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Benefits and risks of hull down battle positions


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13 hours ago, Thewood1 said:

Would it be possible to post the scenario(s).  I'd like to play around with them a little.

Yea, I will have to re edit the map back to the hull down variant though.

44 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

So, whatever it is the test results will tell you, you'll have to consider that the results will vary for different tanks and different ranges. The question is what value the results will give anyone regarding 'actionable information'. My impression is: zero. 

So I think there is important actionable information here and that is that in Combat Mission the largest protective benefit of hull down is a concealment buff. It doesn't make you that much harder to hit while it does make you much harder to see.

To clarify a bit I think it gives useful information on how your armor should take a fight. Often people will blithely talk about "if you are taking a hit you are already failing" but an avid Combat Mission player will eventually be forced into fights that aren't in their favor. Knowing the mechanics of the game can turn one of those fights in your favor.

Obviously there are a lot of other factors but I think the test showing clarity of where the bonus is at can be helpful to players.

Edited by Pelican Pal
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On 2/11/2022 at 3:31 AM, Pelican Pal said:

So I think there is important actionable information here and that is that in Combat Mission the largest protective benefit of hull down is a concealment buff. It doesn't make you that much harder to hit while it does make you much harder to see.

I think this is an interesting find, whether it is "actionable" or not.

It is good to know if hull down makes you harder to hit - and survive, if your turret armor is weaker than the hull.

It is difficult to apply the idea "relocate to a non-HD position once spotted". Too much happens in one minute of the action phase - in one minute the duel may already be decided. Besides, once the fight is on, I'd rather sit and shoot than maneuver under fire. But everyone can make their own conclusion from what you found out.

I'll see if I can confirm.

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10 minutes ago, Drifter Man said:

It is good to know if hull down makes you harder to hit - and survive, if your turret armor is weaker than the hull.

Just the person I want to see how many hits are required to knock out a Panzer IV with a 75 mm Sherman from four hundred meters. So far four penetrations. 

diehard.jpg

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On 2/10/2022 at 5:31 PM, Pelican Pal said:

So I think there is important actionable information here and that is that in Combat Mission the largest protective benefit of hull down is a concealment buff. It doesn't make you that much harder to hit while it does make you much harder to see.

To clarify a bit I think it gives useful information on how your armor should take a fight. Often people will blithely talk about "if you are taking a hit you are already failing" but an avid Combat Mission player will eventually be forced into fights that aren't in their favor. Knowing the mechanics of the game can turn one of those fights in your favor.

Obviously there are a lot of other factors but I think the test showing clarity of where the bonus is at can be helpful to players.

But what means 'not that much harder to hit' in this case? I'd say that regarding the answer to that question, the following are also a factor:

* Gun accuracy
* Range
* Size of turret

If hitting an object with the size of a tank turret (which do differ in sizes) at 500m with the first shot is not a problem for a certain gun platform, than the simple fact of your tank being hull down won't help your tank 'not getting hit' by that platform (in the condition the tank has already been spotted).
My personal take on the lesson which can be learned there, is that it is wisest to reverse to cover when you know your tank has been spotted by a threat at a range at which it is likely to hit your turret and damage it. Hulldown is no magical shield.

And if things come down to a close range brawl, I rather shoot & scoot from cover vs staying static (hulldown or not hulldown) and having a honest to god duel ;-).

Unless one clearly has superior assets (for example King Tiger vs Sherman 75) I think a 'honest to god duel' isn't a wise way to wage war. 

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13 hours ago, Lethaface said:

My personal take on the lesson which can be learned there, is that it is wisest to reverse to cover when you know your tank has been spotted by a threat at a range at which it is likely to hit your turret and damage it. Hulldown is no magical shield.

Yes which is why knowing where the bonus is located is important. A user is able to rely more on pure match up information and isn't being misled into expecting hull down to provide protection once spotted.

What I find interesting is that this speaks against my experience with IL-2 tank crew where due to a variety of factors I've seen hull down provide a  lot of benefit to spotted tanks. Usually due to the environmental conditions confusing the opposing gunner to the correct range.

 

 

14 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

Too much happens in one minute of the action phase - in one minute the duel may already be decided.


Yes just generally I think this is good information to keep in the back of your head but isn't going to be applicable in most situations. IMO the most common usage is to remind players to move earlier in the fight to alternate HD positions and to do it before they are spotted. Although again even this is might end up being difficult as a lot can happen in 60 seconds.

 

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7 hours ago, Pelican Pal said:

Yes which is why knowing where the bonus is located is important. A user is able to rely more on pure match up information and isn't being misled into expecting hull down to provide protection once spotted.

Mmm I think this statement is incorrect and misleading.
Being hull down does provide 'advantages' even after being spotted, only for a hull down Panther tank which is being targeted from close range by an accurate gun that can pierce it's turret there is no 'magical protection' that hull down give to save the Panther or help is turret become stronger.

 

Edited by Lethaface
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7 hours ago, Lethaface said:

Mmm I think this statement is incorrect and misleading.

I'd presume that people read my OP where I lay out that there is an increase in rounds needed to hit. I don't see why I need to be perfectly explicit for every single post under that OP.

 

7 hours ago, Lethaface said:

eing hull down does provide 'advantages' even after being spotted

Yes, being hull down makes it a bit harder for your opponent to land a hit but given a "full turn" engagement will see them landing hits. With it taking somewhere between 1-2 shots for the shooter to find the range. That advantage pales in comparison to the concealment buff that the hull down tank gets and where the balance of the advantage is at.

Again the hull up tank only spotted the hull down tank a little over 50% of the time. That sort of concealment buff is significant far more significant than an extra shot to find the range.



-----------

Just generally I do not follow the point of your argument. Its valuable for players to know how systems in the game work so it fundamentally provides some benefit. I've said before that the quirks of hull down are most applicable in edge case scenarios, but even given that just knowing how the code behind the system renders results has benefits.

Edited by Pelican Pal
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1 hour ago, Pelican Pal said:

I'd presume that people read my OP where I lay out that there is an increase in rounds needed to hit. I don't see why I need to be perfectly explicit for every single post under that OP.

Well for one you failed to mention that it's only valid for tanks with a weak turret compared to front hull (i.e. Panther). 

 

1 hour ago, Pelican Pal said:

Yes, being hull down makes it a bit harder for your opponent to land a hit but given a "full turn" engagement will see them landing hits. With it taking somewhere between 1-2 shots for the shooter to find the range. That advantage pales in comparison to the concealment buff that the hull down tank gets and where the balance of the advantage is at.

Again the hull up tank only spotted the hull down tank a little over 50% of the time. That sort of concealment buff is significant far more significant than an extra shot to find the range.



-----------

Just generally I do not follow the point of your argument. Its valuable for players to know how systems in the game work so it fundamentally provides some benefit. I've said before that the quirks of hull down are most applicable in edge case scenarios, but even given that just knowing how the code behind the system renders results has benefits.

I don't necessarily agree that these posts help player to understand how the systems in the game work. If you had said something like:

"Be vigilant because being hull down doesn't give magical protection. The main advantage is that it shows less of your tank so it is less visible and a smaller hitbox. However once you are spotted you can be engaged and turrets aren't invincible or that hard to hit for a decent AT gun at normal engagement range. So remember the survivability onion and reposition often to avoid getting spotted, especially after firing a shot or two. Bonus: remember that the turret is the Panther's weak chin so you don't want them to get hits on the turret. "

I wouldn't have said anything. 

You explicitly said "A user is able to rely more on pure match up information and isn't being misled into expecting hull down to provide protection once spotted.", which I felt is misleading and incorrect for a large number of cases. 

 

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Interesting data, thanks for doing that and providing some plausible conclusions. 
 

While I appreciate the substantial benefit granted by being hull down, it does seem counterintuitive that once spotted it may easily confer a disadvantage. I expected that there would be a higher probability of not striking the exposed turret.

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15 minutes ago, Bud Backer said:

Interesting data, thanks for doing that and providing some plausible conclusions. 
 

While I appreciate the substantial benefit granted by being hull down, it does seem counterintuitive that once spotted it may easily confer a disadvantage. I expected that there would be a higher probability of not striking the exposed turret.

Remember that the 'disadvantage' is only for tanks with significantly weaker turrets vs the majority of it's hull armor (which probably invalidates it for most if not all modern armor).
Personally I'm not surprised that a Panther can range in shots on a target the size of another Panther turret at 700m in a couple of shots.

Edit: the CMx2 mechanic of always hitting centre mass does also influence this corner case. Because the 'hull up' panther in these tests will have the advantage that once zero'ed in most of the shots will impact the stronger hull. 

Edited by Lethaface
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Yes, I understand the explanation. 

My difficulty is that I’m trying to imagine this in a real battle. Did real Panther commanders actually decide in a battle that remaining hull down was disadvantageous and purposely expose their tanks fully? I have a hard time Imagining that to be the case.

Which makes me wonder if other aspects of the simulation mitigate this in some manner to achieve a more realistic outcome. 

This is one of the challenges of tests that are going to test a very specific situation. Not knocking the effort by any means. Just trying to rationalize the conclusions with what I’d expect in real life.

Edited by Bud Backer
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7 minutes ago, Bud Backer said:

Yes, I understand the explanation. 

My difficulty is that I’m trying to imagine this in a real battle. Did real Panther commanders actually decide in a battle that remaining hull down was disadvantageous and purposely expose their tanks fully? I have a hard time Imagining that to be the case.

Which makes me wonder if other aspects of the simulation mitigate this in some manner to achieve a more realistic outcome. 

This is one of the challenges of tests that are going to test a very specific situation. Not knocking the effort by any means. Just trying to rationalize the conclusions with what I’d expect in real life.

I have a hard time imagining that too :). 

If the hull down Panther could have aimed for the turret of the hull up Panther, the test results would probably be rather different. Also the tests don't account for battlefield conditions, in which the hull up Panther also has more chance that it is exposing it's weak hull side armor to other units compared to the hull down Panther. Although that all depends on the exact position. 

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This entire discussion is misunderstanding some basic fundamentals. 

Hull down means that a tanks hull is covered by terrain or a fortification, leaving only the turret exposed. 

HOi1sSJ.jpeg

(Not my graphic)

Fighting from hull down is entirely different. Tanks who fight from hull down are not stationary. While not under fire, they observe from a hull down position. This increases protection, reduces visibility (reduces the chance of being spotted by presenting a smaller target), while maintaining situational awareness by observing the battlefield. Once engaged, tanks move. They fire from a hull down position (ideally) and then reverse into a turret down (similar to hull down, but now both the hull and turret of the tank are completely concealed by terrain) while reloading. The tank either then moves back up into a hull down position to fire again, or changes positions to a new battle position and does the drill over again. This is known as jockying. A tank moving from hull down firing to turret down reloading and back to hull down is known as a berm drill. 

Here is a video I have posted before showing the basics of a berm drill, without firing the main gun:

A test that has a tank in hull down being fired at while not moving is a flawed test. Anything not moving while being fired at is increasing its chance of being hit. Whether that is an infantryman, a machine gun team, a tank, an IFV, whatever. Displacing is a fundamental tactical movement.

Edited by IICptMillerII
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8 minutes ago, IICptMillerII said:

This entire discussion is misunderstanding some basic fundamentals. 

Hull down means that a tanks hull is covered by terrain or a fortification, leaving only the turret exposed. 

HOi1sSJ.jpeg

(Not my graphic)

Fighting from hull down is entirely different. Tanks who fight from hull down are not stationary. While not under fire, they observe from a hull down position. This increases protection, reduces visibility (reduces the chance of being spotted by presenting a smaller target), while maintaining situational awareness by observing the battlefield. Once engaged, tanks move. They fire from a hull down position (ideally) and then reverse into a turret down (similar to hull down, but now both the hull and turret of the tank are completely concealed by terrain) while reloading. The tank either then moves back up into a hull down position to fire again, or changes positions to a new battle position and does the drill over again. This is known as jockying. A tank moving from hull down firing to turret down reloading and back to hull down is known as a berm drill. 

Here is a video I have posted before showing the basics of a berm drill, without firing the main gun:

A test that has a tank in hull down being fired at while not moving is a flawed test. Anything not moving while being fired at is increasing its chance of being hit. Whether that is an infantryman, a machine gun team, a tank, an IFV, whatever. Displacing is a fundamental tactical movement.

 

Nice explanation and good point on the 'fighting' bit :). 

Jockeying in CM is a bit difficult, although with using pauses it's quite doable imo especially with modern tanks and using the pause feature. 

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2 hours ago, IICptMillerII said:

A test that has a tank in hull down being fired at while not moving is a flawed test. Anything not moving while being fired at is increasing its chance of being hit. Whether that is an infantryman, a machine gun team, a tank, an IFV, whatever. Displacing is a fundamental tactical movement.

Except you cant do a proper berm drill because your tank wont see the target so you have to pop up and down hoping the tank will spot and shoot in time.

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On 2/15/2022 at 6:58 PM, Drifter Man said:

It is good to know if hull down makes you harder to hit - and survive, if your turret armor is weaker than the hull.

Just the person I want to see how many hits are required to knock out a Panzer IV with a 75 mm Sherman from four hundred meters. So far four penetrations. 

diehard.jpg

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4 hours ago, Simcoe said:

Imagine if there was a command where you give a tank a spot to reverse to and once it fired or was fired upon it reverses to that spot. Use this for berm drills or shoot and scoot maneuvers.

a man can dream.

Reverse pause for 5 seconds reverse pause for 5 seconds. Then my Hotseat battle stopped for some reason. ambushp.jpg

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15 hours ago, IICptMillerII said:

This entire discussion is misunderstanding some basic fundamentals. 

We're not in disagreement about the tank tactics you're showing, but I think the whole discussion is based on the misunderstanding that we are talking about real life, whereas we are just talking about how things work in the game.

Nobody is saying real panthers didn't use hulldown, or that they would stay in hulldown and slug it out. Lots of things were going on that we can't really use in CM, because of the 60-second turn structure - at least not in WeGo mode.

The concept of leaving a Panther up on a hilltop is basically just a gamey thing that's possible in CM because it's a game.

 

Edited by Bulletpoint
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23 hours ago, Lethaface said:

Well for one you failed to mention that it's only valid for tanks with a weak turret compared to front hull (i.e. Panther). 

So what I find frustrating here is I in fact said that but it seems you cannot be asked to read my posts:

> - If your tank's turret armor is relatively weak be wary of engaging in a shoot out from hull down. Ideally you are engaging and moving before being spotted. If you are expecting to have to engage in a shoot out it may be beneficial to exit hull down after the concealment bonus is lost or there may be nearby locations (keyhole for example) that could be more beneficial than the hull down position.

And again here

> The HD tank is spotting 95% of the time which is H U G E . The complexity for the hull down tank occurs once it has been spotted (and then only if its turret armor is particularly weak). In those situations you want to essentially ambush from hull down and then move to another battle position. Where the hull down tank starts to run into problems (sometimes) is if you get into a true fire fight with both tanks trading fire.

23 hours ago, IICptMillerII said:

A test that has a tank in hull down being fired at while not moving is a flawed test.

Its not a flawed test because that is exactly what it is supposed to test.

7 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

We're not in disagreement about the tank tactics you're showing, but I think the whole discussion is based on the misunderstanding that we are talking about real life, whereas we are just talking about how things work in the game.

Yes the code that is operating the game and how that impacts results within the game is going to have a fair amount of play given that it was written near on 15 years ago.
 

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I ran my usual 1000 trials with one Pz IV in partial hull down position vs one Pz IV in full hull down position. Regular, no modifiers, 600 m, crew hatches open.

In the first round, neither side had a contact, so both spotting and shooting accuracy would determine who wins. The result was 39:57 - the hull down tank had a significant advantage.

In the second round, I used target arcs to prevent both tanks from shooting until both had full contact on each other. Therefore, they would start shooting almost simultaneously and only the shooting accuracy (and protection) would determine who wins. The result was 56:47. I repeated this run with another 1000 trials, the second result was 54:50. The average of all 2000 trials was then 55:49. The hull down tank has a slight disadvantage. It might be due to the poorer protection offered to the hull down Pz IV by the turret armor vs upper hull. I see no indication that a hull down tank is harder to hit at this range than a more exposed vehicle.

I think it is in agreement with @Pelican Pal's findings.

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It’s good to see that CM is accurately simulating reality then. 
 

Hull down makes it harder for the tank that is hull down to be spotted, which in turn makes it harder to kill vs a tank out in the open. 
 

It also shows that at point blank range of 600m, ballistics are simulated correctly. The shell being fired is going to hit where the crosshair is placed with a very small degree of deviation. 
 

I would be interested to see the same test run again at tank combat ranges. That is to say, ranges that are beyond battle sight zero/point blank range. Say, double the distance at 1200m. 

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