Vanir Ausf B

Yeah, I figured that out afterward. Thanks!

The first test I did, referenced in the first post of this thread, was with no lanes. When I did my last test I separated the lanes with bocage instead of walls for the very reason you mentioned

You sure about that? I just started a QB and bought 10 bunkers, 5 shelters and 5 MG. When I started the game they were empty.

Latest (and hopefully last) test. US armored infantry behind low rural wall vs. US armored infantry in open on pavement (the reason I keep using US armored infantry is because they don't have any automatic weapons so the guys lying prone in the open don't gain an advantage from fully deploying). 14 firing lanes separated by bocage. Each lane has 1 squad from each side facing each other at 200m. I made sure the 9-man squads were only matched up against other 9-man squads. The HQs are isolated so no C2. 154 men per side total including HQs. Each test was run for 3 turns/minutes on Warrior difficulty. Test was run 40 times. [U]BEHIND WALL[/U] KILLED: 1344 WOUNDED: 1572 TOTAL: 2916 AVERAGE: 72.9 / 47.3% [u]IN OPEN[/u] KILLED: 1422 WOUNDED: 1131 TOTAL: 2553 AVERAGE: 63.8 / 41.4% Save game http://www.2shared.com/file/HOHRGk3N/Isolation_H2H_no_C_001.html Scenario http://www.2shared.com/file/4W_WcEyG/Isolation_H2H_no_C2.html

The gunner is relieving himself. If you look closely you'll notice the "handgun symbol" isn't really a handgun.

Think of it as job security

Then why not for trenches, minefields or TRPs? Any of these could conceivably vary in quality and effectiveness based on the same factors you cited. Yet they are all the same in the game. Only bunkers change in price. Not saying your interpretation is wrong, but I will quote SlapHappy:

Troops are separate.

That would be my guess too. The difference is that the price of barbed wire appropriately stays the same no matter whether it is Elite or Conscript. But the price of bunkers does change, a lot. So that would be a bug. Unless Phil wasn't joking...

Seriously? So, bullets will penetrate a bunker with -2 leadership or something? I also noticed that there is no difference in price between a wooden and concrete bunker.

Keep in mind that for some strange reason (bug?) US soldiers armed with the rifle grenade launcher will ALWAYS fire the HEAT round first, even if it's against enemy infantry. So if you want to preserve that HEAT round for armor you need to split off the AT team and give them target light orders.

That is positively weird.

My general and probably inaccurate impression is that BFC and most of the beta testers play it RT and 90% of everyone else play it WEGO What Blackcat said. Roughly equivalent to a 40 hr college course. Consequently, reading the textbook is recommended. Ok, I exaggerate. But it is more complicated than CMBO. Lots of stuff coming that you will be free to buy

Just be aware that if anyone sees you doing this they will not think you're "normal" anymore

Interesting stuff, guys. I'm going to run a bunch more tests today. They will all be of the head-to-head variety since I believe the invincible-unit-shooting-at-infantry type I ran yesterday is worthless for anything except showing walls are a good place to cower or hide behind.

Finished the test ck3 suggested. I also just lost the post explaining it all because somehow pressing some button on my keyboard made the page back up to the main forum, erasing everything I had wrote. So here's the quick and dirty: 14 isolated firing lanes, at one end a German MG bunker with a squad of Germans in it, at the other a squad of US armored infantry with a Pl HQ. Test was run 60 times each for wall and no wall. Test was 1 minute long. With wall killed: 866 wounded: 951 total: 1817 average: 30.3 / 19.6% Without wall killed: 1114 wounded: 1141 total: 2255 average: 37.6 / 37.6% These results are about the opposite of my previous tests. Why? I ran into a couple of problems with this test. The first is that the infantry in the open were about 5m closer to the bunkers than the ones behind the wall. It couldn't be helped. The wall goes down the middle of the action spot, so any infantry behind it are stuffed into the back half of the action spot. When the wall is removed the infantry spread out with most of them tending to go toward whichever way they are facing, which in this case was toward the bunkers. It's not a big difference, about 198m vs. 193m on average, but it probably made a small difference. The bigger issue is that despite making the US squads fanatic they did cower. A lot. I did put some immobilized trucks next to the bunkers for them to shoot at but they ignored them and only shot at the bunkers. I went back and reran my first test to see if the fanatics ever cowered in that one. They did. So why the different results? Because the 2 tests test 2 very different situations, one where cowering is a Good Thing the other where cowering is a Bad Thing. In this test the US squads were being fired on by something that was nearly invulnerable to their return fire. So the only smart thing to do was to get out of LOS/LOF. The guys behind the wall could do that, they guys in the open had nowhere to hide. In my first test the squads were in a firefight with an infantry force of equal strength. In that situation cowering allowed the other side to gain fire superiority. So for me the uptake of this is that if you want your guys to hide, a wall is a good thing to be near. If you want your guys to shoot at something when there's a strong chance something will shoot back at them, you are better off in the open.

I remember seeing a quote from a Gulf War '91 vet to the effect that if the Iraqis had had Abrams tanks and the Coalition T-72s the Iraqi's still would have lost. But I suspect the US tankers were nevertheless pleased to have the Abrams.

I know for sure they randomly show up in August in Fusilier and Grenadier squads, at least.

The wall that I have been placing men behind does not appear to be one than small arms could penetrate. If they are penetrating then the graphic is misleading or there is an issue with the ballistics of small arms. Guys not ducking down while reloading is an issue, I think. One other possible issue is that guys at the wall do not use the wall as a gun rest to steady their aim as they would in reality.

IMO the greatest strength of the Sherman was it's adaptability. When people compare it to German tanks they usually reference the 75mm version. But wasn't the Firefly also a Sherman? The Germans did fear that. And the even the vanilla 75 was better against infantry. But in CM the Panther costs more and I think it's worth what you pay. In fact, I think it may be slightly undermodeled. During some earlier testing on the effects of hull down I noticed a large percentage of Sherman 76 hits on the Panther turret penetrated at 500m. In reality such penetrations were rare past 200m. Needs some looking into....

In the new test I'm setting up I am going to make everyone fanatical. The reason is that I am testing vulnerability specifically. Cowering or hiding at the base of the wall outside LOS will invalidate the results, IMO, so I need those guys behind the wall to stay up and shooting back.

You're tests are interesting. The only issue I have is I think you haven't run nearly enough iterations to get meaningful numbers. In my own tests I saw a lot of variation in results from test to test. It wasn't until I had generated nearly a thousand casualties per side that a pattern began to emerge that remained consistent.

I think he was wanting the information before he gave the order, not after

That's also too simple. There is no shortage of books written by German participants on the subject.

At Kursk the Germans attacked against a deeply entrenched enemy at 1:3 odds. They lost. Yet they somehow managed to inflict roughly 3 times as many casualties as they suffered. I'm sure someone more knowledgeable than me can explain that, but it seems to me that if we are talking about the tactical level, the one applicable to CM, just pointing out that the Germans lost and therefore concluding that they were not very good at any level may be too simple.