ready to accept any thanks on their behalf. The results with 155mm artillery, provided by the hearty lads of 1st of 5/4 Firth of Forths, are as follows: Linear, 32 meters, medium, medium, personnel. The tests were all stopped at 3 minutes, after approximately 14 shells impacted per target. Syrian platoons of 27 men at start. The numbers represent the average number of survivors with the standard deviation after the slash. - Infantry on walled rooftops: 9/3.2 - Infantry on paved ground: .1 (rounded up)/.3 In fact, only one volunteer survived the test on pavement! What a plucky lad! Dr. Intropy wanted to speak to him about what he ascribed his survival to, but the Syrian was a bit, ah, truculant at the time. Perhaps we can speak to him when he's feeling a bit more like himself. We also ran the test with 81mm mortars. All the parameters were the same. Using medium/medium, each 2 tube battery fired 60 rounds. However, we also counted the results after just 24 rounds. The 24 round count provides apples to apples with the 105mm howitzer results, briefed earlier. The full 60 round count provides a comparison with the other medium/medium firing batteries. 24 Rounds: - Infantry on rooftops: 21/2.3 - Infantry on pavement: 5.6/2.6 60 Rounds: - Infantry on rooftops: 12/2.5 - Infantry on pavement: .5/.7 We're considering further tests with other ordnance, including 120mm and 60mm mortars, but the results we've gained to date merely strengthen our initial conclusions. The Syrian volunteers seem to think nothing will be gained by further testing, but Dr. Intropy is curious as to some other effects. To wrap up tonight's presentation, I'd like to thank Colonel Mustard for the grand hospitality offered by his regiment's mess, the incomparable Devonshire and Corgi Yoemanry and Animal Husbandry. Thank you.

Hopefully, no one read this yet. If you did, please excuse the results I just removed. Someone did not lock the stairwells to the rooftops, so our Syrian volunteers did not "understand" that they were meant to be up on the roof during the test. That misunderstanding has been rectified. Testing continues apace!