crsutt Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 I just moved a American infantry squad into a building. I had them slow move into position but when they finished the move and started to set up they got raped by a couple of German squads in another building about 100 meters away. Took about five seconds for 2/3rd of the squad to go down. Am I moving into position wrong? Is an American squad too large for a single floor of a good sized two level building? No matter what I do it seems that I just get blown out when advancing into buildings. Are buildings fairly weak defensive positions? This was a stone building with ample windows facing the enemy. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
womble Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 I just moved a American infantry squad into a building. I had them slow move into position but when they finished the move and started to set up they got raped by a couple of German squads in another building about 100 meters away. Took about five seconds for 2/3rd of the squad to go down. Am I moving into position wrong? Dependent on the building type, possibly. By which I mean that some building types offer little protection once the bullets start flying. Often the best position for the majority of a squad is actually behind the building where they're mostly hidden from sight. Sneak a scout team into the building proper for "eyes on". Also, are you putting a covered arc on the squad to stop them shooting "as they bear"? I tend to put a fire control order on the waypoint before the Slow: either a circular CA that only covers the building they're entering, or a Pause and an Area Target inside the building. The terminal waypoint at the end of the Slow would get a circular CA that stops well short of the next cover. Is an American squad too large for a single floor of a good sized two level building? I would say "yes" to that. One reason I always split teams. Are buildings fairly weak defensive positions? This was a stone building with ample windows facing the enemy. It's difficult to tell just by looking which buildings are deathtraps and which are the next best thing to bunkers. Elevation also matters. If the enemy can fire downwards into your position, lots of windows is going to be a disadvantage. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt Schultz Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 The quickest way to become familiar with the building types is to go into the editor and place one of each on a simple test map. Then stare at them or take screenshots and print them up for a recognition chart. I have found that the level of cover ramps up according to both building type and size. This is a rough idea.. from least to most cover ... Barns Independent 1 tile 1 story Independent 1 tile multiple-story Independent multiple-tile 1 story Independent multiple-tile tile multiple-story Commercial Modular 1 tile 1 story Modular 1 tile multiple-story Modular multiple-tile 1 story Modular multiple-tile multiple-story Large Church --------- Number of windows and doors will effect changes on the amount of cover. The amount of pre-placed damage on a Modular building will also change cover values. Look for "wall-wraps". Some designers will wrap the foundation of a building with a low stone or brick wall. A unit on HIDE inside one of these is safe from all incoming small arms fire at same elevation. ---------- When you slow move into a structure, it may help to have a HIDE command at the end of the move. Then at the start of the next orders phase, you can give more coherent orders to all your squads/teams. As stated above by womble, teams are the order of the day in urban combat. The tactics of getting in the building can be addressed as well. Did you use smoke? Covering area fire? Lots of details to a successful urban mission. Edit - Download Tanks a Lot's incredibly, amazingly, beautiful independent building mod. This will allow you to know which buildings to stay away from. They are for looking, not touching. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crsutt Posted November 15, 2012 Author Share Posted November 15, 2012 Great tips. Thanks for the advice. I bought the game a year ago but have only really begun to delve into it. There is a lot to learn. Thanks again. Now that you have me thinking about it. Should I always be breaking down into teams? That is, is there a time to keep my squads intact and a time to break them down? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 100m is close. Even a smg round is liable to pass through a wall at that range. The old big-bullet rifles from WWII fired the same round as their machineguns, go through stout trees, concrete, brick. In Afghansitan the U.S. army has been pulling old M14 rifles out of mothballs and refurbished them to add extra wall piercing power to platoons. The best protection you can get from a building is to be behind it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slysniper Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 MANY OF US HAVE HAD THE SAME PROBLEM LEARNING HOW TO USE BLDGS AS COVER IN THE NEW GAME. But now having played for awhile, I find building can give plenty of cover in the right situation. So learning to judge buildings as to how well they protect is a art. The game should give us a clue as to what type of building we are looking at, but it does not. One easy way to know if it gives good cover is send a two man team in, when the enemy bullits start to fly, watch and see how many bounce off the walls and how many go through, exspecially MG's and bigger stuff. Some of the Mod buildings do a real good job, then keep your units small and try to keep only one man per window. Playing a battle right now where two italians have held off 3 squads of Americans in a city fight where their building looks down the street the americans are trying to move down. With all that firepower they could not pin them two guys. That is good protection. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holman Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 Edit - Download Tanks a Lot's incredibly, amazingly, beautiful independent building mod. This will allow you to know which buildings to stay away from. They are for looking, not touching. I know it's probably obvious, but is the idea that stone and brick buildings are good protection while the plaster covered buildings are less so? Is the implication that the plaster covers a wooden wall (or thinner brick) rather than heavy stone? (I'm probably confused because I live in a house that's plaster on thick stone.) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akd Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 That was a joke. Where a given building model has multiple texture options, there is no correlation between texture and protection. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt Schultz Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 Yeah, there is no cover difference on appearance. It is building type that matters. Independents have lousy cover as a general rule. So if it is a pretty modded one, stay away period. Modulars are better. Multiple piece multiple story Modulars with walls placed around the ground floors are best. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted November 17, 2012 Share Posted November 17, 2012 Note that the main reason buildings do not give realistic levels of protection in CMx2 games is the pixeltruppen do not use them correctly. They walk up to the front windows, put their whole body in front of those windows, and look out with as wide a field of view as they can manage. Between window exposure, being easily located (not only "the building is occupied", but within it), and the walls being paper mache, they proceed to drop like flies. The proper way to use buildings as cover is to keyhole through the window from the back side of the room or the nearest corner, with only a narrow angle to the point you want to shoot at, visible. Buildings used properly offer excellent concealment even while shooting, regardless of how impervious to bullets - or not impervious - the walls are. But the tac AI doesn't know this, nor the sighting routines, come to that. It is a game limitation. Adapt your tactics to it, accordingly. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted November 17, 2012 Share Posted November 17, 2012 I see, in this Normandy then and now photo series, lots of hard cover stone buildings. I have no idea whether or not these are typical of Normandy buildings, but I wouldn't want to have to root out determined defenders in these. http://www.allpics4u.com/places/normandy-1944-then-and-now.html Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieseltaylor Posted November 17, 2012 Share Posted November 17, 2012 MikeyD has one view of the ease at which buildings are penetrated and others hold that the CM model is too bullish on effects. If you read this thread you will find a discussion quoting figures [and opinions] that show that brick and stone are effective. It is important when viewing the US Marine film to remeber that old European houses have much thicker walls than the ones in the demonstration. Also that the ammunition used is improved significantly since WW2. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=107118 It is also true that you also have wattle and daub, single brick structures, and wooden houses in Europe, depending on the area, and these would not be as robust. However from the game side you have to play with what is provided so advice on tricks is important. PS. Re-issuing M14's is nothing to do with shooting through walls as a glance at Wikipedia reveals: " A 2009 study conducted by the U.S. Army claimed that half of the engagements in Afghanistan occurred from beyond 300 meters (330 yd).[21] America’s 5.56x45 mm NATO service rifles are ineffective at these ranges; this has prompted the reissue of thousands of M14s." 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Jason: I understand how to move a unit to the back wall of a building (away from a windowed wall) with a covered arc that faces the non-windowed wall direction. However, to have them turn and shoot back out of the window, one has to remove the arc, or rotate it back to the window. As soon as one does that, (and there is an enemy visible through the window) I find that units will rush to the windowed wall to shoot. How do you manage to keep em keyholed at the back wall? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
womble Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 How do you manage to keep em keyholed at the back wall? You don't. As Jason notes, it's an engine limitation. A limitation which is partially supposed, I suppose, to be mitigated by the "terrain save" of being in a building, which can be a pretty high chance "to save" in the aforementioned "large modular" types. It's a departure from the 1:1 modelling, because, I imagine at least in part, the buildings aren't modelled 1:1. Most of the buildings you see in the game are, if you look at the scale, somewhat overlarge, and their internal structure isn't modelled. So, IRL, you'd be near the back wall of the room facing the enemy, to be in shadow and present a narrow angle of attack/vision, but there's no "back wall" to the room, in-game, only to the building. In a lot of ways, keeping a team facing the back wall of the building is as wrong as having them front up to the window ledges on the exposed side. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 Cover assessment was much simpler in CMx1, and the abstractions in that engine postponed the in-game reckoning we now face. I well remember what a tough nut even a small heavy building could be, going as far back as CMBO. I have no idea whether there's any kind of AI fix for our current issues with properly using buildings as cover for infantry, but that doesn't stop me from hoping. I have no idea how to code such a thing, but how I wish squads had some sort of horse sense/SOP when it came to deploying in buildings. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 What womble said. I was contrasting the way to use building cover in real life, with how it is portrayed in the game. The Tac AI doesn't know how to use buildings properly, and the sighting routines wouldn't let you use them properly even if you could get around that. In the game, to see out of the building you need to be standing at the window or door you are looking out - and then you see the whole field of view on that side of the building. That isn't the way real soldiers use building cover. It is just the game simplifying things to make it easier to handle, computationally. The real deal of selecting keyhole positions from deep within the building interior to watch specific fire lanes or desired targeted points, then adjusting the interior spot chosen to move that lane or point around, is too complicated for the game to handle. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cool breeze Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 WOW Thanks for the amazing link! wonderful to see how little some of that has changed, and how in many places the just repaired the damage. I see, in this Normandy then and now photo series, lots of hard cover stone buildings. I have no idea whether or not these are typical of Normandy buildings, but I wouldn't want to have to root out determined defenders in these. http://www.allpics4u.com/places/normandy-1944-then-and-now.html Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieseltaylor Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 I was curious as to the buildings of easy perforation whether anyone had ever tried shooting out through the wall. Or is it a one way process? We have all been in the situation that we know someone is working around the blindside of a house ...... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 cool breeze, You're welcome! Found it while trying to run down a picture I saw of a wattle and daub building in Normandy with its corner ripped open. Never did find it. If you like those, you might find the After The Battle book by Lefevre PANZERS IN NORMANDY worth a gander. I never had a copy, but I got to glance through one. Drool! Quite a few buildings in there, as I recall. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 cool breeze, The modeling bocage piece here has two great period pics with Normandy buildings: a 6 pr antitank gun deployed in a Normandy lane with a farm in the right background and a FJ Panzerschreck team passing in front of our old friend, a small stone building. http://dhcwargamesblog.wordpress.com/category/terrain-building/ Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slysniper Posted November 20, 2012 Share Posted November 20, 2012 I was curious as to the buildings of easy perforation whether anyone had ever tried shooting out through the wall. Or is it a one way process? We have all been in the situation that we know someone is working around the blindside of a house ...... have not tried to do it intentionally, but I have seen my troops shoot at enemy units from inside of the building through solid walls. I figured it was the iissue with the bug that sometimes building dont show door and windows in the correct location. Not sure they have fixed all the buildings with the isue. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
womble Posted November 21, 2012 Share Posted November 21, 2012 I was curious as to the buildings of easy perforation whether anyone had ever tried shooting out through the wall. Or is it a one way process? We have all been in the situation that we know someone is working around the blindside of a house ...... I'm not sure quite how you'd arrange such a thing. If they can't see through the wall you won't be able to set a target. Barns are assumed to have many small holes in all aspects, AIUI, so you could try it there, but it wouldn't be proving much, since there's a mechanical assumption of "windows everywhere" to start with. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Childress Posted November 25, 2012 Share Posted November 25, 2012 Note that the main reason buildings do not give realistic levels of protection in CMx2 games is the pixeltruppen do not use them correctly. They walk up to the front windows, put their whole body in front of those windows, and look out with as wide a field of view as they can manage. I believe you're referencing CMBN 1.0. Many have noted that this behavior has been modified with a subsequent patch. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
womble Posted November 25, 2012 Share Posted November 25, 2012 I believe you're referencing CMBN 1.0. Many have noted that this behavior has been modified with a subsequent patch. I haven't. They still belly up to the window. They might take a knee, but they're not shooting from a keyholed position further back in the building. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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