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Is there intentional friendly fire?


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Let me make myself clear.

More than ten years ago i had play the game and i remember two things vividly.

One is that at a night battle two GI squad started shooting each other without any enemy within their sight.

And two is that i had a missed squad. Like i had to go find them with another squad to get them back in my sight.

Do i imagine this or this was a thing back then?

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5 hours ago, omae2 said:

Let me make myself clear.

Okay 😉

I don't know about 10 years ago, was that CM1?  I've only ever played CM2, so...

I'm not sure about point 1 - I've never seen that.

And point 2 - if you're playing on say 'Iron' and you've selected a unit, others that they don't have any sort of contact with will disappear.  But if you de-select the unit by for example clicking on open terrrain, all units will reappear.  Nothing disappears.  At least that's my experience.

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I played a scenario a few months back in CMRT where a Partisan group had to attack an isolated AA position while it was air raided by IL2s.

 

This was the first time I noticed that units can misidentify friendly soldiers for enemies.

I even got a direct casualty in this instance which was clearly struck by a comrade of his.

Most of the time though it seems that they get rather pinned than shot down.

I guess that is intentional by BFC to be this way. Wouldnt be fun if a whole squad gets whiped out by a single "friendly" madman...though maybe realistic in some cases.

Most likely it has to do with the chain of command,daylight, weather and other visual obscurances.

Most partisans had only contact to the guys next to them since it was a pitch black night in that scenario. So often a platoon didnt know where the others were.

Since regular military formations of that time had at least one radio in a platoon, company or at least close by, everyone knew roughly where the rest of the formation were. So it would be more rare  in those to misidentify enemy and friendly troops I think.

 

Edited by Brille
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54 minutes ago, Lieutenant Ash said:

Sure I read in the manual some time ago that weapons below .50 calibre cannot cause friendly casualties just suppression. Larger weapons can cause casualties, unless this as changed recently.

I tested rifle calibre ammunition against units inside buildings and the effect is neglectable.  It was area fire at best you cause a little suppression. 

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Ricochets seem to be the only way non explosive projectiles can cause friendly casualties. E.g. I discovered that .50 cal fire from a Stryker was hitting a tree which a fireteam was positioned under, shredding them due to ricochets bouncing down at them.

I do feel that friendly fire is a large realism aspect missing from the game. Having access to advanced systems such as FBCB2 really doesn't actually mean much at all, and there's no serious penalty for splitting platoons over vast areas or worse yet, being sloppy and establishing fire support conflicting with your lines of advance. MG fire going literally through a friendly unit should not be any more possible than advancing into friendly artillery fire.

Edited by Anthony P.
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31 minutes ago, Anthony P. said:

Ricochets seem to be the only way non explosive projectiles can cause friendly casualties. E.g. I discovered that .50 cal fire from a Stryker was hitting a tree which a fireteam was positioned under, shredding them due to ricochets bouncing down at them.

.50 cal can straight up cause friendly casualties. If you saw it with 556 or 762 then it would be more interesting.

 

31 minutes ago, Anthony P. said:

I do feel that friendly fire is a large realism aspect missing from the game. 

Maybe. Simulating it is hard. Given the TacAI limitations and human player issues along with orders (not able to say fire on that building until the entry team is within 20m) means that it would be all to easy to create friendly fire incidents that are way above normal. Couple that with the complaints it would generate and I can see BFC just choosing to not tackle improving this aspect of the game any further.

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13 minutes ago, A Canadian Cat - was IanL said:

.50 cal can straight up cause friendly casualties. If you saw it with 556 or 762 then it would be more interesting.

 

Maybe. Simulating it is hard. Given the TacAI limitations and human player issues along with orders (not able to say fire on that building until the entry team is within 20m) means that it would be all to easy to create friendly fire incidents that are way above normal. Couple that with the complaints it would generate and I can see BFC just choosing to not tackle improving this aspect of the game any further.

That's why i wrote intentional friendly fire. Like shooting at misidentified friendly units in the dark, not when ground floor is occupied by friendly and the upper by enemy and the base of fire blasting away. Intentional friendly fire should work like regular fire. No matter the caliber.

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1 hour ago, Anthony P. said:

Ricochets seem to be the only way non explosive projectiles can cause friendly casualties. E.g. I discovered that .50 cal fire from a Stryker was hitting a tree which a fireteam was positioned under, shredding them due to ricochets bouncing down at them.

Smaller than 50 cal cannot cause casualties from direct fire, but all calibers can cause casualties from ricochets.  

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1 hour ago, Anthony P. said:

being sloppy and establishing fire support conflicting with your lines of advance. MG fire going literally through a friendly unit should not be any more possible than advancing into friendly artillery fire.

Yes, I definitely think I've picked up a few bad habits over the years. I've read no shortage of FMs and seen no shortage of training films telling me not to do precisely what I end up doing so often. So if they could figure out how to tweak the TacAI and orders system so that managing friendly fire wouldn't be more frustration than it's worth, then this would certainly be something that would be worth tackling. But I suspect this is a problem for CM3.

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Am also surprised that there is no AI routine in CM2 that stops heavy fire being targeted danger close to friendly inf.  Causing friendly fire casualties is a frustrating aspect of CM2.  It's unavoidable since large caliber weapons may suddenly notice a previously unseen enemy unit and suddenly open fire regardless of the fact taht it is causing many friendly casualties among inf that just happen to be in the way, or close to the new enemy unit.  If that is realistic - ie; happens so commonly in RL - that is scandalous.

In CM1, units would refuse to fire at a location too near to friendly inf (one could not target such locations).

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On 1/18/2024 at 4:32 PM, A Canadian Cat - was IanL said:

.50 cal can straight up cause friendly casualties. If you saw it with 556 or 762 then it would be more interesting.

Huh, would you look at that!

Yup, I tried it in a trial mission. .50 cal does work completely in regards to friendly fire and suppression. M240 and M4 fire on the other hand caused no casualties in spite of prolonged fire, but as per what I believe @Erwin alluded to, ricochets from them at the very least caused suppression (though I failed to reproduce any friendly fire in my brief test).

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Re casualties from ricochets:  Will experience this usually in urban-type scenarios where one has many units support firing at a house/wall, and one unit attempting to assault.  That assaulting unit may take casualties from ricochets due to the massive amount of lead being chucked.  In situations like this I try to have most supporting units cease fire just b4 the assaulting unit reaches the wall/house it will attempt to enter/breach.  

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