RobZ

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

4. Expansion of Combat Mission Games to VE-Day on Both Fronts: 1944-1945
End-of-war module that includes Brits, crossing the Rhine and the Ruhr pocket
A siege of Budapest for Hungarians
Battle for Berlin
(East vs West, 1945, 46)

10. Enhanced Modding Support
add units
equipment
functionality
ingame OOB editor

9. One Engine - CMx3
game performance improvments, graphics improvements, ray tracing, intermediate distance bitmaps
additional editor features, dynamic operational campaigns
additional gameplay features, coop, LoS tool, visible aircraft

This and other LOS/LOF phenomena are issues that we learn to "play around" but is a related item that needs to be looked at eventually.

I love the WeGo system, but part of it is also because the turn based mode forces players to either let their tank sit for a full minute and get pummelled, hoping to get a spot and a shot off during that time, or to guess how many seconds are needed to spot and shoot - which is impossible to estimate, since so many variables are at play.
So you end up with tanks staying up too long, taking too many hits, or you have your tank reverse back in cover just before it was about to shoot.
In real life (or playing real-time mode), the tank crew decides what is the optimal time to spot, shoot, and scoot.
This is not an attack on the WeGo mode, but just some reflections.

FWIW I don't see it as just a lab experiment. It's a situation that happens in pretty much every WeGo game involving at least one Panther tank.

@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.

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.

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.
 

If I played real-time mode, that's what I would do. But I play in turn based mode, so I have to find a balance between the chance to spot and hit the enemy tank and my own tank's survivability. For Shermans, that means hull down - for Panthers, it means hull up. At least that's my take on it.

The problem is that the size of CMX2 maps, as @Erwin (among others) has pointed out elsewhere, often doesn’t allow this. The maps are often designed to encourage really small engagements with little room for maneuver.  So repositioning often isn’t a choice. It depends heavily on the scenario and map designer. 

yea as a player this is something to keep in mind. I think the most obvious decision from a wego perspective:

* Attempting shoot and scoot Hulldown
* Before a major engagement has occurred (ambush position) Hulldown
* Once you are/are likely to be in a shoot out open ground (preferably keyholed)

Essentially you are trying to make the decision on whether you will need the concealment more than the armor. Once a real fight breaks out the armor is probably preferable since getting hit is just a matter of time.

Good explanation. Also, the tank sights might not be perfectly calibrated, so even if you did manage to line up the sight at exact centre mass, you might still be a bit off. I think this would also depend on the distance to the target.

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.

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.

Kind of funny you would say that, just after you said:

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.