What is possible for CM 2?

[Dan Robertson]

I though I would ask what is possible for CM 2, and at the same time put forward ideas for CM2.

Tanks

1. Tanks are to be considered as part of the ground so block LOS allowing friendly fire, and infantry to shelter behind them.

2. An arc of fire comand which tells the tank to scan for targets in a sector (particulary usfull for flanking manovers.

3. Tank infantry co-operation. A comand unit should be able to designate targets to a nearby tank that the tank itself cannot see, therefor the tank can target the enemy crest a hill and fire imidiatly. Similar to the way a comand unit can identify tagets to nearby morters. Comand tanks would also be a good idea doing much the same thing.

4. The tank could do with more cases of damaging, that is vision block hits which reduce but do not totally remove to abilty to fire.

Gunnery/armour.

1. I am pretty sure that this will be even more acurate than previously, but what I would ask for is that the tank crews shold be able to range by MG and by bracting.

2. As far as I can tell the CM armour model models a tank as two boxes turret and hull.

However certain tanks like the tigers have turrets which a significat perportion of the front of the turret is actually the side of it at a very steep angle. For example the Tigers side armour is at 80 degrees when seen from the front. This needs to be modeled becase this area is invulnerable to conventional rounds.

3. There should be seperate values for HEAT and AP round for each tank. The Tiger for example has 140mm verse AP but over 200 in places against HEAT.

Equiptment.

Crews should be able to leave heavy weapons and re-ocupy them. Within bounds crews of similar weapons should be able to take over firing different weapons. So for example the crew of a 88 could leave it under bombardment and then re-ocupy it afterwards if there was enought of them and the weapon itself was workable.

The same should be the case with MG's and morters.

Fortifications and buildings.

Bunkers should be considered like buildings in that a unit should be able to ocupy them.

For example the crew of an MG bunker should be able to leg it if they are under firefrom at tank. A concrete bunker should still be able to function as a bunker even if it recieves a penetration as an infantry squad could still fire their weapons from within.

Trenches as well as large buildings would be nice.Also barebed wire should be made ineffective by a tank running over it.

Soldiers.

The causalty issue should changed for example there should some difference between death and injury. An injured soldier could drop from his unit but remain staitionary but still armed.

If his unit retreated they would have to pick him up and tkae him back or moral would drop. To carry him back would remove one weapon while the unit is moving.

So you may have soldiers who are

Moving unarmed.

Armed unmoving

unmoving unarmed

these injured could be moved into units when there are more than one of them, a moving casualty could forexample move a nonmoving one.

Coments, questions?

Dan Robertson

[This message has been edited by Dan Robertson (edited 11-27-2000).]

[Guest Rob/1]

Good ponts.

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[Johnno]

Yes, I agree. Good points, well thought up.

Johnno

[Chupacabra]

Hrm, I disagree with many of these, actually.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Dan Robertson:

Tanks

3. Tank infantry co-operation. A comand unit should be able to designate targets to a nearby tank that the tank itself cannot see, therefor the tank can target the enemy crest a hill and fire imidiatly. Similar to the way a comand unit can identify tagets to nearby morters. Comand tanks would also be a good idea doing much the same thing.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Strongly disagree here. Allowing direct fire units to target enemies they can't see would be extremely gamey, IMO. Even provided with the relative position of an enemy tank, the tank under command would still have to spot the enemy and bring its gun to bear before it could fire. There's simply no way an HQ unit could provide information detailed enough to allow a tank to set its gun so precisely that it could fire immediately upon gaining LOS to an enemy.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Gunnery/armour.

1. I am pretty sure that this will be even more acurate than previously, but what I would ask for is that the tank crews shold be able to range by MG and by bracting.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This is currently modelled.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>2. As far as I can tell the CM armour model models a tank as two boxes turret and hull.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't think this is the case, but will leave it to BTS to clarify.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>However certain tanks like the tigers have turrets which a significat perportion of the front of the turret is actually the side of it at a very steep angle. For example the Tigers side armour is at 80 degrees when seen from the front. This needs to be modeled becase this area is invulnerable to conventional rounds.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You lost me with your wording here. I don't see how the side of something can be the front of it as well. As for making claim about the relative strengths and weaknesses of Tigers, you're going to have to back this up with some research. Simply saying that "x was this way because I say so" doesn't carry much weight.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>3. There should be seperate values for HEAT and AP round for each tank. The Tiger for example has 140mm verse AP but over 200 in places against HEAT.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Same thing. It may be so, but please cite your sources for this claim.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Soldiers.

The causalty issue should changed for example there should some difference between death and injury. An injured soldier could drop from his unit but remain staitionary but still armed.

If his unit retreated they would have to pick him up and tkae him back or moral would drop. To carry him back would remove one weapon while the unit is moving.

So you may have soldiers who are

Moving unarmed.

Armed unmoving

unmoving unarmed

these injured could be moved into units when there are more than one of them, a moving casualty could forexample move a nonmoving one.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Casualties in CM are those soldiers who are either dead or incapacitated to the degree that they cannot take any action. Therefore it wouldn't seem to make much sense to model exactly how incapacitatingly wounded they are. If they can still move and fight, they do, if they can't, they're casualties.

The issues of medics and coping with the wounded has been discussed before, and as I recall, the official answer was that it doesn't fall within CM's scope, and I would agree.

Cheers

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Grand Poobah of the fresh fire of Heh.

[jgdpzr]

Chupacabra,

Regarding the side-armor/front-armor thing, I think what he is saying is that because of the shape of the Tiger's turret (sort of a horseshoe), when you look at the front of the turret, the sides of it can be seen as they narrow toward the front. Thus, a certain % of the frontal aspect is actually made up of the side armor which is at a very sharp angle (in the horizontal) to anything coming from the front. At least that is my interpretation.

[Lordfluffers]

On the topic, abandoned equipment should be able to be used by other soldiers i.e. abandoned jeeps could be reentered or captured and used by enemy forces. This is also true of weapons such as mortars and AT guns, if a team is forced to abandon their weapon it is plausible for them to use a deserted enemy weapon if its safe for them to approach and use it. Im not saying things like tanks could be reused so easily, but some of the simpler equipment of war could possibly be. Captured trucks for example were often used to pull the wounded back from the front lines, or support retreating troops. I'm not sure how often this happened so don't shout at may too much if it occurred less frequently than I suggested.

[Phoenix]

Tanks

1. Tanks are to be considered as part of the ground so block LOS allowing friendly fire, and infantry to shelter behind them.

I think this was covered before by BTS. If I recall there is some modeling and/or coding issue that prevents this. At least for now. As to whether or not troops can use a tank as cover..this too was discussed. I think the general consensus was hiding behind a tank was a dangerous place, and 9-12 guys can't get effective cover from a single tank.

3. Tank infantry co-operation. A comand unit should be able to designate targets to a nearby tank that the tank itself cannot see, therefor the tank can target the enemy crest a hill and fire imidiatly.

Nope, I don't like this one at all. First what is "nearby". How would an infantry leader communicate with the tank leader? By radio? Not likely. I don't see this being realistic at all. And since CM2 will be in the East, it is my understanding that the Russians had virtually no radio communication on the battle field. Certainly platoon leaders didn't radio back and forth with Russian tanks.

Trenches as well as large buildings would be nice.

Trenches are going in if I recall a posting by BTS recently. Search under "trench" within the last 30 days.

Also barbed wire should be made ineffective by a tank running over it.

My understanding was wire doesn't suddenly loose it's effectiveness just because a tank drives over it.

The causalty issue should changed for example there should some difference between death and injury. An injured soldier could drop from his unit but remain staitionary but still armed.

I disagree. This is beyond the scope of CM. If a soldier cannot perform, he's out. Dead or wounded, it matters not.

If his unit retreated they would have to pick him up and tkae him back or moral would drop. To carry him back would remove one weapon while the unit is moving.

Again, stuff that is just not part of the CM world and doesn't belong IMHO.

Coments, questions?

Those are mine.

[This message has been edited by Phoenix (edited 11-27-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Phoenix (edited 11-27-2000).]

[Maj. Bosco]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>1. Tanks are to be considered as part of the ground so block LOS allowing friendly fire, and infantry to shelter behind them.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

There are modelling issues with this. As it stands a knocked out tank can be used for cover. However, modelling moving tanks as cover would be a massive CPU chore. It's been discussed before, I don't remember where though. Do a search on knocked out tanks and cover.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>2. An arc of fire comand which tells the tank to scan for targets in a sector (particulary usfull for flanking manovers.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm not sure what you want exactly but it sounds like a good idea. I would like to be able to tell a tank to keep it's turret rotated to the left or to keep an eye on a clump of trees while it was moving. I'm not sure if this would be too much micromanagment for BTS's taste but it is a good idea.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>3. Tank infantry co-operation. A comand unit should be able to designate targets to a nearby tank that the tank itself cannot see, therefor the tank can target the enemy crest a hill and fire imidiatly. Similar to the way a comand unit can identify tagets to nearby morters. Comand tanks would also be a good idea doing much the same thing.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm not sure if you've ever shot any type of gun before but just imagine trying to aim with by some one telling you where to shoot. It's a lot harder than it sounds. It works well for mortars because they're only accurate to a fault anyway. They're specifically made so that it's "easy" to drop an explosive onto an area directly in front of you at a distance of X. Tanks aren't built that way. I'm also fairly sure that in WWII there weren't any Lt's acting as FO's for tanks, so the realism aspect is likely boloxed from the get-go.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>4. The tank could do with more cases of damaging, that is vision block hits which reduce but do not totally remove to abilty to fire.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I too would like to see this. I beleive I even saw a post by BTS stating that they were thinking of allowing for things like damaging the traverse mechanisms on T-34's and such. That kind of detail, I think, could only improve the game.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>1. I am pretty sure that this will be even more acurate than previously, but what I would ask for is that the tank crews shold be able to range by MG and by bracting.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Do you mean using the MG to bracket and range? MG tracers and APBC rounds have significantly different ballistics. In fact the ballistics between tracers and normal ammunition is fairly different. I don't think this would be useful at the ranges where bracketing and ranging were truly essential. Bracketing with AP rounds is already modeled though. You'll notice that every time your tank shoots at an oposing tank (providing it doesn't kill it) the hit percentage goes up.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>2. As far as I can tell the CM armour model models a tank as two boxes turret and hull.

However certain tanks like the tigers have turrets which a significat perportion of the front of the turret is actually the side of it at a very steep angle. For example the Tigers side armour is at 80 degrees when seen from the front. This needs to be modeled becase this area is invulnerable to conventional rounds.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Woah there. As soon as I see "This german tank should be invulnerable in thus-and-such a way" I am made instantly sceptical of the whole post. If you want some type of change in the armor modeling then site specifics and sources. As for how the armor is modeled to my understanding is to fairly sophisticated. For terms of LOS and such IIRC the tank is modeled as two boxes, but that's just for LOS. The actual tank armor is detailed, right down to the effect of curved mantlets on armor penetration. The general idea of more detail in anything is good though. I would like to see more detailed armor, and penetration and ROF and everything else.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>3. There should be seperate values for HEAT and AP round for each tank. The Tiger for example has 140mm verse AP but over 200 in places against HEAT.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I would like to see your sources for this. I find it interesting that that should be so. The only thing that I can think of that would cause that kind of an effect is armor that was tempered differently. Now, armor quality is already modeled (albeit a little abstractly). If you're suggesting that every tank had a different alloy armor, I would like to see your sources. If this is so then it should, by all means, be included eventually. I suspect that it is not nearly so drastic as the example you have given.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Crews should be able to leave heavy weapons and re-ocupy them. Within bounds crews of similar weapons should be able to take over firing different weapons. So for example the crew of a 88 could leave it under bombardment and then re-ocupy it afterwards if there was enought of them and the weapon itself was workable.

The same should be the case with MG's and morters.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

When a crew abandons a weapon or vehicle that weapon or vehicle is assume to be out of commission for the remainder of the game. Though equipment is built to be rough and ready it is not hard to throw something as complex as a gun or jeep out of commission for the rest of a firefight the length of a combat mission battle (15-45 minutes typically). As for MG's, troops can't abandon them. If you're suggesting scavanging weapons off of other troops that's already modeled to an extent (if the squad is stationary and the guy manning the BAR or MG42 is down then some one else will pick it up and drop their rifle) but telling squads to scavange team weapons is micromanagement. Beyond that I don't think it is very likely that it happened terribly often. There is a reason why there are six guys manning a .50 caliber machine gun.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Bunkers should be considered like buildings in that a unit should be able to ocupy them.

For example the crew of an MG bunker should be able to leg it if they are under firefrom at tank. A concrete bunker should still be able to function as a bunker even if it recieves a penetration as an infantry squad could still fire their weapons from within.

Trenches as well as large buildings would be nice.Also barebed wire should be made ineffective by a tank running over it.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

IIRC there are going to be changes made to the way bunkers are modeled in CM2. There was a thread last week about how bunkers are modeled with respect to the lethality of tanks vs. artillery and infantry (and some other stuff too...). Trenches will be included. Barbed wire was arguably made more effective when a tank ran over because it made it more tangled. There might be some minor differences depending on the style in which the barbed wire was set up but that's not modeled now and I'm not sure it's worth modeling anyway.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The causalty issue should changed for example there should some difference between death and injury. An injured soldier could drop from his unit but remain staitionary but still armed.

If his unit retreated they would have to pick him up and tkae him back or moral would drop. To carry him back would remove one weapon while the unit is moving.

So you may have soldiers who are

Moving unarmed.

Armed unmoving

unmoving unarmed

these injured could be moved into units when there are more than one of them, a moving casualty could forexample move a nonmoving one.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

A casualty is a dead soldier or a soldier wounded so badly they cannot fight. Specifying whether they were shot in the leg or the belly or the arm is as unessecary as blood and individual bodies. I am emphatically in favor of a more detailed AAR. Right now it's barely worth glancing at other than to see what type of victory was gained.

[This message has been edited by Maj. Bosco (edited 11-27-2000).]

[Maximus]

Oh boy....where to begin???

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Dan Robertson:

Tanks

1. Tanks are to be considered as part of the ground so block LOS allowing friendly fire, and infantry to shelter behind them.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This was discussed prior to the Gold Demo. The reason this was not done because it would severely create a big CPU hit in it's LOS calculations. However a smoking vehicle does block LOS.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>2. An arc of fire comand which tells the tank to scan for targets in a sector (particulary usfull for flanking manovers.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is one of those micro-managing contraversies that BTS didn't want to implement. The idea behind this is if you start adding all these micro-management commands, then you'll start making the simulation un-managable. The list of commands was thoroughly thought out before the game went into Alpha Demo.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>3. Tank infantry co-operation. A comand unit should be able to designate targets to a nearby tank that the tank itself cannot see, therefor the tank can target the enemy crest a hill and fire imidiatly. Similar to the way a comand unit can identify tagets to nearby morters. Comand tanks would also be a good idea doing much the same thing.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Not a bad idea here, but as you may realize that this is indirect fire for mostly direct fire weapons. This would be useful for SPA vehicles such as Priests, Sextons, Wespes, Hummels, etc. Not for tanks as such though.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>4. The tank could do with more cases of damaging, that is vision block hits which reduce but do not totally remove to abilty to fire.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

CM's armor damage model is already better than anything else out there. There are all sorts of hit damages, just not the one your descibing.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Gunnery/armour.

2. As far as I can tell the CM armour model models a tank as two boxes turret and hull.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This isn't correct at all. The hull and turrets are broke down to front/side/rear-upper/lower/top plates. Many different kind of hits are possible with these from penetrating hits, gun hits, track hits, etc. Believe me, the armor penetration model is THE best around.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>However certain tanks like the tigers have turrets which a significat perportion of the front of the turret is actually the side of it at a very steep angle. For example the Tigers side armour is at 80 degrees when seen from the front. This needs to be modeled becase this area is invulnerable to conventional rounds.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ever check the unit info box? The slope of ALL armor plates is taken into acount for the penetration algorithms. Invulnerable? Maybe this is another one of those "Superior German Armor" myths. This is what CM does best. It dispels the myth that German armor was invulnerable and superior to all on the battlefield.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>3. There should be seperate values for HEAT and AP round for each tank. The Tiger for example has 140mm verse AP but over 200 in places against HEAT.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

HE or HEAT? There's a bit of a difference. HEAT is a more modern round the shoots a jet of heated plasma trough a hole that it punches. If a tanker fires HE at a tank, then it's his own damn fault. The only time a AFV fires HE at a vehicle is if the firing vehicle is more of a artillery vehicle and if the target is a soft target like an open topped vehicle. I just had a StuGIII knocked out by a Priest firing HE.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Equiptment.

Crews should be able to leave heavy weapons and re-ocupy them. Within bounds crews of similar weapons should be able to take over firing different weapons. So for example the crew of a 88 could leave it under bombardment and then re-ocupy it afterwards if there was enought of them and the weapon itself was workable.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The simple assumption made here is that if a crew abandons a weapon, then that weapon has suffered sufficient damage to where the weapon is no longer opperable.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Fortifications and buildings.

Bunkers should be considered like buildings in that a unit should be able to ocupy them.

For example the crew of an MG bunker should be able to leg it if they are under firefrom at tank. A concrete bunker should still be able to function as a bunker even if it recieves a penetration as an infantry squad could still fire their weapons from within.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Again not a bad idea, however, an AT-bunker is just that. The crew inside doesn't carry normal weapons other than pistols. A MG bunker is just that also. It is a bunker that has a HMG mounted in its firing slit. Having the bunkers double as buildings as such was discussed prior to Gold Demo release. I can't recall all the reasoning behind having them just a unit rather than a structure, but that's what was decided.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Trenches as well as large buildings would be nice.Also barebed wire should be made ineffective by a tank running over it.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

OK, not a bad idea again. Trenches are sort of modeled now with foxholes. The only enhancement here would be to better graphically represent them. Larger buildings is a definate. BTS has hinted that they will provide a wider range of building types and sizes. But as far as tanks running over and "disabling" barb wire is somewhat of another issue. I think this was done like it is, because there is no way for a vehicle to damge structures other than shotting at them. In other words, no "Ramming Speed!" However, tanks can run over AT-guns and such, but I have never seen it done, they usually shoot HE at them and knock them out WAAAY before they get close enough to run over them.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Soldiers.

The causalty issue should changed for example there should some difference between death and injury. An injured soldier could drop from his unit but remain staitionary but still armed.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

In CM's relatively short battles, the differenciation between the two is blurred. If a guy is injured, there's a snowball's chance in hell that they will become combat capable again.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>If his unit retreated they would have to pick him up and tkae him back or moral would drop. To carry him back would remove one weapon while the unit is moving.

So you may have soldiers who are

Moving unarmed.

Armed unmoving

unmoving unarmed

these injured could be moved into units when there are more than one of them, a moving casualty could forexample move a nonmoving one.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

One word: WHY???

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--"Information."

--"Information."

--"Who are you?"

--"The new Number 2."

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--"Hahahahahahahaha."

[This message has been edited by Maximus (edited 11-27-2000).]

[Dan Robertson]

My writing style is far from concise so I will try to answer a few points.

I wanted to find out whether or not is was possible to do things. The tank LOS issue is odviously one which leaches too much CPU power for little gain.

The next too points come from somthing very irratating. I had a tank flanking a position, there was an enemy tank less than 50m away over a crest. My tank kept on targeting a 75mm AT gun parralell to it. This weapon was in a bunker and hence no threat.

So as I sent my tank to crest the hill and attack the enemy tank it insted pointed it's gun at the bunker and got killed by the enemy tank.

So I came up with two ideas to stop this happening. On was th escetor search, the other was to allow an acompanying infantry comand unit to inform the tank that there is a greater threat over the hill.

This happened sometimes in war, since we are simulating with the player being a good comander it should bewithin the repetior.

I am in no way saying that tanks should be cabible of indirect fire or aiming on a target that is not visible. Just that it knows it is there.

The armour issue is something I proper answer would solve.

The situation is that the shape of the turret or the tigers 1/2 have part of their side armour that is visiable from the front. This is angled at 80degs. This works out as a LOS distance of 210mm comoponded by the angle effects this is invelerable to even 120APDS in the chieften.

Using the formula the game uses. verses a conventional shell this gives about 350mm of protection, verse WWII APDS it is about 552mm

The different HEAT/AP values are due to fact that in places the Tigers mantle and Turret front overlap. This works out as 200mm of steel. However as two thiner plates together this is less effective against AP. There is an entire thread on this.

A barbed wire entanglement is quashed by a tank passing over it. It is still sharp but is less effective it is artilery which has no effect.

The casualties issue is just somthing I made up I think actually it would not make the better. However I would change the AAR to take into account that some casualties would be captured dependant on who won.