Engine 5 Wishlist

[Artkin]

18 minutes ago, BornGinger said:

If I remember correctly you can choose a fire mission with a fuse that cause the artillery shells to explode above the target (infantry) when you have certain artillery batteries to use. If you choose that fire mission on infantry hiding in woods or in a forest the shells will explode in the treetops and cause more casualties to the enemy infantry.

Unfortunately that fire mission can only be requested from cannons and not howitsers, I think.

I'm talking about direct fire. Your mortar is looking at a hill thats covered in trees. He can't engage because the treetops cover the entire hill. Your mortar is unable to target the ground because the trees are so dense.

Example:

Edited May 8, 2021 by Artkin

[Maquisard manqué]

Not sure if this has been raised before. I ran a search of the forum but didn't find anything. It's certainly come up elsewhere on the forum though. I'd really like to see:

Contour lines - either as an option to overlay on the "normal" map view (i.e. at relatively low angle to the horizontal, looking accross the map) or zoomed out birds eye view. Probably no distinction engine wise given it's all the same map, but there could be RP or realism reasons for a distinction/different options. I think we can all agree that reading the terrain is crucial but at present I find it really tricky: there is no colour gradient to associate with elevation (as there was with CM1) so I find I have to scoot the camera around at ground level to understand LoS, which can be time consuming and also feels most unrealistic as most commanders would have a map with some contours (not always, i concede) to support their recon & planning.

Edited May 10, 2021 by Maquisard manqué

[chuckdyke]

32 minutes ago, Maquisard manqué said:

would have a map with some contours

You mean a topographic map, yes, it is one of my wishes too. For LOS and finding fire-positions is the role of scouts. Once they find one and you send an AFV to the very location a No-LOS pops up. 

[Maquisard manqué]

35 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

You mean a topographic map, yes, it is one of my wishes too. For LOS and finding fire-positions is the role of scouts. Once they find one and you send an AFV to the very location a No-LOS pops up. 

You can estimate LoS from a map at least, or should be able to. Certainly easy to understand broad defilade/enfilade and where reverse slopes are.

Agree in practice you'd need to confirm LoS at emplacements with scouts for the edge cases (e.g. when you're positioning behind the ridge line and hull down positions).

[RMM]

So I've now confirmed that ammo sharing does not happen between different, non-affiliated units; ie. not from the same section or squad. While one can make the arguement that people might want to hang on to the ammo they have, particularly if everyone is getting low, I have a howitzer ammo-bearer from a different section next to another section's howitzer, and they're NOT allowing the howitzer's crew access to their ammo. This is surely dumb, particularly when the bearer's original gun has been lost.

I also have a spotter unit that picked up some mortar ammo during a previous buddy aid, but will not allow a mortar section that's adjacent to it access to that ammo, even though, obviously, it has absolutely no use for the ammo itself!

On a more general unit, I've seem units with a pile of 9mm ammo (for example) stacked with a unit that's run out, and yet not allow that other unit to share said pile.

This really should be fixed please.

[Erwin]

Yup.  +1

[RMM]

A quick aside to the previous post about buddy aiding, I also just had an FT team where the actual flamethower operator was cut down, but when his team-mate buddy-aided him, he did not pick the FT! 

[mjkerner]

Yup, I have a functioning mortar team without ammo from one platoon, in a building near the Moltke Bridge in Berlin, and a mortar ammo bearer team from a different platoon but same company holding 24 mortar shells their dead mortar team will never use, in the same building. In there with them are the Company and Battalion CO’s. I frankly couldn’t remember if they would share being in the same company and with higher HQ in the same Action Square. They don’t.
 

All the more heartbreaking for the single, surviving ammo bearer who started out under fire with the rest of the 5 man team which had panicked when the mortar team in the next foxhole was blown to smithereens. They crossed more than 100 yards under fire the whole way from north of the bridge, across it, then finding safety (for the survivor) in a building on the south side. Sole survivor Private Bergmann actually carried those 24 rounds most of the way himself—excruciatingly slowly—cuz his brethren all got wasted while running through the rubble on the north side. When reporting to both CO’s and being told that his mortar rounds would not be shared with the team with the empty mortar crouching over against the wall, I could just catch a glimpse of the grenade he had surreptitiously pulled from under his tunic; the look in his eyes was chilling....

[mjkerner]

RMM, heavier weapons often get damaged/destroyed so nothing worth picking up. I think an FT would be pretty easily damaged.

[Erwin]

1 hour ago, RMM said:

he did not pick the FT! 

I wouldn't either.  Shows the fidelity of the CM2's individual trooper's AI.

[Holman]

Buddy aid has a random element, and rightly so.

Maybe you want the FT, but the buddy just has no idea how to use it correctly. Maybe that BAR is better than your carbine, but the stock got shattered by the blast that killed the BAR man. Maybe you'd love to pick up that M240, but the former gunner's entrails are currently slathered all over it.

[chuckdyke]

A British Sten can't pick up the 9mm from a German MP40. all what he must do is put the German's ammo in the Sten's magazine. Stronger yet the Browning HP was used by the Germans and by the British Commonwealth. At least they agreed on something it was a fine pistol. 

[RMM]

On 5/22/2021 at 2:07 PM, mjkerner said:

Yup, I have a functioning mortar team without ammo from one platoon, in a building near the Moltke Bridge in Berlin, and a mortar ammo bearer team from a different platoon but same company holding 24 mortar shells their dead mortar team will never use, in the same building. In there with them are the Company and Battalion CO’s. I frankly couldn’t remember if they would share being in the same company and with higher HQ in the same Action Square. They don’t.
 

All the more heartbreaking for the single, surviving ammo bearer who started out under fire with the rest of the 5 man team which had panicked when the mortar team in the next foxhole was blown to smithereens. They crossed more than 100 yards under fire the whole way from north of the bridge, across it, then finding safety (for the survivor) in a building on the south side. Sole survivor Private Bergmann actually carried those 24 rounds most of the way himself—excruciatingly slowly—cuz his brethren all got wasted while running through the rubble on the north side. When reporting to both CO’s and being told that his mortar rounds would not be shared with the team with the empty mortar crouching over against the wall, I could just catch a glimpse of the grenade he had surreptitiously pulled from under his tunic; the look in his eyes was chilling....

Lol! 

[RMM]

On 5/22/2021 at 3:39 PM, Erwin said:

I wouldn't either.  Shows the fidelity of the CM2's individual trooper's AI.

Back then though, that would have been a court-martial offense, at the very a 'least lack of moral fibre' charge that would have plagued you for the rest of your life. Not only that, but it doesn't jive with some others actions by the AI, such as if a halftrack gunner gets cut down, another takes his place and so n so forth until, potentially the entire vehicle's occupants are all lying in a pool of each other's remains. No, specialist-team buddy aid absolutely should involve acquiring the reason for the team's existance.  

[RMM]

On 5/22/2021 at 4:02 PM, Holman said:

Buddy aid has a random element, and rightly so.

Maybe you want the FT, but the buddy just has no idea how to use it correctly. Maybe that BAR is better than your carbine, but the stock got shattered by the blast that killed the BAR man. Maybe you'd love to pick up that M240, but the former gunner's entrails are currently slathered all over it.

I could see that, if it just a random thing, but I'm not so sure. Am finding other limits on buddy-aid that make me wonder. Like I wrote to Erwin, when it come to specialist teams like that, any surviving members should absolutely be expected to pick up the reason for the team's existance and carry on the mission, particularly given that would have all trained together. 

[RMM]

Since this is a 'wishlist' after all...

Changes to 3D models for destroyed pillboxes and bunkers in particular as well as vehicles. Someone did a mod a while back to mod certain, wrecked PzIV's and Sherman II's, but that's been it to date, as far as I know. From a practical standpoint, would help to see what's destroyed v's abandoned, but would also, greatly add to the visual effects.    

[Ultradave]

On 5/8/2021 at 5:32 PM, BornGinger said:

Unfortunately that fire mission can only be requested from cannons and not howitsers, I think.

A howitzer is a cannon so I'm not sure what you mean here.  Did you mean artillery but not mortars?

Dave

[chuckdyke]

19 minutes ago, Ultradave said:

Unfortunately that fire mission can only be requested from cannons and not howitsers, I think.

It is a game, but it helps if the unit has access to a target reference map. A platoon in WW2 had a notebook with a pencil. 

[BornGinger]

3 hours ago, Ultradave said:

A howitzer is a cannon so I'm not sure what you mean here.  Did you mean artillery but not mortars?

If you go to the editor you'll notice that among the artillery there are mortars, howitsers, cannons (artillery guns) and rockets. So although howitsers are cannons there is a difference between those and cannons (artillery guns) in the games. Howitsers have only general shells while cannons have infantry and general. Infantry shells are the ones that explode in the treetops and cause splinters from trees to harm the infantry together with the shrapnel from the shells. 

Edited May 25, 2021 by BornGinger

[domfluff]

Although there are tons of little things that would be nice, my big hope for a future version of CM (whether engine 5 or otherwise) is the ability to edit maps in 3D.

Being able to change terrain and alter elevation in real time would make map making significantly easier, and (I suspect) would be something that would cut down on development time in general.

[chuckdyke]

31 minutes ago, BornGinger said:

Howitsers have only general shells while cannons

The definition is their respective trajectories. A howitzer is having a higher trajectory, but not as high as a mortar. The other is the fusing. In WW2 the US invented the proximity fuse first it was an AA gun but later the fuses could be set to go off at heights suitable for the army. Game over by 1944 1945. Proximity fuses can be used by any artillery. 

[BornGinger]

51 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

Proximity fuses can be used by any artillery.

I'm sure that is the case in real life. But in the WW2 games only the cannons give the players the choice to use either shells that explode on inpact, or close to inpact, which are the general shells, and shells that explode above the soldiers, preferably in the treetops, which are the infantry shells.

Edited May 25, 2021 by BornGinger

[chuckdyke]

I think you mean direct fire and indirect fire guns. A tank gun is a direct fire weapon but can be used with a little innovation as an indirect fire weapon. Engineers for example can make a ramp to increase the trajectory of the gun.  There is no scope for this practice in the game. It is fair to call an indirect fire gun a howitzer, but we also have field guns which is better called a cannon. Like the Russian 76.2 mm field gun. 

[Ultradave]

5 hours ago, BornGinger said:

If you go to the editor you'll notice that among the artillery there are mortars, howitsers, cannons (artillery guns) and rockets. So although howitsers are cannons there is a difference between those and cannons (artillery guns) in the games. Howitsers have only general shells while cannons have infantry and general. Infantry shells are the ones that explode in the treetops and cause splinters from trees to harm the infantry together with the shrapnel from the shells. 

OK, I see what you mean. Cannon Battery is a name. The piece, for example the US 155mm Long Tom in CMBN, is a gun, as opposed to a howitzer. A gun has a higher velocity, lower trajectory than a howitzer. Both are cannons. As a newly commissioned officer, you would attend "Field Artillery Officer Basic Course" and then "Cannon Battery Officer Course"  Cannon is an encompassing term.

In the game, using CMBN to check, a US 155mm howitzer battery when Personnel is specified, fires a mix of airbursts and ground bursts together, and so does the 155mm Long Tom, which is a gun. US 105mm, and 75mm pak howitzers will also give you the same mix of air bursts and ground bursts if you specify Personnel.

If General is specified for the target, then you'll get ground bursts (Point Detonating). 

The way this is done is similar to reality. The FO specifies the target - "infantry company in the open", "infantry in trenches", and the FDC picks the fusing. VT fuses were valuable and even in the Cold War era we didn't have a ton of them - maybe 25% of our load. The majority was PD or Time (for calculate airbursts as opposed to VT which goes off when the round reaches a height). A Time fuse is calculated to go off 7 meters in the air at a point where the trajectory crosses over the target. Takes a little extra time to calculate because you have to figure the target hit firing data, then adjust that to be higher and calculate the time of flight to the target point on the new higher trajectory. VT you don't calculate time - just the new trajectory.

For mortars, there were no reliable VT fuses until 1983. Since mortar shells are coming down at extreme angles, having a fuse that is precise enough to detonate the round 3-7 meters off the ground was quite a technical challenge and mortar VT fuses didn't enter production and distribution until then. 

In general VT fuses in WW2 were used for AA guns long before they were used for field artillery. Less chance of the secrets falling into enemy hands from unexploded rounds.

Time fuses for mortars don't work well. The time increments are 0.1 seconds and with an almost vertical trajectory that 0.1 seconds is a huge margin of error. Same with howitzers firing high angle - you can hit the same point by elevating the howitzer below 45deg and above 45deg. Guns can't do that. But for the same reason as mortars, it's not recommended to use VT or Time fuses in a high angle mission. Trajectory is too high for it to work the way it's supposed to.

Dave

[Vergeltungswaffe]

2 hours ago, Ultradave said:

OK, I see what you mean. Cannon Battery is a name. The piece, for example the US 155mm Long Tom in CMBN, is a gun, as opposed to a howitzer. A gun has a higher velocity, lower trajectory than a howitzer. Both are cannons. As a newly commissioned officer, you would attend "Field Artillery Officer Basic Course" and then "Cannon Battery Officer Course"  Cannon is an encompassing term.

In the game, using CMBN to check, a US 155mm howitzer battery when Personnel is specified, fires a mix of airbursts and ground bursts together, and so does the 155mm Long Tom, which is a gun. US 105mm, and 75mm pak howitzers will also give you the same mix of air bursts and ground bursts if you specify Personnel.

If General is specified for the target, then you'll get ground bursts (Point Detonating). 

The way this is done is similar to reality. The FO specifies the target - "infantry company in the open", "infantry in trenches", and the FDC picks the fusing. VT fuses were valuable and even in the Cold War era we didn't have a ton of them - maybe 25% of our load. The majority was PD or Time (for calculate airbursts as opposed to VT which goes off when the round reaches a height). A Time fuse is calculated to go off 7 meters in the air at a point where the trajectory crosses over the target. Takes a little extra time to calculate because you have to figure the target hit firing data, then adjust that to be higher and calculate the time of flight to the target point on the new higher trajectory. VT you don't calculate time - just the new trajectory.

For mortars, there were no reliable VT fuses until 1983. Since mortar shells are coming down at extreme angles, having a fuse that is precise enough to detonate the round 3-7 meters off the ground was quite a technical challenge and mortar VT fuses didn't enter production and distribution until then. 

In general VT fuses in WW2 were used for AA guns long before they were used for field artillery. Less chance of the secrets falling into enemy hands from unexploded rounds.

Time fuses for mortars don't work well. The time increments are 0.1 seconds and with an almost vertical trajectory that 0.1 seconds is a huge margin of error. Same with howitzers firing high angle - you can hit the same point by elevating the howitzer below 45deg and above 45deg. Guns can't do that. But for the same reason as mortars, it's not recommended to use VT or Time fuses in a high angle mission. Trajectory is too high for it to work the way it's supposed to.

Dave

That right there,...is good stuff from someone who knows.