Targeting options/priorities

[Anthony P.]

Hi, first post.

Had an issue regarding Shermans in December Morning, when facing the German scout car with the 75mm in the vicinity of objective Mary. I sent two Easy Eights, one of them spotted it and engaged. However, instead of using the gun against the car itself, the gunner opted to using the co-axial machine gun in an attempt to hit the slightly exposed gunner. This lead to the scout car returning fire with its 75mm and scoring a weapons kill. Luckily my second Sherman managed to quickly acquire the scout car, but also elected to engage hitting the gunner with the co-ax instead of using the 76mm gun. Only when the gunner had been killed did the gunner actually switch over to the gun and engage the car itself.

 

[mbarbaric]

had the same problem at the same wxact spot (not to mention those pesky nazis in trenches). had two tanks firing only coax for quite some time soaking up hits from cannon. i was thinking that probably the tank's gun can't get so low to actually use it against that armored car whch is really deep in the valley. 

Edited April 5, 2016 by mbarbaric

[Anthony P.]

No, I doubt that's the issue. The first Sherman could use both the bow gun and co-ax, and the second Sherman transitioned to successfully using his gun without repositioning the moment the German gunner was hit.

[A Canadian Cat]

4 minutes ago, mbarbaric said:

i was thinking that probably the tank's gun can't get so low to actually use it against that armored car whch is really deep in the valley. 

Actually gun elevation limits are not modelled so that is not it.

[mbarbaric]

well then it really might be bug as i have experienced exactely the same problem. could easily use gun first time he saw the armored car, but no, lets tell him we are here by pokeing him with 12,6mm coax...

[A Canadian Cat]

That I cannot comment on - as I am at work and unable to try it out

[Wicky]

AFAIK The shooting by the Sherman's by their MGs is a rangefinding measure for their main gun.  Looks like the HT was quicker on the draw with the first Sherman.

FM 17-12 has a section on "DETERMINATION OF RANGE, a. Estimation by Eye" which suggests use of the coaxial machine gun for range estimation by Shermans.

"By firing a coaxial machine gun - Fire the machine gun with an estimated range and roll the strike into the target. The point on the reticle at which the strike appears is the range setting for the machine gun. Refer to the sight diagram and determine the corresponding range setting for the tank gun."

 

 

[snarre]

i put my cards all sou to that scout car was tjust faster to aim and shoot , because if i remember right that scout car skill level is crack in mission. 

[AttorneyAtWar]

23 minutes ago, Wicky said:

AFAIK The shooting by the Sherman's by their MGs is a rangefinding measure for their main gun.  Looks like the HT was quicker on the draw with the first Sherman.

FM 17-12 has a section on "DETERMINATION OF RANGE, a. Estimation by Eye" which suggests use of the coaxial machine gun for range estimation by Shermans.

"By firing a coaxial machine gun - Fire the machine gun with an estimated range and roll the strike into the target. The point on the reticle at which the strike appears is the range setting for the machine gun. Refer to the sight diagram and determine the corresponding range setting for the tank gun."

 

 

I have never seen a tank do this unless it is trying to fire at an exposed crew member, ranging the target is not a modeled behaviour in the game. This is a problem of the tank deciding illogically to fire at an exposed crew member instead of the vehicle.

[mbarbaric]

35 minutes ago, Wicky said:

AFAIK The shooting by the Sherman's by their MGs is a rangefinding measure for their main gun.  Looks like the HT was quicker on the draw with the first Sherman.

FM 17-12 has a section on "DETERMINATION OF RANGE, a. Estimation by Eye" which suggests use of the coaxial machine gun for range estimation by Shermans.

"By firing a coaxial machine gun - Fire the machine gun with an estimated range and roll the strike into the target. The point on the reticle at which the strike appears is the range setting for the machine gun. Refer to the sight diagram and determine the corresponding range setting for the tank gun

 

nah, my tank was firing like 5 or six turns with coax against that armored car. he only stopped after he got suppressed, popped smoke and went in reverse. the next tank did the same just for one turn as i forgot to turn in the commander so he got killed by first shot and then the tank went  in reverse... quite a laugh for nazis....

[snarre]

one more thing , pleas stop calling them nazis. 

[Anthony P.]

Yeah I've never ever seen any sort of vehicle use machine gun fire to find range, and even when the rounds were continuously striking the target, the gunner didn't transition to the 76mm. And the Sherman was engaging the scout car well before the latter had even turned to face the tank, as is illustrated in the film.

[Andrew H.]

I don't really see the issue - it just looks like the HT shot slightly faster in the duel with the first tank.  It doesn't look like it took the second tank more than 5 seconds to get a round off off after spotting the HT in the second duel.

[mbarbaric]

24 minutes ago, Andrew H. said:

I don't really see the issue - it just looks like the HT shot slightly faster in the duel with the first tank.  It doesn't look like it took the second tank more than 5 seconds to get a round off off after spotting the HT in the second duel.

actually, i have a third tank in my second playthrough of this mission doing the same again. that 1st SS (non-nazi) Panzer Division armored car had to have some super powers preventing tanks to use their guns on them...

[Michael Emrys]

1 hour ago, snarre said:

one more thing , pleas stop calling them nazis. 

I suppose by this point in the war the SS were drafting non-Nazis into their ranks. But at the beginning the SS was strictly an arm of the Nazi party. It had a hard time gaining any legitimacy in the German armed forces establishment. It never entirely left all that behind even when some SS formations had distinguished themselves in battle.

Michael

[Anthony P.]

Look closer. I payed special attention to showing the engagement from all angles. It quite clearly shows Sherman #1 getting the drop on the scout car, but using both bow gun and co-ax. Sherman #2 does the same until the gunner of the scout car has been killed. It also clearly shows that in the case of both Shermans, the turret gunners make the active decision to switch away from the cannon to the co-ax when they detect the scout car.

 

In addition I just checked with a similar scenario in CM:BN. A Sherman decided to spray a self propelled 20mm AAA with his machine guns instead of using the 75mm, which promptly resulted in the SPAAG using its 20mm to knock out optics, radio, .50 cal, etc. on the Sherman. This does seem to indicate that when presented with non-enclosed vehicles, tanks will prefer to use their machine guns to plink individual exposed crew members instead of using their guns to destroy the vehicle itself.

Edited April 5, 2016 by Anthony P.

[Michael Emrys]

Somebody open a ticket and send them a saved game.

Michael

[weta_nz]

Not sure if this is related. Playing the scenario 'December Morning' real time - I had a 60mm mortar refuse to direct fire at the German scout car in.  Range was about 370m.  I could set the target line but it would not aim or fire.  I could area target all around (just in front, just behind etc) the scout car and the mortar would aim and fire correctly. No save game sorry

 

Edited April 6, 2016 by weta_nz

[eniced73]

I back the OP.  I have observed the same behavior in playing the demo.

[simon21]

3 hours ago, Anthony P. said:

Look closer. I payed special attention to showing the engagement from all angles. It quite clearly shows Sherman #1 getting the drop on the scout car, but using both bow gun and co-ax. Sherman #2 does the same until the gunner of the scout car has been killed. It also clearly shows that in the case of both Shermans, the turret gunners make the active decision to switch away from the cannon to the co-ax when they detect the scout car.

 

In addition I just checked with a similar scenario in CM:BN. A Sherman decided to spray a self propelled 20mm AAA with his machine guns instead of using the 75mm, which promptly resulted in the SPAAG using its 20mm to knock out optics, radio, .50 cal, etc. on the Sherman. This does seem to indicate that when presented with non-enclosed vehicles, tanks will prefer to use their machine guns to plink individual exposed crew members instead of using their guns to destroy the vehicle itself.

I can provide a second example of this.  Doing the first scenario; the training one. I observed this phenomena when the tank was engaging the rear antitank gun with guns instead of with the cannon.   

Edited April 6, 2016 by simon21

[Battlefront.com]

Generally speaking all units, no matter what they are, favor the weapon that has the most ammo and can do the job that needs to be done.  This is situation specific and has a lot to do with crew experience, range, and other issues.  In the case of a tank, if it thinks the target can be destroyed with MG fire it's more likely to do that than use the main gun because MG ammo is plentiful and main gun ammo is not.  Remember, in the real world a tanker is never really sure when he's going to get restocked and also not sure when he's going to need every round in the tank.  Gamers have a wee bit more certainty

In this case I don't see an obvious problem.

After watching the video I think the Sherman on the right was plinking the AC while it got ready to fire its main gun.  The AC was unbuttoned and you can see that it caused a crew casualty.  However, the AC got a shot off and whacked the Sherman.  This delayed the Sherman's reaction to respond with its main gun, which was quickly remedied by the second Sherman getting into position.  It cracked off a shot and blew up the AC no problemo.  So we don't really know what the first Sherman would have done if the second one hadn't shown up in the right spot at the right time.

Which is a reminder why it's always best to have buddies able to help each other out

Steve

[weta_nz]

7 hours ago, weta_nz said:

Not sure if this is related. Playing the scenario 'December Morning' real time - I had a 60mm mortar refuse to direct fire at the German scout car in.  Range was about 370m.  I could set the target line but it would not aim or fire.  I could area target all around (just in front, just behind etc) the scout car and the mortar would aim and fire correctly. No save game sorry

 

Re my query above.  I retried the scenario and got the exact same problem.  But this time I moved my mortar team a few meters forward and then it did 'direct fire' onto the scout car. I think I had one of those weird targeting issues where maybe some guys in the mortar team could target the scout car (PSW 234/1) but the 'gunner' couldn't. 

[Bulletpoint]

Is this issue due to a change to AI logic? Because I don't remember ever seeing a similar situation. In my experience, tanks will normally use their main cannon to kill anything that moves, even jeeps. I've never seen a tank "save ammo" by using its machinegun against lightly armoured targets before,

[A Canadian Cat]

10 hours ago, weta_nz said:

Not sure if this is related. Playing the scenario 'December Morning' real time - I had a 60mm mortar refuse to direct fire at the German scout car in.  Range was about 370m.  I could set the target line but it would not aim or fire.  I could area target all around (just in front, just behind etc) the scout car and the mortar would aim and fire correctly. No save game sorry

One thing to check is if the mortar is deployed. Special command tab first one in the upper left. 

I have forgotten that more times than I care to admit. In fact just this morning I noticed I had done it again.

[kulik]

If you think there is an underlying problem, recalculate and run the turn 50 times in a row and make a statistic of the results. Otherwise BF and their henchmen beta testers will come with dozens of plausible explanations why things unfolded like they unfolded. Remember that couple updates ago a mg-42 couldn't hold off a squad of infantrymen without cover charging that particular mg. 

But in this case, I'd say the result is plausible.