Morale - strange behavior

[bruno2016]

I noticed that, in CM2, tank crews tend to panic very quickly when they get simply hit (even without armor spalling, or immob, or anything else really harmful). And then it takes average 5 minutes, after they run away, to become available again! to reflect what? intense shock? This behavior is regardless of the armor thickness (for instance with Elefant crews hit, just hit, by a non APCR 76.2 mm fired by a wolverine). Same would also often happen with tiger crews, etc. Is it really realistic? I have never read this in any serious war history documents or tank crew bio.  I was more under the impression that crews bail out only when the tank is destroyed of course or immob'ed in view of enemy anti tank capable units. Sometimes, like for the battle of Kursk, Panther crews were even forbidden to bail out if immobilized (by mines for instance), which in this case would be a special scenario rule. Well just a comment for your feedback. Maybe am I too much influenced by years of ASL games ...  ?

[Heirloom_Tomato]

11 hours ago, bruno2016 said:

I noticed that, in CM2, tank crews tend to panic very quickly when they get simply hit (even without armor spalling, or immob, or anything else really harmful). And then it takes average 5 minutes, after they run away, to become available again! to reflect what? intense shock? This behavior is regardless of the armor thickness (for instance with Elefant crews hit, just hit, by a non APCR 76.2 mm fired by a wolverine). Same would also often happen with tiger crews, etc. Is it really realistic? I have never read this in any serious war history documents or tank crew bio.  I was more under the impression that crews bail out only when the tank is destroyed of course or immob'ed in view of enemy anti tank capable units. Sometimes, like for the battle of Kursk, Panther crews were even forbidden to bail out if immobilized (by mines for instance), which in this case would be a special scenario rule. Well just a comment for your feedback. Maybe am I too much influenced by years of ASL games ...  ?

There is a lot going on with this game and some things are easy to pass over.

First up IMHO, would be the soft factors of the crew. The game models things like experience and motivation very well. If you have a green tank crew with low motivation, yes they are going to bail quite quickly when things start to go wrong for them. On the other hand a crack or veteran crew with high motivation will be much harder to convince them to bail out. Leadership is also modeled, a crew with poor leadership will also bail faster than one with a quality leader.

Next would be command. Is the elephant in direct contact with their HQ unit? If not, they are going to be more brittle and much more likely to make a decision that seems silly or wrong to you. What is the status of any other units in the same platoon or company? If they have been knocked out or even suffered casualties, it will affect the status of this crew and make them more brittle as well.

Last would be information. YOU know what the elephant was hit with, but does the crew? When they are selected, is the Wolverine's floating icon visible? If not, then THEY have no idea that what just hit their tank can't hurt them far more seriously. For them, they got lucky and it is time to get out of trouble, as quickly as possible.

Put all these things together and you can see how a crew could bail. You have to remember the game doesn't see just a Tiger tank, it sees the tank AND the men inside, be they battle hardened heroes or frightened rookies.

[MikeyD]

I'm reminded of the story of how Kubinka gained possession of an Israel Merkava MBT for its museum. Lebanon, sometime in the 1980s. A Syrian Gazelle helicopter appears on the horizon, the Merkava crew immediately panics, bails and runs away. The Syrian army drives the tank off and eventually hands it over to Russia.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

When tanks get hit, the crew assumes more is on the way and if they can't identify the source and do something about it quickly or reverse to safety, they start seriously thinking about getting out of Dodge.  If there's any smoke, causing them to believe there's even a 0.1% chance of the tank being on fire?  Fuhgeddaboudit.

Totally normal and believable imho.

[Bozowans]

1 hour ago, MikeyD said:

I'm reminded of the story of how Kubinka gained possession of an Israel Merkava MBT for its museum. Lebanon, sometime in the 1980s. A Syrian Gazelle helicopter appears on the horizon, the Merkava crew immediately panics, bails and runs away. The Syrian army drives the tank off and eventually hands it over to Russia.

This reminds me of something I read in a Soviet tank rider's war memoir. I think the book was just called "Tank Rider" or something. But anyway, he was describing repeated failed attempts at capturing a German-occupied hill. The Germans were dug-in up there with barbed wire and trenches and so on. Soviet infantry were repeatedly ordered to take the hill, but as they climbed up there they would fail to get through the wire or whatever and then get shot up by machine guns and then come running back down again in disarray.

Eventually a platoon of T-34s were brought up, and they were ordered to repeat the attack with the T-34s in support. Well, as the tanks drove off from their start line toward the German hill, before even taking any fire, all of the crews decided to bail out of their still-moving tanks at the same time and then run away. So there were a bunch of empty T-34s driving toward the German positions. The tanks got destroyed. That made me laugh out loud when I read it. I'm sure players would not react very well if that happened to them in the game.

In the same book, the author described some of the soldiers playing games by running across the street in front of a German tank, trying to bait the gunner into shooting at them. The German gunner would never lead his targets right and he would always miss. There was no tactical reason to do it at all, but the soldiers were bored and had fun by running back and forth across the street trying to make him shoot.

How do you make a wargame when people act like that during real wars? Sometimes I think that you even get too much control over your units. I kinda miss the days of CMx1, where you had those long command delays, especially with Soviet early war tanks with no radios, where it might take more than a minute just to get them to start moving.

[RockinHarry]

I´ve read numerous accounts where tank crews bailed out prematurely. It´s mostly a morale thing, but there´s also occasions when a crew believes their vehicle got some damage  (immobilization, or beeing on fire) when there´s none (or nothing serious). The engine might just have went out and a possible next round gets them all toasted. Haven´t tested, but maybe in game it´s occuring more oftenly with -1 or -2 leaders?

[MikeyD]

I've got a unit history of Churchill tanks in Normandy. One anecdote a moving Churchill got unexpectedly hit with something and the crew immediately bailed. But the Churchill kept moving on its own, The driver was so ashamed of himself that he got up, scampered to the moving tank while under fire, chambered back in through the open side hatch, and drove it back to the crew.

[Myles Keogh]

When CMBN was first released there was a lot of complaining about bailed-out AFV crews acting like John Rambos upon exiting their vehicles.  Usually armed with several automatic weapons, it was not uncommon for a bailed-out AFV crew to immediately turn the tables on nearby opposing infantry.  BF listened to the complaints and agreed that a likely disoriented and shocked AFV crew would not go into hero mode upon fleeing its vehicle.  So, they upped both the chances of a crew being panicked upon bailing-out and the length of time to recover from that panic.  Personally, I felt both changes were a big improvement over the earlier AFV crew behavior.

[Bulletpoint]

2 hours ago, Myles Keogh said:

When CMBN was first released there was a lot of complaining about bailed-out AFV crews acting like John Rambos upon exiting their vehicles.  Usually armed with several automatic weapons, it was not uncommon for a bailed-out AFV crew to immediately turn the tables on nearby opposing infantry.  BF listened to the complaints and agreed that a likely disoriented and shocked AFV crew would not go into hero mode upon fleeing its vehicle.  So, they upped both the chances of a crew being panicked upon bailing-out and the length of time to recover from that panic.  Personally, I felt both changes were a big improvement over the earlier AFV crew behavior.

They're still rambos though. Being in a panic doens't stop them from mowing down nearby enemies, often with their pistols. It does take longer before the player is able to regain control over them though. So there's that.

[MikeyD]

Player do seem to get a bit too too cocky around bailed tank crews. You shouldn't run your men right up to a guy wielding a Thompson smg or .45 pistol. No need to close assault, just stand off and shoot them down as they try to run away.

[Bufo]

I just want to say that only because there are stories of this happening, it does not mean that this happened every time.

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, MikeyD said:

Player do seem to get a bit too too cocky around bailed tank crews. You shouldn't run your men right up to a guy wielding a Thompson smg or .45 pistol. No need to close assault, just stand off and shoot them down as they try to run away.

The problem is that when you close assault a tank, your guys are already very close. When the tank crew bails out, enemies outside the tank start shooting before the crew actually bails. Wasting their ammo hitting the tank. And once the "panicked" crew exit, they immediately spot and engage enemies camping outside. Often killing several. Same problem goes for bunkers. It's one of the silliest design flaws of the game.

[Bulletpoint]

To be fair though, about the original topic - I can't remember seeing tank crew bail without the tank taking some kind of damaging hit first.

But since morale hits are somewhat shared within platoons, maybe it's because some of the other tanks got knocked out?

[MikeyD]

Crews FREAK when they're hit by an unseen opponent from an unexpected direction. They'll stand and fight (or back away from) that T-34 on the ridgeline but "BAM! What the heck was THAT?" rattles them.

[Freyberg]

I had a tank crew bail with minor damage when they were hit by a 150mm shell (DF), but that seemed fair.

[bruno2016]

Thanks gor all these replies. I get the point that when the crew, as opposed to the player, does not see what hit them, they may lose their stance and get the hella out of here. But I have read opposite stories too, like in Kursk a Tiger having been hit more than 30 times by 76.2 mm rounds, got its tracks damaged and still was able to make it back several kilometers to its lines (with a crew inside, ok? Lol).

In the case of the Elefant i was initially mentioning and to reply a few comments above: the crew was experienced, like most Elefant crews. It was in contact with its HQ as... there were only 2 Elefants distant from 100 m of each other, with a red command line in between. Yes the crew wasnt seeing the wolverine 700 m away... but cant it be considered that, when hit with no serious damage (no armor spalling etc) even accurately, an experienced crew with a live commander can figure out the round which hit them wasnt that big and they shldnt panick? In the Forest of the Wild Beasts, its end Feb 1944 moreover, no APCR for the 76.2 mm till July of that year... so a 76.2 mm round hitting the front armor wld just be sthg like knocking at the door for an Elefant, i guess. Just like the 37 mm against T34’s in 1941. 
Last point not answered by any of you: the  amount of time a crew “panicks” (even if experienced) like minimum 5 min before slowly going back to its senses, runs away like a beheaded chicken, even if in the LOF of nearby enemies instead of ducking. Really?

 

[bruno2016]

On 6/4/2020 at 10:29 PM, MikeyD said:

I'm reminded of the story of how Kubinka gained possession of an Israel Merkava MBT for its museum. Lebanon, sometime in the 1980s. A Syrian Gazelle helicopter appears on the horizon, the Merkava crew immediately panics, bails and runs away. The Syrian army drives the tank off and eventually hands it over to Russia.

Same was true with the British or Canadian tank crews in Normandy when they heard the caracteristic noise of a Tiger engine in the distance. They tried to divert, even before the 1st round was fired. What to think about a Woverine crew when facing an Elefant or Tiger? I wld assume they start considering the situation before the opposing German crews do...

[bruno2016]

Just now, bruno2016 said:

Same was true with the British or Canadian tank crews in Normandy when they heard the caracteristic noise of a Tiger engine in the distance. They tried to divert, even before the 1st round was fired. What to think about a Woverine crew when facing an Elefant or Tiger? I wld assume they start considering the situation before the opposing German crews do...

IMHO, the simulation of crew behavior does not take enough into consideration the level of protection and punch the crew benefits from in a given tank whenever a hit does not incur any damage and of course the experience level. In the same game many times Elefant or Tiger experience crews bailed out for no obvious reason to my opinion. If you doubt what i say, plz check out the order of battle of Forest of the Wild Beasts that i just played. And i noticed the same pattern in many other games. 

[Bufo]

Well these guys didn't bail out until a catastrophic hit many many shots later.

 

[Hapless]

15 hours ago, bruno2016 said:

Same was true with the British or Canadian tank crews in Normandy when they heard the caracteristic noise of a Tiger engine in the distance.

That's some pretty impressive hearing: being able to identify the engine noise of a distant enemy tank over the sound of your own engine. Maybe it's the same kind of ridiculous myth that keeps generating unrealistic expectations about the effectiveness of German heavy armour.

[bruno2016]

U think they never idled and checked the horizon before revving? Then u can hear the distant sound of engines if u are on the prawl i guess. And this is generally speaking how also u could guess, with distant engines sounds echoing, if the enemy was assembling tanks for some attack.

but u are right: even a tiger cld be penetrated by a 57 mm, like tiger 131 in tunisia. Ridiculous myth about their plate top armor i guess here

[IICptMillerII]

17 minutes ago, Hapless said:

That's some pretty impressive hearing: being able to identify the engine noise of a distant enemy tank over the sound of your own engine. Maybe it's the same kind of ridiculous myth that keeps generating unrealistic expectations about the effectiveness of German heavy armour.

This pretty much nails it on the head. Anyone who has spent time around armored vehicles knows that the level of noise is significant, to say the least. Being able to hear enemy engines, let alone identify what enemy vehicle is producing the noise, is a super power many a tank commander could only dream of. 
 

It is well established that green tank crews, when properly spooked will abandon their vehicles. Sometimes in the case of a non-penetrating hit. Other times just the idea of instant death is enough. Many Iraqi tank crews bailed out early in both Desert Storm and OIF. And just to clarify, this behavior is in all CM titles.  
 

The behavior modeled in CM is accurate and realistic. 

Edited June 7, 2020 by IICptMillerII

[bruno2016]

Yes agreed about the Iraqis bailing out wuickly. But maybe can it be considered in this case that they might have known about the mighty penetration power of the western tanks on their own obsolete T72’s. Also they may have considered the lack of punch their 125 mm guns had on their western counterparts, as the Iraqi shells were a downgraded version of the original russian ones. And back to WW2, the germans didnt have to worry too much about uranium depleted rpunds of hellfires shot at them...

[bruno2016]

*uranium depleted rounds of A10’s or hellfires

[bruno2016]

16 minutes ago, IICptMillerII said:

The behavior modeled in CM is accurate and realistic.

Good to see u so sure of this. End of the thread then?