Pz IV Issues

[weapon2010]

Im not saying there is bug with PzIV's.But im seeing if anyone else out there has had issues with their spotting ability, and hull down status.

In one qb I had 4 elite PzIV's in perfect hull down positions, and when I say that it is because the game is telling me that.The game will either say partialy hd or hd.I had them all saying hd to potential targets directly infront of me.My tanks are stationery and waiting, so I spot m10's that moved upto a hd positons.The elite pziv's never spot them, never get any shots off, the m10's spot them and kill them immediately on 1 shot almost like their hd status was a disadvantage or did not exist.I would have just passed this off as bad luck, but they were elite,and until I played another scenario and the excact same thing occurred with perfect hd positions against Sherman 75.Although these were not elite, regular.

[c3k]

Do you have a savegame?

[Erwin]

"My tanks are stationery and waiting, so I spot m10's that moved upto a hd positons.The elite pziv's never spot them, never get any shots off, the m10's spot them and kill them immediately on 1 shot almost like their hd status was a disadvantage or did not exist..."

Some folks here insist this is an aberration. But, in my experience, moving tanks seem to be able to spot stationary tanks that are waiting in ambush way too much.

Now that MG has addressed the problem with tanks spotting nearby infantry way too easily let's hope BF take a look at the issue you outlined.

[womble]

There's one disadvantage the IVs have in HD positions: their turret armour is thin enough that most hits at common game ranges are going to have plenty of energy left after penetration, so they'll probably get dead on the first hit. At longer ranges, this is compensated for by the turret being very low profile and a difficult target, but at usual game combat ranges, even 75/L40s will have a good chance of hitting.

But Elite tanks should see stuff almost immediately. They spot like eagles in the testing I've done on previous versions, whether static or moving. Wonder if there's a problem with the TC facing like has occurred before (was it the Tiger in BN?); he's going to be extra important for spotting when they're hull down, naturally.

[weapon2010]

And to add, all things being equal, a moving tank should not spot as well as a stationery tank,and vice versa,a moving tank should get spotted much quicker than a stationery tank, which compounds when you have a moving tank in the los of a stationery tank.

[PhilM]

Im not saying there is bug with PzIV's.But im seeing if anyone else out there has had issues with their spotting ability, and hull down status.

In one qb I had 4 elite PzIV's in perfect hull down positions, and when I say that it is because the game is telling me that.The game will either say partialy hd or hd.I had them all saying hd to potential targets directly infront of me.My tanks are stationery and waiting, so I spot m10's that moved upto a hd positons.The elite pziv's never spot them, never get any shots off, the m10's spot them and kill them immediately on 1 shot almost like their hd status was a disadvantage or did not exist.I would have just passed this off as bad luck, but they were elite,and until I played another scenario and the excact same thing occurred with perfect hd positions against Sherman 75.Although these were not elite, regular.

Like paper tigers (!), paper tanks are likely to be holed quite easily ... Sorry, couldn't resist!

On a more serious note, I share the same view expressed in other posts that moving tanks seem to spot too well. Yes, those tanks will be on the lookout for enemy tanks; but there should be a big difference in what is spottable from a noisy, bumpy, pitching and rolling moving tank compared with one that is stationary.

On Womble's point about hits on the visible turret being more severe in effect; yes, but given the relatively small size of the turret target versus the whole tank, these should be a higher proportion of kill shots out a very (?) much smaller number of hits overall given the much smaller hull down target. (Otherwise why favour the hull down position?) I'm assuming and hoping that Cmx2 correctly captures the smaller target being aimed at; but you would expect many more initial misses, e.g. trying to get the range and not undershoot into the blocking terrain or overshoot over the top. I'm not sure that this seems to happen enough (very unscientific I know ...), especially given the fire is from recently - or even still - moving tanks?

[Erwin]

I recall that there was large discussion on the pros and cons of going hulldown with tanks like PzIV's that have weaker turret mantle armor back in CM1 days.

The obvious thing is to always go hulldown. But some stats expert tried to show that statistically, one was more likely to be killed hulldown since a turret hit (even though less probable) was almost always fatal vs a hull hit (even though that had a higher probability).

It all depends on the algorithms that BF is using.

[womble]

On Womble's point about hits on the visible turret being more severe in effect; yes, but given the relatively small size of the turret target versus the whole tank, these should be a higher proportion of kill shots out a very (?) much smaller number of hits overall given the much smaller hull down target. (Otherwise why favour the hull down position?) I'm assuming and hoping that Cmx2 correctly captures the smaller target being aimed at; but you would expect many more initial misses, e.g. trying to get the range and not undershoot into the blocking terrain or overshoot over the top. I'm not sure that this seems to happen enough (very unscientific I know ...), especially given the fire is from recently - or even still - moving tanks?

You would get more misses if CM games had vehicular engagements out beyond "short range", which doesn't seem to happen much. Most tank fighting seems to happen at knife fighting range, where a gunner will be mostly able to hit what they're aiming at, even a 75cm tall slice of turret peeking over a brow. Dial the range out to 1000m and Sherman 75s will start to consistently miss.

[Michael Emrys]

You would get more misses if CM games had vehicular engagements out beyond "short range", which doesn't seem to happen much. Most tank fighting seems to happen at knife fighting range, where a gunner will be mostly able to hit what they're aiming at, even a 75cm tall slice of turret peeking over a brow. Dial the range out to 1000m and Sherman 75s will start to consistently miss.

Yep. Due to its scale, CM is not optimized for depicting tank vs. tank combat such as existed on the Russian steppes, for instance. It should do well enough for the North African desert, since most of the direct fire weaponry used there was short ranged enough to fit onto a medium sized CM map.

Michael