Tanks Firing on the Move. WTF?

[TheBlackHand]

Why does this still happen? Is it really that difficult to fix? I just played a scenario where three Jagdpanzers go up against a whole passel of Churchills. The Jagds were firing on the move all the time and WASTING their AP ammo. Why?

I've read elsewhere that tanks will fire on the move to suppress.

OK.

That is most certainly not what was happening here.

I don't have too many complaints about this game, but this is one of them. It's not a game killer, but it does shoot a pretty big hole in the "historically accurate" claim.

After years and years . . . is there a good reason why this still happens?

[noob]

Why does this still happen? Is it really that difficult to fix?

Are you saying it should never happen ? and BF should make tanks unable to fire and move ?

Or are you saying that the AI should be intelligent enough to only fire when the percentage of a hit is good ? if so, would that not undermine the variables for crew quality and motivation ?

I just played a scenario where three Jagdpanzers go up against a whole passel of Churchills. The Jagds were firing on the move all the time and WASTING their AP ammo. Why?

Bad crews or just bad luck ? This is one incident, which is not enough to suggest a problem, you need to test this, and provide more data, try using different quality crews, or different motivation levels, you post does not give values to any of these variables, which would surely effect the way a tank performs in combat.

It's not a game killer, but it does shoot a pretty big hole in the "historically accurate" claim.

What is your evidence that this is "not" historically accurate, what did you read to give you the impression that this only happened for suppression ?

After years and years . . . is there a good reason why this still happens?

Maybe the reason is because tanks did fire on the move in RL, even if they were wasting ammo, war isn't fought by the book, men under stress will do the most irrational things, and wasting ammo is one of the least IMO.

I have to take issue with the tone of your post, you, like most of the people that post complaints, should calm down before you post, and present your argument in a more polite way, and please do tests, so when you do present evidence of a possible error, you have more to back it up than anecdotal evidence, and your impressions of what should, and shouldn't happen in combat.

[womble]

Why does this still happen? Is it really that difficult to fix?

Yes.

/thread

[dieseltaylor]

Noob - you are so wrong about tanks firing whilst moving its embarrassing. There have been numerous threads over the years on tanks firing whilst moving. It is a rare event and unlikely to score a hit. Obviously two tanks moving along a street head to head at short range will probably manage something but other than very tight circumstances like this it is going to be a high degree of luck.

I do have a get out clause if you area moving tank driving and blowing up likely ambush places like houses, mountains, towns where you consder enemy may be lurking and you are heel bent on driving through. In this case you are popping HE and possibly smoke.

Apart from the oft-repeated video and possibly a handful of anecdotes firing on the move to hit small point targets died with the loss of the small guns like the 2pdr which had a Mk1 human adjusting - or trying to- for the bumps in a moving vehicle. You will note the incredibly short barrel length in comparison to an 88mm L/71.

BF seem to have a design problem in this area and whether it is because of RT and the AI I have no idea.

[SlowMotion]

There have been numerous threads over the years on tanks firing whilst moving. It is a rare event and unlikely to score a hit.

I've read some descriptions from the East front of Soviet tanks shooting while moving. This happened when tanks and infantry were attacking some German defense which had little armour to use. So even when the Soviet shells didn't quite hit the target they probably forced defenders to seek cover and this way made it easier for infantry to reach enemy trench lines.

[Ted]

What about the Allied use of gyro stabilizers to help them shoot on the move?

[Vanir Ausf B]

BF seem to have a design problem in this area and whether it is because of RT and the AI I have no idea.

BFC has said it is because programing the AI to know when to stop, fire, then continue moving is too hard/time consuming. And since it was this way in CMx1 also I think we can exclude RT as a factor.

[Childress]

Tanks firing effectively on the move, like excessive barrel elevations and other unrealistic behavior, are in the game to simplify life for the TacAI. BF is aware. The corrections could be easily implemented if the human player had absolute control.

Edit: VaB beat me to it.

[dieseltaylor]

What about the Allied use of gyro stabilizers to help them shoot on the move?

Search the threads using my name and gyrostabilisers and you will get plenty of info on their limitations and why tankers rarely used them. Basically great propaganda, and yes they did work provided you were prepared to go through all the rigamorole of daily servicing and adjusting for ammo type.

Manufacturers laud them up and troops find the shortcomings in field use.

PS As for Soviet use I think you confirm the use of HE shell as an area weapon not AP at targets that can really hurt you.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Edit: VaB beat me to it.

It feels good to be the ninja for once.

[SlowMotion]

PS As for Soviet use I think you confirm the use of HE shell as an area weapon not AP at targets that can really hurt you.

Well even infantry can really hurt you if you are infantry soldier But yes, from what I read it seemed more like area fire & psychological effect.

[Snowbart]

Am i missing something here? Tanks wasting ammo on the move in these games has always been an issue, so you have to give them limited cover arcs so that they do not fire before getting to their final waypoint. Give them a longer firing arc at the final waypoint.

[noob]

Am i missing something here? Tanks wasting ammo on the move in these games has always been an issue, so you have to give them limited cover arcs so that they do not fire before getting to their final waypoint. Give them a longer firing arc at the final waypoint.

You can't argue with that.

[TheBlackHand]

noob, no offense, but your initial response kind of lives up to your name.

I realize that the programmers are aware of this problem and that they must've tried some kind of workaround that hasn't worked yet. I'm looking forward to the day when it does.

Until then, I'm going to put Snowbart's good advice to work. It's micro-management, but it sounds like a feasible plan. I actually enjoy the micro-manageability that this game allows.

However, my non-programmer's brain seems to think that shutting off the shooting switch while on the move shouldn't be that big of a problem. To answer one of noob's questions, no, I don't want my tanks shooting AT ALL while they're moving. Sure, in RL, any WW2 tank COULD fire while moving, some more accurately than others, but the fact is . . . REALITY dictated that it was a stupid and futile gesture. For the sake of historical accuracy, hard coded inability to shoot on the move is a trade-off I'd be willing to make . . . and I'll be the majority of long-time players would too.

I'm confident that when there's a workable solution, BF will implement it.

[Amizaur]

If it's really too hard to code "firing from short stops" for AI tanks, then still it would be better if the moving tanks were not shooting armor piercing rounds AT ALL than what is now.

Currently my tank often wastes his AP shell firing on the move, just second before a planned stop/pause point - where it is sometimes killed while wasting time for reloading. I hate that. I am not able to precisely know at what point - for example after crossing a hill top - my tank would see/notice the enemy and plan my tank's stop point in such a place that the tank would for sure see the enemy (with a free line of fire) and yet has too little time to shot on the move before it stops !

Tanks should simply not fire AP on the move (they may fire HE) so they are ready for make a quick aimed shot after they eventually stop. There may be exeption for targets inside 50m - firing on the move allowed.

If that would hurt AI tanks in some way, then let the AI tanks fire on the move like it is now, but please block firing AP on the move for human controlled tanks. I do not want my tanks to fire AP on the move AT ALL. And ESPECIALLY - my turretless tanks. It's ridiculous.

I already saidn about the exeption for targets inside 50mn. Better yet - fire on the move allowed for targets inside 50m IF there is no "stop" order on tank's path few seconds ahead. If a nearby stop or pause order is plotted, it's probably planned by the player that the tank is to go there, stop and then shoot.

It's not perfect solution, but WAY better than free shooting on the move and little better than not shooting on the move at all.

[MikeyD]

Old-timers who played CMx1 should be familiar with the term 'abstracted'. CMBN's firing on the move is somewhat abstracted, you're likely to have roughly the same hit chance as if you had actually stopped short, squeezed off a round, then acelerated again. Not a great change of a hit but better than if you were really charging over open ground. And CM does factor is gyrostabilizers. Stuart's much more likely to hit his target while moving than Panther.

[womble]

On "wasting" AP rounds from vehicles that are supposed to be using them routinely. How often do you actually run dry of AP rounds? I never have, not even in campaigns where there was no resupply for 4-5 hours of play.

[dieseltaylor]

Old-timers who played CMx1 should be familiar with the term 'abstracted'. CMBN's firing on the move is somewhat abstracted, you're likely to have roughly the same hit chance as if you had actually stopped short, squeezed off a round, then acelerated again. Not a great change of a hit but better than if you were really charging over open ground. And CM does factor is gyrostabilizers. Stuart's much more likely to hit his target while moving than Panther.

Oh come on. That is so not true. German practice was for crews to qualify they had to drive stop and shoot and go on .... and get hits on each target. I am sure that was a obvious training for any nationality. So this "lets pretend you stop and quickly fire without much chance of hitting" is bogus. Lets just admit that this part of the game is not correct. Particularly so in the case of assault guns.

And I am very familiar with CMX1 but I was under the illusion that CMX2 was meant to be more realistic so one hoped for some improvement in armour behaviour. Move to Contact was surely a clever order from CMX1 where one could choose an armour cover arc so that you were not distracted by random infantry in the distance. On finding enemy armour the tank or assault gun would stop to engage - exactly as per training.

Comparing a Stuart's 37mm popgun to a major weapon ..... we have already pointed to the difference between major weapons and the sub-40mm genre ... so it is just plain silly. Any small barrel gun would be quicker to aim to target than a 21ft barrel if you are move and shoot gyro-stabiliser or not.

As for not running out of AP - womble is that due to lack of targets? Do you run out of HE?

[c3k]

Gyro's: Not useful for firing on the move, but to RETAIN the absolute barrel elevation from a previous position after moving to a new position. Ground is rarely uniformly sloped. If a tank moves 50m, given the poor (fixed reticle) US sight design, at medium to long ranges adjusting for a slight change in ground slope was difficult. The gyro would do that for you. On paper. It would reduce the number of ranging shots needed after repositioning.

[stikkypixie]

Lets just admit that this part of the game is not correct. Particularly so in the case of assault guns.

That's what abstraction means. You could always give pause orders yourself to the tank.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Tanks firing on the move is not an abstraction. They really are firing on the move. It's just a limitation of the AI programing. It was the same in CMx1.

[Redwolf]

Why does this still happen? Is it really that difficult to fix? I just played a scenario where three Jagdpanzers go up against a whole passel of Churchills. The Jagds were firing on the move all the time and WASTING their AP ammo. Why?

I've read elsewhere that tanks will fire on the move to suppress.

OK.

That is most certainly not what was happening here.

I don't have too many complaints about this game, but this is one of them. It's not a game killer, but it does shoot a pretty big hole in the "historically accurate" claim.

After years and years . . . is there a good reason why this still happens?

You can't really fix that without making the AI a lot smarter. The AI can't really shoot and scoot and if you were to try you'd get nothing but traffic jams.

[GSX]

Old-timers who played CMx1 should be familiar with the term 'abstracted'. CMBN's firing on the move is somewhat abstracted, you're likely to have roughly the same hit chance as if you had actually stopped short, squeezed off a round, then acelerated again. Not a great change of a hit but better than if you were really charging over open ground. And CM does factor is gyrostabilizers. Stuart's much more likely to hit his target while moving than Panther.

There's a lot in what is said here. But it's not all abstracted for all nations, true German practice was to always stop and fire, but Soviet practice was especially in the early war years to fire on the move. Early British practice for the smaller 2lbr guns was also to fire on the move. Smaller guns don't suffer as much from vehicle movement.

Soviet thinking stated that a lot of guns firing on the move would unnerve German crews, which in practice the Germans, who trained their crews to a higher standard than any of the allies were not too fazed by.

I can live with the AI firing on the move but all too often I feel that the game treats firing on the move as the vehicle having stopped momentarily. Thus no penalty for actually moving seems to have occurred.

I may be wrong but I often have that 'no way' moment when a panther fires on the move and achieves a 700 meter first shot kill.

Is there a penalty for moving and firing?

[womble]

I can live with the AI firing on the move but all too often I feel that the game treats firing on the move as the vehicle having stopped momentarily. Thus no penalty for actually moving seems to have occurred.

I may be wrong but I often have that 'no way' moment when a panther fires on the move and achieves a 700 meter first shot kill.

Is there a penalty for moving and firing?

According to BFC there is. It got cranked up some in 1.01, too, IIRC, because the internal test team agreed that in 1.00, there wasn't enough penalty for the "abstracted snap-shots". Me, I just try to make sure my tanks never have to shoot on the move. I've seen shots immediately after a crash-stop from Fast get fired up at about 30degrees and down so steeply they didn't travel 50m across flat ground before burying themselves. So firing on the move has to be even less likely to hit, no, I reckon.

[Redwolf]

According to BFC there is. It got cranked up some in 1.01, too, IIRC, because the internal test team agreed that in 1.00, there wasn't enough penalty for the "abstracted snap-shots". Me, I just try to make sure my tanks never have to shoot on the move. I've seen shots immediately after a crash-stop from Fast get fired up at about 30degrees and down so steeply they didn't travel 50m across flat ground before burying themselves. So firing on the move has to be even less likely to hit, no, I reckon.

"Not enough" is expressing it mildly. The movers would consistently win first-shot sniper duels against ambusher.

This was a big problem in CMx1, too.