Amizaur

Thanks for the ATG-Mobility fix ! Thanks, thanks and thanks again . Seriously . I hoped for this from CMBB times .

It would be also good to have spotting cycles shortened if a narrow cover-arc is defined. I mean - more frequent spotting cycles for detecting enemies IN THE COVER-ARC. It would increase chances of someone who is EXPECTING enemy to show up in some place, to spot first and shot first. The more frequent spotting cycles in the arc could be compensated by less-frequent spotting cycles outside of the arc, to make overal game-wide frequency of spotting cycles constant. (Currently we can put a tank in an ambush - stationary, with narrow cover arc set where we exepct the enemy. But the enemy who shows up has exactly same chances to be the first who gets his spotting cycle and to spot - as the ambusher. So what's the point in making ambushes ?)

Maybe "Hunt" should be not a move order, but a "state" that can be turned on or off - just like "buttoned" or "hide" satus now ? A slow, move or fast order with the "hunt" order disabled would work exactly like now. But if you had the "hunt" enabled, the tank would stop to engage targets, and continue to move when targets are lost or destroyed. This way we have slow, medium and fast "hunt" orders by means of a single "on/off" button. To be honest, the button should not be named "hunt" but "stop to engage" . There could be other on/off button called "scout" or "contact". When activated, a unit would follow the movement orders only untill it spots a target and then stopped. It would work just like "hunt" order now.

Can you say, if penetrations of the Panther's upper front hull plate by T34/85 was done by regular AP ammo or maybe with APCRs ? At what range ? What was the T-34 model and what Panther model ? I can justify penetrations of KTs front turret and lower front hull with 122mm AP shells, it could happen from many reasons (random variations in penetration power, poor armor quality, flaws in plates, weakpoint hit, a joint or the edge of the plate hit). Especially heavy spalling and partial penetrations could happen (large pieces of armor breaking off inside, after hits with such heavy projectiles). I guess it was highly vriable and random - some 100/122mm AP hits (especially on front upper hull plate or at favorite angle) would do nothing, just bounce with no effect on crew or tank, and only leaving dents in armor. Some other 122mm hits - hits against some near vertical and flawed parts of armor - could result in spalling or armor cracks that could disable the vehicle or crew without penetration, or even penetrate. After all, Russians at Ogledów managed to kill some KTs frontally with IS-2s, and even burn few of them. I don't know if they penetrated them, or knocked out without penetrating (cracks, spalling, engine malfunction or fire because of shock) - anyway they knocked them out, so it should be possible in game, too. Against a weapon with such great kinetic energy and massive shell momentum like 122mm AP no tank is completly invunerable, even if it's armor can't be penetrated in theory. But Panthers upper front hull plate should be IMO quite immune against 85mm APs - excluding weakpoint hits (machinegun, drivers slit) and plate joint/edge hits.

I guess that the Is-2 hard and brittle cast armor would crack and break subjected to so many 75mm hits - just like German armor of Tigers 1 and 2 cracked and broke after multiple hits in Russian tests .

Same problem here. Space adjusts GFX quality, keys for "previous unit" and"nex unit" unmapped themselves and can't be assigned again by "controls" menu. I guess this happened after I edited hotkeys with "controls" option as this was the first thing I did after launching the game. I believe that reinstalling the game fixes the problem as default keymappings are restored then. But I would prefer not to reinstall because I want to edit hotkeys anyway - I do not want to learn new ones, I'm used to my own favorite hotkey setup...

Same problem here, and WASD keys didn't work for me at all, and I couldn't edit hotkeys by hotkeys.txt file editing. Now I understand, why. Why did you put the hotkeys file inthis place (documents\battlefront\ect) and not in the game folder ? Game folder seems logical place for me... but I'm old fashioned... What is worse, I can't change the hotkeys mapping from in-game options/controls menu. It just don't work. Is there a alternate hotkeys file for RT ? Those with mapping similar like in CMx1 ?

What is the height of the the viewpoint used in calculations of LOS line from a waypoint ? Is it the same like when projecting a LOS line from this unit, or is it some universal height value ?

You say shell cam, and I say - gunsight cam and eyeball cam. Possibility to lower the viewpoint (with a unit locked) and get camera slaved to tank commander eyes and more importantly to gunsight viewport in tanks and AT guns (or to eyes of a squad commander for infantry). This way we could see what they see, especially at ridges. If they can see the target. It should be MUCH more easy to do than a shell cam .

I'm watching the stream and see a Maxim HMG firing with a sound identical like the rest of MG in game and even SMGs... This kills the immersion . Would be great if there were at least few new weapon-specific sounds, like MGs and SMGs. Would be great too if German and Russian tanks sounded differently. It's not much coding I hope, just some resources to add.

Indeed - it extends deep into inside. Was the trigger operated by the loader, or by the driver somehow ? Browsed my pictures and found a picture of it from inside, too: http://images63.fotosik.pl/773/67212cd8cab54db6.jpg And the roughness of the cast surfaces is enormous really . Other interesting videos: - ISU-152 - ISU-152 too - NOT a KV-2 tank - PzIV - recovery of StugIII preserved so well, it could just play a (static) role in a movie right after clearing it from mud

I found two pictures of this gun port made by me few years ago. It's an IS-2 model 1944 (IS-2m) preserved in a town Lebork in Poland. I went there to visit it, made some pictures and measurements http://images65.fotosik.pl/772/150fd9c048f30e2f.jpg http://images62.fotosik.pl/772/fb69375909d823c6.jpg I can post more pictures (upload them somwhere) but later, I'm busy now.

This happened to me as well. Very annoing. The logic of how tank hull rotates in response to various threats, when the gunner rotates to a target, end especially while final aiming & shooting needs to be improved.

I agree that tanks should be able to turn more quickly in some situations (good driver, flat and relatively hard ground). But the turn speed in game may be good representation of average turn speed in various situations and different conditions. On the other hand, if the turn speed was made quicker, modeling the max possible turning speed, then the tanks would be turning so fast (maximum technically possible) nearly all the time in game, making them too maneuverable, and too quickly reacting for threats from the sides and rear ect. Making ambushes, flanking enemy armour and attacking from the side would be pointless, if enemy tanks could just pivot in place in 2-3 seconds and face us frontally, on equal terms. Even now, when I ambush enemy tanks from the side, they react and turn their turrets so quickly, that I have advantage of only one salvo fired int their sides, after that their guns are aiming at me and their hulls are half-way rotated. Taken by surprise, they turn and engage me before I'm able to fire the second salvo. Imagine how would it look if tanks were turning even more quickly - they would just rotate hulls in 3s and face me absolutely frontally before I'm able to reload and fire second salvo. The tanks COULD turn a bit more quickly, if the time they REACT to spotted threats is inreased and randomised. They should not start turning the same milisecond they spot the threat !! The time should vary (based on crew quality and just randomly) between half a second to whole few seconds. Read some war diares to see how much misunderstanding, communication problems (even within the crew), doing wrong things (because of stress), doing things wrong (same reason) ect ect ect happened. Not all the crews and not all the time reacted perfectly, without any delay or error. The actual turn speed should also be randomised somewhat (each time a tank turns), reflecting the deferences in terrain, driver quality, random reaction time ect.

On medium and especially on long range, the aiming mark has to be placed on target very precisely. This final precise aiming was usually done not by electric/hydraulic traverse mechanism, but using the handwheels. On Tigers and Panthers the hydralic turret traverse mechanism was precise enough, that the gunner COULD use it for final aiming. On T-34 for example, the electric turret drive was very crude and precise aiming had to be done manually - and it was said that this slowed down the process somewhat. That's not all - to get best possible accuracy and to have repeatable results, the gunner should always turn the handwheels in one and only direction while placing aiming mark on target- for example always down and to the right! If he had to turn left on the target, he should oversteer with electric drive to the left and finally correct to the right. Precision usually takes time. Even if it took only one second for a skilled gunner, I would like to see this one second delay in aimng sequence.

The Russians were indeed very good in theory of tank warfare and how to use them tactically and operationally. Unfortuately for them, they had very few commanders who could use this theory in practice. Almost none at the beginning of the war. Most of them (including Zhukov) were very bad. But they fought and learned the hard way - so in 1944/45 there was a normal mix of commanders - some good/very good good, some average and some very bad. Some were able utilise tanks perfectly, using them as a part of combined arms operations, some otger could send them for sure and pointless death.

Videos of CMRT tank battles are great, I'm enjoying them very much and they convinced me to buy the game . But nothing is perfect and everything can be improved . Watching how tanks are rotating turrets, aiming and firing, I think everything is happening too fast. Like it was all elite crews going on on amphetamine or robots. Of course, it was this way in CMBN, but I didn't care too much because I didn't play CMBN too much. I'm going to play CMRT much more , so I'm really concerned about such details, like crew behaviour, which would add even more realism (both "technical realism" and "realistic feel when watching the replays"). The issue is - after the turret is rotated and the gun elevation corrected, only very small time is spend on actually aiming (estimating and setting the range and carefully placing the gunsight marker on the target). In extreme cases (short range) the shot comes instantly at the very moment the barrel stopped elevating/depressing (looks unrealistic and somewhat like it was a robot firing). When taking shots on longer range (like a missed Panther's shot against an Is-2) the aiming was IMO quite short too. Maybe someone who served tanks could tell, if that's ok or maybe the aiming sequence should be made longer ? I believe that when tanks are taking shots at long range, IRL tank crews would probably usully spend some seconds estimating range and aiming carefully. I would add a minimum of 0.5s (at very short ranges) of delay between end of animation of barrel elevating/depressing and the shot - such short delay would look good - like a very quickly aimed shot (an not an instant snap-shot). And longer the range - more time should be spend on precise aiming (after turret rotating / fast barrel elevation change, before firing the gun) - depending of course on crew quality and with some random factor added. So when a calm crew is firing at a target 1500 or 2000m away, they could spend even several seconds actually aiming, before the shot finally comes out. A nervous crew would aim faster, but with much lower accuracy. That would feel and look more realistic, I think.

All the videos are very interesting, show me how the game looks and works - much better than screenshots. Thanks for that! I love the hit and penetration decals !!! I've been dreaming for this for years, from CMBB times - didn't know that decals are planned, a very nice surprise to me. Definitely I'm buying this game, when it's released. I didn't liked the CMBN too much, but I'm not really interested in Normandy battles anyway (CMBO and CMAK too). Watching those videos, I see I'm probably gonna love the CMRT. One note - don't you think that the main gun aiming sequence for tanks is little too short ? More on this in a separate thread.

Do you mean - in combat? Or in firing trials ? Looking at various data and estimations of 122mm AP penetration, but also on results of various trials (where 122s worked sometimes better, sometimes worse, probably depending on ammo quality or depending on what the test was needed for) I would assume that to penetrate the KT frontally by 122mm AP/APBC it would have to be be either a lucky weakpoint/joint hit of the front hull plates (from under 1000m), or a hit of the edges/weakpoint of front turret plate (from under 1000m), or hit of poor quality front turret plate (soft steel) from let's say under 500m... Variations in plus and in minus possible - depending on German armor and Russian ammo quality...

8 hits strongly suggests that it could be an ambush by a platoon of 4 SU-122s. During the Kursk battle a tactic was developed that a whole platoon was concentrating fire on a single German heavy tank. The effect of 3 or 4 shells hitting the tank almost simultaneously, increased chance for damage or causing panic among German crew. The crew could be disoriended or the vehicle immobilised, which allowed the SU-122s to reload and fire a second salvo. Such a salvo almost guaranteed a knock-out or at least a damage to a tank. After reloading, the (hopefully surviving) platoon of SUs concentrated the fire on another Tiger. Basically 4 SPG worked as a single super-SPG . If every Su-122 fired on separate target, each one would have small chances for success, they would have to collect several hits against same enemy to have good chance against him, giving the Tigers time to find them and counterfire. And there would be no "the whole hell broke loose" and "what was that, what gun the Russians have there ???" and "let's get out of here!!!" - effect of 4 simultaneous hits. I've read a memories of Soviet Su-122 commander that used this tactic in Kursk battle. His unit took heavy casulalties, but they managed to knock out several Tigers this way.

I'm not shocked, this is the very same thing I wrote - that the heavy tank can be damaged or even knocked down without penetrating it's armor. In CMx1 a KT could well take 100 non penetrating hits from 122mm APs and still be fine. This is fiction. Every hit can damage a tank (with some bad luck). A hit from a heavy shell has a medium to high chance of damaging a tank. So tank can't rely on it's "inpenetrable" armor the way we used to do in games - because there is so much things that can be damaged by a hit, so much "weakpoints" in armor, and because damage from several hard knocks can crack the armor too. The keyword here is "eight times". A single hit has small chance of causing serious damage, so an HE shell can't be treated as a valid AT weapon. Several hits has very good chance for causing damage (by pure chance, and also by cumulative damage - saying cumulative I don't mean "HEAT", only incremental, escalating), but it's a rare occasion that you (in AT role) has an occasion to hit the enemy several times without him killing you in revenge. But if you magange to do that - for example, you have 4 Su-122s with low-velocity HE shells in an ambush, and concentrate the fire of 4 guns on a single Tiger - you have a good chance to knock it out. Of course using 4 Su-122s against a single Tiger is a desperate way of doing it - would be much better to just have a gun that can kill a Tiger with a single shot . I know about this effect and would be happy to see it in game. No more Tigers or KT happily taking dozens of ricochets from heavy shells without any harm. On the other hand, the chance of gun damage as it is now, seems for me to be a little exaggerated... It's quite easy to lost a gun when the barrel is pointing at the enemy who makes the shot. Maybe the size of "weapon hit" hitpoints (located at the muzzle, and sometimes also somwhere on the barrel, so directly in the way of incoming projectiles) is a bit too big...

+1 I miss that too

Does it mean, than in CMx2 a tank like KT can be knocked out without penetrating it's armor ? Only by damage done by heavy AP projectiles (ones with big momentum and kinetic energy) or by heavy HE shells (damage done by the blast against the armor plates) ? In engagements like in defence of a bridgehead near Ogledow (one of scenarios from ChrisND videos) the IS-2 tanks managed to knock out and even burn several King Tigers head-on with multiple hits against their front armor (at ranges of about 500m IIRC). It was achieved probably without penetrating KTs armor, because as we know today, even though powerfull, the 122mm shells most probably still lacked the penetrating power to pierce the KT front hull plates. But more than once, effect of several direct hits was enough to either knock out the tank (maybe the welds broken, armor cracked, maybe engine malfunction because of the shock of impacting shells) or panic the crew and make it to abandon the vehicle. It would be great to see in CMx2 possibility of non-penetrating knock-outs, and better yet - some kind of "cumulative damage" done to heavy armor by heavy, high-energy shells. So after absorbing several such hits, the armor COULD fail - or the vehicle become knocked down even without penetration. Even single hit of such heavy shell could give SOME chance for causing damage, but also the cumulative effect is needed to slowly degrade the armor quality with each hit. With lot of randomness mixed in - so one KT would withstand five or six 122mm hits and still go on, and other one (maybe with worse weld or steel quality, or less lucky) would be knocked out after two 122mm hits. The degrading effect would depend on shell KE or maybe better, shell momentum vs armor protection values. An 85mm against KT front would have very little armor degrading effect (if at all), but 100mm, 122mm and 152mm (including HE) would do a (somewhat randomised) cumulative damage.

So, in the first test the tank A (set in hull-down position) possibly was still treated by the game engine as fully exposed, same as the B (set in the open terrain) tank ? But the tank A being partially hided, had less "eyes" available for spotting (because hull vision ports were obscured) so having effectively the same visual "signature" as fully exposed B tank it performed worse in spotting competition ?

I think those results may suggest, that detection of enemy tank is possible if ANY part of enemy tank is visible from spotting tank's viewport - and it doesn't matter how SMALL this visible part is. It may be few inches of tank exposed, the rest being obscured by a house or a foliage, and the spotting is possible with the same probability as if whole tank was visible. Do not know how the CMx2 spotting system works, but it seems to be all-or-nothing system. Vehicle is either visible or not. It would be better if - to give one example of diffferent system - a tank had several spotting points definied on it's body, and spotting probability was based on HOW MUCH of those spotting points are visible or how what percent of it's cross-section is visible. If all spotting points are visible, there would be full probability of spotting, if only half of spotting points visible (like in being hull-down) then spotting probability and range is reduced, if only one spotting point is visible (only small part of tank is exposed) then spotting it is much harder and possible from shorter ranges than when full vehicle is visible.