RobZ

@MOS:96B2P I made bastogne for CM FB, and bastogne's main road is 40 degrees from north so naturally I started to make the map at a 45 degree angle to stay true to north. I realised after a while into making the map that there was several assets that only existed in the 0-90 degree orientation and it made it very difficult, so eventually I just turned the whole map to 0 degrees to have access to most assets I needed. Several places I wanted tall hedge type walls, but that doesn't exist in any other game other than CMBN and didn't know about transferring at the time. What I mean by the post is that I think all options should be available even if it's less common for the tall "bocage" type walls to be outside of Normandy, cus they can be used as tall hedges or other obstacles.

I think you can only place and edit the tall bocage in CMBN, so if you then transfer the map to another game and realise you need to change the bocage, i think you can't do anything except remove it. So the bocage walls has to be preplanned so you don't have to transfer constantly.

Here you can read about it, pretty simple. Might not work 100% of the time depending on which games you transfer, sometimes you might have to remove assets.

Doesn't matter what i call it, the point still stands. Other games other than CMBN lacks tall foliage "walls". While the games still have them, but you can't place it in the scenario editors unless you do what i said with transfering it.

So after having learned that you can mess around with the map files using a hex editor to make them compatible with other games in the series, i went along and tested it with a map from CM BN and here is the result. https://imgur.com/a/tc9Q5WI So nothing looks wrong at first, just a map in CM FB. but then i see tall hedges, and i remember from making maps a while ago that those doesn't exist in CM FB, but yet here they are. Why does tall hedges exist, but you can't place them in the scenario editor. In CM FB you can only place low bocage and hedge, both of which are pretty small and doesn't block vision like these tall hedges do. Is this a joke? Seriously, why is this a thing? This seems so backwards for the series, like several other things in editor. Certain buildings, bridges or other **** that only exist in one orientation, so you are forced to use something else or turn the whole map 45 degrees to have it look properly. Tell me the logic here steve, cus i don't get it. The only way to use tall hedges in CM FB currently would be to convert the map to CM BN, place all tall hedges, then convert the map back to CM FB and there you go. An insane backwards, timeconsuming and unnecessary process to get it done.

@Battlefront.com just fyi, the panther in my tests were regular in all of them. So it was a regular panther vs 3 elite Sherman's. I see what you are saying with the overall result, but what is the overall result? Is it battle result or just engagement result? The fact that you won't change anything about this center aiming at this time was a response I expected tbh, but it's worth bringing the issue to light. It's not a fundamental flaw, it's not a big issue either, it's a rather minor one, but an issue none the less. But this tacAI habit is exploitable. The results might be correct as it stands cus everyone is playing how it's intended. You might call the panther test a "lab experiment" but it's a combat scenario that can actually happen in a real game, is it then still an experiment? I know from now on that I have a much greater chance of success by standing in the open with a panther if im forced to brawl front to front with the enemy. I can take this exploit even further if I have a damaged panther as well. I run the damaged panther into the open, enemies will start plinking and zeroing their guns to that damaged panther, then I drive forward my fully working panther and the enemy will very likely start hitting the front hull right away cus they are zeroed to that range. That means its even more unlikely they will hit the lower glacis or front turret so my win rate chance goes up even higher. I should not be confident that the enemy doesn't hit a weak spot, but with the current aiming I am pretty confident. If I use this tactic every time I know I'm gonna get shot at, my panthers survival rates will go up by a lot. This can almost be called a "200IQ play" cus essentially you use the enemies habits to your own advantage, but it shouldn't be like that. If this game was very popular and had proper multiplayer, this for sure would be used for people's advantage, just like dropping artillery in your enemies spawn on turn 1. I will say again this is not a huge issue and doesn't break the game, but it is exploitable and requires changes to be fixed. If we need to wait for the next CM engine for this fix then I guess that's fine, aslong as it happens at some point.

I actually planned on doing the panther test at 500 and 1500m too, but it takes so long to do them that I haven't done it yet, but I believe the 500m one would be even worse for hull down indeed.

How did you know I made it? I'm not the only RobZ in the world.

This is exactly my point dude. The game should FIX it, not rely on its players to not "cheese" the game mechanics. You just admitted that this is an issue than can be cheesed and is "gamey" which is the exact reason I'm making this post at all. The game has to fix it, not the people playing it.

Haha how did you know that was me?

It's clear to me after reading the responses that very few in this discussion actually understand what the issue is. I'm not saying tacAI should not aim for center mass, I have already stated earlier that this is exactly what they should do. But the issue is their aiming precision, not the gun accuracy. If we put a laser pointer in the tacAI gunner optics, that laser would point constantly on a 1x1 CM square on the targets center mass. That is the issue. If we did the same with a human, that laser would be very many places on the target, still center mass, but not exact pixel perfect center mass. This is what makes the AI too accurate, and this is the issue I have been talking about all along. The hull down statistics is more or less a response to the "hull down myth", which we see doesn't hold up in all cases. And part of the reason for this is the perfect aiming of the tacAI that makes the overall hit zone very tiny and locked to a spesific area, in this case the upper hull. @Saint_Fullers post is infact supporting me on this. They aim center mass cus they are not precise enough to aim for spesific areas, yet the tacAI in this game is so precise they can consistently hit the ball machine gun mount if the game told them to aim there. For the "advanced calculations" required to make the AI aim different places is an odd response, the game already handles this stuff with zeroing shots. It doesn't even need any advanced calculations, just make the AI have a random offset from the pixel perfect center mass point, so they aim more spread out, but still center mass. I already Agree on many of the more obvious and logical points you guys bring up as that's not the issue I'm pointing out.

Test results Tests done in a more "natural" map instead of flat ground. Shermans are at 900,1030 and 1050m. All shermans are placed in light forest with trees. Shermans are of variant M4A3(76)W. Panther is of variant Panther G mid. 20 tests done with panther hull down, 20 tests with panther open ground. At test start the panther will drive to its correct position so it is not exposed at the start, all shermans stationary. Disregard the forward observers, they are behind terrain and does not see anything. At this range and angle the shermans can penetrate the lower glacis and the front turret, only the upper hull plate is immune. Skill: regular, normal, 0 for all tanks The map. Panther hull down/open from sherman's perspective (one of them). Panthers perspective. Results: Panther in hull down position: 4/20 times success; 20% win rate failures: 12 times by main gun destroyed: 4 times muzzle hit, 2 times barrel hit, rest are mantlet/weapon mount hits. Rest of failures is crew dismount and tank destroyed. Panther on open ground: 11/20 times success; 55% win rate 1 success had the panther immobilized by lower glacis penetration, engine destroyed failures: 4 times by main gun destroyed: 1 time muzzle hit, rest mantlet/weapon mount. 1 time destroyed after +50 hits, crew panicked earlier, but the tank was still operational rest is lower glacis or weapon mount tank destroyed So after all that i did another 10 tests in each position with shermans all beeing elite crew to see what happend Panther in hull down position vs 3 elite shermans: 0% win rate Panther on open ground vs 3 elite shermans: 40% win rate I got many pictures from the different successes and failures, but i dont want to clutter the post, but in general this is why the panther wins open ground scenarios: The AI will always aim for the upper hull plate, which is the only place they can't penetrate. This is the aiming issue im talking about, the AI aims for the exact same location every single shot and will never deviate at all unless terrain forces them to. Once they are zeroed in, there is almost no hits to the turret or lower glacis at all, these lower glacis hits was two of the first shots fired. The panther won in the scenario that picture is taken from.

Thats what i would assume to happen, in all my tests it always takes more shots against a hull down opponent. If the game didn't reflect this then that would be very worrying, but it does that just fine as you show yourself. The point im making with hull down beeing worse for certain tanks is that they have the armor to take hits on the hull, and the AI will aim for the hull when they are on open ground and thus it increases their survivability compared to hull down. Im doing some tests as we speak and will share results soon, it shows exactly what im talking about.

You might be able to accept that the game has flaws, but some others here can't. Some people seem to defend the game to their grave and that you should just play differently or just "not get hit" in a war game. As you also point out that you want to end up on the enemy flank, that's fair cus that's the best case scenario. But not every game, plan or every unit composition is perfect so you will have scenarios where you can't do what you ideally want to, and this is where the game mechanics can play a huge part in the result.

Finally someone understands the hull down issue. I'm in the progress of doing more "practical" tests with hull down and not. I'm using the panther as example here and so far it has twice success rate by standing in the open compared to hull down.

In this clip I posted earlier you can see the stuarts fire first. https://streamable.com/mbsky1 so it's safe to assume they do infact spot the hull down panzers faster. As for the flank ambush. I expect that scenario to go like it would IRL with the ambush tank winning majority of those cases. If this game shows otherwise I would say it's broken beyond function, but from my playtime the game works well most of the time and I would assume that scenario to go as expected.

That is interesting, and I was thinking about that maybe cus the driver and co gunner isn't looking it spots worse. However the commander is up the hatch and should have best chance of any of them to spot and confirm a target. All this combines into mixed negatives and positives with hull down position or terrain infront of your tank. More types of tanks might need to be tested to give more practical results. I think CM could improve somewhat with this, hull down seems very terrible for what it's supposed to be. That's brings the other subject, how many shots on average does it take to hit a full Target compared to a hull down target? Needs to be tested to kind of confirm an accuracy bonus vs less exposed targets. These target issues seem to be a lot deeper than I thought.

I didn't use hotseat though, as there was no movement needed and AI automatically opens the tank. It still gave similar results to your test. And yes there seems to be some hidden accuracy bonus when facing hull down enemies. All hits on Stuarts in my cases was pretty much straight down the middle center line of the tank.

So now after another test. I tested again on my setup, but this time the stuarts were also hull down. The results are interesting to say the least. Panzers won 5/5 rounds, took 0-1 losses each time. 3 losses total. So what can we conclude from this? I dont know exactly lol. These results are so odd to me. When the stuarts are placed in a better position (hull down) they all of a sudden loose all rounds. It's like the panzers are less accurate or worse at spotting when the stuarts are on flat ground. Stuarts also missed quite a lot and it took them longer to spot now than when they were placed in the open.

ahh i see thats smart.

For refrence here is actual video footage from the test i performed, 3 panzers hull down vs 5 stuarts in the open at 700m. I had the difficulty set to elite this time as i forgot to change it from playing yesterday. Either way it shows the same results i got earlier. https://streamable.com/mbsky1 How can you control enemy units during testing?

In that case i might have to double testing, in my scenarios they all start in final position to have completely fresh spotting for both. Moving atleast the panzer into position would mean the commander can probably spot much quicker before the panzer exposes itself.

Did you drive into hull down position or did u start the test with both units already in hull down position? due to your results i will do more testing now for those units and see if i get different results than when i tested the first time (5 rounds isnt a lot)

Gun damage tests Tests were done with Tiger as target and sherman 75 as shooter. All tests done at 500m I did 10 tests of each tiger position and did 2 different scenarios (total 40 test runs). The tests were done within sort of realistic expectations of how many times a tiger would be able to resist hits in a normal scenario, so each test lasts untill the tiger has been hit 5 times. First scenario is testing random shots. This is done by having 5 shermans engaging the tiger at the same time, and since none of them will have time to zero in properly before the tiger is hit 5 times, its more random dispersion. 0 = no gun damage 1 = gun damaged Tiger hull down 2m hill vs 5 shermans : 0,1,0,0,1,0,0,0,1,1 = 40% chance of main gun damage Tiger in the open vs 5 shermans : 0,0,1,1,1,1,0,1,0,0 = 50% chance of main gun damage (tilted forwards) 1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0 = 20% chance of main gun damage (flat ground) This one is a bit odd as the first run i had i noticed the tiger was not completely flat on the ground, but slightly tilted forwards which resulted in vastly greater chance of main gun damage. I redid the test on flat ground to get proper results. This small tilt (left pic) gave 50% instead of 20%. Pretty interesting. Now for the secound scenario where i was testing zeroed shots. This was done with just 1 sherman firing untill 5 hits was recieved and this gives it time to zero in and have the accurate zeroing aim. Tiger hull down 2m hill vs 1 sherman : 0,1,0,1,1,1,1,1,0,0 = 60% chance of main gun damage. This one had 2 tests where the main gun actually was hit but didnt break for some reason so the chance could be as high as 80%. As pictured here. Tiger in the open vs 1 sherman : 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 = 0% chance of main gun damage. This one can be assumed to be less than 10%, more tests would eventually lead to atleast one main gun hit during the first shots. Conclusion Hull down is bad for a tank like tiger and most likely panther aswell vs enemies that has no realistic chance of killing the tank anyway. And for some reason, tilting the tank is also bad, dont know what to think about that one. For refrence this is how the weapon is hit in order to get main gun damage, the mantlet is too armored for the 75mm gun, so only the muzzle can get destroyed in this way.

I will do more tests soon, try to get some weapon kill data and some more with panzers and Stuart's.