I hate "Hunt", and I don't mean Jeremy !!!

[noob]

In a game I am playing, I rushed two PzIV's in cover in a ditch with five Shermans across open terrain. All had a "hunt" order, and a cover armour arc. So, I assumed that when each of my tanks made visual contact, or was fired upon, they would stop and engage, no problem.

However, that didn't happen, when the lead tank got a sighting, and a hit, the rest just stopped outside the LOS of the enemy. So now I have to change their order to "move fast" to get them to engage, and have now lost the element of surprise.

So I checked the manual regarding "hunt".

Vehicles - orders vehicles to advance slowly and observe the battlefield for enemy
contacts. Upon spotting a threat, such as another enemy vehicle or tank,
or when fired upon (even if the enemy is not seen), the vehicle stops immediately.

There is no mention of the fact that if one of a group of vehicles is fired upon, "all" the vehicles will stop.

So why did all five tanks stop ? when only one had gained a LOS with an enemy unit, and was fired upon. There is no mention in the manual that if one of a group of vehicles is fired upon, "all" the vehicles will stop.
 

So please BF, either tweak "hunt" so it only applies to the spotting, and / or engaged vehicle, or bring in a "Move to Visual Contact" order, where an "individual" unit only stops when it has a visual contact with an enemy.

 

p.s

Jeremy Hunt is a UK politician that's been in the news lately
 

Edited May 25, 2016 by noob

[gnarly]

Obvious question that has to nevertheless asked, that I'm sure the answer is 'yes' to: does each tank's cover armour arc extend past/over the enemy contacts?

 

I'm sure this isn't your scenario, but if your tanks have seen the enemy while on Hunt, and stopped, but their cover arcs are too short, they may not engage?

[noob]

Yes, the arcs have a 300m radius, well beyond the enemy locations.

All the tanks stopped immediately the first one was hit, even though they had no LOS on the enemy tanks.

[sttp]

It's probably one of those no-win situations for BFC and their AI. I've been on both sides of this issue. The problem is that there are other battlefield circumstances where it'd be very, very stupid for the rest of the vehicles to continue on when one of their buddies had just gotten hit. In circumstances like yours, though... yeah, it seems silly for them to stop. The algorithm needed for the AI know which behavior is truly appropriate for a given situation would probably involve several dozen variables... and take substantial processing time.... and it'd probably never be tweaked to everyone's liking. There'd always be those edge situations, where you could force an absurd result.

The 'ideal' solution for many of us here, of course, would be some kind of way to tell your vehicles to either "go, and hunt, but DO NOT stop," vs. "go, and hunt, but back off cautiously if things go south".... In other words, another new movement command. (To go along with the 17 other new commands I'd also love to see, haha.) But I guess BFC has got to keep the number of commands reasonable, since not everyone wants to micro-manage the way lots of us probably do....

In situations like you describe, OP, I've started using combinations of staggered HUNT and FAST commands. It sounds like you probably already know this, but with a FAST command, the vehicles will not stop. You lose the extra awareness the crew would have with the HUNT, sure, but sometimes not stopping is more critical.

[MOS:96B2P]

2 hours ago, noob said:

<Snip>  So why did all five tanks stop ? <Snip>

Sounds like it was a combination of the Hunt command with the cover arc.   The cover arc tells the crew to react to threats within the arc (that the crew is aware of) and ignore threats outside of the arc.  The crew will do their best to follow these orders based on motivation and experience.  The incoming fire on the other tank was within the 300m arc.  When on Hunt incoming fire within an assigned 300m arc causes the tanks to halt.  If they had LOS they would have also fired but the gaining of LOS, with this combination of commands, would almost have to be synchronized to work.            

Hunt is good for tanks to take hull down positions reference a particular OpFor position.  Like sneaking into an overwatch position. 

Fast is good for a multi tank dynamic attack.  Try to Fast them to their first LOS waypoints so they all arrive within a few seconds of each other.  

When I use armored covered arcs I almost always make them 360^o and the entire map.  The few exceptions are in confined areas where I want the turret rotated before the tank breaks from cover.  Like in MOUT or sometimes the Normandy bocage. 

Below is my drill for what you were trying to do.  Any suggestions for improvements are welcome.    

1. When possible keep at least two open action spots (16 meters) between vehicles.

2. Give vehicles Open Up orders.  

3. If target is armored give vehicles Armor Target Arc orders for entire map, 360^o.

4. Fast vehicles to shoot waypoints attempting to synchronize arrival times. 

Notes: Fast so front armor is facing OpFor at final waypoint. (Don’t use Face).

Good luck.       

 

 

[noob]

32 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

Sounds like it was a combination of the Hunt command with the cover arc.  

That makes sense, the cover arcs for all my tanks were overlapping, so they were all primed to react to any one of their groups contacts.
I'm just going to use "Fast" in those situations in future.

Thanks for all the replies.

Edited May 25, 2016 by noob

[womble]

Did the following tanks have "?" icons for the intended victims? Depending on soft factors, that can sometimes cause them to halt.

Was the lead tank the HQ? I'm interested if the tanks reacted "as a unit" to the incoming fire. That would, indeed, be a surprise.

How close were the following tanks to the "track" of the projectile that hit the lead tank? They may simply have been reacting to seeing that with their own eyes and that could qualify as "fired upon" by an unseen enemy, per your manual quote.

Rushing enemy tanks in cover with yours over open ground isn't really a recommended tactic, though, unless you can arrange for your overwhelming numbers to all break into LOS of the enemy pretty close to simultaneously. I think in this case your tankers' reaction was probably the least bad result.

[Baneman]

1 hour ago, womble said:

How close were the following tanks to the "track" of the projectile that hit the lead tank? They may simply have been reacting to seeing that with their own eyes and that could qualify as "fired upon" by an unseen enemy, per your manual quote.

This was going to be my question too - if they're close together, they may feel that the shot that hit one of them was "themselves being fired upon" - since Hunt will still be cancelled by "nearby fire" or "a miss".

[A Canadian Cat]

14 hours ago, noob said:

So why did all five tanks stop ? when only one had gained a LOS with an enemy unit, and was fired upon. There is no mention in the manual that if one of a group of vehicles is fired upon, "all" the vehicles will stop.

 

I am actually surprised they all stopped as well. Others have hypothesized why they might have so it could be that the criteria spotting an enemy or being fried upon also includes nearby friendlies being fired upon as well. That seems to match what you are seeing.

 

10 hours ago, MOS:96B2P said:

Below is my drill for what you were trying to do.  Any suggestions for improvements are welcome.   

This is good advice (well the referenced post is).  This is pretty much what I do

[noob]

6 hours ago, womble said:

Did the following tanks have "?" icons for the intended victims? Depending on soft factors, that can sometimes cause them to halt.

Yes

Was the lead tank the HQ? I'm interested if the tanks reacted "as a unit" to the incoming fire. That would, indeed, be a surprise.

No

How close were the following tanks to the "track" of the projectile that hit the lead tank? They may simply have been reacting to seeing that with their own eyes and that could qualify as "fired upon" by an unseen enemy, per your manual quote.

As mentioned previously, all the cover arcs of the five tanks overlapped, so they were reacting to fire in their arc I presume. Makes sense.
 

Rushing enemy tanks in cover with yours over open ground isn't really a recommended tactic, though, unless you can arrange for your overwhelming numbers to all break into LOS of the enemy pretty close to simultaneously. I think in this case your tankers' reaction was probably the least bad result.

I know the pros and cons of different situations. I was way ahead in kills, so I could afford to trade tank for tank, the distance wasn't great, one enemy tank was permanently buttoned, I had a five to two advantage, and controlling the terrain was vital. 

 

[noob]

4 hours ago, Baneman said:

This was going to be my question too - if they're close together, they may feel that the shot that hit one of them was "themselves being fired upon" - since Hunt will still be cancelled by "nearby fire" or "a miss".

I concur.

[Warts 'n' all]

18 hours ago, noob said:

Jeremy Hunt is a UK politician that's been in the news lately
 

And there was me thinking that it was cockney rhyming slang... Oh well, you live and learn.

Edited May 25, 2016 by Warts 'n' all

[John Kettler]

noob,

It appears to me there may be another factor in play not already identified. That is whether or not the tanks are all from the same unit. Was the spotting tank by any chance fitted with a transceiver (say, PL or APL)? If so, it may've broadcast an immediate warning to the others, causing them to halt.

Regards,

John Kettler

[womble]

5 hours ago, Warts 'n' all said:

And there was me thinking that it was cockney rhyming slang... Oh well, you live and learn.

Oh, it is, ol' chap, it is.

[Trooper117]

Would it have made a difference if the lead tank only had the cover arc, and the others behind didn't?

Perhaps they would have continued to advance until they had a visual ref on the target...

[Pak40]

Hmm. I wonder if C2 played a role in this behavior? The initial tank radio'd the other tanks and reported the contact, therefore all the tanks stopped because of the Hunt command.

[Sailor Malan2]

If the following tanks have a ? Contact and a shot has been fired close by, isn't that in itself a normal reason to halt immediately? Certainly infantry stop with nothing more than a ? Contact when hunting. The cover arc aspect may be irrelevent

[MOS:96B2P]

6 hours ago, Sailor Malan2 said:

<Snip> The cover arc aspect may be irrelevent

I think you have a point.  Above I posted that it was a combination of Hunt and the covered arc.  However if there was no cover arcs at all the same result would have occurred just using Hunt.

I think to get the desired result:  Fast or Quick for the movement command and if target arcs are to be used make them 360^o Armor Arcs covering the entire map.      

[Blazing 88's]

On 2016-05-25 at 7:04 PM, noob said:

...p.s

Jeremy Hunt is a UK politician that's been in the news lately
 

This reminds  me of my younger days when a friend of mine jokingly went up to the info booth at the mall and asked to have 'Mike Hunt' paged... The poor girl.  Good times!

[Trooper117]

Yes, I saw that film...

[Sailor Malan2]

I agree with not using hunt for multiple vehicles going for a shot on a known target. I would normally use fast to a point where I can just see the target (check los from the destination), and arrange they get to positions widely spaced around the enemy more or less together. Then one may get engaged but the rest should be able to get him...

[noob]

I think it's safe to say that Hunt, along with Move and Slow, are passive orders, and Quick, Fast and Assault, are aggressive orders. So if the move you want to make is aggressive, don't use Hunt.

Edited May 29, 2016 by noob

[Michael Emrys]

4 hours ago, noob said:

I think it's safe to say that Hunt, along with Move and Slow, are passive orders, and Quick, Fast and Assault, are aggressive orders. So if the move you want to make is aggressive, don't use Hunt.

Sure, aggressively rush into an ambush and get all your men killed. Be my guest.

Michael

[Sailor Malan2]

1 hour ago, Michael Emrys said:

Sure, aggressively rush into an ambush and get all your men killed. Be my guest.

Michael

That's not what he meant! If you want to get to a spot to take a shot at a known enemy and you are reasonably sure there are no other threats... If you use hunt, you run the risk of a variable number of your forces not turning up. Presenting one target to an enemy can get you just as killed as running several tanks on fast into an ambush

[Michael Emrys]

10 minutes ago, Sailor Malan2 said:

That's not what he meant! If you want to get to a spot to take a shot at a known enemy and you are reasonably sure there are no other threats... If you use hunt, you run the risk of a variable number of your forces not turning up. Presenting one target to an enemy can get you just as killed as running several tanks on fast into an ambush

Yes, but Move and Slow are not passive orders. "Hold your position" is a passive order. Duh.

Michael