Modelling Vehicles Motion

[dieseltaylor]

Since Version ! I have been a bit peeved with the modelling of the vehicles in terms of terms of speed. I had thought that having correct speeds was a fairly fundamental part of the game.

BF respondedd to a degree by having vehicles reverese more slowly than going forward though this seems to have been done generically rather than relating to individual tanks.

Following the release of CW I have played with the Daimler II armoured car which is pretty speedy doing a flying 2 kilometres in 2 minutes so roughly 60kph/42mph. More impressively the speed builds over time with increasing speed at the first few 250metre marks.

In reverse it takes roughly 4:40 for a kilometre which I think works out to the generic figure of 5-6 mph. There seems to be no difference whether the turret is facing forwards or back. One might think there should be.

Anyway the Daimler II has two drivers facing opposite ways and a 5 speed gearbox which allows it to travel equally fast in either direction. A very neat trick used in a lot of armoured cars to get them out of trouble speedily.

I think BF need to fix this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimler_Armoured_Car

[Medex]

Boy your a hard man to please. Now you want specific speeds for specific vehicles.

I wonder how hard to implement that would be. But I'm for anything that make unit movements more realistic and characteristic of the way they moved in real life.

You go diesel, l like your style. They may be listening.

[Rocky Balboa]

Boy your a hard man to please. Now you want specific speeds for specific vehicles.

I wonder how hard to implement that would be. But I'm for anything that make unit movements more realistic and characteristic of the way they moved in real life.

You go diesel, l like your style. They may be listening.

Well, if BF's goal with CM:BN is to make an accurate June 44 battlefield simulation then modeling the correct speed of vehicles is not an unreasonable request.

[JonS]

What is the speed of every vehicle in CMBN and CMBN:CW? On every type of terrain. In every weather condition. On every ground condition. By day and by night. Oh, and don't forget to tabulate it by driver experience and motivation. You might as well throw ground inclination into the mix as well. And vehicle age along with maintenance state.

Not the Top Speed or the Minimum Speed, but The Speed. Actually, make that The Speeds; Fast, Slow, Quick, Hunt, Move, and Reverse. And make sure everyone who owns the game, or any previous version of CM and who therefore think they still get a say, or has looked at BFCs webpage ... in fact everyone who might have an opinion on just how fast vehicles travelled in WWII, agrees with The Speeds. ALL of The Speeds.

Answers on a postcard.

What? It's a reasonable request, right Rocky?

Thanks

Jon

[c3k]

Hyperbole aside, although I _did_ enjoy "The Speed " - that was beyond a witticism and bordering on genius, it would be interesting to see what the game models for each vehicle in each direction and speed.

I'd be "down" with rear-driver vehicles (limited, it seems, to certain armored cars), to have a decided advantage in reverse.

For all I know, it is already modelled.

Ken

[winkelried]

i still wait for the Archer - there wouldn't be a problem with reversing, since driving forward is actually backwards and driving backwards is actually forward :confused: or the other way round :confused:

[dieseltaylor]

What is the speed of every vehicle in CMBN and CMBN:CW? On every type of terrain. In every weather condition. On every ground condition. By day and by night. Oh, and don't forget to tabulate it by driver experience and motivation. You might as well throw ground inclination into the mix as well. And vehicle age along with maintenance state.

Not the Top Speed or the Minimum Speed, but The Speed. Actually, make that The Speeds; Fast, Slow, Quick, Hunt, Move, and Reverse. And make sure everyone who owns the game, or any previous version of CM and who therefore think they still get a say, or has looked at BFCs webpage ... in fact everyone who might have an opinion on just how fast vehicles travelled in WWII, agrees with The Speeds. ALL of The Speeds.

Answers on a postcard.

What? It's a reasonable request, right Rocky?

Thanks

Jon

Grumpy today?

I am surprised too as I thought inclines and different terrain was already modelled by BF for movement. Please confirm if this is not so. However I do know reverse is not modelled by BF for each tank and this is particularly astounding that no one realised that armoured cars would be a special case.

Most WW2 grogs would be aware that armoured cars often had two drivers and the reasons why. The only two majors not to have them in their armoured cars were the USA and the USSR. And the M8 stunk as a recon vehicle.

[Cymru]

i still wait for the Archer - there wouldn't be a problem with reversing, since driving forward is actually backwards and driving backwards is actually forward :confused: or the other way round :confused:

Similar to:

When he killed the Mudjokivis,

With the skin he made him mittens,

Made them with the fur side inside,

Made them with the skin side outside,

He, to get the warm side inside,

Put the inside skin side outside.

He, to get the cold side outside,

Put the warm side fur side inside.

That's why he put the fur side inside,

Why he put the skin side outside

Why he turned them inside outside.

[JonS]

Please confirm if this is not so.

You have the wrong person. Slaves can be found over there.

[JonS]

Anyway the Daimler II has two drivers facing opposite ways

Anyway, this is wrong.

[winkelried]

Anyway, this is wrong.

ahh I thought the II in Daimler II stands for II drivers

[A Canadian Cat]

What is the speed of every vehicle in CMBN and CMBN:CW? On every type of terrain. In every weather condition. On every ground condition. By day and by night. Oh, and don't forget to tabulate it by driver experience and motivation. You might as well throw ground inclination into the mix as well. And vehicle age along with maintenance state.

Aaaaaah yes trying to get to that is a reasonable request. I think it is reasonable to model armor thickness, armor angle, vehicle orientation and track individual shells too.

We get that its hard and that some compromises need to be made. BF clearly has done some work on vehicle speeds because they do vary based on terrain type. He was pointing out that reverse speeds don't very from vehicle to vehicle. Pointing this out seems reasonable to me.

And just so I don't get jumped on - I also agree that not everything can be modeled perfectly out of the gate. I would like to be able to point out areas that can be made better. That is the whole point of this forum. I trust that BF will make good decisions about priorities. They have clearly demonstrated that they can do that.

[Thomm]

Anyway, this is wrong.

So tell us your opinion: should a vehicle that is equipped with two steering wheels and a gearbox that gives the same transmission in both directions be allowed to go full speed in reverse or not. If not, should it be able to drive faster in reverse than comparable vehicles without such equipment?

Best regards,

Thomm

[JonS]

So tell us your opinion: should a vehicle that is equipped with two steering wheels and a gearbox that gives the same transmission in both directions be allowed to go full speed in reverse or not. If not, should it be able to drive faster in reverse than comparable vehicles without such equipment?

In theory? Of course.

In practice? Of course not. The are significant practical differences that preclude that.

In the game? Definitely not. For the game, BFC have to select ONE speed from a literally infinite range of choices. They picked one that a few people chose to be upset about. Cry me a river. The choice they made is as good and reasonable as any other single choice they could have made, and much better than some others they could have made.

[A Canadian Cat]

No, obviously you don't.

Interesting - I think I went out of my way to point out that I do understand (and accept) that compromises need to be made. I'll add that the current vehicle speeds have never actually bothered me.

I simply think that, in the spirit of an accurate as possible game, it is a reasonable request that the speed that vehicles travel on different terrain be modeled. I further think that BF will do a good job of placing request on its prioritized backlog.

[JonS]

I would like to be able to point out areas that can be made better.

Huh. People like to throw out "but won't anybody think of the realism!" like it's a get out of jail free card

The point of my post above is to challenge that flawed assertion. What is the realistic - or better, if you will - speed of a vehicle in any of the conditions I listed? Why is your speed better than my speed? Why are either of our speeds better than what's in the game? And why should BFC use either of them when it's unlikely that even the two of us can agree, and anyway someone else is just going to come along and repeat exactly the same conversation tomorrow?

I simply think that, in the spirit of an accurate as possible game, it is a reasonable request that the speed that vehicles travel on different terrain be modeled.

But that is modelled. Diesel just objects because, well, mainly because he doesn't like the game. Maybe he wasn't hugged enough as a child. But he's not complaining that different speeds are modeled. He's complaining about the particular speed that BFC chose to use in their model.

[A Canadian Cat]

Huh. People like to throw out "but won't anybody think of the realism!" like it's a get out of jail free card

I did not think I was in jail;)

[dieseltaylor]

Apparently JonS not only knows the inner workings of BF such as there can only be one speed, but he also knows my mind.

However I have not been kicking up unduly over various tanks having the same reversing speeds though an explanation might be handy. After all if you can model forward speeds why cannot you model reversing speeds? And I accept there may be approximations.

JonS

In practice? Of course not. The are significant practical differences that preclude that.

In the game? Definitely not. For the game, BFC have to select ONE speed from a literally infinite range of choices. They picked one that a few people chose to be upset about. The choice they made is as good and reasonable as any other single choice they could have made, and much better than some others they could have made.

I am confused as to the armoured car conundrum. If you are going to model them so their main benefit is removed why include them in the game? Eyecandy? And surely to code them that reverse = forward speed cannot be impossible!

Perhaps someone from BF can advise what is going on here.

[dieseltaylor]

I should explain that to me the restriction on how fast tanks can reverse actually has a very big effect on how a player can use them. If in real life you can rush up to a hedgeline at 25mph have some shots and reverse off at speed you are going to use them in that manner.

Since Ver1.01 the speed is somwhere about 5.5mph I believe. Which I think is the compromise figure JonS refers to. The Tiger has the best reverse speed I have found which is about that. The Sherman is 3.5mph and the Churchill 2.5 mph.

I think you would agree that if in RL you reverse back at a crawl then you are probably going to be a lot more careful how you position the tank than us players are. But as I said I can accept - if there is good reason- why there might be a generic for tanks.

It certainly improves the realism for tanks.

[sburke]

I should explain that to me the restriction on how fast tanks can reverse actually has a very big effect on how a player can use them. If in real life you can rush up to a hedgeline at 25mph have some shots and reverse off at speed you are going to use them in that manner.

Since Ver1.01 the speed is somwhere about 5.5mph I believe. Which I think is the compromise figure JonS refers to. The Tiger has the best reverse speed I have found which is about that. The Sherman is 3.5mph and the Churchill 2.5 mph.

I think you would agree that if in RL you reverse back at a crawl then you are probably going to be a lot more careful how you position the tank than us players are. But as I said I can accept - if there is good reason- why there might be a generic for tanks.

It certainly improves the realism for tanks.

While I am all for making everything as true to capability as possible, I am not sure that reverse speed will truly make a difference in this specific scenario and am speaking from a PBEM battle I am currently engaged in. All I need is to back off the hedgerow enough for the enemy to lose LOS. Even at slow speed that would occur pretty darn quick.

Where I see this as more important is if a defensive position is about to be flanked or overwhelmed and the next position is a fair bit behind. Being able to fast reverse kind of removes the tactical vulnerability of the situation.

This may be more an issue with the CW mod as I found constricted terrain considerations to be more important than actual speed in tactical situations in the base game.

[Amizaur]

Could we please talk also about tanks in CMBN, making impression they are accelerating like today's MBTs ?

Don't you think, that tanks in CMBN have too quick reaction times, especially the drivers ? -They start to turn the tank or to move it the same milisecond the order was given. Maybe a 1-2s delay (dependant on experience rating) - just simulating time for the driver to crank RMP and physically handle the controls - would be better ? )

What do you think about the KT turning in place, in terrain, with surprising ease ?

Shouldn't the KT be a little less maneuverable in terrain than it is now ?

The real KT could accelerate not that bad, in fact quite good for such heavy tank, and had a decent max speed - but all that on a hard surface.

There are some videos of Samour KT moving and accelerating on hard road. Not that bad.

But find some videos of the same tank moving in terrain, hear the sound of the engine working hard, see the tank turning. It's MUCH harder to maneuver in terrain for such heavy tank. It has to maneuver slower, at low gear, on high RPM. It accelerates slower, because of the drag. When it gains some speed, then it can turn relatively well, but from a stop it turns or rotates really very slowly. MUCH slower, than in the game.

Watching some similar video (Samour KT on hard road) I was under impression that KT can hardly rotate in place (from a stop) on the road. The driver tried this, but gave up. Maybe he didn't want to strain the running gear / transmission.

After seeing that, I'm in doubt KT could rotate in place at all on softer ground, in terrain. Even if it was able to, it would be extremally slow and extremally hard for transmission/running gear.

In CMBN, I played KT once. My KT was standing betwen some light trees. It rotated in place very quickly. I ordered it to turn 30deg to the right - it took him mayeb 3s to do that. I could bet same maneuver in real life would take on average at least 10 seconds. It saw a target 45deg to the left - again turned the hull in few seconds to face it. It was really fast in turning.

The KT in CMBN has many advantages in game. Great armor, great gun, very fast turret rotation speed. Not sure if there is greater chance for one breaking during the game, than for other tanks. Should be. Unfortunately it's also very maneuverable in terrain, can turn very quickly in place, facing the enemy that managed to surprise him from a side.

It's a little too uber... This tank really had many advantages, but also some disadvantages - like being rather slow (in terrain) and not very maneuverable (I mean that it maneuvered slower than other, not so heavy tanks - also straining it's engine / transmission / running gear). I'd like to see those disadvantages being reflected in the game, too......

[Vark]

I think the trouble is the Allied armoured flaws are easier to simulate than the 'hidden' flaws of the German armour (poor reliability, weak transmissions, final drives etc). So poor Mr Sherman gets a piddly 75mm, crappish armour and less sophisticated optics, all easy to simulate. Whereas Mr Uber-kitty gets no real movement penalties (Panther took alot of time/distance to get to the higher gears and thus higher speeds) no real representations of mechanical unreliability and no sense, operationally, that they were resource hogs, all hard, beyond the scope of the game, to simulate.

It was like/is like this in the miniatures games, which is why so many wargamers still love their German armour, quite simply because their extensive flaws have been hard to simulate or ignored for commercial reasons.

[Childress]

Wikipedia:

Overall, the Tiger II was a formidable tank in spite of its problems. Its 88 mm armament could destroy any of the Allied armored fighting vehicles in service during the war far outside the effective ranges of their guns.[34] Also, notwithstanding its reliability problems, the Tiger II was remarkably agile for such a heavy vehicle. Contemporary German records and testing results indicate that its mobility was as good as or better than most German or Allied tanks.

[Nidan1]

Similar to:

When he killed the Mudjokivis,

With the skin he made him mittens,

Made them with the fur side inside,

Made them with the skin side outside,

He, to get the warm side inside,

Put the inside skin side outside.

He, to get the cold side outside,

Put the warm side fur side inside.

That's why he put the fur side inside,

Why he put the skin side outside

Why he turned them inside outside.

All of this took place by the Shores of Gitchee Goomie, right?

What does it have to do with Der Normandie?

[Vanir Ausf B]

The SdKfz 232 had a rear-facing driver and driver controls. The main advantage of this may have been the ability to drive backwards without running into stuff. IRL a driver backing up a tank would need to be guided, probably by the tank commander, which would slow things down.

Watching some similar video (Samour KT on hard road) I was under impression that KT can hardly rotate in place (from a stop) on the road. The driver tried this, but gave up. Maybe he didn't want to strain the running gear / transmission.

After seeing that, I'm in doubt KT could rotate in place at all on softer ground, in terrain. Even if it was able to, it would be extremally slow and extremally hard for transmission/running gear.

KT could rotate in place, but probably did not do so often. I remember reading somewhere that is was indeed hard on the transmission. However, it could also turn around in the length of its body by locking one track. Here is a video of a 45 ton Jagdpanther turning a complete 180° in 12 seconds.

BTW, notice how much the Jagdpanther rocks back and forth when it stops and starts. CMBN may be more accurate in that aspect than it's been given credit for.