Small arms casualties - tank crews

[Lethaface]

FWIW I also have a hunch that small arms fire against vehicle gunners/crew visible from outside the vehicle is too accurate. Obviously any MG gunner on a vehicle will be a bullet magnet, but I'm seeing some incredible headshots against TCs/HT gunners in moving vehicles from 200m or more. 

[Andrew H.]

14 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

 

If the StuG crew suffers a topside casualty the vehicle automatically changes to Buttoned status.  The player can manually override this if he wants to, but otherwise the game favors keeping the main gun effective by not risking another crew member.

If a StuG is buttoned it will more likely stay buttoned than it currently does.  In other words, the amount of threat that needs to be present for it to unbuttoned should be raised.

That seems like a reasonable thing to change.

Steve

Excellent!

My Osprey-Vanguard StuG III & IV has a surprising amount to say on the StuG's MG.  Most of it contradictory.

One AAR states that the MG is "very beneficial." Another states that it "has not proven effective".  A third reports that "During attacks through enemy infantry positions, which are usually very strongly occupied with anti-tank rifles, the lack of a machine gun protected by armour makes itself very negatively felt. The armour shield for the machine gun mounted on the roof of the StuG does not protect against anti-tank rifle fire from the front or against infantry weapons fired from the side."

[Battlefront.com]

56 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

FWIW I also have a hunch that small arms fire against vehicle gunners/crew visible from outside the vehicle is too accurate. Obviously any MG gunner on a vehicle will be a bullet magnet, but I'm seeing some incredible headshots against TCs/HT gunners in moving vehicles from 200m or more. 

I can say we have repeatedly looked into this since CMSF.  Both internally and externally here on the Forum.  Lots of tests run under various conditions, not just perception and anecdotal accounts.  We've made tweaks over time, but probably since the early days of CMBN we haven't seen evidence that more change is needed.  If someone wants to start up a new thread and do some solid statistical research on this, that's fine by me.  But with one massive caveat....

Announce the test conditions BEFORE doing the tests themselves.  That is standard scientific methodology for a reason.  Because a badly set up experiment wastes a lot of time producing unreliable end results.  If someone is going to put in the time to do a test they should use a vetted set of conditions.

I say this because since the beginning of CM customers have gone forward, on their own without peer review, and conducted tests that sometimes took them many hours to do.  They present the information and say "I'm right!" and then things go downhill fast because I (and often others) point out that the tests were based on bad information, bad conditions, apples/oranges comparisons, etc.  In short, someone might spend 5 hours running tests and in 5 minutes I show why the tests are invalid.  Then they get pissed off and argue that their results are still valuable, someone does a quick tests that proves I'm correct that X variable changing produces entirely different results, and so on.  This is a needless waste of everybody's time so if someone wants to do a test... great!  But show what you are planning on testing BEFORE doing the actual tests so we can all agree that the effort is going to produce a meaningful result.

Steve

[Dennis50]

After thinking about it I have to say this ...Guys like Carlos Hathcock are the exception not the rule. Most of the guys in combat are of the spray and pray crowd. Being able to pick off a Head sticking out of a hatch at will is not that simple. G.I.'s able to do that anytime, all the time are few and far between. I'm pretty sure there needs to be some kind of modifier applied to these gunners. I'm not sure what it is Charles could do to make it seem to be more reasonable, but I trust they will eventually come up with something.

 

[Vanir Ausf B]

I don't have an opinion either way, but with regards to infantry picking off TCs:

1) People tend to notice and remember the unlucky ones.

2) How many are getting hit with the first shot? Yes, hitting a guy's head at 200-300 meters is a hard shot for most soldiers but 5 or 6 guys have a decent chance if you give each of them several attempts. You only need one.

Edited April 8, 2016 by Vanir Ausf B

[BletchleyGeek]

2 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

I don't have an opinion either way, but with regards to infantry picking off TCs:

1) People tend to notice and remember the unlucky ones.

2) How many are getting hit with the first shot? Yes, hitting a guy's head at 200-300 meters is a hard shot for most soldiers but 5 or 6 guys have a decent chance if you give each of them several attempts. You only need one.

This - I also felt the sim was being unfair to me until I took active measures to limit the exposure of my tank commanders to small arms fire. In real time, it is very easy to manage, you just need to back off when the volume of fire gets scary. In WEGO, it is way more tricky. One technique, which I copied from Bil's AARs is to initiate movement towards enemy infantry in the second half or last quarter of the WEGO turn. That gives me the chance to back off when the next WEGO round starts.

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

I don't have an opinion either way, but with regards to infantry picking off TCs:

1) People tend to notice and remember the unlucky ones.

2) How many are getting hit with the first shot? Yes, hitting a guy's head at 200-300 meters is a hard shot for most soldiers but 5 or 6 guys have a decent chance if you give each of them several attempts. You only need one.

Yup.  Contrary to popular belief, 200m is not a big deal for a decent rifleman to get at least near the target.  12 US soldiers unloading Garands and BARs onto the top of an exposed tank commander is pretty much a sure kill at that range within a few volleys.  Think about it... let's say each soldier gets off 2 aimed shots.  Since all you need is one hit or ricochet, that sort of firepower and 12 different aimpoints is going to have an effect.  There's a big difference between one random soldier taking 12 shots and twelve soldiers each taking 1 shot.  You statistics nerds know what I'm talking about. 

Even with my basic skills I can see that if there is a 1 in 20 chance of a single soldier getting a hit on the first shot, that's pretty much a 50/50 chance that ONE volley from a 12 man squad is going to take out an exposed crew member. 

This is the big edge that the US Rifle Squads have over any other squad type in the game.  First, they are larger than most.  Second, they are all armed with at least a semi-automatic weapon.  Generally 10 of them are armed with long arms that have full powered rounds.  That's a lot of firepower from a lot of points that can theoretically hit all at once.

Steve

[JoMac]

14 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

I don't have an opinion either way, but with regards to infantry picking off TCs:

1) People tend to notice and remember the unlucky ones.

2) How many are getting hit with the first shot? Yes, hitting a guy's head at 200-300 meters is a hard shot for most soldiers but 5 or 6 guys have a decent chance if you give each of them several attempts. You only need one.

1 ) And the reason they tend to notice the unlucky ones...Because those so called 'Unlucky Shots' happen 50% or more of the time. Otherwise, people wouldn't be complaining in the first place.

2) And still the problem is why aren't the Crew popping their heads down (then later pop back up)  more often when bullets are 'Area-Firing' the Vehicle to begin with ( Shhh...yeah, I know BF claims it's called 'Aimed-Shots' for some strange reason ). Because, we all know the point of shooting at Unbuttoned Crew is to make them Button-Up more often, and with a small chance of causing a casualty in the process. 

Like I said in previous post, unless it's Sniper ( you know...'Aim Shots' ), an Ambush ( Unbuttoned Crew not familiar with its' local surroundings ), or Close Range shots, then Crew tend to live to fight another day.

I simply miss how CMx1 handled it...At least a Vehicles Crew have about a 25% chance of being a Casualty by Games End ( not each turn as in CMx2 )

Edited April 9, 2016 by JoMc67

[Lethaface]

8 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yup.  Contrary to popular belief, 200m is not a big deal for a decent rifleman to get at least near the target.  12 US soldiers unloading Garands and BARs onto the top of an exposed tank commander is pretty much a sure kill at that range within a few volleys.  Think about it... let's say each soldier gets off 2 aimed shots.  Since all you need is one hit or ricochet, that sort of firepower and 12 different aimpoints is going to have an effect.  There's a big difference between one random soldier taking 12 shots and twelve soldiers each taking 1 shot.  You statistics nerds know what I'm talking about. 

Even with my basic skills I can see that if there is a 1 in 20 chance of a single soldier getting a hit on the first shot, that's pretty much a 50/50 chance that ONE volley from a 12 man squad is going to take out an exposed crew member. 

This is the big edge that the US Rifle Squads have over any other squad type in the game.  First, they are larger than most.  Second, they are all armed with at least a semi-automatic weapon.  Generally 10 of them are armed with long arms that have full powered rounds.  That's a lot of firepower from a lot of points that can theoretically hit all at once.

Steve

Might be just a hunch born from frustration ;-) 
Agree that 12 man teams having good fov will have a decent chance of hitting a small target at ~200m, especially after a couple of volleys which doesnt take long with semi auto rifles. The instances that feeded my 'hunch' were of a different kind: when the vehicle came into view of the (so far unspotted) enemy soldiers they were able to directly put very accurate fire down from a small number of rifles, killing the gunner/commander from 200m++, don't remember the actual distance but it was far. It felt like there were some Call of Duty camping sniper aimbots among the enemy soldiers ;-P
Could just be unlucky, I don't recall having encountered this often while playing the various CMx2 games over the last 9 years but in CMFB it seems more frequent (last 1.5 years mainly played CMBS and now for a while FB). It's just that I saw some others posting about it lately that I thought I'd mention it.

Don't really have a lot of time for playing the game lately (let alone testing), one way I think this one could be tested is calculating the amount of shots a garand only stationary infantry squad needs to cause 1 casualty among a small infantry team moving in the open, compared to the same squad number to take out an unbuttoned halftrack/tank gunner/commander moving in the open. Repeat for various distances, all movements towards the shooter (using fanatical troops to make sure the inf. doesnt go prone under fire).

I'd say that it should take less shots to take out the infantry man moving in the open, versus taking out the vehicle gunner/tc (because the cross section of a man standing up is much larger than just a head). Plus I'd say that the further the distance the chance that the tc/gunner will button up before dying should increase significantly. 

So many variables though, while the 'business rules' are unclear. Almost feels like work :-).

Edited April 9, 2016 by Lethaface

[Lethaface]

11 minutes ago, JoMc67 said:

1 ) And the reason they tend to notice the unlucky ones...Because those so called 'Unlucky Shots' happen 50% or more of the time. Otherwise, people wouldn't be complaining in the first place.

2) And still the problem is why aren't the Crew popping their heads down (then later pop back up)  more often when bullets are 'Area-Firing' the Vehicle to begin with ( Shhh...yeah, I know BF claims it's called 'Aimed-Shots' for some strange reason ). Because, we all know the point of shooting at Unbuttoned Crew is to make them Button-Up more often, and with a small chance of causing a casualty in the process. 

Like I said in previous post, unless it's Sniper ( you know...'Aim Shots' ), an Ambush ( Unbuttoned Crew not familiar with its' local surroundings ), or Close Range shots, then Crew tend to live to fight another day.

I simply miss how CMx1 handled it...At least a Vehicles Crew have about a 25% chance of being a Casualty by Games End ( not each turn as in CMx2 )

Well I have the same 'feeling' as you have but I know from experience that feeling is not always correct. Our brains sometimes trick us. Like Steve said: some actual testing is needed to ascertain there is or isn't any 'issue'.

[JoMac]

23 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

Well I have the same 'feeling' as you have but I know from experience that feeling is not always correct. Our brains sometimes trick us. Like Steve said: some actual testing is needed to ascertain there is or isn't any 'issue'.

Exactly, it's how people 'Feel' about a particular situation in a game, that then gets tested before a possible conclusion...just hope it get settled my way, lol. 

Edited April 9, 2016 by JoMc67

[Vanir Ausf B]

The problem with relying on feel is it's subjectivity. For example, my impression is that my casualty rate for unbuttoned tank commanders is far lower than 50%. It's probably closer to 10-20% and I would bet less than half of those are from small arms.

[Vet 0369]

On April 8, 2016 at 3:38 PM, Dennis50 said:

After thinking about it I have to say this ...Guys like Carlos Hathcock are the exception not the rule. Most of the guys in combat are of the spray and pray crowd. Being able to pick off a Head sticking out of a hatch at will is not that simple. G.I.'s able to do that anytime, all the time are few and far between. I'm pretty sure there needs to be some kind of modifier applied to these gunners. I'm not sure what it is Charles could do to make it seem to be more reasonable, but I trust they will eventually come up with something.

 

Carlos H. was an exceptional sniper, that is true, but I must in all modesty say that if I have an M-1 or an M-14 rifle and a minute to "dial in my dope," I'll hit a man's head 7 or 8 times out of 10 at 200 yards. That's with open (aperture or peep) sights. It really isn't difficult at all. The term "max effective range" was defined by the USMC as the range at which ANY Marine can be expected to inflict a casualty on the enemy. The max effective range for the M-14 I carried was, I believe, 460 yards. We fired for qualification at 500 yards. I think the M-1 max effective was 600 yards, and the Soviet Nagant was even longer. An exposed tank commander or an exposed machine gunner is a prime target and meat out to about 300 or 350 yards.

I'm getting the feeling that most of the "fire on commanders and machine gunners" is based people's perceptions with modern 5.56 mm arms. Additionally, regarding team leaders and gunners and and such getting hit first, they are the ones we were trained to take out first. I honestly don't have any "reality" issues with that, not withstanding the frustration when it happens to me?

 

Just my my two cents.

[Battlefront.com]

7 hours ago, Vet 0369 said:

Carlos H. was an exceptional sniper, that is true, but I must in all modesty say that if I have an M-1 or an M-14 rifle and a minute to "dial in my dope," I'll hit a man's head 7 or 8 times out of 10 at 200 yards.

This.  Now under combat conditions, where you're freezing and haven't eaten well for days and have adrenaline pumping, I'd expect this number to be far lower.  But even if it was 1 in 8 shots, if you have 10 buddies who all have the same basic skill then pretty much guaranteed someone is going to drop the TC on the first shot.  That's where statistics start to work against the argument that TC kill rates are too high at such close ranges.

In fact, this is often a point we get to in such debates about "feelings" for a particular result.  Not only do we have an element of people potentially over hyping rarities as common events, but we also potentially have an element (sometimes the same element) which has based its opinion on a misunderstanding of real battlefield conditions (range is often one of the prime suspects as CMers tend to think "point blank range" is a few meters when in reality it is often a few hundred meters).  Since this is sorta like a court of law, in a sense, the onus is upon the accuser to prove the accusation is true or drop the charge.  In this setting it means doing some VETTED tests which back up the claim.  "Your honor, I have a feeling the defendant did rape and kill my dog.  What are you going to do about it?" doesn't really hold up to well in most courts

In this case the question everybody should be asking is this...

How common in the real war was it for a TC to be exposed to small arms fire FOR THAT SPECIFIC VEHCILE in the first place under the conditions in which you (the player) lost a TC?

The latter part is really, really important.  What was the range, quantity, suppression level, type, numbers and angles of overlapping fields of fire, spot status, etc. of the infantry that took out the TC?  These all matter in a big way and it's the sort of stuff that must be taken into consideration when designing a test scenario (see previous plea to NOT do a test unless the conditions are vetted here first).

Put another way, there's a big difference between someone claiming 50% TC losses when tests show the loss rate to be 25%.  There's a big difference if the losses are at 200m vs. 2000m.  There's a big difference if the TCs are regularly being taken out by a couple of Routed ATG crewmen with Carbines vs. being hit by two rifle squads and a MMG.  Etc. etc. etc.

Overall I'm going to go out on a limb here that player preference for better situational awareness and using tanks too aggressively (compared to real life) is part of the equation.  Players who button their tanks up at the first sign of threat and keep them behind a well forward infantry screen are likely going to have less TC casualties than someone who pops his PzIVs down a road unbuttoned without recon or supporting arms.

Lastly, let's remember some facts:

1.  Both sides invested heavily in 360 degree armored glass cupolas for their TCs

2.  Open topped vehicles were nearly fully abandoned as a design for the post war period based on wartime experience

3.  Non-turreted vehicle designs were also largely abandoned post war by nearly everybody

4.  Germans developed remote weapons stations (in modern terminology) for a reason

5.  Anybody remember a problem Israel had with its Shermans and its TCs getting picked off?  Some quick Google searches will remind you with things like "The column came to a halt, and began receiving heavy small arms fire, also coming under attack by hand grenades. Within minutes, twenty out of the twenty-four Israeli tank commanders were hit". This quote taken from a Wiki page with cited source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Suez#cite_note-herzog249-13

6.  The billions spent after WW2 to allow TCs to have good situational awareness while under full armored protection was probably done for a reason.  I'd wager it might be point #5

Now, am I saying this means that the TC casualty rate in CM is perfect or even "just about right" on average?  No.  Am I saying that there are no specific vehicles in CM which might have some sort of modeling situation which makes it ahistorically more prone to casualties than it should?  No.  What I am saying is that on the surface I don't find anecdotal "feelings" about the losses being too high worth losing any sleep over.  Especially since we've tackled this exact question many, many times in the past only to find there wasn't much to support the "feelings".  So until someone puts forth a set of test conditions that seem rigorous enough to test and base decisions on, I don't see much point in further discussion.

If I viewed this as an adversarial discussion (and I most definitely do not), I'd say we got to the point in time where the critics need to "put up or shut up"   Since I do not view it as adversarial, I instead say "it's a fair point to consider, but unless there's some vetted statistical analysis to look at I don't see what more there is to discuss".  There's certainly nothing to "fix" because unless we know what, if anything, is broken we can't do anything anyway.  Unlike CMx1, we aren't talking about abstractions but physics.  There's no modifier value to tweak to lower casualty rates because no modifier like that exists.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Note that I still think there IS reason to check into the logic about crew exposure when the crew is already down a man.  Getting two crew kills from small arms fire should be very rare and limited to situations where things are really, really dire.  So we are looking into this specifically.  While we're at it we're going to see if maybe there's some way to minimize risk of exposure when there is a real need to violate the player's Button Command.  As I outlined earlier in this thread, WE KNOW FOR SURE that slavish obedience to Button is absolutely a bad, bad, bad idea.  But maybe there's more ducking, more reluctance to reload under some conditions, etc. that we can implement to better balance need for action and desire for protection based on circumstances.

Steve

[MikeyD]

Let us remember the 'Battle of the Bulge' lasted a bit over a month and the Americans suffered nearly 90,000 casualties. This was NOT a low-threat/low casualty environment. Each side lost up to 800(?) armored vehicles in just that month (estimates of vehicles losses do vary wildly). Complaining about commander/officer casualties at the 'tip of the spear' within sight of the enemy? Heavy casualties is the nature of the beast, especially for line officers who are obliged to keep themselves aware of the situation during the fight. I recall infantry officer casualties were such a problem that they were instructed to dress-down to look like regular GIs and not make any 'officery' arm movements. If the enemy can shoot you they will shoot you.

[niall78]

I used to take an awful lot of TC casualties. I don't these days. The trick? I try never to expose them to any kind of effective small arm fire. That means never exposing them to any small arms fire under 500 metres. Shrapnel is still a danger over these ranges if any kind of artillery is in play - I recently lost a TC to a mortar round that landed 30 metres from the tank - but TC KIAs have dropped dramatically. As I love playing campaigns TC retention is a must to maintain force effectiveness if units are used repeatedly within a campaign.

Would anyone playing this game stand up in a tank turret while ten or twelve guys shoot long rifles at them from three hundred metres? I certainly wouldn't.

[Bud Backer]

1 hour ago, niall78 said:

I used to take an awful lot of TC casualties. I don't these days. The trick? I try never to expose them to any kind of effective small arm fire. That means never exposing them to any small arms fire under 500 metres.

{snip}

Would anyone playing this game stand up in a tank turret while ten or twelve guys shoot long rifles at them from three hundred metres? I certainly wouldn't.

^^This.

I also used to lose tank commanders often. Because I had my tank commanders do things I personally would never do which is stick my head out of something that puts me ten feet above the ground in plain sight of riflemen within 200 or 300m. It seem suicide to me. 

Edited April 10, 2016 by Bud Backer

[AlexUK]

For me a problem is the position of the commander in the turret. I would prefer to see a lower posture. I remember watching Fury - first battle with AT guns for example - that seemed more realistic to me, and would presumably reduce casualties, while sacrificing some spotting ability.

[niall78]

19 minutes ago, Bud Backer said:

^^This.

i also used to lose tank commanders often. Because I had my tank commanders do things I personally would never do which is stick my head out of something that puts me ten feet above the ground in plain sight of riflemen within 200 or 300m. It seem suicide to me. 

I also feel this is the issue people have with casualties in half-tracks and opened topped semi-armoured vehicles. Again I used to take a lot of KIAs using these units. I constantly tried to get their guns into the heart of the battle. Now on an open map I use them for long range suppressive fire or even long range direct fire but on many maps I now view them as nothing but taxis to get troops near the fighting without tiring too much. Again in campaigns it becomes about force preservation. Why lose cheaply in this battle a unit that could be far more effective in the next scenario?.

Imagine sitting behind the limited protection of a gun-shield while a squad opened up at you at a couple of hundred metres. Dozens of rounds a second smashing into the armour. Those rounds then fragmenting and flying all over the place. The chances of remaining unhurt - even over a very limited time period - in my mind would be near zero.

Edited April 10, 2016 by niall78

[niall78]

I wonder does the use of half tracks and TCs differ between people that play campaigns heavily and those that play one-off games heavily?

A case of more reckless use of such assets due to zero long-term consequences for such recklessness.

[Bulletpoint]

7 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

 

5.  Anybody remember a problem Israel had with its Shermans and its TCs getting picked off?  Some quick Google searches will remind you with things like "The column came to a halt, and began receiving heavy small arms fire, also coming under attack by hand grenades. Within minutes, twenty out of the twenty-four Israeli tank commanders were hit". This quote taken from a Wiki page with cited source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Suez#cite_note-herzog249-13

 

So tank commanders get shot when they are being attacked at hand grenade range? Big surprise.. But it's not the kind of situation people are talking about.

You present the players' argument as being ridiculous and baseless when you say "tanks shouldn't race down the street unbuttoned and without infantry support". Of course they shouldn't. Of course tank commanders are at risk, just like soldiers outside the tank are at risk. It's war, it's dangerous. Nobody says their tank commanders should be invulnerable. But they are arguing that tank commanders are too vulnerable even at longer ranges in this game as it stands.

You say there is no modifier to tweak to make vehicle crew less vulnerable. Well, there is. Just seat them lower, so they are less exposed. Gunners are currently firing their 50 cals with the iron sight at chest level. Halftrack passengers are even levitating in their seats. It's been noticed and shown on the forum over and over again, with screenshots. Yet we get a link to wikipedia saying some Shermans fell into a handgrenade ambush in Israel and for that reason everything is fine? I must say I'm puzzled.

[JoMac]

It's important enough to know that we are all 'Passionate' about the game (including BF, Customers, etc) to bring up some of these issues...We are all just looking for that right 'feel'...err, (there's that taboo word again) I mean 'ebb-n-flow' (there I go again) of the game.

BF did say they will look into this further, and my 'gut feeling' ( there I go again with feelings ) they will make the right decision. 

Now, in saying the above, if BF listens to Me & Bullet ( along with 99% of the 'Pro Choicers' ) I believe we can all be 'One Happy Family' ...( well, at least until the next issue arises ).

Edited April 10, 2016 by JoMc67

[Andrew H.]

4 hours ago, niall78 said:

I used to take an awful lot of TC casualties. I don't these days. The trick? I try never to expose them to any kind of effective small arm fire. That means never exposing them to any small arms fire under 500 metres. Shrapnel is still a danger over these ranges if any kind of artillery is in play - I recently lost a TC to a mortar round that landed 30 metres from the tank - but TC KIAs have dropped dramatically. As I love playing campaigns TC retention is a must to maintain force effectiveness if units are used repeatedly within a campaign.

Would anyone playing this game stand up in a tank turret while ten or twelve guys shoot long rifles at them from three hundred metres? I certainly wouldn't.

I think that CM has things about right concerning the *accuracy* of fire at TC and the *frequency* of such fire. Everyone interested in WWII military history - and certainly all wargamers know of the significant advantages that being unbuttoned brings (and for wargamers of a certain age, the superiority of this doctrine was emphasized in the rules of almost every wargame dealing with armored combat produced in the last 40 years. I still remember reading about it in the ruleset to AH's Arab-Israeli Wars.). 

And I think CM shows the importance of the doctrine better than board games do simply because it has a realistic spotting mechanism, which is the actual advantage provided by being unbuttoned. (I know board games have spotting mechanisms; our microarmor rules did, too...but it wasn't really the same).

But there are two important caveats with the doctrine.  The first is that the "unbutton doctrine" is described in general terms, with no real specifics. Were they really *always* unbuttoned? (Certainly not) Were they unbuttoned at 800 meters? Unbuttoned at 400 meters? At 200?  And did they unbutton when providing infantry support as well as when fighting tanks? Under what conditions?

The second caveat is that the disadvantages of being unbuttoned are rarely discussed.  It's obvious that it's riskier - but I don't know of any documents laying out when to button and when to unbutton.

But we do know - despite the German unbutton doctrine [and as Steve mentioned in his post] - that their AFVs had sophisticated cupolas with numerous periscopes to provide 360 degree awareness. If they were *always* fighting unbuttoned, they wouldn't have seen a need for this.  Also, for example, in October of 1943, an armored deflector was added to the front of the commander's cupola on the StuG: this is because the "barrel" of the cupola was only 30mm thick and AT rifles could penetrate it at certain ranges.  If TCs weren't buttoned, this would not have been an issue - if an AT rifleman can hit the cupola barrel, he can hit the TC. (We also know that the US installed phones on the back of the tanks so that infantry could communicate with the tank crew in Normandy and in the Pacific, which would not have been an issue if the TC were unbuttoned.  But I'm going to mostly discount this, since the behavior of TCs in the sniper-infested bocage (or the jungle) is not necessarily representative of most fighting).

We also know that Soviet doctrine was to fight buttoned - and while the disadvantages of that doctrine are well-known in tank-vs-tank encounters, I think the advantages of it have been insufficiently emphasized. Even if they are outweighed by the disadvantages.

So my tentative conclusion is that CM has the lethality *pretty much* right.

The second question is whether TCs were really shot at as much as they are in game.  This is harder to answer...but I think the answer is probably yes, for a couple of reasons.  We do know that TCs in the allied forces suffered 10% casualties.  We also know - as was discussed at some length in CMx1 days in the context of tanks providing cover for infantry - that in most cases infantry preferred *not* to be near tanks because they were magnets for fire on the battlefield.  Finally, we know the range and accuracy of various weapons, and if you are an HMG crew and see a TC at a range of 200 meters, why *wouldn't* you take a shot? 

So, to reiterate, I think CM has these two factors about right, and I also think that the reason many people feel that TCs are suffering undue casualties is because 40 years of wargaming rules (and brief mentions of the advantages of being unbuttoned in the histories) have tended to obscure how dangerous being an unbuttoned TC could actually be at closer ranges.

I specifically limited my discussion to frequency and lethality as they relate to TCs because there are a couple of other issues that I'm kind of agnostic about.  The first issue is whether TCs duck down quickly enough when they are fired at...it does seem like they would usually duck down at the point when bullets start pinging off of their tank's hull.  But not always, and I think that's the issue Steve brings up wrt the AI.  *Sometimes* you are unbuttoned because it's hard to spot infantry and you're trying to ID targets.  But it's not really a matter of life and death, and if there is any real risk, you'll just button up and area fire.  *Other times*, you are unbuttoned because you are stalking enemy tanks that are capable of killing your tank, so you absolutely need to get the first shot off or you/your tank/your tank platoon will die.  This is the part of tank warfare that 40 years of armor rules got right...and it's worth ignoring a couple of pistol shots plinking off the hull if it means you'll get the drop on the PzIV.  But I don't think that there's a way for the AI to know how important it is for you to be unbuttoned at any particular time in the battle. 

I don't really buy the idea that TCs are underprotected due to the absence of microterrain, since I don't think that there is any microterrain on a tank - if you see a tank, you can find the commander - he'll be at the top.  It is possible that some less experienced infantry, or rattled infantry, would be less likely to shoot at a tank than at other targets because they are afraid of drawing fire...but that may already be accounted for the algorithm anyway.

I'm agnostic on the HT gunner issue; I really have no idea.  

I am curious about the HT-passengers-sitting-too-high issue.

In general, I think HTs are modeled correctly and should avoid coming within 400 meters or so of unsuppressed infantry.  A HT's armor provides a lot of benefits that aren't usually within CM's scale - an hour of 81mm harassing fire covering an intersection in the rear is dangerous to men on foot or in trucks, but not to men in HTs. 

 

[Lethaface]

9 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

"Your honor, I have a feeling the defendant did rape and kill my dog.  What are you going to do about it?" doesn't really hold up to well in most courts    

Seriously gutted me 

Edited April 10, 2016 by Lethaface