Tarquelne

No, thank you. BTW - I'm not going to say "I plan to only download and use CMMOS mods." I wouldn't want to say anything that sounds like a "threat" to the great modders out there, esp. since the possibly-implied threat is a pretty stupid one. But I'm thinking it.

Thanks for pointing out where the files are, redwolf. Here's what I found in my non-exhaustive testing: A HMG unit with orders to Move will always use Sneak while at a morale state of Alerted or worse. The second the morale state improves above Alterted the unit will stop sneaking and use Move to move. While at Alterted or worse the unit's orders don't change to Sneak, but stay at Move... the line stays Move blue, not Sneak brown. However, as stated above, the unit will use Sneak anyway if at Alerted or worse. A MG unit can move to Alerted pretty easily. Using SuperSlo's stealthy saves I saw a HMG unit go back to Alerted when the only enemy unit firing was at the opposite corner of the map. (I'm guessing this is consitent with the squad morale model, it just has much nastier consequences for HMGs.) However, I didn't see a unit go to Alerted without already having taken some HMG fire. So I never saw a unit go into the auto-Sneak Spirl of Doom from fire merely being somewhere near the unit. I didn't look at the length of Exhuastion. I did find that Hiding units stayed put. So: This seems to mean you _cannot_ move a HMG unit that is under at least moderatly effective fire (or thinks that it's being fired at) without using Sneak. Either you tell it to Sneak, or it uses Sneak. What is real SOP for a not-setup HW unit in the open and under fire? [ November 24, 2002, 08:59 PM: Message edited by: Tarqulene ]

How about someone posting a saved game with some HMG units at the auto-Sneak-over riding player's control state? (Or e-mailing such a saved game on request? Consider this a request.)

Wow, that's even worse than what redwolf described! BFC, please fix or do somefink!

Maybe he's reading every book on the eastern front he can find, preparing for his triumphant return. All in one - our greatest hope, our greatest fear.

I havn't been following this argument, so maybe this has already been discussed, but: What about increasing the size of the attacking forces instead of adding turns?

I havn't been following this argument, so maybe this has already been discussed, but: What about increasing the size of the attacking forces instead of adding turns?

You can see this quite clearly in Wolfe's sample scenario. No orders and the HMGs don't do anything. Give 1 or 2 Cover Arcs and they fire, but don't do much good. Give them all Cover Arcs and they will start pinning German units.

I've been playing lots of multiple halftrack-or-tank battles because they're fun. I would like to know, though, how un/common they are. In an attempt to keep this topic ON topic, and I I can't stress this enough: I'm making no statement about how often AFVs "should" be involved. Not to be snippy - Ok, yeah, I'm being snippy - if you want to discuss that go somewhere else. My topic! Mine! Grrrrrrr, hisss! I just want to know how often they really were involved.

What's the scenario? In some scenarios the concrete is still wet. (This, btw, is how the Russians captured so many German AA guns - wet concrete traps.)

After my testing I used cover arcs a great deal in a scenario, and while it wasn't "necessary" it was well worth it. Any and all units that I wanted to provide covering fire got arcs. And, given the arcs, they gave me the fire. Using SHFT or CNTL with the cover arc command I'd quickly set up a HMG or a platoon with some honkin' big arcs. Any enemy units venturing to put thier heads up get tended to get a lot of unkindly attention very quickly, and often put thier heads right back down again. Now, if I had needed to worry about ammo conservation for this particular scenario I wouldn't have done this - so it's certainly nice to have the option. And if I didn't have plentiful cover I would have wanted to get as close as possible before being spotted. However, not having those concerns, setting up these arcs really seemed worth it. Not only did the troops provide good covering fire, but it helped organize things - SHOW ALL ARCS allowed me to see who was available for overwatch, and what they were watching. The firing squads also seemed to draw fire. I'0d rather they accepted the fire than the moving squads who triggered it. There were some cases when the units with the generous arcs probably shouldn't have fired, and wouldn't, I'm sure, if they hadn't had the arcs. However, these instances were more than made up for by the times when they did have suppressive effect. I think this goes back to "situational awareness" again. The route of advance allowed me to set up whole platoons, in addition to an occasional HMG, to provide covering fire. A lone squad would have been wasting it's ammo... and I'm guessing squad level is where the TacAI makes these decisions. But I knew I had a whole platoon or more to provide fire. And fortunatly, had the commands that'd motivate them to do it. So, for me, depending on the map/situation, frequently setting cover arcs looks like it's well worth the minor "trouble" of hitting C then SHFT or CNTL and clicking. Of course, I'm using a trackball. I suppose you mouse-users might find an additional hotkey or two too much of a burden. I can imagine what it must be like: Praying to your primitive gods that the totem on your mouse-pad eases the pain in your wrist, heavy brow obscuring the screen whenever you glance down to peck at the keyboard with stubby fingers, rank grease from uncured furs fouling the keys... [ November 22, 2002, 03:27 AM: Message edited by: Tarqulene ]

But they will fire if given cover arcs, correct? (Just a sec... dowloading... installing.. playing) Yes, they will. I think this may boil down to "situational awareness." The TacAI doesn't know you expect those motionless, rested ammoed-up HMG is supposed to be providing cover fire. So it doesn't. I believe it's been mentioned before that the digital soldiers, like real ones, don't like to borrow trouble - if they can pretend what's going on 75m away is somebody else's problem they often will. Cover Arcs have been touted as a way to restrict firing, it looks like they're also a way to encourage it. And there are hot keys which help set up a big arc quickly... It doesn't. [ November 21, 2002, 05:06 PM: Message edited by: Tarqulene ]

In case you're following this thread and not the greate "debate" thread (which seems NOT to be the case).... I posted a version of the first message above on the "debate" thread and got some answers. The essential issue is probably "willingness" to fire. Units with a cover arc _are_ more willing to fire than units without one. So if you have a unit you want to supply covering fire give it a Covering Arc unless you're worried about targets behind it - the CA should prime it and make it ready to go. There are hotkeys that can help quickly set up big cover arcs.

Thanks for all the answers, Steve.

How significant is that effect? In my "test" the size of the arc never mattered - units with a 150m by 10 degree arc acted the same as units with a 3000m by 180 degree arc. They both saw the same 150m distant unit quickly. Would I have been more likely to see a difference in the spotting of a more distant unit? Or - sorry about asking for all this speculation on your part - it's it more likely that all the units did spot the enemy unit, but without assigned arcs decided not to fire? Ah ha! That explains a lot, including the CNTL-cover arc command (or maybe SHIFT?), which I had thought to be of dubious utility. An update: I tried having the German squad fire on the Russians squads in the woods. The squads will indeed _return_ fire, though they may take several burts to provoke them. Which does seem realistic - they've realized that thinking "White paper, white paper!" isn't going to work. Oh, I'm aware of that! (At least in how it applies to other situations.) A PzIII of mine backed itself into LOS of a KV-1 and 2 T-34s the other day. 200m, side presentation. It was obvious the TacAI wasn't all that aware of the battlefield. Thus, my formal request for a new unit command: "If You Move You're F*cking Dead! This Isn't a Threat, It's a Prediction." [ November 21, 2002, 05:08 PM: Message edited by: Tarqulene ]

Boy, aren't you two grumpy? Anyway - Something _very_ simple you can try, assuming you havn't already, is always keeping your armor together. Try to maneuver them such that they always have about the same LOS. The idea being that whatever it is that's hitting your armor will always have to take on _all_ your armor at the same time. What is killing your armor, btw? Does it tend to be the same thing each time (enemy armor, tank hunter units, ATRs...?) or are you treated to something new and different each time?

Oh, heck: Here we go - German LMG in patch of woods (1 "tile"). Soviet platoon (rifle/LMG squads) ~150m away in larger woods. Very little degredation in the LOS between G. and S. units. EFOW on. G. LMG starts firing at units to the left of the S. platoon, about 100-200m away. S. platoon is not moving, not hidden, not being fired on, Fit, Regular or Crack and facing toward the G. LMG. LMG appears on the Russian map about 30sec. into turn 1 or beginning of turn 2. At the end of turn 3 or 4 no units in the S. platoon have fired at the LMG. However, if manually targeted all will fire until the LMG lies prone. (Something I thought odd, though: Several times a tank (BT5) was placed about 250m away from the LMG, on the same line of fire the LMG was using (ie, the units the LMG was attacker were in between the tank and the LMG.) The tank immedietly opened fire. Saw the muzzle flash?) However, if a covered arc is used the S. units will fire and always fire. 3 of the 4 squads in the platoon were given cover arcs. One arc was just large enough to take in the LMG's position. One was a 90 degree. arc out to 250m centered on the LGM's position. The third was a 3000m 180 degree arc with the center at least 60 degrees from the LMG position. When the arcs are used the three squads with arcs (and only those squads) open fire very quickly, and like manually targetted units they fire untill the LMG lies prone. (They manually targetted units might be more persistent over several turns, I'm not sure.) It didn't seem to matter how large the arcs were - each squad fired at about the same time as the others, and the all used the same amount of ammo. In the test even a 3000m, 180 degree CA vastly improves a squad's spotting/reaction abilities. (Yes, I am calling the difference between firing as-soon-as-enemy-spotted and not firing for 3 or more turns "vast".) And the fire was effective. The LMG was regularly "suppressed", in that it ceased firing and hit the dirt, and on one iteration broke and ran. In this case, at least, troops seem to be spending too much time trying to see through copses of woods 5000m away and not enough checking out why their comrades 100m away keep screaming... either that, or binocs and Long Ears are issued when the cover arc command is given and taken away afterwords. Or is that the way Cover Arc is supposed to work? And conversely, non-covering arcs... cover arc = unit "eager" to fire, no arc = unit reluctant to fire. I used a scenario for my origional test, though I just made a "scenario" I can e-mail to people. But it's just a couple of patchs of woods seperated by the distance I described and a few units. I replaced the LMG with a German squad just to see if that made a difference. It didn't. A quick run through found units without covering arc not firing over multiple turns, but firing immedietly if given an arc of any size/shape. BTW - I'd never seen the "problem" before either. It might be because I've never (or seldom) had stationary, non-Hiding units on "overwatch" but not restricted to a specific arc before. IIRC, my infantry is usually either moving, Hiding, being fired upon (and returning that fire), or watching a specified chunk of ground (probably in combination with Hiding.) [ November 21, 2002, 10:39 AM: Message edited by: Tarqulene ]

Nope! And I only ran each "test" a few times, so "the time to do it" wasn't much. However, I did just fire it up again to make sure the fire from the S. infantry was actually doing some good. It was: the S. fire was interrupting the LMG's fire, and actually drove it off once. The squads weren't just wasting ammo. (re: recent comments in the big ol' "debate" thread on TacAI ammo conservation.) I will probably do more tests if someone doesn't come along with an explaination for why the cover-arc using units are so much more effective. I'd much rather set arcs to limit firing, not to motivate units to fire. Hopefully my test happens to have encompassed an unusual set of circumstances. [ November 21, 2002, 12:37 AM: Message edited by: Tarqulene ]

I can see that giving a unit a cover arc might/should make it more willing to fire. I kinda hope that's not the explaination though... or is 150m too far for a LMG-equipped squad to deliver suppressive fire? [ November 20, 2002, 09:09 PM: Message edited by: Tarqulene ]

Sorry. Please read "halftracks, tanks, and any other vehicles with armor." in place of "AFVs". Yes, but how often were they involved in combat anyway? Ok, now how about some more detail? Nor do I, not even knowing exactly who "we" are... I'm just curious about "pure" infantry clashes at CM's scale(s) the East Front. Was I wrong? They were rare? [ November 20, 2002, 06:14 PM: Message edited by: Tarqulene ]

I tried a couple of things out: German LMG in patch of woods (1 "tile"). Soviet platoon (rifle/LMG squads) ~150m away in larger woods. Very little degredation in the LOS between G. and S. units. EFOW on. G. LMG starts firing at units to the left of the S. platoon, about 100-200m away. S. platoon is not moving, not hidden, not being fired on, Fit, Regular or Crack and facing toward the G. LMG. LMG appears on the Russian map about 30sec. into turn 1 or beginning of turn 2. At the end of turn 3 or 4 no units in the S. platoon have fired at the LMG. However, if manually targeted all will fire until the LMG lies prone. (Something I thought odd, though: Several times a tank (BT5) was placed about 250m away from the LMG, on the same line of fire the LMG was using (ie, the units the LMG was attacker were in between the tank and the LMG.) The tank immedietly opened fire.) However, if a covered arc is used the S. units are far more prone to fire. 3 of the 4 squads in the platoon were given cover arcs. One arc was just large enough to take in the LMG's position. One was a 90 degree. arc out to 250m centered on the LGM's position. The third was a 3000m 180 degree arc with the center at least 60 degrees from the LMG position. When the arcs are used the three squads with arcs (and only those squads) open fire very quickly, and like manually targetted units they fire untill the LMG lies prone. (They manually targetted units might be more persistent over several turns, I'm not sure.) It didn't seem to matter how large the arcs were - each squad fired at about the same time as the others, and the all used the same amount of ammo. Even a 3000m, 180 degree CA vastly improves a squad's spotting abilities. (Yes, I am calling the difference between firing as-soon-as-enemy-spotted and not firing for 3 or more turns "vast".) Given the above, troops seem to be spending too much time trying to see through copses of woods 5000m away and not enough checking out why their comrades 100m away keep screaming... either that, or binocs and Long Ears are issued when the cover arc command is given and taken away afterwords, take your pick. [ November 20, 2002, 09:10 PM: Message edited by: Tarqulene ]

The great majority of CM games I play have multiple AFVs, but I doubt that's historically accurate. How about filling me in on the East Front facts: How often would multiple AFVs been present in an action involving 1 or 2 companies of infantry early on... how about late in the war? How often would a couple of platoons have a couple of tanks helping out? How about a battalion of infantry? Which types of infantry? Etc, etc, etc, etc... [ November 20, 2002, 06:06 PM: Message edited by: Tarqulene ]

] Hurrah!

Calm down there, Rob. To me it looks like the only one who might have been "attacking" you was me, and I was just trying to figure out what the problems was. Now that we know - that there's some incompatibility between one or more of Mr. Noobie's tanks and Gordon's whitewashing function - we can try to do something about it. (Or, more accruately, work around it.) The problem might be due to some wierd incompatibility bettween the whitewash and Mr. Noobie's deck - after all, CMBB wasn't really designed with CMMOS in mind, AFAIK. However, since it was _just_ the deck (and was it just that one tank?) it might simply be a typo. Or it might just be that the whitewash function isn't going to work with all mods. HOWEVER - the incompatibility of a couple of CMMOS mods is no reason to _only_ use Mr. Noobie's tanks and the Big Cheese's Pz38. The incompatibility between the whitewash with Noobied tanks is a reason to not use whitewash with Noobied tanks. And there might be other problems, sure. But CMMOS has a lot to offer other than the ability to whitewash tanks.

Given the survivability issue I think the ammo difference is far more minor than the others, since they all act it boost the BA-10's survivability (faster, more armor, lower sil.), even if only a little. (I think the sil. and speed differences are the most significant.) But, OTOH, maybe the key is that while both have very, very low suvivability against any sort of ranged AT weapon, but for anti-infantry work the generous ammo load of the BA-6 gives it a clear advantage. But, OTGH, maybe BFC's attitude is "Yes, maybe the BA-10 is superior, but it's only a matter of a few points. That's not enough of a disparity for us to revise the formula - it has a tough job, and it does what it needs to do."