Official Hull Down vs. Real Hull Down

[Guest Pillar]

In CM, there seems to be an "official" status of Hull-Down which results in a small text blurb when targetting.

However, Hull down is a matter of degrees really. You may have a relatively "hull down" position, where only a small portion of the tank body is showing. However, in CM this would not be designated official hull-down status - ie. you wouldn't get the text. I rarely am able to find a perfect hull down position.

I want to know if it makes any difference at all in the game. Does having the official CM stamp of approval on your tanks orientation make a difference in calculations? Or is terrain, terrain. Regardless of your "official" status, the terrain will block the shots etc.

Thanks for the information.

[M. Bates]

Excellent question, I'm waiting for an answer! (bump)

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"War is like the cinema. The best seats are at the back... the front is all flicker."

- Monte Cassino by Sven Hassel

[Guest Rommel22]

I have been trying to figure this out myself. I try to place my tanks in a small ditch or behind a small hill. (ridge)

The Shermans have a tall siloute (not spelled right not sure how) so they have an advantage to hide behind smaller hills, their turret is tall too.

So does someone have an answer fo this???

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From the Das Reich book as said by a German soldier

"when the Russians reached us, we opened fire, the first wave had no weapons.

The second wave didn't either (fire fodder). The 3rd and 4th had weapons and opened fire on us.

By this time we were low on ammo, but we drove them back."

[Guest Pillar]

Let's just clarify this question and make it more concise:

Does having the "Hull Down" text in itself offer any bonuses in the game engine?

[Moon]

CM does not use the actual pixels of the 3D landscape to calculate hull-down status. Instead, hull-down is determined by the in-game algorithms "under the hood". The "hull-down" text appears when a unit is hull-down, as determined by the algorithms. Without text, there is no difference between hull-down or not hull-down. Yes, this is an abstraction.

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"An hour has 60 minutes, each minute in action has a thousand dangers."

- Karl-Heinz Gauch, CO 1st Panzerspähkompanie, 12th SS Panzerdivision

[Guest Pillar]

Moon,

Thanks for the response.

Often I find a position where the terrain significantly covers the body of the tank but I receive no "Hull Down" text.

So then, if in real life a tanker tries to find hull-down positions by eyeing the terrain, how are we to find them in CM?

Could anyone suggest a technique to figuring this out?

[This message has been edited by Pillar (edited 09-29-2000).]

[M. Bates]

Here's an idea:

How about "semi hull-down" or "hull down 10%", "hull down 70%" etc etc.

Good idea?

[Guest Pillar]

My solution M. Bates, would simply be to have the actual terrain itself determine if a shell gets to it's target or not and remove all 'official hull down' bonuses from the code.

If the trajectory of a shell is calculated and it can be determined where a shell hits the earth when doing DF, than the code is already there. If your tank is behind a hill 30%, then that portion of hill must prevent a round from getting through that section of space.

Perhaps though, CM is doing the whole process of tank duels abstractly, much like the infantry fighting is done. In that case, it would work the other way around. Instead of a round's trajectory being calculated initially and a hit being determined from THAT, it would work by calculating a "hit" (based on percentages attributed to the hull-down text itself) and then if Hit=Yes the game would generate a graphic representation of a trajectory that WOULD hit. Understand?

I don't agree with the latter system, as CM is supposed to be known for it's trajectory algorithims. If the trajectories are based on pre-determined abstract percentages and not actual physics, that virtue of the game is lost. It becomes simply any other wargame tank-duel, except with a neat visual represenation.

I hope I'm being clear.

[M. Bates]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>My solution M. Bates, would simply be to have the actual terrain itself determine if a shell gets to it's target or not and remove all 'official hull down' bonuses from the code.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Okay, I could live with that!

So, maybe keep hull down - but only as a rough guide - and the status of hull down has no effect, but is just a helpful reflection of how well protected your tank is.

For example, Tank A with hull down of 10% is better protected than Tank B with hull down of 20%. This could be because if direction the tank is facing, whether it is "slanted" etc.

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"War is like the cinema. The best seats are at the back... the front is all flicker."

- Monte Cassino by Sven Hassel

[Schugger]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Pillar:

Could anyone suggest a technique to figuring this out?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Try it with view setting 1 and look for elevations. When you are to engage an enemy tank and your tank is behind a hill for example, use the hunt order for the last ditch of your movement to the hill's crest. Usually, your tank will stop and engage when the other tank comes into view.

[Guest Pillar]

Schugger,

I've tried that exact technique many times. It does end up giving me a decent situation usually, but almost never do I get the holy "Hull Down" CM stamp of approval.

There's got to be some trick to this.

[Schugger]

Hehe, "holy Hull Down CM stamp"

Pillar, it is really a bit of micro-management. When I plot the last ditch of my hunt order to get the sacret HD status, i do not make it so that the path goes over the crest but rather to the edge of the crest ( when you can understand what I'm rambling about).

If you plot the hunt order to far and your tank doesn't immediatly spot the enemy tank when it comes into view you end up as King of the Hill, for a short time at least.

[Guest Michael emrys]

When I am searching for a hull-down position for vehicles, or a safe stopping point for infantry, I plot the movement then place the camera over the end point in view 1 to see what I can see. If I can just barely make out the target or piece of terrain, I figure I'm in the right spot. If I see too much, I pull the end point back until I like it. This method isn't foolproof, but it works well enough most of the time.

Michael

[Lorak]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>When I am searching for a hull-down position for vehicles, or a safe stopping point for infantry, I plot the movement then place the camera over the end point in view 1 to see what I can see. If I can just barely make out the target or piece of terrain, I figure I'm in the right spot. If I see too much, I pull the end point back until I like it. This method isn't foolproof, but it works well enough most of the time.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is the same way I do it also. One thing you need to have is patience. I usually also follow this up with a reverse command also. So that I'm not left out to dry if he doesn't sopt the unit.

It also helpt to pre-target before you move. Also have a little patience. If you don't go far enough up the fist time to gain LOS You have only lost a min. Better to be a little short, waste a min, and still be out of LOS also... Than get in a hurry, plot to far forward, and die in a horrible smoking wreck.

Lorak

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"Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking."--William Butler Yeats

Cesspool

[Silver Fox]

Wow!!! No wonder I'm getting killed on top of all those hills! Dumbkopf

[Mr. T]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>CM does not use the actual pixels of the 3D landscape to calculate hull-down status. Instead, hull-down is determined by the in-game algorithms "under the hood". The "hull-down" text appears when a unit is hull-down, as determined by the algorithms. Without text, there is no difference between hull-down or not hull-down. Yes, this is an abstraction.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Wait a minute. I understand how hull down is determined by the game. But does this translate to mean that terrain plays absolutely no part in providing protection for tanks unless you see the magical 'hull down' text? In other words, it's either you see the hull down text or you might as well be right up on top of the hill for all to see?

[M. Bates]

bump

[KiwiJoe]

Yep, hulldown is all or nothing. If enough of your tank is hidden you get the magic text, if not you get nothing.

[M. Bates]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Yep, hulldown is all or nothing. If enough of your tank is hidden you get the magic text, if not you get nothing. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

But I thought CM works out missiles properly? It seems wrong that it's so black and white.

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"War is like the cinema. The best seats are at the back... the front is all flicker."

- Monte Cassino by Sven Hassel

[Vanir]

2 Points:

1. There has been considerable debate about this. A search will come up with some lengthly threads. Some people have argued that since the terrain in CM is somwhat of an abstraction, there should be a hull down command. What you see is not always what you get. I have seen instances where tanks on top of hills had no LOS to a vehicle below them even though both were clearly visible to each other using view level 1.

2. There is currently a bug in CM where if one tank has hull down status to it's target, the target will be given hull down status also. This does not happen in all instances, but has been confirmed in gunnery range tests. I lost a M10 because of this last night

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So maybe you should listen to this Vanir guy instead of ignoring him -- he has the best take on the whole thing. - Combatboy

[Guest Pillar]

I've tried to do a search, I couldn't find anything specific. "Hull down" yields a big return.

Can you provide more information?

[:USERNAME:]

Search with 'hull down' and 'Lewis',

[Guest Pillar]

Thanks Lewis!

[Ben Galanti]

Basically, the issue is that CM decides whether a shot is a hit or a miss before the shot is fired. If it's a hit, it figures where on the vehicle it hits. If it's a miss, it figures out where the shell ends up. There have been several threads on this before where BTS has described why they went with this method over the fire the shell and trace it's path to determine a hit technique.

Currently, a CM vehicle has basically two spots that determine visibility. The turret and the hull. If the turret spot is visible, but not the hull spot, the vehicle is hull down. If both spots are visible, there is no bonus, if neither is visibile, teh vehicle is hidden. What would be nice is if there were more 'spots'. If there were 5 spots, the vehilce could be 0, 20, 40, 60, 80, or 100% hidden. Granted, this would more then double the LOS calculations, and there would be an associated nicrease in turn generation. There may be some optimizations which could be used that would make the resolutions not take as much of a hit, I dunno... This would keep it from being quite so black & white though.

Ben

[Guest Pillar]

Personally, I don't mind waiting a minute for the action to generate if it means more realism.

It takes just that much time to exchange pbem files anyway. Might as well make it high quality.