Rockets

[gcrain]

What is up here? I searched this forum for rockets but found 0 posts.

Russian 82mm mortar with 120 rounds 109 points

Russian 82mm mortar with 160 rounds 143 points

Russian 120mm mortar with 60 rounds 181 points

Russian 120mm mortar with 180 rounds 517 points

Russian 82mm rocket with 192 rounds 14 points

Russian 82mm rocket with 384 rounds 22 points

Russian 82mm rocket with 384 rounds 29 points

Russian 132 mm rocket with 120 rounds 263 points

German 81mm mortar with 100 rounds 98 points

German 120mm mortar with 60 rounds 179 points

German 159mm rocket with 180 rounds 349 points

So roughly:

80mm mortar rounds are 1 point each

120mm mortar rounds 3 points each

132mm rocket 2 points each

150mm rocket 2 points each

82mm rocket 0.07 point each

Seems to me all the 82mm rockets are off by at least a factor of 10.

Pretty big difference in an opponent who has 3 batteries of rockets vs 30 batteries of rockets.

[womble]

This apparent nonsense has been commented on before, when Red Thunder first came out. It's the same pricing structure as in BN where small calibre American rockets are preposterously cheap. It doesn't get discussed much because BFC's policy of never ever ever changing points values is iron. Instead, most people agree that the underpriced assets are not to be used in QBs.

I'd suggest that the error isn't as great as 10x, given that there's probably more like 1/8 the explosive filler in an 80mm shell vs a 132mm. It's probably more like a factor of 2.

[JasonC]

cgrain is right, and no it is not just a factor of 2. As cgrain shows above, 82mm rockets are ~ 1/12 the cost of 82mm mortar rounds, which have the same explosive power.

With the 132s, we see an expense about 3/4 of the cost of a 120mm mortar, per shell, which is a reasonable deduction for their lower accuracy, perhaps offset a bit by higher explosive power each. But with the 82s, we don't see 75% of the cost of an 82mm mortart, or 67% - we see more like 7-8%. And that is silly.

You could multiply the 82mm rocket costs by about 7 and they'd be fair.

[Erwin]

I wonder if it's more an abstraction of their effectiveness. Rockets make a lot of bangs but in CM2 games, do very little damage (unless you have a LOT of them).

A mortar can be used in CM2 with pinpoint accuracy and very few shells can do a lot of damage.

Small caliber CM2 arty can be similarish to mortars. Larger is less accurate.

[JasonC]

Erwin - we know, but for the 132s the accuracy discount is 25%, for the 82s it is 93%, and the effectiveness doesn't move that much. Accuracy matters a lot for fire at thin enemies; it doesn't matter so much for denser targets. The small rockets are commonly map fired at locations that are expected to have to have enemies present - near set up zones, just ahead of them early, defenders on objectives, and the like. There should be a discount for their lack of accuracy, sure. But not 93%, that's just nuts.

[womble]

cgrain is right, and no it is not just a factor of 2. As cgrain shows above, 82mm rockets are ~ 1/12 the cost of 82mm mortar rounds, which have the same explosive power.

And are significantly more accurate. I don't have RT, but using Ami 81s and their Xylophone rockets, the mortar impact pattern from a "point" mission is about 100mx75m, whereas the xylophone's bombs are scattered over more like 300mx400m, about 16x the impact area...

[JasonC]

womble - we are not idiots, we know. But when I am not firing at a single half squad but an entire battalion, it doesn't matter that that rounds land in a 300x400 area. There are targets all through that 300x400 area. The loss of flexibility is worth some decline in point value, certainly. But not an 93% decline.

[Pelican Pal]

And are significantly more accurate. I don't have RT, but using Ami 81s and their Xylophone rockets, the mortar impact pattern from a "point" mission is about 100mx75m, whereas the xylophone's bombs are scattered over more like 300mx400m, about 16x the impact area...

On the other hand I can drop 1536 rockets in that 300mx400m area for that same price.

Sure they might not be as accurate as 120 82mm mortar rounds, but I would guess that I would get about the same # of rounds on target. With the added benefit of ruining the day of anyone nearby.

[Erwin]

Wot I wuz trying to say is that it could simply be a playability abstraction is all.

[womble]

womble - we are not idiots, we know. But when I am not firing at a single half squad but an entire battalion, it doesn't matter that that rounds land in a 300x400 area. There are targets all through that 300x400 area. The loss of flexibility is worth some decline in point value, certainly. But not an 93% decline.

And we're talking about the worth of one singular round. Not the value of the module as a whole. What are the chances of that specific point value being lethally effective? That's the putative basis of costings.

Rockets also have longer call times. Which is probably irrelevant since they'll be used as a blanket pre-planned fire mission most of the time, but has to be factored into the cost.

Which would you rather have: 10 accurate mortar rounds or 10 wildly-inaccurate rockets? That's the question that the per-round cost is asking. Whether you want a massive blanket bombardment or several ATG/MG/trench killing point missions is the question you ask when you're comparing the cost of the module, not the cost per round.

Oh, and I'm not saying the price is right, just that 10x is an overestimate.

And incidentally, proving the reasons that BFC simply amn't goin' change their policy of not altering points costs, cos there's no pleasing people.

[Baneman]

...

And incidentally, proving the reasons that BFC simply amn't goin' change their policy of not altering points costs, cos there's no pleasing people.

Yeah, but it's not like people complain ( or I have no recollection of people complaining ) about the costs of other stuff in CMx2.

But the rockets are wildly out of sync with everything else.

After all, if they are pretty much banned by consensus among almost all players, it's a fairly good indication that the "complaints" aren't totally unreasonable.

[Pelican Pal]

The rockets should have some sort of cost increase and I don't think anyone would complain about that. What is *right* is up for some discussion, but anything more than they are right now is certainly better.

[JasonC]

You are talking about utter nonsense, we are talking about a clearly stupid price that everyone knows is wrong. And we don't need the programmers to fix it, we can just agree to raise their price by a factor of 8, by leaving 7 times their printed cost unused whenever we take them.

[gcrain]

I think the issue of whether Rockets in general are underpriced is a separate issue from the 82mm Rockets. In general Rockets are one third less than their mortar counterpart. While they are less accurate they do have some pretty good advantages. You can unload half your arsenal in a matter of seconds. This means your opponent cannot hightail it out of there, look for better cover or even use the hide command. But I am ok with rockets in general being a little less. However the 82mm Rockets are one tenth of two thirds. There is nothing about the 82mm Rocket that justifies this decrease. I would absolutely rather have 10 Rockets than 1 mortar round. If I am choosing between 4 82mm Mortars with a total of 640 rounds vs more than 7500 Rocket rounds that is a no brainer. That is not even a lot of points. In a large scenario you could easily buy over 25000 82mm Rockets. Accuracy becomes completely irrelevant, you obliterate every living thing on the map along with most of the buildings and foilage. If you don't believe me just try it against the AI real quick. They are not only good for pre-plotted use either. Once battle lines become established they can be even more effective. Now I am only playing on Veteran mode so maybe the delay is quite different in Iron man but in Veteran there is not a big difference in delay between regular artillery and rockets, in fact I am not sure there is any difference at all. It really seems to me somebody misplaced a decimal, I think when comparing to the other Rockets they are off by a factor of ten. I think the evidence is compelling that the price is way off and needs to be corrected regardless of any previous policy. Right now they are so broken that if you use them it ruins the game and if you ban them then you are omitting a unit that should be in the game.

[JasonC]

gcrain - agree entirely. My proposal - players just agree that if they do take any 82mm rockets (only those), then they must leave unused a number of points at least equal to 7 times the cost of their 82mm rocket support purchases. This lets them still be taken, if people are willing to pay a fair price of them. It still lets the smallest 82mm rocket cost less than another other form of artillery support, at 112 points for 192 rockets. But it completely eliminates truly "spamming" the things...

[JasonC]

Tiny infantry only QB. Winds up being at night. Russian attack vs AI German defense. Using unadjusted costs, I take a rifle company, MG and 82mm mortar platoons, 3 largest 82mm rocket batteries with an FO, and can still afford Pe-2 air support in addition.

I picked my forces without knowing the conditions, nothing about my force was tailored to a night fight. The whole idea was to see what rocket fire support could do at the costs the game charges for the stuff, and to see whether inaccuracy justifies the low price.

The rockets order a barrage to land on minute 5, center of the map on a small village area and the surrounding woods. 3 different area fire aim points, each a 100 meter circle, touching and covering the center of the village. I don't even consider the second salvo, I don't expect to need it. There is a railroad line short of the village, wooded and higher on both sides. My infantry spends the first 4 minutes just advancing to my side of the "cut", and then "gets small" in the tree cover, everyone on hide for the turn the rockets land.

The rockets pulverize the town and all the tree cover areas nearby. No shorts hurt my men.

The next turn, the squad infantry moves out on "quick", and double-times across the cut and up the opposite bank. They charge into the near side of the village, at first staying just outside the houses on my side, using the trees outside for cover. I want infantry overwatch on the buildings from close range before anyone assaults into them.

I discover some intact defenders - well, not so much "intact" as some still alive. There is a KOed 88mm gun outside one of the buildings. Men scatter down the street and are shot down. A few SMGs hit 2 or 3 of my men before reply fire silences them.

Over the next 3-4 minutes, squads leapfrog into the town shooting cowering Germans, and scattering the fliers. 5 more of my men are hit in the course of clearing the town. Off on my right flank, a separate scouting sniper team runs into live Germans well away from the town and loses both men. That brings my total losses to 10.

The Germans lost 72 men. I set cease fire, it is over. I have the town and resistance is broken etc. I am interested to see how much of it the rockets did.

The answer is they directly did about half of it, hitting 35 men as well as KOing the gun. They also appear to have reduced 2 HMG teams to 2 broken survivors. My squad infantry got the other half, with leading squads accounting for 13 and 10, the rest scattered.

In the town fight, my attacking infantry inflicted 4.5 to 1 losses on the defenders, because they were clearing still shaken and some half squaded etc. Note that the infantry fight started in the 2nd minute after the barrage landed and was over 4 minutes after that, so there wasn't a lot of time to rally.

I would not call that ineffective artillery support just because each individual shot was inaccurate. They simply did not need to be, because I received almost 600 fired rockets in one 30 second prep fire, that clobbered the whole center of the enemy defense.

It is crazy that the point cost of that support was only 87 points. And incidentally, my 3 on map 82mm mortars with their supposedly higher precision, did flat nothing in the entire battle. Visibility for spotting for mortar fire was 120 meters (just from night) - but that didn't degrade the rocket barrage at all.

[poesel]

Just a proposal for how to handle rockets:

If both players agree to an x8 multiplier the rocket user buys foxholes for 7x the rocket value and places them somewhere in a useless corner.

That way the other player can assure correct behaviour after the game.

[John Kettler]

gcrain,

To my mind, what you've discovered is absolutely a problem and needs fixing.

JasonC,

I like your concept and find your test battle argument irrefutable. I should point out that since the rocket salvo arrives pretty much all at once and en masse, it should, per the JMEM (Joint Munitions Effectiveness Manual--how the government calculates weapon effectiveness vs surface targets) treated targets as up, rather than prone. As such, it should smart a lot more than artillery, whose more deliberate pace to achieve the same amount of explosives on target allows the shot at to, in game terms, Hide. It's all about firepower delivered over unit time. And area. Short of TOT (Time On Target = massed fire, simo arrival, for those not familiar with the acronym) tube artillery simply can't compete. And well do we know what happens to the troops of those so foolish as to attempt to run from a rocket impact zone! The near instantaneous delivery of fire at the impact zone not only allows rockets to inflict broad area damage, but also creates large scale casualties and exploitable trauma. Both the Germans and the Russians reported some men went mad during rocket barrages on their positions, and many others were shell shocked and helpless. TOTs achieved much the same effect, but that was only late war in the ETO.

poesel71,

While what you propose would look odd, I believe it would act as an effective check on those who'd otherwise game the game. Are foxholes selectable in all types of QBs and for both sides? If not, you have a partial solution.

Regards,

John Kettler

[gcrain]

Has BFC seen this? If not how do we bring it to their attention?

[Vanir Ausf B]

At least one person from BFC has seen it. One more will see it very soon. However, I wouldn't place any bets on it getting changed.

[Desertor]

My opponent spent at least three modules of cheap rockets as pre-planned fire mission on the forest where two teams of scouts where hiding... I was shocked at first, but only two soldiers were blessed. Later on he almost lost a T-34 to the survivors and at least three of his troops were down.

Not only the barrage was not worth the points, but also gave him a false sense of confidence. His soldiers were running when mine opened fire...

[Vanir Ausf B]

Well, sure. If you dump all your arty on 4 guys you won't get your money's worth even if you kill all 4.

[John Kettler]

Vanir Ausf B,

Unless they're all FOs!

Regards,

John Kettler

[gcrain]

Here is a 750 point artillery barrage with the Russian 82mm rockets. The Germans immediately surrendered. I turned smoke off for the screenshot.

[gcrain]

This is what the map looked like before the 750 point Extinction Level Event.