Does Soviet tactics work in Combat Mission?

[Sgt.Squarehead]

5 minutes ago, Pelican Pal said:

but people are still failing to grasp the basic problem with fragmentation damage

I take it you mean by this that the tank's subsystems don't appear to take damage from fragments?

Edited January 23, 2022 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Pelican Pal]

Yea, sorry I wasn't clear.


If a round lands very close to a tank some amount of track damage will be done but that is the only subsystem that will take any damage and even then it has to be nearly on top of the vehicle. You won't get a shell landing 30 meters away to do any damage.

In a more abstract game that would be fine but CM is 1:1 so that sort of 1:1 damage modeling is important. Having a FLIR sight closed up for 30 seconds during the peak of the artillery fire or to have the top mounted machine gun become inoperable can have a butterfly effect on the outcome of a scenario.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Agreed.

I believe it's being looked at.....Maybe @BFCElvis or @IanL could confirm?

[Pelican Pal]

1 hour ago, dbsapp said:

The answer: because the debris from destroyed RPG\ATGM and defensive projectile would damage APS system quicker than it can use more than 4 shots.

Yes this is why I believe the issue is more pertinent as you move into the modern titles. The modern titles have more bits and bobs attached to the tank and therefore more bits and bobs that could be smashed by fragments.

Laser warning receivers in Black Sea rely heavily on the smoke launchers having ammo to defend against an incoming ATGM but if the smoke launcher was rendered inoperable by artillery shelling earlier in the battle the window for the ATGM to guide into the tank is now bigger than before. These sort of small cascading effects are missing in CM currently but get regularly ignored during the discussion and instead tests are made against "car parks" of armor to claim that there isn't an issue.

[Codreanu]

A curious thought is, would making artillery behave realistically cause more harm than good to the game? Campaigns and scenarios are more or less set in stone after they're released and significantly messing with artillery performance versus vehicles might seriously upset balance, I remember people talking about this in one of the CMBN Commonwealth campaigns where making infantry less likely to break cover significantly increased the difficulty of the campaign.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

2 hours ago, Codreanu said:

I remember people talking about this in one of the CMBN Commonwealth campaigns where making infantry less likely to break cover significantly increased the difficulty of the campaign.

I think the balance change you are referring to may have had to do with the way MGs were handled.....The 'running-away' issue was a whole other kettle of fish.

But your point is a good one.....I'm sure it would.

[Artkin]

I think the game would be way better with accurate artillery damage. The maps are big enough to handle manuevering around it. Especially in CMCW

[A Canadian Cat]

19 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Agreed.

I believe it's being looked at.....Maybe @BFCElvis or @IanL could confirm?

Sorry I missed this latest discussion about artillery effect on tanks and IFVs. OK I ignored it - other things to do.

There may some day be more work done by Charles on how it is handled, I don't want to speak for him, but I am unaware of any plans to make changes here. Why you ask, because most of what people think is wrong is just not correct or not as far off as they think. I've kinda stopped paying a lot of attention to artillery doesn't effect AFVs and artillery effects AFVs too much threads.

Way back I recall some discussions and you can find my input into those discussions - no I'm not going to search for them for you (use google's site directive for better searching "site:community.battlefront.com" followed by the search terms you want. After a bunch of testing I was forced to conclude that artillery can in fact destroy T90s and M1s fairly handily actually. Those that don't get destroyed have so much of their systems messed up and NS that they are not very effective any longer. Sounds about right to me and others and those that didn't agree didn't make enough of a case.

The short version:

1. Any differences in how the game performs and RL can be debated and perhaps some dialing up or down might be in order. I have no comment on that status because I have no RL experience or evidence and live it to Steve and Charles to decide.
2. Any notion that exposed sub systems are not effected by artillery is just not correct.
3. Any notion that exposed sub systems are effected to much by artillery is just a big question mark. Given that they are effected in the game if you want to argue they are too effected then you need some RL evidence.
4. Any notion that far away shell landings have too much effect on tanks is just not in evidence - if you've got some then share.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

19 minutes ago, IanL said:

Any notion that exposed sub systems are not effected by artillery is just not correct

Did you look at the videos in this thread:

 

[A Canadian Cat]

3 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Did you look at the videos in this thread:

I had not. I watched the first one. Can I have those 6 minutes back please (I fast forwarded a bit).

So, that thread is just like all the others. I don't see anything new or insightful there.

Vehicles frequently show no sub system damage when they are knocked out. It is just how the game works so no indication there.

I suppose ERA blocks could be damaged - I actually don't know. Anyone have any data RL on that?

I've seen lots of sub system damage other than tracks in other tests I've run but I did them in Black Sea. So I suppose Shock Force could have something that might need improving.

Over all I don't see anything that screens "its broken".

[Pelican Pal]

58 minutes ago, IanL said:

Over all I don't see anything that screens "its broken".

You've got to be kidding me...
 

50+ 130 mm guns do not damage a single subsystem other than tracks to yellow. This weight of artillery falls onto these 3 tanks and yet every AA MG on the three tanks remains intact.

 

I just ran a quick test in Black Sea and showed the same issue unless I'm expected to believe that 12.7mm machine guns are made of Unobtainium.





------------------

What seems to be happening is that fragmentation effect will not do any damage to tank subsystems^1 . I've tested that by dropping a stupid amount of artillery onto tanks in airburst mode. After hundreds of rounds the tank can just drive off as if nothing as occurred.

I've also ran tests using general and again tanks will not take subsystem damage^1 when a round lands nearby. A shell landing onto a tank will sometimes cause subsystem damage but its not 100% (might be due to ERA?) but that also seems sorta incorrect.



^1 The only subsystem that will show any damage is tracks. No other subsystem will.

Edited January 24, 2022 by Pelican Pal
BS

[dbsapp]

Artillery rounds destroying all the buildings in vicinity, but tanks between the buildings stay intact.

Sounds plausible. 

 

[Pelican Pal]

A full year after the initial issue was found its still like pulling teeth to convince people.

Save file: https://we.tl/t-GjygFelLiQ    Hot seat there are no passwords set. As you can see the tanks are proof to this weight of fire.

Again I've also done this test using general and the results are the same. subsystems^1 will not be damage by artillery unless there is a direct hit. On a direct hit there will be damaged done most of the time but occasionally it looks like an ERA plate eats the artillery shell. Which doesn't seem right to me but its the least of the problems.
 

[Redwolf]

Is there literally *no* damage to subsystems other than tracks or is it just rare?

[Pelican Pal]

9 minutes ago, Redwolf said:

Is there literally *no* damage to subsystems other than tracks or is it just rare?

literally none.^1 I've been able to drop hundreds of artillery shells and the subsystems are left undamaged.

^1 again except for tracks.

Edited January 24, 2022 by Pelican Pal

[Redwolf]

Well, none at all sure sounds like a missing mechanism in the game.

In CM we shouldn't sit in our tanks and be able to just ignore large caliber artillery.

IIRC literally all "cold war hot" books (Zaloga, Peters etc) make that point that it is time for heavy forces too move when they come under heavy artillery fire.

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Pelican Pal said:

A full year after the initial issue was found its still like pulling teeth to convince people.

Save file: https://we.tl/t-GjygFelLiQ    Hot seat there are no passwords set. As you can see the tanks are proof to this weight of fire.

Again I've also done this test using general and the results are the same. subsystems^1 will not be damage by artillery unless there is a direct hit. On a direct hit there will be damaged done most of the time but occasionally it looks like an ERA plate eats the artillery shell. Which doesn't seem right to me but its the least of the problems.
 

Well the problem is that I am not sure everyone is getting your results...know I am not.  So for ground burst "general" sustained heavy fire from 2 x Btys (1 x 152, 1 x 203), after 20 mins:

So that is 6 KO'd M113s, 1 x Mob Kill M60 and 2 other M60s with degraded tracks, optics and gyros.

Same test with airburst/"Personnel":

That is 6 dead M113 (again) but the M60s did get off pretty much scot free (1 M60 had slightly pinged tracks).  

So you may be correct that sub-systems on tanks (not APCs, obviously) seem pretty immune to airburst but not ground burst.  Is this the issue?

[slysniper]

I am going to take a look at this also, he has provided the file. so it should be easy to see if we can create a similar result.

But no question that the video is appearing to provide proof that something is not right.

 

Sorry, that a year has past and this is still an open issue to him and he has no clue as to what efforts were made to submit an issue or if it was verified that his results were not reproducible.   

[Pelican Pal]

 

6 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

2 other M60s with degraded tracks, optics and gyros.

Critically did you track to see whether these 2 other M60s took a direct hit? Direct hits will cause damage to other subsystems. In all of my testing (Black Sea and Shock Force 2) I've never seen a near hit cause subsystem damage. This matches with the results from airburst since airburst is purely fragmentation. 


Check out all these near hits (some very close) and you can see that tracks are the only item damaged.







Now lets look at a direct hit and you can suddenly see that there is subsystem damage.

7 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

the M60s did get off pretty much scot free (1 M60 had slightly pinged tracks).  

This matches my testing and displays the bug fairly accurately.



The game seems to be calculating artillery differently based off of whether it hits the vehicle or not. Fragmentation is unable to subsystem damage^1 wow a direct hit is calculated differently and then allowed to do subsystem damage.


Text below isn't really related to the problem just my musings.

> 6 KO'd M113s

light vehicles seem to operate more or less okay. There is some deficiency due to the game not modeling larger fragments. A large artillery shell will occasionally shoot out a .50 cal esque chunk of metal at high speed and that metal will puncture APC armor at times. So what you would see in-game is a BTR or M113 or what have you driving along during artillery shelling and a guy inside being wounded or killed. In all my playtime I can't ever recall that happening.

This is likely because the game doesn't model specific fragments and is instead just using some dice rolling abstraction which is fine. The games are like 15 years old at this point. But I think its important to know regardless.

[The_Capt]

2 minutes ago, Pelican Pal said:

 

Critically did you track to see whether these 2 other M60s took a direct hit? Direct hits will cause damage to other subsystems. In all of my testing (Black Sea and Shock Force 2) I've never seen a near hit cause subsystem damage. This matches with the results from airburst since airburst is purely fragmentation. 


Check out all these near hits (some very close) and you can see that tracks are the only item damaged.







Now lets look at a direct hit and you can suddenly see that there is subsystem damage.

This matches my testing and displays the bug fairly accurately.



The game seems to be calculating artillery differently based off of whether it hits the vehicle or not. Fragmentation is unable to subsystem damage^1 wow a direct hit is calculated differently and then allowed to do subsystem damage.


Text below isn't really related to the problem just my musings.

> 6 KO'd M113s

light vehicles seem to operate more or less okay. There is some deficiency due to the game not modeling larger fragments. A large artillery shell will occasionally shoot out a .50 cal esque chunk of metal at high speed and that metal will puncture APC armor at times. So what you would see in-game is a BTR or M113 or what have you driving along during artillery shelling and a guy inside being wounded or killed. In all my playtime I can't ever recall that happening.

This is likely because the game doesn't model specific fragments and is instead just using some dice rolling abstraction which is fine. The games are like 15 years old at this point. But I think its important to know regardless.

Well I think you may be onto something wrt fragmentation of airburst, and maybe ground burst.  Having seen what can happen in RL, it does look anemic vs tanks at least.   Cluster munitions, particularly the US DPICMs are showing a lot of sub-system damage (HMGs etc) but they are modelled individually.

[Pelican Pal]

Yea the key seems to be anything with a discretely modeled projectile works fine but artillery uses some other method of damage calculation and as a result bugs out.

If you check there a ton of very close hits and no subsystem damage (1 burning tank is from the direct hit). Here is a save of that CW test i took images from: https://we.tl/t-aFqsdfzBTJ

Edited January 24, 2022 by Pelican Pal

[A Canadian Cat]

3 hours ago, Pelican Pal said:

What seems to be happening is that fragmentation effect will not do any damage to tank subsystems^1

 

3 hours ago, Pelican Pal said:

Again I've also done this test using general and the results are the same. subsystems^1 will not be damage by artillery unless there is a direct hit

Wait what? Which is it? No damage or damage only when directly hit.

 

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Well the problem is that I am not sure everyone is getting your results...know I am not. 

Exactly.

 

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Well I think you may be onto something wrt fragmentation of airburst, and maybe ground burst.  Having seen what can happen in RL, it does look anemic vs tanks at least. 

There ya go. Some with RL experience that might not match. Now there can be a discussion.

[Pelican Pal]

3 minutes ago, IanL said:

Wait what? Which is it? No damage or damage only when directly hit.

1: air burst will only do damage to tank tracks no other subsystems

2: ground bursts will only do damage to tank tracks no other subsystems

3: direct hits will cause subsystem damage

[A Canadian Cat]

2 minutes ago, Pelican Pal said:

1: air burst will only do damage to tank tracks no other subsystems

2: ground bursts will only do damage to tank tracks no other subsystems

3: direct hits will cause subsystem damage

Thank you for clarifying.

Also thanks to @The_Capt for asking the right questions and for other testers to confirm that this was logged recently as a problem. So, it turns out this *is* on the list to be looked at.

[Artkin]

This has also been an issue for years with the M1 taking tons of direct hits from big ordinance. There IS an issue with artillery. There is no need to have a pretentious snob here telling us what's up. Precision munition doesn't kill tanks. That is a big problem.