Pelican Pal

Do White Phosphorous rounds cause and reduction in spotting capability for thermal sights in game?

Some people believe that they do but I've found no evidence in the manual or elsewhere on the forums to support that claim. Further I ran a simple test firing 2,940 WP rounds directly in front (and onto) a BM Oplot and at no point did they show any reduction in spotting capabilities through the barrage. Although I would expect that the sheer amount of shells exploding would have blocked vision.

Just off of a bit of gut instinct I ran the same tests with 294 152mm HE guns firing and the Oplots could again see through the barrage. This seems to reinforce the above and also point to maybe some missing modeling. The ideal result here would be for the absurd amount of dust, dirt, explosions, etc... to block the thermal sights of the vehicles.


And just to clarify I'm using more guns than you would ever see in-game (294) since if the game did in fact model some small loss of capability that loss should then be obviously apparent when the scale is so absurd.

The 80 meter efficiency seems a little too good for WW2 style pistol shooting but the 40 meter seems perfectly reasonable.

"Hey Sarge, I think there might be an IFV, one of those really big ones with an auto cannon & thermal imagers & everything, parked just around the corner.....Want me to take a peek?" 

I always had mixed feelings about that peeking feature. One of my favorite tactics before 4.0 was sticking squads behind buildings to hide them. Then when enemy troops move into the building from the other side, my squad will open fire through the opposite doors and windows. When they automatically move to the corners to peek around though, it gives their position away.
On the other hand, the peeking feature can be cool sometimes. I've seen cool firefights from guys peeking around corners and cool RPG ambushes and whatnot. I think the soldier posted at the corner is supposed to get a cover bonus too, to represent that hes not supposed to just be lying there in the open like it appears in the game.
I just wish there was a way to toggle that on and off. Sometimes it's good, and sometimes you really dont want a guy to just be hanging out there on the corner all day. I wish you could tell a squad to peek around a corner quickly and then pull the guy backward again.

It seems there is no way to add AT-4 ATGM in the editor. In "Specialists teams" tab choosing "ATGM Team" results in addition of AT-7.
The only walkaround is to purchase large formation and then "clean" it from everything except AT-4. 
I think the option to add AT-4 separately should be added. 

The peeking feature is weird. So far its only ever been a pain since the guy peeking doesn't have the firepower to actually control the road and draws incoming fire/attention. For example, you have a squad in cover/concealment from a BMP-3 while waiting for a Javelin to get in position to smoke it. While waiting G.I. Joe crawls to the corner and attracts a burst of autocannon fire (or worse a 100mm) and you have a mass casualty event on your hands.

The type of single soldier peeking is something that requires a lot of intelligence from the guy doing it to be beneficial and CM doesn't have that sort of capability.

Based on anecdotal information, I would be inclined to agree. But it is important to remember that this is not saying a pistol is more accurate at that range, just that it’s RoF overcomes it’s inaccuracy relative to bolt action rifles. How true that is, I can’t say. It seems slightly counterintuitive, but I’ve often seen that when one really gets real world data what we expect and what truly happens are not always the same.
PS: tests are invaluable in gathering data, but it’s also important to remember that they are modelling one specific situation: what the tester designed, and that situation may be uncommon or even extremely rare in real battles. How often does a single man with a pistol face a single man with a rifle, both with no cover or concealment? Compound that with the fact that this number (kills/min) is derived from thousands of such encounters, which tends to make what are actually a great number of outcomes distilled into a single number that we see as a singular possibility rather than the full range of possibilities. 

1. No Replay function for Real-Time
This one is not so important but can be still useful, especially for the new players who are more willing to play in Real-Time to have a review.
2.Useless Peek Function
A. The speed of peek is way too slow, i don't know what' wrong with the solider, they have to prone on the ground, move very very slowly to the corner.
B. the peek function only is operating when behind a House, not a wall. Interestingly, most of the time, there are lots of walls block your view and you need peek function to scout.
C. Peek is stupid in CM, a solider will be pinned to death if he is peeking, how?
3.Administration command is still stupid
Combine Command indeed plays its role, however..............
A. A battle often causes lots of sections heavy casualties, some time the player needs to control even more then 6 units contained 6 solider to attack, it's a meaningless stress on the player. it should be able to combine these sections together!
B. If i have a 13 men Marine Squad, then i sent a Scout team. if they are dead, this 9 men squad can not be divided forever, no way.
C. The squad-A and squad-B always automatically combine when i don't want to.
Sometimes, there is only a small house for shooting and covering,  i wat to command a squad to fire at two different positions so i divided them, but after a while, they combine automatically. WTF?
D. The squad-A and squad-B never automatically combine when i want to.
Some time i divided a 13 mean squad into three teams
guess what, sometimes only the Squad-A and Squad-B can combine together, Squad-C? never, i don't get it, no matter how long they spend, where are they, Squad-AB can not combine with C
sometimes they can, sometimes they can't
WTFK what hell
I get more confused
4.Ammo Sharing  is stupid
Cm does not provide Ammo box in most of the battles, and some times we do not have vehicle which contains ammo
In the half of the battle, lots of squads are already running out of their ammo so they have to be close to another squad to gain ammo.
Which means, a bunch of people have to be moved together, stupid, vulnerable to the damage.
But players have to, in some scenarios, the players have to take care of a large field with limited ammo and men
We should be able to use acquire to other squad without staying together as it's very very foolish

This is my opinion as well. Although I feel that even the JPz IV 70, being the same price as the Panther, wouldn't hurt from being a bit cheaper.
But that's just details; the main point is that in QBs it seems turrets aren't accounted for any capability. Imo it's not about historical accuracy; the issue is that the capability of turreted vs turretless vehicles isn't being accounted for which leads to certain vehicles like Panthers to simply be the optimal choice; which from there leads to QBs almost always featuring panthers.

I also wouldn't mind if the cheapest Shermans would become a bit more expensive (the M4A3(W)75 etc are priced fine imo).

I think I want to make a quick detour for those who think that the better gun makes the StuG so expensive (thinking AT capabilities make the majority of the price formula for some reason).
Sherman 105 - 217 points StuH 105 mm - 270 points Why? How? The StuH has 31 HE shells, 2 HEAT shells, 1 MG with low ammo. The Sherman has 53 HE shells, 5 HEAT, some smoke, apart from its own smoke launcher, 3 MGs incl. .50cal and a turret, one with thicker front armor than the StuH front.
 

Yes, and again it creates a situation where competitive German players are picking Panthers. The issue isn't so much that this creates a balance problem but that it denudes QBs of variety because players aren't going to waste points on Stugs and whatnot.

Essentially I'm seeing this whole thread not as a balance request, but as a diversity request. And sure people can make the argument that you just house rule it but most players are going to be playing using the standard rules. This will only become more common once Slithirine finally released their built-in QB system.

IMO a lot of the niggling over why a vehicle is priced a certain way is missing the forest for the trees. I've played less WW2 QB than modern but a common problem when I played was that a competitive German list is chock full of Panthers and to a lesser extent Tigers. So as the German player you play nearly every match with Panthers and as an allied player you are dealing with Panthers in every match. Generally going outside of this window represents the German player intentionally sabotaging themselves.

So the question isn't really about the Sherman compared to the Stug or what have you. But the Stug compared to the Panther. The Panther is the best value-for-points in the list and making adjustments so that its not so core to the German armor would, imo, allow for some more variety in QBs that are also competitive.
 
 

Thanks for the recommendation

The problem is its an apples, orange comparison. The US tried for years to nail down a good advertising and marketing strategy for its recruits. This was doubly hard in the Army, which has always had the worst reputation of the big four choices. Ultimately the two most successful advertising pillars for the US has been "free college" and "be all you can be." The Army cant compete with the Marines in terms of hardness and never will, so the 'were super tough' line just doesn't work. Neither does anything about conditions, pay, in service jobs, that kind of thing. US ads generally only do well when they focus on personal betterment, on how the Army can build up the individual, and how it can be job training (and college!) for the future. All the other services play on variations of that theme with the exceptions of the Marines, who really have cornered the US 'join us to be tough' position. Lots of research these days to back this up too. Best place to start would be Beth Bailey's America's Army. Good Book. 
I would imagine the labor market in Russia is very different, so is the kind of person the Russian Army targets. And doesnt the Chinese Army still rely on conscription? Anyway thats not what I would call a free labor market necessarily, so that ad is already not doing the same thing as the other two. 

I actually joined the Chinese army yesterday I was so inspired. Ship off next week.

I have no idea how what you say is relevant to the current discussion.

Yes, and again it creates a situation where competitive German players are picking Panthers. The issue isn't so much that this creates a balance problem but that it denudes QBs of variety because players aren't going to waste points on Stugs and whatnot.

Essentially I'm seeing this whole thread not as a balance request, but as a diversity request. And sure people can make the argument that you just house rule it but most players are going to be playing using the standard rules. This will only become more common once Slithirine finally released their built-in QB system.

Ee... This whole thread is about understanding why StuGs, Pz IVs and M4 s are priced a certain way. There are different arguments but the only people who can give a definite answer are those who built the game and who don't participate in the discussion.
Allegedly, there is some kind of formula. And nobody knows what is inside that formula.

Yes, in a way this issue negates the rarity system.
It's nice that a Pz IV, a StuG and a Panther have zero (standard) rarity. So that, in theory, people usually roll around in a mix of these most common vehicles. But it doesn't do any good if the purchase price of the StuG is 299 and a Panther is 365.
All the while a Sherman is 190. Regardless of whether you want to compete with the Sherman on anti-armor capability or anti-infantry capability, either way the Panther is the better choice at only 66 points more.
And as you say, we better fix it before or at the same time we hit Steam and PBEM+++. Otherwise we will have this same debate, but with people who will just stay away quickly.

Yes, and again it creates a situation where competitive German players are picking Panthers. The issue isn't so much that this creates a balance problem but that it denudes QBs of variety because players aren't going to waste points on Stugs and whatnot.

Essentially I'm seeing this whole thread not as a balance request, but as a diversity request. And sure people can make the argument that you just house rule it but most players are going to be playing using the standard rules. This will only become more common once Slithirine finally released their built-in QB system.

I really think that these tank vs rank discussions detract from the main point.
StuG with its 18 HE shells and literally no MG can support infantry for 4-5 turns. After that the Allies infantry can pretty much ignore it. The rest - mediocre armor, no turret just adds questions about its QB pricing.
I don't know what QBs you play, so far the ones that I played had rather short LOS (300-500m) due to trees, bocages, houses etc. The largest maps I saw were something like 2km by 2km and they are very few of those. 

The panther being picked in every game is a good point. My friend and I were just talking about how many vehicles go unused for the Germans in CMRT. 

The sole existence of a site like FGM shows how good the existing system actually is. It is quite workable, about 50% of the games and tournaments use self-selected forces, and usually with rarity set to standard.
So why not improve the historical accuracy if all that it would cost is adjust some variables to make the most common vehicles more common?
BTW, US squads wipe out all other squads, easily. But that is not a problem, I have never seen anybody having a problem with the squad prices. If you consider how difficult that is you will realize how attractive this gaming system already is.
 

That brings you into "Panther Hell". For the Germans the only zero rarity vehicles are a Mk IV, a StuG and a Panther. Since the other two are overpriced you have no choice but go for the Panther if you play 0 rarity. Panthers are seriously fun-limiting.
In reality people save rarity points when selecting infantry and support and then spend those rarity points in vehicles such as open-top TDs, Wespes or Jagdpanzers. More fun battles are a result. But you need to save up for the rarity.
Correcting the price for StuGs and Mk IVs would drive more battles into the fun zone without rarity games. The mispricing is what makes rare vehicles so attractive, and hence you see more rare-induced forces. Not good for fun or historical accuracy.