Perceived problem with "bullet magnet bunkers"

[Bulletpoint]

Perceived problem: Troops are much too eager to fire small arms at wooden bunkers at long ranges, despite having virtually no chance of causing any damage.

Elaboration: I understand that the game's logic makes soldiers more likely to fire on high-threat targets. This makes sense. But while bunkers are obviously high-threat, they are also extremely low-vulnerability targets, especially at medium-long range (200-300m+). It would make much more sense for infantry to stay hidden from the distant bunker, or focus on other, closer and more vulnerable targets.

Hypothesis: This is an AI issue that probably started in a patch, since bunkers were apparently easier to kill by small arms when the game was released (assumption based on some old forum posts I read). So in the old version of the game, the TacAI behaviour made sense. When bunkers were made stronger in a later patch, the TacAI behaviour was not changed (assumption), leading to infantry now making bad targeting choices when it comes to bunkers.

Proposed solution: Simply change the range at which infantry consider bunkers a worthwhile, killable target. I suggest 100m range might be suitable. For other ranges, it should be up to the player to give a direct target order, if he wants troops to fire on a bunker.

If you agree with me on this, please post in this thread. If enough people consider this a problem, there is a chance that it might get changed.

If you don't agree with me, you're of course also very welcome to join the discussion.

[A Canadian Cat]

I don't have an opinion either way.  I see so few bunkers in the game.  Do you have a test scenario that shows off the behaviour?  Something with a few bunkers and teams of shooters at different ranges to get a good feel for how much fire they draw at what ranges and how much effect it has.

[A Canadian Cat]

I'm not talking about anything rigorous at this point.  Steve might want that at some point.  Just something so we can see (just as an example) if just the BAR gunner is shooting at the bunker at 500m, 400m.  When to do the rifle men start shooting?  How much does the fire from a team actually effect the bunker occupants at range X.  Just so we have more to talk about than everyone's anecdotes. 

[RockinHarry]

A bigger issue to me personally is that the AI knows at the instant, whether a pillbox is occupied or not and then throwing anything and the famous kitchen sink at it. A possible side effect due to pillboxes basically beeing a vehicle type unit, without having the option to "button up". This makes it sort of a priority type target (or threat), like it is for unbuttoned tank crews and HT gunners, with pillbox crews always considered to be of the unbuttoned type (= visible and highest priority target to everybody and his grandma).

Beside that I find vulnerabilty of pillboxes and crews quite in order, which is not the actual problem. But as the BFC authorities claim repeatedly, there´s no problems and players are just using faulty tactics.

[A Canadian Cat]

28 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

But as the BFC authorities claim repeatedly, there´s no problems and players are just using faulty tactics.

I want to call B** S*** on that.  Not that players use faulty tactics - cause we do.  But BFC does *not* just claim that.  So, the have a high bar to prove something needs to change - OK so lets deal with it and hand them the proof.

How this thread does is up to us.  I suggest we all keep going along the path that @Bulletpoint started and I tried to follow. But if you want to spend time slagging each other and BFC go right ahead.  But then the chances of this being a productive thread drop dramatically.

To be clear I'm not trying to offend anyone and I'm not sitting here made at my computer screen.  My preference is to actually have a good discussion and perhaps figure out if / what might need to be tweaked.  I'm starting with an open mind.  Join us!

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, IanL said:

I'm not talking about anything rigorous at this point.  Steve might want that at some point.  Just something so we can see (just as an example) if just the BAR gunner is shooting at the bunker at 500m, 400m.  When to do the rifle men start shooting?  How much does the fire from a team actually effect the bunker occupants at range X.  Just so we have more to talk about than everyone's anecdotes. 

Yes, I fully agree all that would be necessary to hunt down the problem. Right now I just want to hear people's opinions though, before setting up all that testing. To know if I'm the only one noticing this or not.

As for a scenario that shows the issue, the first mission of Scottish Corridor works nicely. There's a diagonal woodline/hedgerow with an enemy building opposite at about 200m, and a bunker further away at 200-250m. I find the bunker attracts all my rifle fire unless I set covered arcs for each individual team.

But despite scoring many "penetrations", no damage is caused to the bunker or its crew. Which is fine with me, the problem is only that the troops open fire at this range.

Edited April 12, 2016 by Bulletpoint

[Bulletpoint]

56 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

A bigger issue to me personally is that the AI knows at the instant, whether a pillbox is occupied or not and then throwing anything and the famous kitchen sink at it. A possible side effect due to pillboxes basically beeing a vehicle type unit, without having the option to "button up". This makes it sort of a priority type target (or threat), like it is for unbuttoned tank crews and HT gunners, with pillbox crews always considered to be of the unbuttoned type (= visible and highest priority target to everybody and his grandma).

Yes, that could also be a potential reason for the observed behaviour. It somehow ties in with my proposed explanation: Infantry "thinking" bunker crew are easy targets, when in fact they are not.

Edited April 12, 2016 by Bulletpoint

[RockinHarry]

Some months ago I made a (yet unpublished) scenario that revolves around a US AI force attacking a german (human) player multiple pillbox position. To make it short (again): The AI sees at the instant, that a pillbox is occupied or not. Pillbox crews can neither hide or otherwise disguise their presence (which in RL they can by neither shooting or showing near the apertures). If a pillbox is not occupied, the AI knows at the instant as well and it simply gets ignored then. A spotted and occupied pillbox instantly becomes a bullet magnet for every enemy in sight, just like is any other unbuttoned vehicle crew.

Currently the faulty tactic is using pillboxes vs. an enemy AI player, but I quite succesfully integrated the AI behavior to give it sort of an edge vs the human player during parts of the mission. That´s likely the reason for the way the AI is modelled to deal with pillboxes (and unbuttoned vehicles) right now. To give it an edge vs a human opponent, or balance things out. A human player can use refined tactics vs enemy held pillboxes, while the AIP can not.

Suggested tactic for human players using pillboxes: Only move in, when you really need to. One action spot away in cover and concealment is sufficient and then rush into the pillbox full speed. "Sneaking" in won´t work anyway in the game. The Ai always knows if anybody is in there or not.

[RockinHarry]

46 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Yes, that could also be a potential reason for the observed behaviour. It somehow ties in with my proposed explanation: Infantry "thinking" bunker crew are easy targets, when in fact they are not.

They in fact are "easy targets", as they can´t cower or duck away, while beeing in fully exposed "unbuttoned" state, which is the only state for pillboxes. Off course it takes high volumes of continuous small arms fire to wear down the pillbox crew, one soldier after another, but the TacAI seems pretty aware of it and thus decides for this behavior as priority. Also a MG pillbox is no different from MG halftracks, with regard to gunner swapping, when you actually want it avoided.

[Bulletpoint]

26 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

They in fact are "easy targets", as they can´t cower or duck away, while beeing in fully exposed "unbuttoned" state, which is the only state for pillboxes. Off course it takes high volumes of continuous small arms fire to wear down the pillbox crew, one soldier after another, but the TacAI seems pretty aware of it and thus decides for this behavior as priority. Also a MG pillbox is no different from MG halftracks, with regard to gunner swapping, when you actually want it avoided.

Pillboxes are not easy targets, because even though the crew cannot duck down, they don't get killed either. At least not at 200m distance. If it takes a company of infantry and 20 minutes of continuous fire to finally kill all the crew, while the bunker fires back, then that's not what I would call an easy target.

If they ducked down, they would actually be a much easier enemy, because then they could be suppressed and it would be a simple matter of getting an AT weapon close enough to finish the job. 

[A Canadian Cat]

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

Yes, I fully agree all that would be necessary to hunt down the problem. Right now I just want to hear people's opinions though, before setting up all that testing. To know if I'm the only one noticing this or not.

Fair enough.  There have been a few threads describing unsatisfying stories around bunkers so hopefully we will hear from a few people.

 

1 hour ago, RockinHarry said:

The AI sees at the instant, that a pillbox is occupied or not. Pillbox crews can neither hide or otherwise disguise their presence (which in RL they can by neither shooting or showing near the apertures). If a pillbox is not occupied, the AI knows at the instant as well and it simply gets ignored then. A spotted and occupied pillbox instantly becomes a bullet magnet for every enemy in sight, just like is any other unbuttoned vehicle crew.

Interesting.  That sound like something worth looking at.  I would expect a fortified position like a bunker to be considered threatening for sure - apparently empty or not.  Clearly if someone is actively firing from one that is a big deal but if the enemy is not firing from it they could still be in there and you wouldn't want to just walk around in front of one unless you knew it was empty (by that I mean *your* guys were inside it). I don't like the sounds of the Tac AI knowing if it is empty or not regardless of if the occupants are spotted or not.  Is it even possible for the occupants to be unspotted while inside a spotted bunker?  Sounds like no.

[Bulletpoint]

22 minutes ago, IanL said:

Interesting.  That sound like something worth looking at.  I would expect a fortified position like a bunker to be considered threatening for sure - apparently empty or not.  Clearly if someone is actively firing from one that is a big deal but if the enemy is not firing from it they could still be in there and you wouldn't want to just walk around in front of one unless you knew it was empty (by that I mean *your* guys were inside it). I don't like the sounds of the Tac AI knowing if it is empty or not regardless of if the occupants are spotted or not.  Is it even possible for the occupants to be unspotted while inside a spotted bunker?  Sounds like no.

It would be nice if your troops had to be really close to bunkers to be able to see if they were occupied or not. Like 50m close. I also wish bunkers worked a bit more like tanks - when you kill a tank, your guys will often keep putting more rounds into it until they can confirm it's knocked out, but with bunkers, you shoot one bazooka or PIAT from the side, and your AT guy immediately knows all occupants were killed, and stops firing.

Maybe we should do one big thread about the tweaks and changes we would like to see for bunkers, and then present it as a total package. Not as a "demand", but more of a feature request. I'm sure at least some of the changes would be possible to implement without too much trouble (while some might take more work or be unfeasible).

For example, please make bunkers low and close to the ground, instead of looking like "Uncle Tom's cabin"  

Edited April 12, 2016 by Bulletpoint

[A Canadian Cat]

Sounds like a plan.

[Bulletpoint]

The new thread for fortification discussion and feature requests is now up:

 

 

[landser]

I've been playing a number of campaigns, and have come across bunkers a few times. This is just more anecdotal evidence of my experience.

-- In one of the very early missions in Road to Montebourg you have roughly two paratroop companies that need to cross open ground and take entrenched positions held by maybe 2 platoons of Germans with a MG42 bunker and mines on the right. The name might have been Ecoqueneuville , but I can't recall with certainty. I was able to suppress the bunker and eventually cause moderate casualties using long range fire from tripod mounted M1917s. These guns were set up near the start positions, probably 300 meters and were effective, achieving many penetrations. So much so that I believe the crew abandoned the bunker before our close assault.

--  Later in RtM, in the mission Hell in the Hedgerows there is a line at the back of the map with several bunkers that withstood over 30 minutes of continuous small arms and .30 cal MG fire with a total of 2 casualties, one in each of two bunkers and at no time noticed any level of suppression. Unable to overcome any of these bunkers with the weapons at hand I eventually took a minor defeat as it would have been too costly to assault and I felt the need to preserve the troops for subsequent missions.

Not much can be learned from what I am writing. However, in each case it was the same type of bunker (wood), same type of troop, same weapons, same range, same version of CM (3.11). But in the former case the fire was very effective, and in the latter, not at all. I had concluded that perhaps it had something to do with the angle the fire was coming in on. For example if the shooter is slightly above, slightly below or level with the firing aperture of the bunker does it make a difference?

Edited April 12, 2016 by landser

[Michael Emrys]

8 hours ago, IanL said:

Do you have a test scenario that shows off the behaviour?

Try the MG scenario "Out On a Limb". There is a pillbox close to one of the AA emplacements that I could not get my paratroops to refrain from spending all their precious ammo on as long as they had LOS to it.

Michael

[landser]

7 hours ago, landser said:

 using long range fire from tripod mounted M1917s.

That should be 1919s I'm sure.

About Hell in the Hedgerows... it was mentioned that MG effectiveness was changed in a patch. I got the game after that, what was changed? Does it have a significant effect on certain MG-heavy battles, or in missions like this one with several MG bunkers, that were created pre-patch? I imagine battles with a large amount of open terrain would feel balanced differently as well.

Edited April 13, 2016 by landser

[Bulletpoint]

6 hours ago, landser said:

That should be 1919s I'm sure.

About Hell in the Hedgerows... it was mentioned that MG effectiveness was changed in a patch. I got the game after that, what was changed? Does it have a significant effect on certain MG-heavy battles, or in missions like this one with several MG bunkers, that were created pre-patch? I imagine battles with a large amount of open terrain would feel balanced differently as well.

The MG rebalance definitely affects many of the old scenarios. Previously, many designers chose to make MG crew veteran or elite, simply to make them effective enough. When combined with the machine gun boost, that makes for very tough missions. However, I think most of the old scenarios are still possible to beat, apart from maybe "Hell in the Hedgerows".

I don't think the MG boost affected their effectiveness against bunkers though. The boost was mostly about suppression effects, I think.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Bulletpoint

[Wicky]

22 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

It would be nice if your troops had to be really close to bunkers to be able to see if they were occupied or not. Like 50m close.

50m close seems optimistic to be able to tell if it's occupied or not.  They don't have large windows to see if the light has been left on. Maybe if milkbottles on the door step are piling up it could indicate if any occupants are in or not.  I'd say you'd need to get close enough to look through the letterbox (looking for delivered mail) and to give a shout.

[Michael Emrys]

6 hours ago, Wicky said:

50m close seems optimistic to be able to tell if it's occupied or not.

Not if it is shooting at you. That's usually a pretty reliable sign that somebody's home and not welcoming guests.

Michael

[Anthony P.]

Must disagree with making them less prone to engage bunkers, wood or concrete. Try e.g. the first mission in The Road To Montebourg, if you can get enough fire to bear on them they are easily suppressed and even destroyed (which is fair, since IIRC the wooden bunkers are supposed to be dug in positions rather than proper bunkers per se). As has been mentioned, later on in the same campaign there's a mission where you command glider infantry and again face wooden bunkers. I suppressed these very well with concentrated medium range fire from my MMGs, killing several occupants. The one on the left even had its MG destroyed, though that might've been from a rifle grenade or some such thing from a squad I got up to the closer hedgerow facing it.

As is right, bunkers aren't some invincible monster that can knock off a platoon of infantry by itself unless it's adequately supported just like any other asset. Thus I see no issue in having infantry prioritize them.

[Bulletpoint]

19 minutes ago, Anthony P. said:

Must disagree with making them less prone to engage bunkers, wood or concrete. Try e.g. the first mission in The Road To Montebourg, if you can get enough fire to bear on them they are easily suppressed and even destroyed (which is fair, since IIRC the wooden bunkers are supposed to be dug in positions rather than proper bunkers per se). As has been mentioned, later on in the same campaign there's a mission where you command glider infantry and again face wooden bunkers. I suppressed these very well with concentrated medium range fire from my MMGs, killing several occupants. The one on the left even had its MG destroyed, though that might've been from a rifle grenade or some such thing from a squad I got up to the closer hedgerow facing it.

As is right, bunkers aren't some invincible monster that can knock off a platoon of infantry by itself unless it's adequately supported just like any other asset. Thus I see no issue in having infantry prioritize them.

This is all well and good for HMGs like you have in the opening of the Road to Montebourg, but have you tried rifle infantry? Can't remember the engagement range for the glider infantry mission, but if you're close enough to hit with rifle grenades, you're probably quite close..

In any case, I don't argue that it should not be possible to shoot at bunkers, but that it should be up to the player to give the targeting order. I believe most infantry teams should prioritise staying out of sight from bunkers at ranges where they can't do anything to them anyway.

[landser]

On 4/12/2016 at 2:53 PM, landser said:

-- In one of the very early missions in Road to Montebourg you have roughly two paratroop companies that need to cross open ground and take entrenched positions held by maybe 2 platoons of Germans with a MG42 bunker and mines on the right. The name might have been Ecoqueneuville , but I can't recall with certainty.

This mission is actually Beau Guillot, to avoid any possible confusion. It is the first battle in RtM as mentioned by Anthony P.

And while I'm making corrections... that mission was leg units, not paratroopers. 2/8 Inf, 4th Division?

Edited April 14, 2016 by landser

[Anthony P.]

I can't recall having any HMGs in the first mission of RtM. M1919s and 1917s sure, but no .50 cals. Regardless, the moment I had my first wave of infantry into the canal halfway across the map (sent them in 3 equally sized waves), they all opened up. The bunkers were fairly well suppressed before any MG teams had even had time to deploy. Regarding the second mission, there are two bunkers at least. All were heavily suppressed, not just the one with infantry close to it.

I'd much rather not have to micro manage what my guys are firing at to as large of an extent as possible. As long as a bunker is within range of their weapons I don't see why they shouldn't engage it, as in my experience it works.

 

Landser, I do believe Ecoqueneuville might actually be the one with glider infantry I'm on about.

Edited April 14, 2016 by Anthony P.

[landser]

12 minutes ago, Anthony P. said:

Landser, I do believe Ecoqueneuville might actually be the one with glider infantry I'm on about.

Hey I'm trying to ease the confusion! But then again, I started it.

Here is a shot from Beau Guillot from another forum

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k264/niall_011/Road%20to%20Mountebourg%20Campaign/RMC7_zps90c83481.jpg~original

And PT posted the mission list in this thread

This is the first mission isn't it?, and has the bunker and minefield along the right flank which can be seen in the screenshot.