Units retreating, overriding move order.

[wyskass]

So, I realize a unit can choose not to follow orders when placed into a bad situation and retreat. It makes sense, but I've had a few situations where it was way premature and overly cautious. 

Here's an example from the Dutch campaign, first scenario. The Mechanized infantry has just arrived and I'm making the first moves to place them in position. They are placed within a walled space and need to exit through the one break. I've replayed this first round a couple times, and each of these units at some point started to retreat just as it exited the walled section.

Besides this being the only way out of this area, an IFV should probably be ok being 1 km from the nearest enemy building, especially when not even under fire?  Notice the IFV in the second shot throwing smoke screen and reversing. An armored IFV 1+ km from any enemy.. I've had to run this probably 4+ times just to get them out of this area.

What's the deal with these cowardly units? And this isn't the only time, there is a random retreat, when just doing some distant advancing. It's like they sometimes realize they don't want to be in a war at all. A few attempts can get past this, but either by replay or through a wasted round of play. 

 

Edited October 3, 2022 by wyskass
change wording

[chuckdyke]

Armchair General gave a tip. Always travel fast unless there is a reason not to. I never looked back. Your vehicle off road are three green bars? Why don't you travel fast? The engine adjusts speeds as required. This is easy to test in WW 2 scenarios. T34 carrying tank riders travel much slower than a T34 without passengers. Unfortunately, modern warfare doesn't allow for tank riders, but it is the same engine. 

Edited October 3, 2022 by chuckdyke

[Hapless]

Well, those two diamond shaped enemy icons are tanks. So being 1km away means those CV90s are definitely not  safe.

But like Chuckdyke says- you can override the "I want to live" behaviour to some extent by using the Fast command.

Edited October 3, 2022 by Hapless

[Erwin]

The Tac AI "sees" more than what a human player sees.  It is common when units do weird things that the Tac AI has perceived a threat that may be invisible to you.  

[chuckdyke]

1 minute ago, Erwin said:

The Tac AI "sees" more than what a human player sees. 

It makes calculations, it matters the type of input you program in the beginning of a turn. 

[Grey_Fox]

6 hours ago, Erwin said:

The Tac AI "sees" more than what a human player sees.  It is common when units do weird things that the Tac AI has perceived a threat that may be invisible to you.  

It's pretty obvious from the screenshot that is has spotted hostile tanks and is nopeing out of there.

Edited October 3, 2022 by Grey_Fox

[wyskass]

6 hours ago, Hapless said:

Well, those two diamond shaped enemy icons are tanks. So being 1km away means those CV90s are definitely not  safe.

But like Chuckdyke says- you can override the "I want to live" behaviour to some extent by using the Fast command.

Thanks for pointing out the tanks as being the likely reason for the bugging out. That makes sense. I didn't consider that because the tanks haven't fired even once, and were only spotted by a couple observers, so I didn't consider them a threat and took them out eventually without them being a factor. Sounds like the units may have thought otherwise, and wisely so out of self preservation.

The whole spotting and spreading contact information is still a bit of a black box, even after reading and re-reading about the mechanics of it. Especially lateral dissemination. 

[chuckdyke]

1 hour ago, wyskass said:

The whole spotting and spreading contact information is still a bit of a black box,

If you can spot an enemy one or more enemy unit has probably spotted, you. Tentative contacts can be, sound contacts, full contacts spotted by a unit you are in C2 with or an old contact. To share to units you don't share C2 you need to be in direct contact. Our friend @Hapless also has a video covering this.  Ps I wish I had his video creating skills. 

 

Edited October 3, 2022 by chuckdyke

[wyskass]

On 10/3/2022 at 6:31 PM, chuckdyke said:

If you can spot an enemy one or more enemy unit has probably spotted, you. Tentative contacts can be, sound contacts, full contacts spotted by a unit you are in C2 with or an old contact. To share to units you don't share C2 you need to be in direct contact. Our friend @Hapless also has a video covering this.  Ps I wish I had his video creating skills. 

Yea that's informative video on spotting mechanics. 

As for contact sharing, say you have an observer team from battalion HQ in the field with an infantry company. How would contacts spotted by the observers be shared with units in the infantry? Using hierarchical comms, the observer would report to battalion, which would then send to company HQ, and company to platoons and down the line?Or you're saying if the observer is right next to an infantry unit they would share without going up the chain? 

[chuckdyke]

2 hours ago, wyskass said:

f the observer is right next to an infantry unit they would share without going up the chain? 

That is right, it is called horizontal communication. 

[chuckdyke]

Example Here we have the Tac Air Control Observer. You see he has passengers, they are the second in command of A company. The Tac Air Control Observer will get all the tentative contacts. Cutting call in time dramatically. 

[Brille]

If a vehicle of yours spots an enemy that is able to threaten it, it will respond accordingly. For example if one of you ifv or apc spots an rpg gunner and happens to stand in his effective range, it will most likely hit the reverse and smoke itself if possible. 

 

But the tac ai don't just react to clear contacts. If one of your tanks for example knows via command link, that an enemy tanks is in it's flank but can't see it yet, it will most likely turn its turret or the entire vehicle in that direction if no other threat is present. 

But in general you can say that vehicles with no or light armor will bail as soon as the big tanks roll in sight. 

And a distance of 1km is no big deal in modern combat  even for older soviet hardware in terms of accuracy. 

Ifv with atgm option however may try to get one of their missiles on the way first before they evade... Depends on the units experience and the threat level... 

The toughness of infantry depends  on soft factors like experience, leadership and morale. 

They can be tough as rocks even when getting under big caliber fire or crumble under a well placed MG salvo. 

So you can have crack troops but if they have low morale they may be worse than green troops full of fanatics. 

Note that heavy beaten up infantry may reach a permanent status "broken". From this they cannot recover again and can get panicked even by light fire.