Q on using the hull down command...

[Magnum50]

OK, guess I finally decided to swallow my pride and ask a question that has been with me for a while.

I understand what hull down position means, thou not a tanker was in the Army for 10+ years and play the hell out of SB Pro PE. But I can't figure out how it really works in the CM series, mostly I just use hunt. If you want your tank platoon in a hull down position overlooking a battlefield direction or a most likely point of enemy entry, do you click on the point that you want them watching and they will move to hull down position forward or do you select the little hill or ditch or whatever that you want the tank to move to and go hull down overlooking the front towards enemy.

Thanks.

[Andrew Kulin]

It is supposed to work with you selecting a point off in the distance you want your tank to be in hull down position FOR.  So in theory that means your tank stops its movement at some point before it gets to where you plot your hull down movement point.

I don't use this command as I have not had any luck with it.  Possibly I have had a vehicle move to the point, with not good consequences.  Though that was a really long time ago so I may not be totally correct in remembering that.  But my experiences trying it out way back in time left a bad taste for me, hence I don't use it.

Others may chime in and say I am full of crap.  Which is fine.

[OBJ]

My experience was like Andrew's, tried it, my units kept moving and never stopped where I thought they'd be hull down doing my own level 1 and line of sight check eyeballing of the terrain, so have shied away from using it.

Like Magnum50 I'd be interested to hear if others have used it successfully and what the trick might be.

[A Canadian Cat]

Yeah. Don't use that method.

The HD point is determined by either the final move point or the target specified on that final point. Above, people are talking about the first method. Do not do that. If for any reason you make a mistake your tank will drive to that point - which is nearly certainly not what you want.

You may ask "what mistake"? If your tank starts out in a place where they already have LOS to the HD place then it will never stop moving since it never reached HD.

So what you do is add your move orders out of LOS of the place where you want to be HD to. Then specify the HD move command up to the crest of the obstruction. Once there set a target order to the place you want to be HD for. This is a bit iterative just keep tweaking until you get the target command set. This way the worst that can happen is your tank stops at the top of the obstruction. Which is much better than driving down the other side and into the open.

[domfluff]

Do this:

Get this:

[Bil Hardenberger]

Here is my post on the subject:

https://battledrill.blogspot.com/2013/09/movement-technique-005-hull-down.html

[Vacillator]

2 hours ago, Andrew Kulin said:

I am full of crap

I'd say you're not.

[OBJ]

Thanks, the expert advice is very much appreciated and soon to be applied.

[Ultradave]

16 hours ago, Andrew Kulin said:

 I am full of crap. 

Nope. My experience was similar so I gave up. No matter how I fiddled, the tank I tried to get hull down went too far, which of course led almost immediately to explosion and fire. So I do it by eye now. Set an end point for the move, move the camera there and look, and then tweak the endpoint if needed. After a while you get pretty good doing it by eye. 

Dave

[Halmbarte]

I use the hull down command a lot as a time saver. The method that works for me is making the endpoint the point where I don't want the vehicle to move past, then setting a firing point to the spot I want to be hull down to. There are a couple of limitations: 

1) The target spot is ground hight, not vehicle height. The difference can cause problems*. 

2) The problem* that gets me the most often is that I'm hull down to the spot I wanted, but another, unnoticed location has a better line of fire, again leading to problems*. 

H

*Problem = significant emotional experience for the crew. 

[Andrew Kulin]

2 hours ago, Ultradave said:

Nope. My experience was similar so I gave up. No matter how I fiddled, the tank I tried to get hull down went too far, which of course led almost immediately to explosion and fire. So I do it by eye now. Set an end point for the move, move the camera there and look, and then tweak the endpoint if needed. After a while you get pretty good doing it by eye. 

Dave

So if it does not work as intended maybe that is something BFC works on as a patch or Engine 5 thing.  Or remove the command in its entirety and replace the now open slot/command with something else, like "Move to Contact" which a CMX1 command that I happen to miss.

 

52 minutes ago, Halmbarte said:

I use the hull down command a lot as a time saver. The method that works for me is making the endpoint the point where I don't want the vehicle to move past, then setting a firing point to the spot I want to be hull down to.

Or maybe it works as per the methods that IanL, Domfluff and Halmbarte have all offered (they seem to me as the same method).  I will give that a try next time an opportunity arises and see if that makes it better.

[Ultradave]

I think it DOES work, but I just can't seem to get the hang of it. The Hunt command with picking my own Hull Down spot, usually does the trick.

Dave

[Erwin]

The trouble with "auto-hulldown" is that the system doesn't know which threat it is supposed to be hulldown to.  It is common that it will not position the AFV hulldown to the threat the player wants, but actually open itself up to fire from another direction.  Manual hulldown is much more accurate/safer and not hard to do.  

[Anthony P.]

23 hours ago, Erwin said:

The trouble with "auto-hulldown" is that the system doesn't know which threat it is supposed to be hulldown to.

I've never ever, not once, had an issue with that. I use the hull down movement command and assign an area target commad to it to instruct it as to what area it should be hull down to, and it's always worked as advertised.

[Brille]

I used the hull down command for some time once but I turned back to "eyeballing".

With the target method it worked quite good actually, and If you dont want to micromanage that sort it could be an option especially with many units.

 However I have 2 problems with it:

1.) You cannot always draw a target line on a desired position.

In Syria with sparse vegetation there is not much obscurance but in France with high hedges, wheatfields, high grass and bushes it can become a problem.

 

2.) The hull down command can't be used within a command chain. 

As soon as the requirements of that order is in place (reaching a hull down position) it cancels everything else out.

So you can't use it in a shoot & scoot kind of way. Yes you could try it so that the tank reaches his position at the end of a turn so you could plot the scoot part at the start of the next one.

That would be to much guesswork for me so I better stay on manual.

And as started: Once you get the hang of it it doesnt require that much more time to do so.

 

 

[OBJ]

Reading the manual experts suggest using '2.'
For those of us that haven't had any luck, or got surprised from another direction, maybe a slight refinement of what others have said:

1. Hunt command to eye-balled hull down position
2. LOS tool from end of Hunt movement waypoint to confirm hull down, or at least partial hull down, to intended location.

Hunt command also has the advantage of your unit stopping and engaging if it spots a threat in another direction before getting to the planned HD position.

Seems a lot of players, veteran players, can't seem to get it to work. Anthony I think you might be in the minority here.
Idea to replace it with something less fiddly might be a good one.

From the 4.0 Engine Manual, pages 6 and 51 in my version

Hulldown

Vehicles have access to a new movement command called Hulldown. This command allows a vehicle to move forward until only the turret is exposed to a specified target, and then the vehicle stops moving. Here is how to conduct a hulldown command:
1. Select a vehicle and give it a Hulldown movement command. This is the furthest point that the vehicle will move forward to if it doesn't establish hulldown for any reason.
2. Optionally assign a Target command aimed at the point that you wish the vehicle to become hulldown to. This target can be either a point on the ground or an enemy unit. The command can be a normal "immediate" command or attached to the hulldown-move waypoint.
3. If you don't assign a target command, then your vehicle will attempt to become hull-down to the waypoint location you set in step 1.
4. The vehicle will follow the Hulldown movement command and move forward. When the vehicle is hulldown to the designated target (or waypoint if there is no target), the Hulldown command will be canceled and the vehicle will stop moving.
5. If the (optional) designated target was an Area Target, the vehicle will cancel the Target command upon reaching hulldown. If the target is an enemy unit, the vehicle will begin attacking the target once it reaches hulldown.

[Centurian52]

I have been fully won over to the hull-down command. It's fantastic if you use it right. But there is a right and wrong way to use it. DO NOT set the hull-down waypoint to the position you want to be hull-down to. Set the waypoint to the top of the crest you are trying to peek over, and then set a target command from the waypoint to the position you want to be hull-down to.

[Erwin]

1 hour ago, OBJ said:

veteran players, can't seem to get it to work.

I think that it's more that we can position units for hull-down more easily due to experience and don't need the aid.

[OBJ]

3 minutes ago, Erwin said:

I think that it's more that we can position units for hull-down more easily due to experience and don't need the aid.

Point

[Centurian52]

4 minutes ago, Erwin said:

I think that it's more that we can position units for hull-down more easily due to experience and don't need the aid.

Eh, I'm no newcomer to Combat Mission. Been playing since 2009 (that's still 15 years ago by now, even if it means I wasn't part of the initial CMBO crowd). I could get a decent, but never a perfect hull-down position prior to the introduction of the hull-down command. The hull-down command makes it possible to get pretty much perfect hull-down positions with relatively little effort.

I'm still working out some of the details of how it works. I think the tank stops the moment any member of the crew, not just the gunner, can see the targeted point on the ground, since I've sometimes had the tank stop too early when I've had the commander turned out. If that's the case then I may be able to turn that to my advantage by effectively using it as a turret-down command when the commander is out. I just need to remember to close up when I want the tank to actually go hull-down.

[Erwin]

No worries.  It's fine whatever works best for one.

My beef with trying to find a hull down position is that the unit frequently goes from NO LOS, to PARTIAL HULLDOWN with no chance of getting "full" HULLDOWN.  I have spent much time experimenting moving an AFV back and forth the minimum distance possible trying to get hulldown in a situation like this, and due to vagaries of the CM2 terrain have found it impossible.  

[Anthony P.]

9 hours ago, OBJ said:

Seems a lot of players, veteran players, can't seem to get it to work. Anthony I think you might be in the minority here.

I've always used it in concert with the optional area target command, that way it's always worked for me. I'm really surprised the hull down command isn't working so well for others. Do you use the area target method with it when it doesn't work?

8 hours ago, Centurian52 said:

I have been fully won over to the hull-down command. It's fantastic if you use it right. But there is a right and wrong way to use it. DO NOT set the hull-down waypoint to the position you want to be hull-down to. Set the waypoint to the top of the crest you are trying to peek over, and then set a target command from the waypoint to the position you want to be hull-down to.

Just like that, yeah. Not misfunctioned once.

[OBJ]

12 hours ago, Anthony P. said:

I've always used it in concert with the optional area target command, that way it's always worked for me. I'm really surprised the hull down command isn't working so well for others. Do you use the area target method with it when it doesn't work?

Just like that, yeah. Not misfunctioned once.

I think you have me Anthony. When it first came out I tried placing the end waypoint on the spot I wanted my vehicles to be hull down to, and my tanks just kept moving, with very unpleasant results, so I stopped using it.

Thanks to you and others I can clearly see I need to go back to it and use it in conjunction with an area/enemy unit target command.

[Andrew Kulin]

1 hour ago, OBJ said:

I think you have me Anthony. When it first came out I tried placing the end waypoint on the spot I wanted my vehicles to be hull down to, and my tanks just kept moving, with very unpleasant results, so I stopped using it.

Thanks to you and others I can clearly see I need to go back to it and use it in conjunction with an area/enemy unit target command.

ditto