bisu Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 There has been a CM mantra for years about always seeking hull down position for your tanks to get advantage. This does not seem to be very beneficial though as on the basis of the tests the spotting penalty in hull down overweighs the advantage of having your hull down in a potential firefight.. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HistoryLover Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 bisu, it's not a CM mantra, it is very basic tank tactics. If, then the mantra was, that CMx2 delivers engineered results and is like a simulation and not like "awful" CMx1, based on plausible results with random numbers. I always had the feeling, that the performance of tanks under real world optimum conditions is worse, than simply putting them into the open or among trees and wait for the enemy to move into sight no matter if he was hull down. When I played "Wittman's Demise" things became outright absurd an it was the trigger for me to make my own test without even knowing first that this thread exists: I placed my Tigers and PzIV in the open and my opponent who tried to attack from hull down positions was spotted earlier and had no chance. My impression from playing what the most effective tank tactics are are supported by these tests: If the enemy is placed hull down, this is no, or even MY advantage: Make his tank button with long range infantry fire or mortars. Then move in two or three tanks. It's not important to be hull down. You can just drive on a street. Just make sure you do not drive unnessesarily deep into enemy's LOS. You don't need a blue line. Just stop where you get the "partial hull down" or "reverse slope" indication with the cursor. Your unbuttoned tanks in the open will overall spot the enemy earlierand shoot earlier. And since they are more, they shoot more often. Thanks to the "zooming in" algorithm per tank they will hit earlier, mostly depending on crew quality, even while being fully exposed. Edit: After writing this, suddenly my memories came back, when I played CMx2 the very first time (CMBN, didn't buy SF). The tank duels did feel extremely strange, unnatural and binary compared to CMx1. And wasn't there a problem, that the tanks could hit even while they were moving? Now I see these things in a very different light. :mad: 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bisu Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 If the enemy is placed hull down, this is no, or even MY advantage: :eek: If that is really the case I hope we get BTF comment on that soon. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bil Hardenberger Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Good and interesting tests. My thoughts on this... even if there is a bug that doesn't give hull down the full spotting advantage it deserves, hull down is still a viable tactic with CM and you would be foolish to ignore it. There obviously appears to be a slight spotting and hitting advantage when hull down, and that echoes my experience through many hours of game play. In game, with tanks moving trying to gain advantage on each other, you are not going to get the clean lanes shown in the test above.. you are going to have some tanks hull down, some moving, some firing, all of them sitting in different combinations of terrain, etc.. all these factors, as well as the crew status, experience, and training level are taken into account when spotting. Plus add to that the fact that spotting is not simultaneous for all units or continuous and you will have some tank's spotting cycles that could be slightly ahead of others... so some anomalies could occur as they did in real life as well. I do not see, nor have I experienced the level of problems that some claim they have, so I would be happy if no changes are made to hull down.. though of course everything could be improved upon and I would welcome that.. but there are bigger fish to fry in this game system than this IMO, for what that's worth. The hull down is a binary thing though is very interesting and deserves more study. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akd Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 1) Hull down status does give a concealment bonus. The tanks in the open took about 33% longer to spot than in the first test.I should have noted this earlier, but linear features (walls, hedges, bocage) do seem to grant concealment to vehicles positioned behind. It is being hull-down (at least visually) behind the terrain mesh that does not appear to offer any concealment (at least based on some limited tests with Panthers). Is the issue that it is impossible or near impossible to be truly "hull down" behind terrain under most circumstances? That would surely be a bug. The behind a wall LOS tool behavior is very strange. For example, compare a Panther (LOS is blue) to a Tiger or King Tiger (LOS is grey). How does that make sense? Based on the berm behavior, I'd say "partial hull down" actually means hull down with a partial view of the targeted tile, but I can't offer any explanation for the wall behavior. Edit: I'm strongly beginning to suspect there may be something wrong with the Panther, e.g. perhaps it is be treated as taller than it appears. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HistoryLover Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Bil Hardenberger, the problem is that hd gives only a mini advantage. This in reality HUUUUGE advantage can be compensated in the game simply with a second tank. I have not finished these tests, but my first tries suggest, that it is even enough to force the hull down tank to button down to eliminate his already tiny advantage. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akd Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Ack, this makes no sense to me. I placed a Panther on the reverse slope of a 5m ridge and get the following based on the targeting tool: crest to 233m - no line of sight 238m - reverse slope - no aimpoint, spotter is hull down 336m - grey line, spotter is partial hull down 375m - grey line, spotter is hull down 391m - blue line, spotter is hull down 426m+ - blue line, spotter is partial hull down 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kulik Posted January 8, 2014 Author Share Posted January 8, 2014 First, thank you Vanir for making these tests. I really wouldn't be able to get to it in the foreseeable future and i felt bad for letting this hang in the air. If I understand this correctly, best strategy is to get to a hull down position, and concurrently, ensure that the spotting line is blue, this way the spotting chances are equal, but you get the bonus of cover against incoming fire. Right? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 BadgerDog, Tell us...everything! It isn't every day we get someone on the Forums who's served on a Easy Eight. Okay, never that I know of. As far as I'm concerned, what you've experienced and know are worth their weight in gold. Unfortunately, I have no gelt to give. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanir Ausf B Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 I should have noted this earlier, but linear features (walls, hedges, bocage) do seem to grant concealment to vehicles positioned behind. It is being hull-down (at least visually) behind the terrain mesh that does not appear to offer any concealment (at least based on some limited tests with Panthers). Is the issue that it is impossible or near impossible to be truly "hull down" behind terrain under most circumstances? That would surely be a bug. In light of this I re-ran the test without the wall. I got the hull down tanks to be completely hull down -- to the point that the driver and RO have no LOS -- by slightly lowering the elevation of the tanks behind the berm. Seconds to spot enemy tanks: Hull down total: 5321 Hull down average: 84.5 In the open total: 3619 In the open average: 57.4 The tanks in the open spotted faster than when the hull down tanks were behind a wall, but not quite as fast as when they were behind the berm with a blue line in the first test. I'm not sure if this is random variation or if there is a small concealment bonus for being totally hull down. The hull down tanks spotted better than they did from behind the wall but still much worse than the tanks in the open. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanir Ausf B Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 If I understand this correctly, best strategy is to get to a hull down position, and concurrently, ensure that the spotting line is blue, this way the spotting chances are equal, but you get the bonus of cover against incoming fire. Right? Assuming you get a cover advantage while still having a blue line, yes. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BadgerDog Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 BadgerDog, Tell us...everything! It isn't every day we get someone on the Forums who's served on a Easy Eight. Okay, never that I know of. As far as I'm concerned, what you've experienced and know are worth their weight in gold. Unfortunately, I have no gelt to give. Regards, John Kettler Thank you John.. appreciate the gracious comments... However, I'm in my 66th year now and it was over 45 years ago that I trained on the M4 series, spending roughly 3-4 years in them before we switched over to the Centurion and after that the Leopard ... When I comment here, it's usually because someone has said something that triggers old memories and flashbacks that I thought were long gone. With the passing of time, they may be either inaccurately remembered, or simply morphed into something completely different than the reality of the time. In old folks like me, the mind and memory recall can be "hit and miss". Regardless, I can say with confidence that this is just a GAME and not a real world simulator. The M4 for sure and I assume all of the other equipment modeled, is designed (coded) to create an inexpensive commercially available product for enjoyable interactive game play, on a computer processing platform that's economically available to the masses. It is NOT designed to be a real world simulator of an actual M4, or it's peers of the day, nor is it designed to emulate accurately the real world physics of the machine, gun platform, or the crew's capabilities (spotting as an example) in handling it. I think far too much time is spent by grognards beating on each other here in posts with Internet research, old vehicle manuals, contemporary field reports and other sources of data, attempting to convince Battlefront they need to change this and that for more realism etc... Several areas and functions about the game version of the M4, as I remember the real world experience with them, is so far off my recollections of how it really worked, that we'd go crazy trying to achieve a reality that's not possible with today's PC processing power. Not only that, I firmly believe the commercial audience would be so low and the product so complex with a really steep learning curve (more than it is now), that it wouldn't be worth programming for. Steel Beasts is a good example. A great simulator brought to the masses at $100 plus per copy, and at that level of price only because it's purchased for many of the world's armies as an actual training tool for it's armored soldiers. If that subsidization didn't occur, I doubt it would be a viable publicly available commercial product and the price would have to be twice that or more, simply because of the limited market demographic of who would buy that kind of realism based product. I think we need to maintain game playability and the fun factor!!! Having old folks like me trying to live in the past and be too critical of something that can never achieve the appropriate reality anyway, is just a waste of time. I've said it before, but again.... it's just a game! I love it for that and it's the only entertainment product I've stuck with for over 10 years. Battlefront is a small "lifestyle" business and they are good people making a living in a tough commercial environment for gaming. I enjoy trying to help them, or this community with that, in any way I can. When you combine Battlefront's attempts to satisfy the realism folks along with their commercial need to maintain the playability and fun factor for the casual gamer, I think they do a pretty darn good job. Just my opinion... Regards, Doug 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jock Tamson Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 Wouldn't it be great though, Doug, if the AI in particular could exhibit some of the AFV tactics you talk about in the other thread? - stopping to shoot, overwatch etc ? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Canadian Cat Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 In old folks like me, the mind and memory recall can be "hit and miss". Yikes 66 is not old - says the 46 year old looking forward :-) Regardless, I can say with confidence that this is just a GAME and not a real world simulator. The M4 for sure and I assume all of the other equipment modeled, is designed (coded) to create an inexpensive commercially available product for enjoyable interactive game play, on a computer processing platform that's economically available to the masses. It is NOT designed to be a real world simulator of an actual M4, or it's peers of the day, nor is it designed to emulate accurately the real world physics of the machine, gun platform, or the crew's capabilities (spotting as an example) in handling it. I think far too much time is spent by grognards beating on each other here in posts with Internet research, old vehicle manuals, contemporary field reports and other sources of data, attempting to convince Battlefront they need to change this and that for more realism etc... To true. If they did the things needed to create a real simulator small battles that we fight comfortably in 30 turns would take 120 or more turns and the majority of the time scenarios would stop early with an automatic withdrawal at the first lopsided exchange of casualties. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slysniper Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 BadgerDog, Well said +++++ I keep thinking to myself all the time, the realism request for this and that is going to wreck these games. The more realism added, seems to make a more boring game at times, which will continue to lose followers or anyone wanting to play it. There is a balence of getting the game to function correctly to a preceived concept of how it should act and not require to many actions by the player to get it to do such actions. I love the better graphics but I notice that the turns require more time to preform than they once did, keep going down that path and the enjoyment level will be totally lost in the game and it will be doomed. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 I love the better graphics but I notice that the turns require more time to preform than they once did, keep going down that path and the enjoyment level will be totally lost in the game and it will be doomed. The upside to that is the action at the team level can be really exciting. Slow that down to a potential crawl with command delays that are entirely subjective based and yeah it could really kill the enjoyment factor. While I am one of those who actually does like the idea of command interaction, I can impose that on the game myself now without inflicting that on the rest of the community (a large part of which it seems wants something they can kill an hour or two upon getting home from work and complete a scenario). The other aspect is this would really make scenario creation difficult. Part of creating your AI plans is figuring out approximately when you expect the player to reach point X. Add in command delays to that and creation of an AI plan that is more interactive becomes all that much harder. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 Yikes 66 is not old - says the 46 year old looking forward :-) Just saw a show last night after the Sharks game where an 80 year old guy was out there playing in an Ice Hockey League. I'd be real happy if I can just continue to play CM without forgetting what the hell I was doing at 80. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bisu Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 Well I really don't understand how improving the hull-down spotting behaviour towards more realism which is the topic of this thread could possibly wreck the game, or kill the fun factor.. In fact I was thinking the opposite would be the case. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 Well I really don't understand how improving the hull-down spotting behaviour towards more realism which is the topic of this thread could possibly wreck the game, or kill the fun factor.. In fact I was thinking the opposite would be the case. nah, thread just kind of went sideways, sorry. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanir Ausf B Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 While I think most of us have accepted that there is only so far you can go with realism before you are digging foxholes in your back yard, I think the game can and should be realistic enough to reflect real world tactics. Otherwise we might as well be playing Company of Heroes or StarCraft. BFC seems to feel the same way. Read my sig I did some very quick and dirty testing on first shot accuracy vs. tanks in various degrees of hull down. These are very small sample sizes, mind you, but the difference in results is large enough to be suggestive. 54 shots for each test. First shot only. All tanks are M4A3 wet 76mm EDIT: Range is 400 meters. vs. tanks in the open: Hits: 45 Misses:9 vs. partial hull down behind 1 meter berm Hits: 44 Misses: 10 vs. hull down behind 2 meter berm (blue target line from hull down tanks) Hits:15 Misses: 39 A 1 meter berm really covers only a small amount of the frontal area of a tall tank like the Sherman so it's not surprising there was little difference in that situation. But the 2 meter test proves that you can get a very significant cover advantage without sacrificing spotting ability. So I think the rule of thumb for in-game tactics at the moment is to get your tanks as hull down as you can while still maintaining a blue target line to any areas likely to contain enemy units. Partial hull down is good. Full hull down is bad. I'm sure there is room for improvement here and hopefully BFC looks into it, but that is where we stand for now. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted January 10, 2014 Share Posted January 10, 2014 "I think far too much time is spent by grognards beating on each other here in posts with Internet research, old vehicle manuals, contemporary field reports and other sources of data, attempting to convince Battlefront they need to change this and that for more realism etc... " +2 However, re the current discussion, it does make sense that it should be a lot harder to spot (and hit) a hull-down anything - similarly it should be harder for a moving WW2 tank to spot or hit anything. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kensal Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 A 1 meter berm really covers only a small amount of the frontal area of a tall tank like the Sherman so it's not surprising there was little difference in that situation. But the 2 meter test proves that you can get a very significant cover advantage without sacrificing spotting ability. So I think the rule of thumb for in-game tactics at the moment is to get your tanks as hull down as you can while still maintaining a blue target line to any areas likely to contain enemy units. Partial hull down is good. Full hull down is bad. I'm sure there is room for improvement here and hopefully BFC looks into it, but that is where we stand for now. Sorry, can you just explain "Partial hull down is good. Full hull down is bad". Do you mean the spotting disbenefits of full hull down outweigh the protection from hits? Also I have found that tanks and AT guns can't see over a 2m berm. Have you found otherwise? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mord Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 I'd be real happy if I can just continue to play CM without forgetting what the hell I was doing at 80. Emrys seems to do ok...but I think his nurse does most of the mouse clicks for him. Mord. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanir Ausf B Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 Sorry, can you just explain "Partial hull down is good. Full hull down is bad". Do you mean the spotting disbenefits of full hull down outweigh the protection from hits? I mean that there is no reason to put yourself at a spotting disadvantage by going completely hull down when you can get a large amount of cover while still remaining hull up enough for the driver and radio operator to help spot. Does going all the way hull down give an even larger cover advantage? Maybe, but I doubt it's enough more to make it worth the spotting penalty. Also I have found that tanks and AT guns can't see over a 2m berm. Have you found otherwise? Well most tanks certainly can. I have no idea about AT guns. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanir Ausf B Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 To illustrate what I mean I just ran another quick cover test on full hull down (grey target line) tanks. Hits: 18 Misses: 36 About the same as the "mostly" hull down tanks with a blue target line. Slightly worse, actually, but that is probably random variation. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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