Mortars and trees

[PEB14]

As far as possible I avoid to place mortars behind trees, and especially in forest tiles, because I'm afraid to prematurily detonate the rounds in the branches above my troops. (At the beginning, I even hesitated to place these behind high bocage for the same reason, but apparently this is safe).

Am I correct doing so, or detonating HE rounds is limited to artillery firing THROUGH (and not from) trees tiles?

[womble]

I think you'll find that LOF gets blocked if you put high trajectory weapons under trees. If it's not, a tree's foliage elements remain capable of setting off fuses, so you would, I believe be risking premature detonations.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Nah. Outbound fire ignores all vegetation within a small radius of the shooter, on the x and y axes. IIRC it's 8 meters, but don't quote me.

[PEB14]

36 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Nah. Outbound fire ignores all vegetation within a small radius of the shooter, on the x and y axes. IIRC it's 8 meters, but don't quote me.

I quote you…

That would mean that the firer is ALWAYS safe. For flat trajectory HE weapons, it means that premature detonation endanger only friendly units placed in tiles with trees beyond 8 meters. Correct?
For balistic fire like mortars, it would mean that you NEVER can endanger friendly troops. Correct?

[womble]

48 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Nah. Outbound fire ignores all vegetation within a small radius of the shooter, on the x and y axes. IIRC it's 8 meters, but don't quote me.

Maybe I'm thinking about buildings then...

[Vanir Ausf B]

12 minutes ago, PEB14 said:

I quote you…

That would mean that the firer is ALWAYS safe. For flat trajectory HE weapons, it means that premature detonation endanger only friendly units placed in tiles with trees beyond 8 meters. Correct?
For balistic fire like mortars, it would mean that you NEVER can endanger friendly troops. Correct?

Correct. And the more I think about it I feel the distance is more like 16 meters. It's been a long time since this was brought up so the details are vague in my head. But the gist of it is shooters don't have to worry about hitting themselves. But friendly forces down range absolutely can be hit by friendly fire of 12.7mm or larger.

14 minutes ago, womble said:

Maybe I'm thinking about buildings then...

Yes, I don't think the same rule applies to buildings although I have never seen a unit hit the building they are shooting from. But I have seen grenades bound back to the thrower.

[Dynaman216]

2 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Nah. Outbound fire ignores all vegetation within a small radius of the shooter, on the x and y axes. IIRC it's 8 meters, but don't quote me.

I've had a tank hit trees in adjacent grid square, or is this for mortars and indirect fire weapons?  I don't think I ever remember them hitting something in the firing location.

[Vanir Ausf B]

2 hours ago, Dynaman216 said:

I've had a tank hit trees in adjacent grid square, or is this for mortars and indirect fire weapons?  I don't think I ever remember them hitting something in the firing location.

It's for all units.

To satisfy my own curiosity I set up a test consisting of T-34/85s area firing through trees of one, two and three action spots deep. I let them fire all HE ammo -- 39 rounds each. All 117 rounds passed through the trees. My conclusion is that the safe zone is even larger than I thought, at least 24 meters and probably more.

I can't explain what you saw. Either you were mistaken or it was a rare bug.

 

 

 

 

[Dynaman216]

It certainly happened, three times in a row.  It was years ago (soon after first release of RT so maybe fixed since then).

[Bulletpoint]

On 5/22/2023 at 12:29 AM, Vanir Ausf B said:

It's for all units.

To satisfy my own curiosity I set up a test consisting of T-34/85s area firing through trees of one, two and three action spots deep. I let them fire all HE ammo -- 39 rounds each. All 117 rounds passed through the trees. My conclusion is that the safe zone is even larger than I thought, at least 24 meters and probably more.

I can't explain what you saw. Either you were mistaken or it was a rare bug.

 

 

 

 

I think it also might depend on the tree type. Those are pine trees, and they are definitely more open to LOS than the leafy trees. Maybe they also block fire less?

[PEB14]

39 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

I think it also might depend on the tree type. Those are pine trees, and they are definitely more open to LOS than the leafy trees. Maybe they also block fire less?

Do you really think that the various trees behave differently in game terms? I think they'are all the same, the same way buildings are similar whatever their look like.

But that's pure guess based on my understanding of the game mechanics.

[Bulletpoint]

48 minutes ago, PEB14 said:

Do you really think that the various trees behave differently in game terms? I think they'are all the same, the same way buildings are similar whatever their look like.

But that's pure guess based on my understanding of the game mechanics.

I've been playing the game for quite a while, and it's my definite impression that pine trees are different in that they allow good LOS through the tree trunks. I don't think there's much difference between the trees with leaves.

Also, there is some difference between buildings. The "modular buildings" are the ones that can be combined into bigger buildings, and they offer good cover. The independent buildings are the ones that can only stand on their own, and they have more poor cover. Barns offer almost no cover at all.

[womble]

1 hour ago, PEB14 said:

the same way buildings are similar whatever their look like.

Without having an opinion on the behaviour of trees, buildings are most definitely not "similar". There are definitely different classes of buildings. I think Bulletpoint has most of them listed, but I'd add "Churches" as an even stronger building type than "modular".

[domfluff]

I have no idea whether the type of tree has a direct influence on the likelihood of collision from IDF. We *do* know that the foliage cover does depend on the type of tree, the location and the season, at least in terms of LOS (and in a way divorced from the physical representation of the same). Since that's true, it wouldn't surprise me if there was an influence on premature detonation, but I don't really know how easy it would be to produce a definitive answer there.

...and yes, buildings differ. It's not as simple as "modular buildings good, independent buildings bad", it depends on the footprint of the modular building, as well as the specific independent building represented, both of which depend on the location represented (read: game title - CMSF concrete buildings are built very differently from the mostly wooden huts in CMRT).

[PEB14]

Sorry, I replied too fast: I'm fully aware that there are several classes of buildings, but for a given class and a given shape (footprint+stores), they behave the same, whether they appear to be made of stone or wood or whatever.

I thought it might be the same for trees; good to know that it is not!

[Bulletpoint]

On 6/13/2023 at 6:44 PM, domfluff said:

We *do* know that the foliage cover does depend on the type of tree, the location and the season, at least in terms of LOS

Is it confirmed that foliage concealment changes with the season? That's what one would expect, but I'm not really sure I see much difference in concealment on a winter map compared to a summer map. I get the impression that it's just a graphical change but would be happy to learn it's not.

[domfluff]

It's certainly something that Steve had said before. It would be hard to get a consistent test for it, but it's been claimed (and there's really no reason why not - the foliage cover is a mathematical factor, so it's going to be changeable)

[Bulletpoint]

2 hours ago, domfluff said:

It's certainly something that Steve had said before. It would be hard to get a consistent test for it, but it's been claimed (and there's really no reason why not - the foliage cover is a mathematical factor, so it's going to be changeable)

The leafless winter trees still seem to block the target line at the same point though. Not sure if there's any spotting bonus to troops in the tree squares.