Pelican Pal

I've run some tests on hull down performance and they've shown some interesting info regarding hull down in Combat Mission. The tests were done using two Panthers engaging each other one hull down and the other hull up.  The range was 700 meters and the hull up tank drove into view of the hull down tank. Both crews turned in.

Results of 62 tests

Victories:
Hull down: 37
hull up: 24
Draw: 1

The hull down tank won 60% of the engagements.

- Being hull down represents a good chance to win a given engagement.

Spotting

hull down spotted the hull up tank 59 times
hull up tank spotted the hull down tank 31 times

The hull down tank spotted the hull up tank 95% of the time while the hull up tank only spotted the hull down tank 50% of the time.

- Being hull down gives significant protection from being spotted/advantage in spotting.

Victories in instances where the hull up tank spotted the hull down tank (31)

Hull down: 7
hull up: 24

The hull up tank won 77% of the engagements where it was able to spot the hull down tank.

- Having a fire fight from a hull down position can be very risky for certain vehicles.

Avg shots before the tank hits its opponent
Hull Up: 1.4
Hull Down: .57

Avg shots before the tank kills its opponent
Hull Up: 1.4
Hull Down: 3.08


Summary:

The primary benefit of hull down in CM is a buff to the vehicles concealment.  There is a secondary benefit in that the hull down vehicle is harder to hit. However, this is counterbalanced by a much higher number of shots needed to ensure a kill. Although this will vary based off of the armor of the two tanks engaging.

My thoughts:

- When engaging hull down enemies try to gain spotting bonuses to reduce the concealment bonus. Its a large portion of the hull down advantage.

- If your tank's turret armor is relatively weak be wary of engaging in a shoot out from hull down. Ideally you are engaging and moving before being spotted. If you are expecting to have to engage in a shoot out it may be beneficial to exit hull down after the concealment bonus is lost or there may be nearby locations (keyhole for example) that could be more beneficial than the hull down position.

I've run some tests on hull down performance and they've shown some interesting info regarding hull down in Combat Mission. The tests were done using two Panthers engaging each other one hull down and the other hull up.  The range was 700 meters and the hull up tank drove into view of the hull down tank. Both crews turned in.

Results of 62 tests

Victories:
Hull down: 37
hull up: 24
Draw: 1

The hull down tank won 60% of the engagements.

- Being hull down represents a good chance to win a given engagement.

Spotting

hull down spotted the hull up tank 59 times
hull up tank spotted the hull down tank 31 times

The hull down tank spotted the hull up tank 95% of the time while the hull up tank only spotted the hull down tank 50% of the time.

- Being hull down gives significant protection from being spotted/advantage in spotting.

Victories in instances where the hull up tank spotted the hull down tank (31)

Hull down: 7
hull up: 24

The hull up tank won 77% of the engagements where it was able to spot the hull down tank.

- Having a fire fight from a hull down position can be very risky for certain vehicles.

Avg shots before the tank hits its opponent
Hull Up: 1.4
Hull Down: .57

Avg shots before the tank kills its opponent
Hull Up: 1.4
Hull Down: 3.08


Summary:

The primary benefit of hull down in CM is a buff to the vehicles concealment.  There is a secondary benefit in that the hull down vehicle is harder to hit. However, this is counterbalanced by a much higher number of shots needed to ensure a kill. Although this will vary based off of the armor of the two tanks engaging.

My thoughts:

- When engaging hull down enemies try to gain spotting bonuses to reduce the concealment bonus. Its a large portion of the hull down advantage.

- If your tank's turret armor is relatively weak be wary of engaging in a shoot out from hull down. Ideally you are engaging and moving before being spotted. If you are expecting to have to engage in a shoot out it may be beneficial to exit hull down after the concealment bonus is lost or there may be nearby locations (keyhole for example) that could be more beneficial than the hull down position.

I updated the text but its the number of shots needed by the tank to hit its opponent. So vice versa of what you typed.

To be clear its better for any vehicle to start hull down as there is a very significant concealment bonus and that concealment bonus can be turned into a kill (more efficiently with bigger guns). What you want to watch out for is (with certain vehicles) engaging in an honest to god fire fight where you are trading shots with the enemy. Since so much the hull down bonus is in concealment you are losing a lot of advantage once that happens.

For sake of argument you have a Panther with 2 hull down positions and then finally a position that is hull up. It is being attacked by a large armor force. You would want to start the fight from the first position and then maneuver to the second position before being spotted. However, once you have been spotted at the second position you would not want to continue fighting from it but move to the hull up position.
 

Yea. It why I bolded the below portion:
 

The decisions being made are going to vary heavily based on your vehicles and your opponents vehicles. For example, if you have a Panzer IV against an M36 then hull down is more beneficial since the M36 has over kill against so you want the concealment and chance to hit protection.
 
I don't follow but obviously hull down is a beneficial position to start any fight in since you gain such a large concealment bonus. The HD tank is spotting 95% of the time which is H U G E . The complexity for the hull down tank occurs once it has been spotted (and then only if its turret armor is particularly weak). In those situations you want to essentially ambush from hull down and then move to another battle position. Where the hull down tank starts to run into problems (sometimes) is if you get into a true fire fight with both tanks trading fire.

Part of the problem is that you aren't always going to have another good battle position to move to and may be forced to engage in a firefight.

 

I've run some tests on hull down performance and they've shown some interesting info regarding hull down in Combat Mission. The tests were done using two Panthers engaging each other one hull down and the other hull up.  The range was 700 meters and the hull up tank drove into view of the hull down tank. Both crews turned in.

Results of 62 tests

Victories:
Hull down: 37
hull up: 24
Draw: 1

The hull down tank won 60% of the engagements.

- Being hull down represents a good chance to win a given engagement.

Spotting

hull down spotted the hull up tank 59 times
hull up tank spotted the hull down tank 31 times

The hull down tank spotted the hull up tank 95% of the time while the hull up tank only spotted the hull down tank 50% of the time.

- Being hull down gives significant protection from being spotted/advantage in spotting.

Victories in instances where the hull up tank spotted the hull down tank (31)

Hull down: 7
hull up: 24

The hull up tank won 77% of the engagements where it was able to spot the hull down tank.

- Having a fire fight from a hull down position can be very risky for certain vehicles.

Avg shots before the tank hits its opponent
Hull Up: 1.4
Hull Down: .57

Avg shots before the tank kills its opponent
Hull Up: 1.4
Hull Down: 3.08


Summary:

The primary benefit of hull down in CM is a buff to the vehicles concealment.  There is a secondary benefit in that the hull down vehicle is harder to hit. However, this is counterbalanced by a much higher number of shots needed to ensure a kill. Although this will vary based off of the armor of the two tanks engaging.

My thoughts:

- When engaging hull down enemies try to gain spotting bonuses to reduce the concealment bonus. Its a large portion of the hull down advantage.

- If your tank's turret armor is relatively weak be wary of engaging in a shoot out from hull down. Ideally you are engaging and moving before being spotted. If you are expecting to have to engage in a shoot out it may be beneficial to exit hull down after the concealment bonus is lost or there may be nearby locations (keyhole for example) that could be more beneficial than the hull down position.

So the fragmentation bug has been logged but I was wondering if information about this had also been logged as a bug or linked to the fragmentation ticket? It seems related to the fragmentation bug as the impact on armor (track only damage) is also occurring here. However in this case it is triggered by a direct impact on the vehicles ERA.

Issue
When artillery shells impact an ERA block it shows the same effect as an air burst or near miss. Damage will only be done to the tracks and no other tank systems are effected. In the attached images/file you can see an Oplot take a hit to the ERA directly adjacent to the main gun and suffer only track damage.

Test
Game: Black Sea
Artillery: 203mm 2S7M
Target: Oplot

images and saved game

https://we.tl/t-J0iGUhNcgn

https://imgur.com/a/ynY0LkL

I've run some tests on hull down performance and they've shown some interesting info regarding hull down in Combat Mission. The tests were done using two Panthers engaging each other one hull down and the other hull up.  The range was 700 meters and the hull up tank drove into view of the hull down tank. Both crews turned in.

Results of 62 tests

Victories:
Hull down: 37
hull up: 24
Draw: 1

The hull down tank won 60% of the engagements.

- Being hull down represents a good chance to win a given engagement.

Spotting

hull down spotted the hull up tank 59 times
hull up tank spotted the hull down tank 31 times

The hull down tank spotted the hull up tank 95% of the time while the hull up tank only spotted the hull down tank 50% of the time.

- Being hull down gives significant protection from being spotted/advantage in spotting.

Victories in instances where the hull up tank spotted the hull down tank (31)

Hull down: 7
hull up: 24

The hull up tank won 77% of the engagements where it was able to spot the hull down tank.

- Having a fire fight from a hull down position can be very risky for certain vehicles.

Avg shots before the tank hits its opponent
Hull Up: 1.4
Hull Down: .57

Avg shots before the tank kills its opponent
Hull Up: 1.4
Hull Down: 3.08


Summary:

The primary benefit of hull down in CM is a buff to the vehicles concealment.  There is a secondary benefit in that the hull down vehicle is harder to hit. However, this is counterbalanced by a much higher number of shots needed to ensure a kill. Although this will vary based off of the armor of the two tanks engaging.

My thoughts:

- When engaging hull down enemies try to gain spotting bonuses to reduce the concealment bonus. Its a large portion of the hull down advantage.

- If your tank's turret armor is relatively weak be wary of engaging in a shoot out from hull down. Ideally you are engaging and moving before being spotted. If you are expecting to have to engage in a shoot out it may be beneficial to exit hull down after the concealment bonus is lost or there may be nearby locations (keyhole for example) that could be more beneficial than the hull down position.

To focus this a bit the common sense position would be that hull down tanks are much harder to hit. AKA "its better for incoming rounds to hit dirt than your face". But whats panning out in the above test is that incoming rounds aren't hitting dirt that much more often.  The real benefit in CM is that there just won't be incoming rounds at all.  The benefit isn't that you are significantly harder to hit but that you are significantly harder to spot in the first place.

So if your tank has a weak chin then engaging in an honest to god shoot out (where the enemy has spotted you and is firing back) isn't going to be great for it. In fact your are much more likely to take damage. So you either want to avoid the shoot out (new battle position and so on before they spot you) or take the shoot out from a hull up position.

Yes, I presumed the worst at one of your phrases - you will have to forgive me on that. There has been, in the past, some extremely wild conclusions based on the simple data. Very heartened to see you reached the natural, easiest conclusion. It's a breath of fresh air for this discussion. 

To focus this a bit the common sense position would be that hull down tanks are much harder to hit. AKA "its better for incoming rounds to hit dirt than your face". But whats panning out in the above test is that incoming rounds aren't hitting dirt that much more often.  The real benefit in CM is that there just won't be incoming rounds at all.  The benefit isn't that you are significantly harder to hit but that you are significantly harder to spot in the first place.

So if your tank has a weak chin then engaging in an honest to god shoot out (where the enemy has spotted you and is firing back) isn't going to be great for it. In fact your are much more likely to take damage. So you either want to avoid the shoot out (new battle position and so on before they spot you) or take the shoot out from a hull up position.

Yea. It why I bolded the below portion:
 

The decisions being made are going to vary heavily based on your vehicles and your opponents vehicles. For example, if you have a Panzer IV against an M36 then hull down is more beneficial since the M36 has over kill against so you want the concealment and chance to hit protection.
 
I don't follow but obviously hull down is a beneficial position to start any fight in since you gain such a large concealment bonus. The HD tank is spotting 95% of the time which is H U G E . The complexity for the hull down tank occurs once it has been spotted (and then only if its turret armor is particularly weak). In those situations you want to essentially ambush from hull down and then move to another battle position. Where the hull down tank starts to run into problems (sometimes) is if you get into a true fire fight with both tanks trading fire.

Part of the problem is that you aren't always going to have another good battle position to move to and may be forced to engage in a firefight.

 

So the fragmentation bug has been logged but I was wondering if information about this had also been logged as a bug or linked to the fragmentation ticket? It seems related to the fragmentation bug as the impact on armor (track only damage) is also occurring here. However in this case it is triggered by a direct impact on the vehicles ERA.

Issue
When artillery shells impact an ERA block it shows the same effect as an air burst or near miss. Damage will only be done to the tracks and no other tank systems are effected. In the attached images/file you can see an Oplot take a hit to the ERA directly adjacent to the main gun and suffer only track damage.

Test
Game: Black Sea
Artillery: 203mm 2S7M
Target: Oplot

images and saved game

https://we.tl/t-J0iGUhNcgn

https://imgur.com/a/ynY0LkL

So the fragmentation bug has been logged but I was wondering if information about this had also been logged as a bug or linked to the fragmentation ticket? It seems related to the fragmentation bug as the impact on armor (track only damage) is also occurring here. However in this case it is triggered by a direct impact on the vehicles ERA.

Issue
When artillery shells impact an ERA block it shows the same effect as an air burst or near miss. Damage will only be done to the tracks and no other tank systems are effected. In the attached images/file you can see an Oplot take a hit to the ERA directly adjacent to the main gun and suffer only track damage.

Test
Game: Black Sea
Artillery: 203mm 2S7M
Target: Oplot

images and saved game

https://we.tl/t-J0iGUhNcgn

https://imgur.com/a/ynY0LkL

I agree with OP here. It's very anomalous as 50m is actually a very long way for a pistol shot to be even remotely accurate. I've seen people at the gun range literally whiff the paper targets at 10-15m. Of course, they're not infantry in an army, but they're also not in a combat environment juiced to the gills with adrenaline and the threat of death. The slightest tilt in your wrist is an enormous shift in accuracy from barrel to target. That's why you'll get those news stories about police and/or criminals unloading 100+ rounds and hitting like twice.

Hi folks....
Just an update that a new campaign from @theforgeris now available on The Scenario Depot.
CMFB Rollbahn D -Full Campaign (thefewgoodmen.com)
The Rollbahn D Campaign contains 35 linear scenarios built as historically accurate as possible.
In other news thanks to the folk who have been emailing me regarding the missing links they have come across in The Scenario Depot.  I do believe that I have worked through the 700 odd scenarios and all links are now added... it was a beast of a job but I finally got there.  It doesn't help when sometimes the file names don't reflect the title of the scenario... but it is good that these scenarios didnt just disappear when the BF Repository shut down or GreenAsJade stopped maintaining CMMODs.
Ive also been advised by a few folk about the comments regarding me and my handling of the Mods and Scenarios so just a quick post to clarify my position with a few points.
Battlefront decided to discontinue the BF Repository...
GreenAsJade offered to host the mods/scenarios on CMMOD's...
GaJ, myself and a team of volunteers transferred thousands of files across from the Repository before it was closed...
GaJ stopped maintaining CMMOD's and I did my best to carry on the work we started but without direct ownership I did what I could...
My site The Few Good Men in agreement with Gary Krockover took over the names of The Scenario Depot and The Proving Grounds (from CMx1 fame) and we started hosting our own work under those names and added in The Mod Warehouse, it was not my intention at that time to become the guardian of all CM Mods and Scenarios.
As CMMOD's became less and less active I came to an agreement with BF that the FGM would host the files using the CM Mod Warehouse and The Scenario Depot so that we didn't lose all that historical content.  That is part of the reason why the upload process is a little stilted - it wasn't designed for thousands of users to march in and start uploading mods.  It was set up for me to rescue any mods from disappearing.
Now I hold my hands up and admit that I have been overwhelmed with the amount of content that I got, I was passed, salvaged, downloaded, was emailed tens of thousands of files and that yes I only have a certain amount of them up on the site and hosted as it is a continual work in progress and that is where we stand just now.
Between having a family, full time job and other commitments I do what I can and would appreciate some understanding of the situation before commenting that 'I have destroyed the community or calling for me to be assassinated'.  A lot of people have been giving their opinion without offering a solution.  This is the best solution I was able to come up with to save the content at the time.
The majority of costs are paid for by me helped out with some donations to ease the burden.
I have said before if someone wished to take on the financial burden, has the time to invest in uploading thousands of files and the means to continually maintain the huge database and answer numerous queries on a daily basis then I am willing to hand over the reins.  But, I suspect like the last time no one actually wants to do that and would rather hide behind a keyboard firing insults at me so we are left in the position that I will carry on doing what I am doing with the full support of the guys at BF.  I will close with this...
all files are backed up to a hard drive on a regular basis. I have a huge catalogue of files and am happy if you are looking for a particular mod/scenario, to check to see if I have it, if it is not hosted on the site yet and get it fired of to you.  If I fail to get back to you via PM or the like hit me up again.  I receive a tonne of correspondence every day and sometimes these do get lost in the maelstrom. Thanks for reading and hopefully this clarifies things a little... and if you want to take over the job feel free to drop me a PM and we can discuss.
Cheers for reading....
 
Bootie
 
 
 
 
 
 

Before Matrix can fix anything they need to collect data. I haven't seen a Matrix person picking up responsibility for the code and/or engage with the community about PBEM++ on any comms channel.

So the fragmentation bug has been logged but I was wondering if information about this had also been logged as a bug or linked to the fragmentation ticket? It seems related to the fragmentation bug as the impact on armor (track only damage) is also occurring here. However in this case it is triggered by a direct impact on the vehicles ERA.

Issue
When artillery shells impact an ERA block it shows the same effect as an air burst or near miss. Damage will only be done to the tracks and no other tank systems are effected. In the attached images/file you can see an Oplot take a hit to the ERA directly adjacent to the main gun and suffer only track damage.

Test
Game: Black Sea
Artillery: 203mm 2S7M
Target: Oplot

images and saved game

https://we.tl/t-J0iGUhNcgn

https://imgur.com/a/ynY0LkL

So the fragmentation bug has been logged but I was wondering if information about this had also been logged as a bug or linked to the fragmentation ticket? It seems related to the fragmentation bug as the impact on armor (track only damage) is also occurring here. However in this case it is triggered by a direct impact on the vehicles ERA.

Issue
When artillery shells impact an ERA block it shows the same effect as an air burst or near miss. Damage will only be done to the tracks and no other tank systems are effected. In the attached images/file you can see an Oplot take a hit to the ERA directly adjacent to the main gun and suffer only track damage.

Test
Game: Black Sea
Artillery: 203mm 2S7M
Target: Oplot

images and saved game

https://we.tl/t-J0iGUhNcgn

https://imgur.com/a/ynY0LkL

IIRC the Germans retrofitted captured T-34s with cupolas and radios. I think there were sorta significant numbers of them around 1942/43

IIRC the Germans retrofitted captured T-34s with cupolas and radios. I think there were sorta significant numbers of them around 1942/43

And again another obvious issue is that while infantry on the ground gain cover saves to abstract their ability to find micro terrain tank crewmen do not and are reliant on their animation positioning them. If you find any video of men sticking their heads out of a vehicle in combat its simple to see that they make attempts to reduce their exposure whenever possible which is something that CM crewmen do not do.

Actually while eyes are on this thread. I may have stumbled upon another issue while testing direct fire.

Issue
When artillery shells impact an ERA block it shows the same effect as an air burst or near miss. Damage will only be done to the tracks and no other tank systems are effected. In the attached images/file you can see an Oplot take a hit to the ERA directly adjacent to the main gun and suffer only track damage.

Test
Game: Black Sea
Artillery: 203mm 2S7M
Target: Oplot

images and saved game

https://we.tl/t-J0iGUhNcgn

https://imgur.com/a/ynY0LkL



 

Well, we are now looking at two different issues:
1) outright killing a tank with direct hits (this page)
2) Pelican Pal's findings that near misses never cause subsystem damage other than tracks
I find #2 much more interesting. Maybe there can be an engine 5 fix for it. PP has made an excellent argument and analysis.
 
 

1: air burst will only do damage to tank tracks no other subsystems

2: ground bursts will only do damage to tank tracks no other subsystems

3: direct hits will cause subsystem damage