Frustration with gun misses.

[gunnersman]

I have not made myself clear.

I recall many instances where my tank, be it Axis or Ally, was under 200 meters had a perfectly clear view, no obstructions, no tree branches, no smoke, nothing but air, just made contact, straight shot down a road or open field, no mistaking where the target is. The tank stops, turns, lines up, fires and the shot would either go wide right or wide left by a good 25 meters or more. . Does this sound familiar to anyone? I am being serious here. I dont mean to sound sarcastic. I can understand maybe over shooting or under shooting by a few meters, if any, but wide right or left?

Again, I must bring up what I stated in my first posting, if a gun can send a shell flying 750 meters a second, does it not take less than a second for a round to go 100, 200, or even 300 meters. Would that not be a near flat trajectory? Are tank sights not bore sighted to the barrel? Where you point your sight that is where the muzzle of the barrel is pointing, right? If I am wrong correct me. I know the gunners of the M1's employ what is called "battle sight". That is the distance the shell will fly before it starts to arc.(for the sabot round it is about 1500 meters) I would imagine ww2 tanks have a battle sight range for their guns and that range would be at least 200 meters. At least. I would imagine it would be rather simple to square your sights on a target 200 meters away, get a good bead on him, even if the crew is green, and get at least a glancing blow on your target.

I dont mean to say that there is anything wrong with the physics model of this game. I am sure it is one of the most accurate. But maybe there is something wrong with the AI or maybe too much emphasis has been put on letting numerous variables that are "out there" have too much of an effect on certain aspects of the game, i.e. shooting.

I am a Gunnersmate in the navy, have been through gunnery school and I am now a mount captain on a 25mm gun on the ship I am on. I understand the principles of gunnery and the physics of flight. I understand the fog of war and you can never be certain of anything in battle and that a good commander knows that his plan will not last once it makes contact with the enemy and I understand and have read all if not then most of the philosophies of battle.

I love this game and cant get enough of it. I cant wait for the next one. Again I dont mean to insult the creators and their creation. I think this game is ingenious. Is that enough brown nosing? Well anyway I just think there is something to what I am saying and believe it strongly. I think too many are blowing off this concern. I have heard others voice it but maybe not in the same way.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Improvise, adapt, overcome.

GSgt. Highway

Heartbreakridge<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Guest Big Time Software]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Again I dont mean to insult the creators and their creation.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Just for the record, your questioning how thins work is not an insult in any way. One can be insulting when posing questions, sure, but you did not do that

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Well anyway I just think there is something to what I am saying and believe it strongly. I think too many are blowing off this concern. I have heard others voice it but maybe not in the same way.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

But so far you are only voicing an opinion. Perhaps a tad more informed because of your gunnery experience, but it is still just that. If opinions were treated as fact there would have to be 40,000 different Combat Missions out there to "propperly" simulate all the opinions that have been expressed Seriously, what I mean by this is that just because 10 people think there is a problem that does not mean that there is one.

If you really feel that there is a problem, then you should join in the already very long discussion on accuracy that has been going on for a couple of weeks. I would suggest at least skimming through most of it, but Pages 12-whatever are the ones you should make sure you read in full. I think they provide very good examples about how opinions, fact, and interpretation of both can vary quite a bit.

Personally, I think you have an unreasonable expecation for what the average gunner, in combat conditions, could do with the hardware of the day. You have your opinion, and I have mine

Steve

[This message has been edited by Big Time Software (edited 11-02-2000).]

[Doug Beman]

gunnersman, the big ratings for the effectiveness of a tank's gunfire are rounds/minute and first-round-hit %. A first-round-hit % of less than 90 is considered unacceptable today. That being said, it might come as a shock to you that tanks did not start getting this 90% first-shot-hit until the 1960s and 1970s, with the advent of lasers to get accurate range and reliable/fast computers to make the necessary calculations.

In the early 1950s, tanks crewed by Israelis engaged a group of dug-in PzIVs crewed by Syrians. Opening fire at a range of about 1500m, the Israelis closed the range to about 1000m (the Syrians did not move at all) During the exchange, both sides fired dozens of shots. Neither side scored any hits(!) It was this event (from my reading of Ken Macksey's Tank V Tank) that prompted the Israelis to look very closely at how they were training their tank crews.

Picture how tiny a target a tank is at 500 meters. You can use a telescopic sight, but you must accept the fact that keeping that target in the sight becomes more difficult as magnification increases. Add in smoke, noise, fear of death, the close quarters of a tank's turret, possible defects in optics/gun manufacture/miscoordination of these two elements. I think it's a wonder that hits were made as often as they were!

DjB

[Doug Beman]

To add further to my post:

Yes, guns and sights are supposed to be aligned, one to the other.

Supposed.

If a tank's crew does not maintain this alignment, it is lost. In battle this alignment is easily disturbed. The jarring of the tank's travel can skew the sights. Non-penetrating hits can wreck the optics. Gun barrels subjected to rapid heating during firing will warp during cooling (the M1A1, among others, has a sensor to detect and correct for this, so it must be a non-insignificant force) Wind (not modeled directly in CM, but maybe factored in abstractly) can push the shell around (again, the M1A1 has a sensor for this, so it must be a non-insignificant force)

In short, hitting a target with a tank gun at any range is much more than "point gun at target." I have no experience with this personally, but everything I have ever read about the subject points to one fact: it was goddamn hard.

DjB

[Slapdragon]

Gunnersman,

I think it is not how polite you are in this, but how tightly you have defined the problem and what solutions you are offering. Others before you have indeed been very rude in their presentation of this idea that accuracy or hitting power or whatever is wrong in the game, and they get far less civil replies.

You just need to sit down and come up with exactly how the game is inaccurately portraying reality, and then offer a stab at the new reality. For eample (and warning, I am not saying this myself, but am presenting a way of argument)

"I have a study done by this guy Stinky on .50 caliber HMG use in the gulf war, and it shows 56 engagements at 500 meters average (sd 100) with an average of 4.5 casualties done per 100 rds fired. I did a test in the game of .50 in the open and caused 2.3 casualties per minute at 500 meters. I think its actual fire power is understated, it should be higher by half."

This offers a situation that research seems to diverge from the game and a stab at how to fix it. For the tank guns, it is much harder, but a few of the threads have indeed gone from lame to game by starting to tackle the models in the system. )and the tank fire model of course is the most complex, more complex than my example).

[Guest stenmur2]

I believe he was wondering why the shots were landing left/right of the tanks. Remember that at 200 meters an angle of 7 degrees off center will give you a 25 meter change. The farther away the target is the smaller the angle needed to miss.

stenmur

[BK6583]

As I was playing a CM scenario last night this post sure came to mind. First, let me state that I'm not going to cry "something's wrong here!" BUT, I do have to wonder sometimes about what's going on as CM goes through its fuzzy logic routines. I had a Panther (the scenario allowed me to dig it in, which I did) engage a Sherman 76 (in the open and not hull down) at about 600-700 meters. During the course of one turn, the Sherman missed the first shot and then proceeded to score 4 consecutive hits (all ricochets or shell broke up - thankfully) while the Panther scored a big fat zero on all of its shots. Both were Regular crews and the Panther was unbuttoned.

The following turn lasted but a few seconds as the Panther missed yet again while the Sherman brewed up the Panther with a "weak spot" hit (I'm really getting to hate that kind of hit). At any rate, I guess I got a large dose of bad luck on this engagement.

[aka_tom_w]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by stenmur2:

I believe he was wondering why the shots were landing left/right of the tanks. Remember that at 200 meters an angle of 7 degrees off center will give you a 25 meter change. The farther away the target is the smaller the angle needed to miss.

stenmur<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I would agree with any suggestion that would propose that the gme model misses as largely short or long, perhaps we might see misses modeled this way more often in CM2. I agree that it does not feel right that the the game should show us the result of a missed shot to the left or to the right.

I know that this visual respresentation doesn't really matter, because its just a graphics thing, BUT since the shot that misses can actually do damage somewhere else when it misses, the game should model these misses in a much more long (past the target) or short (in front of the target) missing manner.

While we are being picky about this we might suggest based on our reading and reaserach in the 88 accuracy thread that the majority of first shot misses be modeled LONG (on target but behind it) as the German WWII tank gunners were instructed to guess longer rather than shorter while bracketing so as not to obscure the target unneccesarily with a shot that kicked up dust when it fell short.

just a few thoughts

And yes I still believe that there are far too many 3rd and 4th shot misses, (by both sides) especially for veteran crack and elite crews that should be able to bracket fast and have a much higher percentage of hits on target by the 3rd or 4th shot, yes even while being shot at, even in combat. It doesn't feel right when a crack or elite tank crew (either side) misses 4 times in a row at ANY range. They weren't Crack or elite because they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, and when we are told we were just unlucky I think what this really means is that the algorythym that determines chance of a hit after a target is missed with the first and second shot IS not high enough on the third and forth shot to adequatley model the Elite Crack or Veteran crew gunner experince of bracketing and laying the shot on target by the fourth round as the German gunners were trained to do when the attempted to qualify (on a practive range granted, but then they were green or regular, without combat experiecne and they were STILL requuired to get a hit by the fourth shot) to be German Tiger Tanks Gunners.

Just ranting again to support the fact that the chance to hit is not high enough for 3rd and 4th shots for Elite Crack and verteran tank gunners.

I have posted simliar concerns in the (now ) 14 page 88 accuracy thread, it is worth reading if you are serious about this subject matter.

-tom w