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Beware the Hunt Command


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I highly recommend reading the rules (twice) before you use the hunt Command with infantry. You may not get what you are expecting. I will post a couple dramatic screen shots shortly to illustrate my newbie mistake. 

But in the mean time, a question. If you hunt with a 60 degree Target arc to the front and get shot at from an unseen enemy, do your troops still stop no matter what?

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"Hunt" just means contact imminent. It isn't a super-power, and your men will ignore contacts outside of a firing arc. They will drop if they're taking fire though. 

Unless there is a major disparity between the quality of your troops and the enemy, you should never send a man anywhere you haven't already sent a lot of bullets and explosives. 

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Interested in your upcoming examples.

The manual says 'Note: in combination with a Target Arc command, Hunt is restricted to only the area within the arc, and ignores enemy units outside the arc.'

I've read it at least twice now 😉 and to me that suggests the Hunt behaviour is only applied when shot at from within the arc.  Is that what you have found? 

Or is the word 'unseen' in your post a clue?  In other words if it's unseen, is the enemy firer inside or outside of the arc?  Does the friendly unit in the game know?  I don't know 😁.

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The problem with the hunt command is that your hunting troops won't stop when taking fire. Only if they take so much fire that they become quite suppressed - or if they actively spot enemy units.

If you use a target arc, hunting units will ignore spotted enemies outside the arc. Useful for hunting in forest where the sight of a distant soldier outside the forest won't cause the to stop hunting.

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I was watching a Steam-related CMSF2 Youtube video last night and I was cringing at the player's use of cover arcs. Apparently it was the first time the guy had played the game in a decade. It was pretty funny. But the guy didn't blame the game engine for his own shortcomings and was enjoying himself.

I use cover arcs very  rarely, mostly to get an obstinate tank to point its barrel in the direction I want.

A unit's likelihood to be suppressed is related to their experience and motivation. A 'fanatic' will stand his ground and die when anyone else would duck. A 'crack' unit won't be spooked by a few bullets whizzing past.

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I didn't know about the covered arc with Hunt. I was recently playing a scenario where there was an enemy SP gun on a distant hill. I'm pretty sure it was actually KO'd (it'd taken several hits) but no-one could confirm the kill at that range. Suffice to say it wasn't firing and it wasn't moving (so it was at least immobile and the MA was out) so it was no longer of interest.

Took me a while to work out what was going on but basically I couldn't use the Hunt command. Eventually dawned on me that as nearly everyone could see it, it was Hunt-cancelling contact.

Should have used covered arc.

(My tanks continued to waste ammo on it until it caught fire and solved the problem)

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A short cautionary tale. After telling my troops to quickly run across the stream I immediately issued a hunt command for them to clear out the small forest before attacking the town.

  • First mistake, the Hunt command will cause your troops to pause for 90 seconds if they are tired. Like from running across a stream.
  • Second mistake, Hunt also tells them to immediately stop if they take fire, whether they can see the source or not. Disastrous in this case.
  • Third mistake, Hunt stopped my tanks at first glimpse of the panther turret. If the smoke got thicker, the tanks didn't take a shot or continue to fire.

 

I'm not sure why I got 3 penetrations on that panther turret bunker and it was still able to fire so efficiently.

This is only the second time I've posted a video to YouTube.  Not sure if it worked properly.

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1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

The problem with the hunt command is that your hunting troops won't stop when taking fire. Only if they take so much fire that they become quite suppressed - or if they actively spot enemy units.

But the rules say they do stop when taking fire.  But it sounds like it may be dependent on training and motivation also?  Is that the case?

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1 hour ago, Probus said:

But the rules say they do stop when taking fire.  But it sounds like it may be dependent on training and motivation also?  Is that the case?

No, I think it's just a bit bugged... Even veterans etc. seem to keep walking along for up to 5 seconds with bullets whistling around them.

As far as I remember, they used to duck down much faster.

Sometimes in dense forest, I'd find my hunting teams had gone to ground without enemy contact, not even an enemy icon. I'd wonder if it was a bug, but then when I ordered them to continue, there would indeed be enemies close by. It was like they could sense them even before getting the contact marker.

That doesn't seem to happen any more, so I assume they changed the code in some way.

Edited by Bulletpoint
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The Panther turm had a clear shot on the river slot and could see your men moving up through it. Your troops probably couldn't see it, and didn't know it was there even if the Shermans did. Open and shut case if you ask me. 

I will say that High-Explosive is way overpowered in the game and squad wipes are common events with hits that weren't honestly near them. 

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2 hours ago, MikeyD said:

A 'fanatic' will stand his ground and die when anyone else would duck. A 'crack' unit won't be spooked by a few bullets whizzing past.

Actually real fanatics often do go to ground. Being a fanatic doesn't mean you're necessarily an idiot or a robot. It just means you won't surrender unless things get really bad.

As for crack troops, they know bullets are dangerous, and that it helps to duck. Especially when being ordered to move forward cautiously (as with the hunt command).

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1 hour ago, Probus said:

Second mistake, Hunt also tells them to immediately stop if they take fire, whether they can see the source or not. Disastrous in this case.

I think that what actually happened in this case was that your troops spotted enemy units in the distance. That reliably causes them to stop moving and go prone. You can avoid this by giving them a circular covered arc. They will then ignore if they spot any enemies outside the selected distance.

If units take HE fire, they will get max suppressed and stop moving no matter what movement order you gave them.

Edited by Bulletpoint
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So I've made my move already. What should I have done at this point?

I've sent all but 1 of my Sherman's + the Wolverine in to attack the Panther turret. The other Sherman is suppressing an AAA gun. 

I switched all the "hunting" infantry to quick move out of the riverbank into the trees. Then on towards the hedge row and town. I have some artillery and Priests surpressing the defenders. 

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8 hours ago, Probus said:

So I've made my move already. What should I have done at this point?

Hindsight is of course easy, but you should have made sure the Panther turret was neutralised before moving infantry across its field of fire.

 

8 hours ago, Probus said:

I switched all the "hunting" infantry to quick move out of the riverbank into the trees.

Use "fast" move to get out of danger. It makes troops move just a bit faster and a bit less likely to stop if taking fire along the way.

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10 hours ago, Probus said:

So I've made my move already. What should I have done at this point?

I've sent all but 1 of my Sherman's + the Wolverine in to attack the Panther turret. The other Sherman is suppressing an AAA gun. 

I switched all the "hunting" infantry to quick move out of the riverbank into the trees. Then on towards the hedge row and town. I have some artillery and Priests surpressing the defenders. 

Tbh this is kind of the irony of the game. I'm not sure there's anything you could've done much differently. Your main attack only exposed a tiny part of itself on a part of the river the Panther Turm happened to be covering. They took a hail mary shot into it...after a Sherman had drilled a few rounds into side no less...and killed a bunch of your men. That's just kind of the reality of fighting on modern battlefields populated by so many sophisticated and dangerous weapon systems that can project horrifying death from a mile away. The infantry were just doing their (unfortunate) job here of screening the rest of your force. Imagine if you'd sent your mortar teams or Battalion HQ up that way instead of some riflemen? 

This area looks very heavily defended, and it is if its got Panther turrets and other heavy weapons assigned to the defender. It's a set-piece battle with high force-to-space density. It'll be bloody no matter what you do. 

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6 hours ago, Warts 'n' all said:

Just a quick question.

1) Had you you scored any penetrations on that bunker prior to the turn in the video?

I always check inside of a bunker before moving across it's field of fire, unless it only contains a scout team armed with short range weapons

 

 

nope. I tried to coordinate the attack but I really didn't expect the turret to turn it's attention away from the attacking armor. In fact my opponent said he was yelling at the screen for the turret to concentrate on the tanks. It knew better than both of us, but it did pay for it with it's pixelife. It got off one more shot before it went down. 

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Hunt is effectively the old Move-to-Contact.

I'm still waiting for a movement command that prioritizes shooting over movement. Really redoing the Hunt command do be that would be more accurate to its name while adding back in Move-to-Contact would be much clearer for what Hunt actually is.

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12 minutes ago, chi-chi said:

Hunt is effectively the old Move-to-Contact.

I'm still waiting for a movement command that prioritizes shooting over movement. Really redoing the Hunt command do be that would be more accurate to its name while adding back in Move-to-Contact would be much clearer for what Hunt actually is.

Move works, but I don't like move that much. 

For a movement command which prioritizes shooting try short bound quick with 5-10 sec pauses per waypoint.

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11 minutes ago, chi-chi said:

Hunt is effectively the old Move-to-Contact.

I'm still waiting for a movement command that prioritizes shooting over movement. Really redoing the Hunt command do be that would be more accurate to its name while adding back in Move-to-Contact would be much clearer for what Hunt actually is.

Would you you place self preservation among the move/fire pecking order. It's not like the pixeltruppen have your god's eye of the battlefield.

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1 minute ago, Probus said:

What happens when you order a hunt then slow then hunt then slow... type arrangement.  Does the first hunt that triggers clear the rest of the orders?

Yes. Mixing Move/Quick/Fast/etc with Hunt will make your guys cancel the remainder of way points after the point where Hunt stops them...

@Lethaface mentioned a common way of simulating fire and movement in short bounds. 

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