RobZ

Did another test 5 stuart vs 3 panzer IV @700m, no target refrence points used First 5 rounds was with the panzers in hull down position This is how much is exposed from the stuarts perspective. When in hull down position the panzers won 2/5 times, and those 2 times they lost 2 tanks the first time and 1 tank the last time. Then i repeated the tests at the same range, but now panzers were placed in the open and not in hull down position In this scenario they won 5/5 times, and lost 0 tanks in all of them. Only lost 1 tank twice to mission kill (main gun damage) This happens because the stuarts aim low on the hull and once zeroing is taking good effect they will only strike the hull. Meanwhile in the hull down position they will obiously strike the turret and they do miss more, but in this scenario that doesn't matter as the panzers get quickly knocked out when zeroing reaches good levels. So this is one of the scenarios you do not want your panzer in a hull down position.

I did do one such test, 5 jacksons vs 5 panther/tiger. The panthers and tigers were put in a 2m hull down position so only the turret was showing. The jacksons were placed completely open on flat ground. The units were 2000m apart and had target refrence points on enemy position. Jacksons won 3/4 times vs tigers, and 3/3 times vs panthers. More tests would have to be done to give conclusive results, but so far its looking very good for the completely exposed jacksons.

This is true, but sadly its probably impossble to get real life data on this. When it comes to hull down though, im pretty sure hull down is always positive in real life. As you do have a human aiming so the aiming skill is still the same, but the overall target size is much smaller and that just automaticly makes it less likely to get taken out. The game represents this well with hull down beeing less likely to get hit, but when your tank has enough armor to actually resist those hits then there is a much higher chance of the tank beeing mission killed than if it was in the open. And this is due to the AI aiming, they never aim at the turret if the vehicle is completely exposed. They aim center-low hull which means the turret is very clean like shown in many of my tests. Panther is one of the tanks that has a clear advantage with exposing its full self, as the hull is much stronger than the turret and the AI automaticly aims for the hull.

Yes i know, but the AI does not have any "human" deviation in aiming, it manages to aim pixel perfect center line on the vehicle. The first shermans had no telescope at all, just a periscope. Then came the 3x12 telescope for sherman 75s and also existed for 76s. Sherman 76 tanks mostly had a 5x13 telescope. You must be refering to the M83 which i honestly don't know where it was used as i find no sources on it, but it was a variable 4x-8x telescope. a) This shows how the AI aims for the "center line" of the vehicle in all cases. The obvious aiming point for a ww2 tanker in this scenario is to shoot the rear, but they dont. This is sherman 75s targeting tiger 2s rear-side from ca. 1000m, and not just 1 tank, but 3. So either they all agreed on where to aim or the game only tells the AI to shoot the absolute center with no aiming deviation, and this is the issue im talking about. Im not saying gun accuracy is too good, but the AI is too perfect at aiming and add that with the more or less real gun accuracy already in the game, it gives a unrealisticly small hit zone at the exact same area. The only time the AI adjusts their aim is if terrain is infront of the target where they adjust upwards. b) I believe we see this game from different perspectives when playing. I would not have started any of these tests if i did not notice any weird behaviour from actual playing. I know that this is a game so i notice when "gamey" moments happen. Like all my stugs getting main gun damaged cus the AI aims perfectly dead center every shot and thus the gun is more likely to get hit. You mentioned earlier that the game engine might not handle this type of aiming deviation. And that might be true for the horizontal plane. As shown in the pictures the AI doesnt aim sideways at all, but they can adjust up and down. So it might infact be a engine limit for actually aiming around on the target. I already know that all vehicles in the game is just a single vertical line to the AI. I have had situations where a single tree is blocking the AI from shooting an enemy tank while you could clearly see the whole tank stick out around the sides of the tree, but the center line of the vehicle is blocked and thus the AI couldn't fire. As for reaching maximum accuracy. This can be done with target refrence points. In these tests i have used those most of the time to quickly get max accuracy. And at 2000m it usually only takes 1 miss before every shot starts hitting (occasional miss here and there). Another way is if your units have already engaged a target at that range and a new target appears, they will already know the range and have near max zeroing already. Mix this with the flawless center line aiming of the AI and you get shots landing exact center and not in a more realisticly spread manner. Why shouldn't the AI be a perfect center aim? That's because in real life its not always so easy to perfectly line up your sights at long ranges. Targets get pretty small through the telescope sight and the "crosshair" in your sight will start to become larger than the target and that makes it way harder to line up a dead center shot like the AI can, which would lead to more deviation on the target. When it comes to fire controls and if firing the gun moves the point of aim, i don't know the answear to that. But at 2000m the gun doesnt need to move much for the aim point on the target to move. For the gunner it might look like it didnt move at all, but at the target it might have moved 25cm to the right/left. Sherman 76 vs tiger 2 at 2000m Tiger 2 vs tiger 2 at 2000m These results doesn't tell me much. It looks rather similar, except the shermans got more rounds on target cus the tiger 2s actually killed their target. Both shermans and tigers missed their first shots and then started hitting. Shermans missed 2-3 times after that aswell while tiger 2s did not, but that might be RNG and the fact that shermans fired more.

Right, forgotten to mention this. Crew experience during ALL tests has been regular, 0, normal.

Sherman 76 at 2000m, beeing shot by a HMG 34 team constantly. This is 95% accuracy for the 2.5m x 2m target while under direct MG fire.

Yes there is a lot of misses first, but that's when the range is not exactly known, so several ranging shots will miss. But when max zeroing is reached, every single shot hits within that small area. The game engine can already handle deviation as seen when units first fire at long ranges, they can miss by huge margins so the game already handles this. The issue is that when they are fully zeroed, they no longer have deviation in aiming and it shows on the hits cus everything hits the same spot like the AI was spesificly aiming exact center of the target. And yes they should aim at the center of the target, but not with this computer level precision. As I stated earlier, tiger 2 has 85% accuracy within the red Cross, the Sherman in that scenario has way better than that, might even be 100% cus those 2 shots outside that area was early hits before zeroing was complete.

Yes, dont trade shots is the best tactic, but this isnt about how you should play the game. Depends what you mean the "same spot", as for the AI in this game they can aim on the same pixel every time which is not humanly possible. The combat stress is something that adds ontop of all this indeed, and as i showed in a previous post the sherman gets higher accuracy in combat than tiger 2 would in training.

This red cross represents 2.5m x 2m used for accuracy tables. Those hits are from sherman 76mm at 2000m in a combat scenario. It seems 2 hits are outside that area. Meanwhile the 8.8cm KwK43 gun in training has 85% accuracy for that same target. So in this scenario the 76mm sherman in combat conditions have better accuracy than 8.8cm kwk43 has in training. This is fully zeroed ofcourse, which would be about equal to the kwk43 training scenario where exact range is known to test accuracy.

The gun accuracy is not the point im making. Im talking about the AI literally aiming at the exact same pixel every shot, once the gun is fully zeroed the only deviation is the actual gun accuracy and not the "human" aiming it. My last post shows what im talking about, the tiger is only hit in one spot cus the AI aims at the exact same location every time which isn't realistic. Here is a tiger hit over 200 times by various calibers, and it sure looks like it was hit all over the place and doesnt have a small circle on its center mass.

More insanity. Tiger at an angle from 650m vs 76mm. All shots hit the same tiny area which is "center mass" from the shermans perspective.

So from some long experience with this game its become clear to me that the accuracy of tanks and AT guns are way too accurate once they are zeroed in. The AI will aim pixel perfect on the same spot every shot, only the gun accuracy itself will deviate the hits. Here is some tests i did with and without cover infront of the tank (hull down). The lesson here seems to be that a tank with enough armor SHOULD NOT go hull down cus its a death sentence due to how AI aims and mixed with the unreal zeroed accuracy the main gun will get knocked out very quickly. Tiger 2, behind a 2m hill (hull down) at 1000m vs 76mm guns. At 1000m i do not expect the hit area to be this tiny. The side and top turret is nearly untouched and the muzzle break is completely perforated from existance. Tiger 2, at 1000m not hull down vs 76mm guns. Here we can see that the AI targeting has changed to the hull instead and the turret is nearly untouched (only 3 shells hit the very lowest part of the turret). In this scenario the shermans ran out of AP so i deacivated the target arc for the tiger and it knocked out all 5 of them, while in the hull down scenario the main gun was knocked out almost instantly and would render the tank useless. Here we have a jagdpanther at 600m behind a 1m hill vs 76mm guns. Only the lower front is hull down. Again we see the insane accuracy once the tanks have been fully zeroed that gives a unreal hit area. The only deviation is the gun accuracy, not the "humans" aiming it. The mantlet for tank destroyers also seem unrealisticly weak to get penetrated at those insane angles and thus knocking out the main gun. Another thing with this one is that odd penetration on the barrel. How on earth can a shell penetrate the barrel at that angle, this should not be possible. Jagdpanzer IV L/70 at 600m behind 1m hill vs 76mm guns. Only the lower front is hull down. Here again the insane accuracy and main gun knocked out instantly. Jagdpanzer at 600m on flat ground vs 75mm guns. Here we see the targeting area has changed cus it has no terrain infront of it. In this scenario the main gun remains operational cus the AI cannot abuse its accuracy on the mantlet area so this tank would be better off than if it was hull down. The thing im saying is not that the overall accuracy is too good, cus that works just fine. What i am saying is that once the AI gets fully zeroed, they have no deviation what so ever in their aiming. Only the gun accuracy itself shows on the hit area of the target and it gives a unrealistic scenario of hits. All rounds land within tiny areas and if you use terrain to get hull down (which should be a good tactic) you will risk loosing the main gun very quickly. I expect to see hits all over the tanks in these scenarios and not within a tiny circle at +600m, remember there is supposed to be humans actually aiming the cannons, but the AI clearly aims at a single dot on the target with no deviation once the gun is fully zeroed. The few shells you see away from the main hit area is made before the gun is fully zeroed inwhich deviation is fine. I have only terrible experiences with StuGs for example cus the only thing that gets hit on those is the mantlet. And once the mantlet is hit (even by a stuarts 37mm) the main gun will be knocked out. In my games with stugs i get a unreal amount of main gun damages for shells hitting the gun directly or the mantlet (which should be 80mm like the rest of the front, but still get pierced for some reason) EDIT: Here is the deviation at 2000m. Notice how all rounds hit in a nice circle at center mass, the few shells that hit the sides and lower plate was before the gun was fully zeroed in and still had some aiming deviation. For refrence this is how the target would look from the gunners perspective, 5x gunner optics zoom. The target is tiny so managing to hit within that circle every time would be nearly impossible.

I'm in the progress of making a Bastogne map and I have been reading some here and find some usefull tips. This is my first real map ever in CM and I'm also making it completely without overlays cus I didn't know that existed untill a few days ago. Im making it from a mix of ww2 photos, google earth and some height map with contour lines. https://imgur.com/a/aWwoGid The map is 2.5x2.6 km in size, and some places have extremely long sight lines, like from one side to the other, one pic shows such a sight line. What do u guys think of that for gameplay? Making this map threw out everything I thought i knew about field designs. The fields around bastogne is the most oddly shaped and placed fields I have seen. The most odd looking fields you can see here is designed from what I see in real life photos and I'm not sure how good it looks for the map. Some fields even go straight across water streams... Another thing is that ww2 photos are black and white so I can't see the color of fields back in the day, but atleast on Google Earth there is a mix of green grassy fields, and proper fields like wheat and other stuff. Should I be having this kind of mixed fields like I do now or should I make everything grass or plown? Third, Bastogne fields have wire fences all over the place and even around wheat fields, so most of my fields have wire fencing. Do you guys find this realistic? I don't really see individual wire fences from ww2 photos, but i can sort of make out where the field seperation is and thus a wire fence. Any tips or feedback would be appreciated

That is a very nice chart to get exact numbers for QBs. The campaign we play doesn't use points per say during the battles. We do a lot of manual work with writing numbers and unit setups and so on and when we play battles the settings are always maxed out so we can buy what we need freely. Like from my example in the first post I had a full heavy panzer battalion, that's not cus I decided I want it, but I had that unit on the campaign map where the battle occured. I lost 11 tanks that battle which means those losses would carry over with that battalion into next battles if that happens. But ye that chart is for sure usefull if I decide to play a game with certain amount of points.

We will see how my railroad will look, bastogne has a railroad and it doesn't go perfectly straight lol.

I rotated the map so the main road is pointing straight north. Makes the process easier and I now have access to most buildings, will just have to accept that true north is 45° to the west aka northwest.

I'm in the progress of trying to make a bastogne map for CMFB. Bastogne's main road is offset 40° from North so I'm making the map at a 45 degree angle to have North in the correct direction. However I have now run into issues with the buildings. Not all building types are available in 45° orientation. Like all church parts only exists in 0°. Several modular buildings also lack 45° orientation and I feel I need those building types for more historical accuracy. I don't understand how several building types don't exist at 45° orientation with how limited the rotation is for buildings. It seems backwards to map making to not have all options in all possible orientations. This is most likey a problem with all CM games and I can't imagine it beeing much issue to fix this. Just make all buildings available in 0 and 45° with a patch or something.

Why is there not a unlimited or custom points amount in quick battles? For a game like this such an option seems like basic requirement, but it doesn't exist. Me and a friend is making/playing a h2h campaign with CMFB and we use QB to play out the battles. But at times the battle sizes can exceed the QB points. The largest battle we had on our last campaign was with allies having a full tank battalion, full airborne battalion, 11 aircraft and lots of artillery. Axis side (me) had a full heavy panzer battalion, pzgren battalion, volksgren battalion, 3 seperate infantry companies, 1 stug company, 1 marder company and lots of artillery. This resulted in my points exceeding 22000 which is what you get with 150% addition for attacker side. This ment we had to set all this up in scenario editor which is a much longer process and some TO&Es are even different there making it harder to have consistent units. Size of battle seems to be non-issue as we played 3 hours in real time and finished the game with allied surrender.