["Would be nice" feature list]

It would be nice to have more ai groups to play with when scripting ai behaviour in the editor. 20-24 ai groups should be enough i think, of course in this case "more is better". As it is now i find it hard to design scenarios larger than 1 or 2 companies.

[Illogical AI Formation when Attacking]

Agree completely, 8 groups is not enough, we have been asking for more AI groups for a long time.

I would like to add my voice to the request for more ai groups. I am working on several large scenarios and one huge campaign and i would need at least 20-24 ai groups to be able to do exactly what i want with regard to ai behaviour.

BR

Joakim

[Question about vehicle weapon hit probability]

Thanks, that wasn't completely clear to me. Have you take into consideration that once a crew find the right range to the target, the following shots will have very high probability of hitting? The initial shots will tend to miss because of inaccuracies in estimating the range, etc... but once the crew find the right "settings" to hit the target, the subsequent shots will tend to hit.

[Edit] Oops, I should learn to read . Did not see that you specified weapon. I assume that's the main gun?

yes the main gun was disabled on all 3 tanks within 22 shots fired by the AT gun. 9 shots of the 22 fired hit the weapon, 9 shot hit the weapon mount (i am guessing the mantlet on the panthers)

EDIT! just to clarify, the first weapon hit on each panther seemed to disable the gun, some weapon first hits also damaged other systems like optics. subsequent weapon hits worsened the damage to the other weapon related systems, again like optics. I redid the test several times and had roughly the same results. I did see a "first weapon hit" that did not disable the main gun (it was yellow so still damaged), but the next weapon hit to that panther promptly disable the gun. The point being that it did NOT take 9 weapon hits to disable their guns, it was more like 3-4 (roughly 1 per panther), the other 5-6 hits just made the damage worse. This would mean that it would take considerably LESS shots than 22 to "gun disable" all three panthers. I just let the AT gun fire more shots to get the ratio on weapon hits per shots fired at a hull down tank.

[Question about vehicle weapon hit probability]

Sorry I have not been following the thread, but is that 40% first hit chance, based on your estimates? Or 40% of the all the shots?

40% of shots fired at a hull down tank seems to hit the weapon, with the parameters i used. regular 57 mm AT gun firing from aprox 700 meter.

I wrote in reply 13

Hi again!

Ok i did a quick restest, 700 m open field, AT gun in tree line. All three panthers where in hull down and facing the gun.

The AT gun fired 22 shots:

3 misses

1 hit the "front turret"

9 hit the "weapon mount"

9 hit the weapon.

Result : 3 panthers with their guns disabled. That is roughly 41% gun hits of all shots fired at the hull down panthers. Does not that seem a bit high?

Edit! Also, let me explain how i got the test to run that long without the AT gun being knocked out. I manually "refaced" the panthers every couple of seconds, and i also buttoned them to lessen the chance of them spotting the AT gun. The Panthers did spot the gun after a couple of minutes but lost their contact sporadicly. I was also suprised it took 5-6 hits per panther before they started popping smoke.

Does anybody here know of good historic information sources where one might find information about hit locations on tanks, i suspect it will be hard to find. I would really like to know if my hunch is correct or if weapon hits actually where as common as this.

If NOT, then Battlefront might be persuaded to adjust their center mass aiming formula and increase the hit-width from center point a bit, so that the resulting hits are a little more historical. I am not saying it is unhistorical NOW, but IF facts would support it.

[Question about vehicle weapon hit probability]

Coming in late, but here I am

Well, as others have said... the determination of where a shell hits is not done by probability like CMx1 was. In that game the factors, such as Experience, shell characteristics, gun characteristics, size of the enemy target, etc. all added up to a single chance of hitting. The more things were optimal, the more chance that the target would get hit. In any case, we could get a % number out of it to show people.

CMx2 does it far more simply. The gunner aims and the aim point is established based on a lot of variables, including some that have a random component. Leading, range estimation, crew factors, etc. all go into this part. The aim point might be way off target or perfectly placed. Whatever the factors come up with is what the system goes with when the shot is then fired. Once the round leaves the barrel it's pure ballistics to define the flight characteristics of the shell's path, including some randomness since no two shells have exactly the same characteristics. Obviously the randomness might have no practical influence based on the situation. Where the round strikes the round strikes. At no point in time is the system capable of predicting the shot's ultimate chance of success.

About hull down... there's a tradeoff with going hull down. Yes, it decreases your chance of being spotted and/or hit. This is always good. HOWEVER, if you put a tank with a weaker turret than hull armor in a hull down position you need to be aware that IF the enemy hits you it will most certainly be the turret that gets hit. Still, statistically speaking you should be better off than if you left your tank out in the open.

A post WW2 study of American tankers concluded that getting the first shot off was the most important aspect of tank combat. Being hull down, and aware of the enemy, probably resulted in a first shot opportunity. However, if you're 1 tank vs 5 tanks don't expect that advantage to last very long

Steve

Hi Steve!

Very interesting description, i have been very curious about the CMx2 targeting/aiming model.

Have you had time to consider my "original" question?

Is a 40% weapon hit chance against a hull down panther at 700 meters, from a regular 57mm AT gun crew, something you might expect and being "by design", or is it not intended to be that high?

BR

Joakim

[Question about vehicle weapon hit probability]

Twenty AP hits from 600m is a LOT of metal gouged out of the front of any tank. I can't actually recall getting a weapon put out of commission in CM:BN (it used to happen all the time in CMx1), but neither can I recall letting my tank be used for target practice like that either. Sounds like you're trusting too much in your tank's legendary über status. You're lucky a round didn't get deflected off the lower gun shield down into the driver's compartment.

I don´t know about "target practice", as i stated in the OP i was AI playtesting my scenario when i came across this. I playtested it in real time with scenario designers mode. I advanced the panthers to a semi good overwatch position on a rather keywholed firelane towards a bridge 500 meters ahead, the AT gun was a further 150 m beyond in a treeline. As i playtested in real time i did not babysit the panthers. When i eventually payed attention to the panthers i was suprised to see all 3 of them operational but with their guns destroyed. That made me curious enough to make a mental note on the location of the panthers and to try again, this time paying close attention to what was happening. I thought it might be a fluke, but i was able to reproduce the results on the first try. I was NOT surprised by the number of hits per shots fired, but by the number of weapon hits per hit to the turret.

Also, remember that it was roughly 7 shots against each panther. From the historical accounts that i have read regarding tigers on the eastern front it was not all that uncommon for tigers to recieve dussins of turret hits from AT guns and enemy tanks when being hull down (plinking on the armour) and still remain operational and capable of shooting back.

In my battle it was panthers, but i bet the results will be the same with 3 tigers in the same situation. Their 200 mm front turret armour will not help, being hull down, against a 40% chance of a weapon hit (and becoming "gun disabled") with each shot fired by a hidden AT gun. Again, if this is proven to be historicly accurate then i will not argue.

When i have time i will remake my test with tigers instead of panthers.

Regarding your comment on "uber status" of the panthers, i normaly do not count myself a fanboy of the german "uber tanks". I know fully and well that panthers and tigers where not invincible, at least that is not how i usually use them. I usually play WEGO and would have backed the panthers out of harms way within a minute of them getting hit by an unseen AT gun.

Again, my question is same. Is it realistic that 40% of the shots fired, at a hull down tank, will be hitting the weapon?

Now MickeyD, the test i did specificly for the purpose of testing this, THAT was target practice

Hi again!

Ok i did a quick restest, 700 m open field, AT gun in tree line. All three panthers where in hull down and facing the gun.

The AT gun fired 22 shots:

3 misses

1 hit the "front turret"

9 hit the "weapon mount"

9 hit the weapon.

Result : 3 panthers with their guns disabled. That is roughly 41% gun hits of all shots fired at the hull down panthers. Does not that seem a bit high?

Edit! Also, let me explain how i got the test to run that long without the AT gun being knocked out. I manually "refaced" the panthers every couple of seconds, and i also buttoned them to lessen the chance of them spotting the AT gun. The Panthers did spot the gun after a couple of minutes but lost their contact sporadicly. I was also suprised it took 5-6 hits per panther before they started popping smoke.

[Question about vehicle weapon hit probability]

"My point though is that i would like to know if there is some historic/realism similarities with the results i am seeing. 40% off all shots fired hitting the weapon on a hull down tank"

I suppose the question could be rephrased into what % of the target area is made up by the gun in a head on aspect. Is it 40%? Seems unlikely, on fag-packet calculation I would think it no more than 5%. However, that 5% is smack in the middle of the target area, which does seem to suggest one of two things; the gunners are very good or Redwolf's complex probability model to decide on the precise point of aim is perhaps not as complex or as probabalistic as one might think (and neither, perhaps, is the in-flight balistics model).

The only one of those options a user can test is the crew quality. Do you get the same sort of results with Green, Regular, Veteran etc. crews?

Good luck.

Good point, all my test have been with regular AT gun crews. I will try different experience setups.

I will be very interested to hear from the more educated in the subject, perhaps Battlefront staff might shed some light on the matter. Does these figures match up to their design estimations?

BR

Joakim

[Question about vehicle weapon hit probability]

Technically this should be called a "weapons kill". Anything that disables the main gun.

This question is more complex than people think. The first debate is whether hitting the gun mantled damages the gun. Or, since it's very thick, getting a hit on the mantled is actually a good thing.

Then there is the main gun sights. A round at the optics is bad. But the front lens is very small. And many tanks even in WW2 would allow rudimentary aiming with other sights, namely from the commander's position. CM might not allow rudimentary aiming and count the gun as disabled.

In modern tanks a hit that disabled turret traverse is counted as a weapons kill, but quite obviously if you already are in a battle you'd be more than happy to use hull traverse to somewhat aim (that isn't the same thing as an assault gun, though).

That's really the core of it: a broken thing that would make you not send a tank into battle is not the same thing as the same broken thing if you already are in the battle. Fighting on with a degraded vehicle was common, there is plenty evidence of that.

Well, i would just like to point out that CMx2 tracks damage to sights, main gun and weapons control, all of these systems took damage when taking a gun hit (i am not sure about weapons control though), during my battles/tests. I did notice that the main gun was almost always disabled when a gun hit was scored, sometimes other systems as well. subsequent gun hits just worsened the damage to all the subsystems. The first thing to go was almost always the main gun itself, sometimes leaving optics and such as yellow (lightly damaged).So i am guessing if a tank took heavy damage to the sights but the main gun was intact it would still be able to fire in CMBN.

My point though is that i would like to know if there is some historic/realism similarities with the results i am seeing. 40% off all shots fired hitting the weapon on a hull down tank. If there is not i would hope the aim/hit formula

will be modified accordingly. If these are historical/realistic results then i will back down and bow to the gods of reality

BR

Joakim

[Question about vehicle weapon hit probability]

Hi again!

Ok i did a quick restest, 700 m open field, AT gun in tree line. All three panthers where in hull down and facing the gun.

The AT gun fired 22 shots:

3 misses

1 hit the "front turret"

9 hit the "weapon mount"

9 hit the weapon.

Result : 3 panthers with their guns disabled. That is roughly 41% gun hits of all shots fired at the hull down panthers. Does not that seem a bit high?

Edit! Also, let me explain how i got the test to run that long without the AT gun being knocked out. I manually "refaced" the panthers every couple of seconds, and i also buttoned them to lessen the chance of them spotting the AT gun. The Panthers did spot the gun after a couple of minutes but lost their contact sporadicly. I was also suprised it took 5-6 hits per panther before they started popping smoke.

Does anybody here know of good historic information sources where one might find information about hit locations on tanks, i suspect it will be hard to find. I would really like to know if my hunch is correct or if weapon hits actually where as common as this.

If NOT, then Battlefront might be persuaded to adjust their center mass aiming formula and increase the hit-width from center point a bit, so that the resulting hits are a little more historical. I am not saying it is unhistorical NOW, but IF facts would support it.

BR

Joakim

PS! I will rerun this a couple of times to get better coverage.

[Question about vehicle weapon hit probability]

Jocke P,

Well on the information you have provided I am as lost as you are as to why you got the results you did. I expect there will be a grown-up along soon to explain it.

Hi again.

I did a simple test with a 700 meter plain map with 3 panthers against 1 AT Gun in a treeline.

I am NOT having the same results. 90% of the hits are against the upper hull of the panthers.

So my conclusion is that in my original battles, my panthers must have been almost hull down, seeing as i got at least a couple of upper hull hits. But most of the hits where against the turret.

My original/rephrased question remains though. How many hits should be expected to hit the gun if the center mass aim point is the turret. My feeling is that this is a little high.

Well i am off to run a similar test with all "hull down" panthers.

BR

Joakim

[Question about vehicle weapon hit probability]

The first question I would ask is what is the attitude of the Panthers to the ATG? Are they hull down? The TACAi will always aim at the centre of the mass, if all it can see it the turret then that is what it will aim at.

there where some hits to the upper hull on some of the panthers, in each test i did. The AT gun is on aprox 10 meter higher ground so i am quite sure they where not hull down.

That being said, even if they where "hull down", and the AT where aiming for the centre mass, i would have thought there to be a little more variation to the shot hitting a panther turret. That is why i mentioned 10% gun hits being the number i expected, not 30-40%.

The second, related, question is how many hits landed on the Gun as opposed to the gun mount? The end result is the same (i.e. a disabled gun) but the size of the target from a head on aspect is different.

Actually, the hits NOT scoring against the gun but the weapon mount where quite a few as well. when i think about it that makes it even more odd, that there where so many hits localized to the weapon mount and the weapon itself.

The Panthers were stationary, each present a big target at 600m. In gun terms that is virtually point blank range so 18 hits out of 20 shots is reasonable, except the gun would have had to switch targets. That does make me wonder. How widely spaced were the Panthers?

Yes, i am expecting high accuracy at that range, the panthers where about 15 m apart, so it was not a big ajustement for the AT gun. I am NOT questioning the 18 hits of the 20 fired, but the fact that so many of them was gun hits that ALL three panthers ended with the gun damaged.

Finally, the factthat the Panthers had crack crews is irrelevent in terms of the ability of the ATG to hit. You might expect such teams to have a better chance of spotting the ATG, but they can't affect the chance of their tank being hit, especially if they behave like dumb rookies (which your guys were).

Yepp, i understand the concept, in the last test one panther managed to finally spot the AT gun before his main gun was disabled, but 2 seconds later the AT gun struck the weapon of that panther as well, so it never managed to get a shot of. By the way, the weather is dry, clear.

Oh, by the way, someone will be sure to mention it so we might as well get it over with here. There are no hit probabilities in CMx. The game models the flight of each shell and they hit where they hit.

Then i would like to rephrase my question. What is the probability that the shell hits the exact aim point, being the centered gun in the turret. I would think that the spacing of the hits would be a little more spread out along the turret surface. It would be interesting to learn how many hits against the turret where actually hitting the gun, in real life WW2. I have a feeling it where not this common. Then again this is just a feeling and i have no problem with being proven wrong.

[Question about vehicle weapon hit probability]

Hi there fellow commanders!

Let me first tell you all i am a long time fan of the original Combat mission series, i own all three CMx1 titles. Like so many others i have opted not to buy CMSF or its other modern expansions, mainly due to the fact that i am not intrested in modern warfare. I did try the demo on a couple of occasions but it was not my cup of tea.

I have been waiting for CMBN since it was announces, and it has been a blast plying it these last couple of weeks. It has been everything i hoped for and much more.

BUT, there is always a "but" isn´t there

I started to dabble a little with the editor to start my huge campaign project, and i am in the process of testing the AI scripts i made. It was then that i noticed something i did not quite like, it felt a little "wrong".

The situation is this, i advance three crack panthers slowly along a road where all three stop, 600 m or so straight ahead there is a american 57mm AT gun hidden in a treeline. This AT gun starts "pinging" away at the panthers and after expending about 20 shots it has achieved roughly 18 hits. Now to the part i find a little strange, the result of this "pinging" is that all three panthers have had their main gun damaged and is now teethless so to speak. I have replayed this scenario 3 times after this and the end result is the same. All 3 panthers are alive but have their main gun destoyed.

So my question is! Does this feel "right" to you guys? what is the probability of a gun hit? I would have guessed that no more than 10% of the hits scored to the turret front would strike the gun. In my game that number is closer to 30-40%. Also all gun hits scored in my games have resulted in the main gun being out of commission, not a single gun hit has resulted in that the gun is still operational.

Could anyone from Battlefront, or anyone else with knowledge about this, explain to me if what i am seeing is historicly correct or if there in fact is something wrong with the chance to score gun hits?

I accept the fact that AT guns are hard to spot and quite accurate but i do not feel that the results i am getting is correct, am i wrong?

I would like to finish with huge "thank you" to battlefront for making this fantastic game. I am looking forward to years of fun with this game series.

BR

Joakim