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Allow AT guns to be remanned.


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In a game i'm playing, i wanted the crew of an 88 to leave the gun with a view to returning to it at a later stage, but in a test i performed, once the crew bailed out, the gun became classed as abandoned, and could not be manned again.

It would enhance the defensive aspect of CM immeasurably if it was possible to enter and exit a gun like it was a vehicle.

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When we were testing CMBN before the release, it was not possible for a crew to abandon a gun during a mission without some combat action that resulted in the destruction of the gun. One strong argument against adding this ability was that people would expect to be able to reman the gun after abandoning it and that that behaviour would require a considerable amount of new code. Fortunately, we got the ability to abandon the gun.

This whole thing is a trade-off of the coders limited time. This limited ability came at the expense of something else and any further coding time will detract from another feature. Now, camouflage, that would be good to have and be assured that some of us are petitioning for it as well. ;) Guns, once spotted, shouldn't last very long on the battlefield.

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One strong argument against adding this ability was that people would expect to be able to reman the gun after abandoning it and that that behaviour would require a considerable amount of new code.

Another strong argument against may be that without the ability to re-man the gun there isn't any good reason to un-man it in the first place. At least I have yet to use the feature. Since abandoning the gun ends it's day anyway my motivation is towards letting them go down in a blaze of glory, taking as much of the enemy with it as possible.

I hope the feature that got cut in it's favor wasn't AAA or a Combined Arms QB option... :eek: ;)

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Hehe, yeah, that's what I was going to say ...

When the gun's ammo is out and the enemy is rapidly closing in...

You have guns use all their ammo without being destroyed ? :eek:

Ok, I suppose it's possible for an Infantry gun maybe, the 150mm doesn't have all that much ammo, but a PAK ... seems unlikely ;)

I've suggested before that it would be nice if the guns could be coded as a vehicle. Then you get the dismount/bail/reman behaviour already coded as well as the ability to push it backwards (reverse ;) ).

The only extra coding I can see would be in making it be towable.

Live in hope :)

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You have guns use all their ammo without being destroyed ? :eek:

Ok, I suppose it's possible for an Infantry gun maybe, the 150mm doesn't have all that much ammo, but a PAK ... seems unlikely

Not every mission gives your forces 100% ammo loads. I've designed a few myself where the guns have SCARCE ammo and therefore, only 5-7 rounds each. You have to make them count. ;)

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Hehe, yeah, that's what I was going to say ...

You have guns use all their ammo without being destroyed ? :eek:

Ok, I suppose it's possible for an Infantry gun maybe, the 150mm doesn't have all that much ammo, but a PAK ... seems unlikely ;)

Live in hope :)

In Bois de Baugin I had a crew shoot a gun dry and the surviving leader of that team was able to abandon the gun and join in the defense. The gun position was getting MG'd, mortar'd and shot at by tank rounds and still held off several Shermans.

As the line goes - Location, Location, Location....

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Another strong argument against may be that without the ability to re-man the gun there isn't any good reason to un-man it in the first place. ;)

There is a reason, set the gun up at the start of the battle, then hide the crew somewhere in the vicinity to avoid crew casualties if it rains pre plan artillery,then when it's over, re crew ;)

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There is a reason, set the gun up at the start of the battle, then hide the crew somewhere in the vicinity to avoid crew casualties if it rains pre plan artillery,then when it's over, re crew ;)

mmm maybe, but there is also a good chance that artillery that would've hit the crew is also going to destroy the gun or the crew hides somewhere and gets killed but the gun is still sitting there, now unusable...at which point we will cry foul how come nobody else can crew the gun cause Private John E Atcheley of Company H 2nd BN 505th PIR did exactly that at St Mere Eglise destroying an StuG in the process single handedly. (true story)

Personally I wouldn't mind having this feature, but it's inclusion is one of those I think BF has judged to mostly be prone to "gamey" applications more often than need. We have a lot of work ahead of us to convince them differently.

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Hehe, yeah, that's what I was going to say ...

You have guns use all their ammo without being destroyed ? :eek:

Ok, I suppose it's possible for an Infantry gun maybe, the 150mm doesn't have all that much ammo, but a PAK ... seems unlikely ;)

Depends on the scenario. The one I was thinking of, which I've just finished, I'm not sure my opponent ever spotted it, and only localised it enough to drop an effective bombardment on it after it had fired everything. I don't think it engaged a target closer than about 800m, and that was a somewhat speculative AE target with the HE. Most bocage maps are too claustrophobic for ATGs to survive very long, since short range spotting is fast.

I've suggested before that it would be nice if the guns could be coded as a vehicle. Then you get the dismount/bail/reman behaviour already coded as well as the ability to push it backwards (reverse ;) ).

The only extra coding I can see would be in making it be towable.

From the outside, that does look like a logical approach to the problem. It's so obvious that I'm sure it's been considered. In fact it has to have been a very early design decision, and I'm certain the discussion wasn't as straight forward as:

"What shall we code guns as? Crew-served weapons or vehicles that can be towed."

"I dunno. Flip for it?"

If BFC designed things that way we wouldn't have a game yet. Or ever.

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mmm maybe, but there is also a good chance that artillery that would've hit the crew is also going to destroy the gun or the crew hides somewhere and gets killed but the gun is still sitting there, now unusable...at which point we will cry foul how come nobody else can crew the gun cause Private John E Atcheley of Company H 2nd BN 505th PIR did exactly that at St Mere Eglise destroying an StuG in the process single handedly. (true story)

Personally I wouldn't mind having this feature, but it's inclusion is one of those I think BF has judged to mostly be prone to "gamey" applications more often than need. We have a lot of work ahead of us to convince them differently.

ISTR that this was a pretty common tactic later in the East, at least for larger battles with significant fortifications. So maybe we'll see it there.

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I only play H2H and I continue to throw them into the mix from time to time because I like the 'idea' of them being useful.

But against a human, they very rarely pay for themselves.

Being able to scatter the crew when the arty drops, then re-crew when it's done is an absolute must to survivability.

There's no keyhole tight enough that human player can't soon be dumping mortars on it.

Along with the cover armour arc (which is obviously coming), re-crew is the only thing that'll make AT guns move from an 'expect nothing' choice, to a potentially valuable asset verse humans players.

As it is almost no-one ever uses them in H2H, which is a shame.

To my mind it also means that in the crucible of the games most difficult format, human v human, the fact that AT guns are avoided seems to be evidence that they're broken as a option.

We can de-crew and re-crew tanks, an ability that adds very little to their survivability, but the crew of a AT gun can't leave the asset then come back to it, which would vastly improve it's survivability.

Personally, I do think it should be a high priority to fix, simply because there's an asset already in the game that no-one in the H2H community I play with ever uses because it's too vulnerable due to an artificial constraint.

Just my 2c.

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From the outside, that does look like a logical approach to the problem. It's so obvious that I'm sure it's been considered.

Not necessarily, from working in IT, I know that sometimes you can get "too close" to a problem, getting fixated on one particular solution and not able to change gears as it were.

Not saying that happened, just that it can. Whether they can go back and rejig it depends on the complexity of things. I'd guess we're SOL :(

I To my mind it also means that in the crucible of the games most difficult format, human v human, the fact that AT guns are avoided seems to be evidence that they're broken as a option.

Not necessarily - we've only had the Cover Armour Arc since FI and not yet in BN, so I'd say it's early yet as to whether humans v human will see them used more.

Although I agree with most of your post in essence.

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Whatever kills the gun crew is more than likely to damage the gun.

Remember they are not just lumps of metal, they are quite intricate mechanisms. It was ok for the gunners at Waterloo to run and seek safety in the infantry squares as those guns were big lumps of metal - although even these could still be spiked with the right equipment.

If I was an A/T gunner coming back to my gun after a heavy bombardment on the locality, I’d be damned sure to give that gun and any stored ammunition a good going over before firing it.

So if they ever get to the position of allowing us to re-crew A/T guns, I would expect a time penalty to be incurred to cover this – or – have the possibility of the gun have a premature or even more fun, the ordinance fly off the carriage backwards (possibly taking out an ammunition number) because the recoil system was goosed.

That would be one hell of an animation sequence.

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Tiger tank front turret armor issue. *ahem*

mortar smoke ammo issue

Lynx missing from QBs

US M4A1 and M21 mortar halftracks missing from QBs

King Tiger, Lynx and Wespe models (although I wonder if these may be done with the 2.0 upgrade).

Ridiculous QB unit prices for US and German rocket artillery (probably wont be fixed, but should be)

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I thought it was only the US rocket artillery that was dirt cheap.

If it's both sides then it's not quite such a problem as only one side getting big-boom-stuff cheap as chips. I've not used it for either side - I heard "inaccurate" and that was enough for me :)

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