Unrealism.

[-OOPSIE-]

I was just playing about making a few custom scenarios to try a few things out.

And I discovered that a unit won't fire at another unit, if it mathematicaly can't kill it.

For example, I put a single M1 tank, facing 12 T-62s fairly close to each other. The single M1 fired and killed all the T-62s without them bothering to return a single shot.

It seems to me that even though a T-62 can't kill an M1 on paper, there's still a chance of a fluke shot, or maybe breaking a sight, a track or at least making the commander close the hatch and lose some visiblity. I don't think the T-62ers would just sit there and die.

I mean fluke shots do happen. I remember reading about a british tank armed with a 57mm gun fired at a tiger tank from the front. On paper there is zero chance a 57mm could kill a tiger, yet the 57mm shell grazed off the bottom of the gun barrel, flew straight into the turret ring and jammed the turret from turning. The tiger crew paniced and abandoned their tank. That'd count as a kill surely?

[MajorH TacOps Developer]

In my experience, successful fluke shots in a game are more often perceived by players to be bugs rather than features.

In TacOps direct fire weapons currently only engage targets that they have a reasonable chance of hitting and harming. Units did blaze away at every opportunity in the first test versions of TacOps. The play testers did not like that at all because it wasted ammo and gave away unit positions prematurely. To prevent that behavior, the testers had to be continually fiddling with the "range limit" boxes in the unit orders window. That extra work was not appreciated, particularly when many dozens of unit markers were in play.

That being said, I have considered adding a feature whereby units do automatically "roll" for fluke shots without actually firing or consuming ammo and with nothing being displayed to the players unless a "roll" is successful.

[ March 31, 2008, 08:02 AM: Message edited by: MajorH TacOps Developer ]

[-OOPSIE-]

To prevent that behavior, the testers had to be continually fiddling with the "range limit" boxes in the unit orders window. That extra work was not appreciated, particularly when many dozens of unit markers were in play.

Have you considered putting in the ability to group units? To make battlegroups or company groups, or whatever the real military term is. Then you just tell the battlegroup to adjust its firing range or whatever, and all sub units automaticaly do the same, unless told otherwise. You could add formations and such, so these groups could be used to easily move units about.

[MajorH TacOps Developer]

Its on the wish list.

[gibsonm]

Originally posted by -OOPSIE-:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />To prevent that behavior, the testers had to be continually fiddling with the "range limit" boxes in the unit orders window. That extra work was not appreciated, particularly when many dozens of unit markers were in play.

Have you considered putting in the ability to group units? To make battlegroups or company groups, or whatever the real military term is. Then you just tell the battlegroup to adjust its firing range or whatever, and all sub units automaticaly do the same, unless told otherwise. You could add formations and such, so these groups could be used to easily move units about. </font>

[-OOPSIE-]

Another problem with doing the above, is it'll make the units stack, when often it's best to spread them out a bit.

But at least its on the wish list.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by -OOPSIE-:

I was just playing about making a few custom scenarios to try a few things out.

And I discovered that a unit won't fire at another unit, if it mathematicaly can't kill it.

For example, I put a single M1 tank, facing 12 T-62s fairly close to each other. The single M1 fired and killed all the T-62s without them bothering to return a single shot.

It seems to me that even though a T-62 can't kill an M1 on paper, there's still a chance of a fluke shot, or maybe breaking a sight, a track or at least making the commander close the hatch and lose some visiblity. I don't think the T-62ers would just sit there and die.

I mean fluke shots do happen. I remember reading about a british tank armed with a 57mm gun fired at a tiger tank from the front. On paper there is zero chance a 57mm could kill a tiger, yet the 57mm shell grazed off the bottom of the gun barrel, flew straight into the turret ring and jammed the turret from turning. The tiger crew paniced and abandoned their tank. That'd count as a kill surely?

There are wargames implementing this and they usually come out worse, realism-wise.

Combat Mission, for example, allows you to order e.g. a 20mm FlaK to fire on a KV-1 and Combat Mission simulated gun kills and mobility kills from these non-penetrating shots.

However, the overall result is even less reaslitic than what TacOps does, because in CM the player just always orders all the guns on the map to fire at the KV-1 all the time. That creates an unrealistically high amount of fire and hence an unrealistically high chance to kill the KV-1.

In real life, if you have 4 20mm gun crews you couldn't just order them to all open fire at the KV-1 at the same time. One would do it, maybe, but not all. And those who do shoot might shoot ineffectively and slow.

In CM the outcome is that in early war 1941 scenarios 20mm guns are the best weapon against KV-1, because you can exploit their high rate of fire in combination with the above unrealism to create a kill probability that is way too high.

There is no single item wrong in that model but overall it turns realism to the worse and hence I prefer what TacOps does, which is not fire on hopeless kill chances.

[John Kettler]

-OOPSIE-

Russian tactical doctrine called for individual tank engagements out to 1000 meters, platoon volleys out to 1500 meters and company volleys past that when engaging important targets. This was for the T-62, and the ranges may well have increased for 125mm gun equipped units. Massing fire significantly offsets individual tank accuracy drop based on range.

Redwolf,

Hail fire was part of German tactics, often by default. I've seen footage of a 2 cm flak gun engaging a T-34, frontally, from tens of meters.

Scary stuff and not training film! Maybe too much fire coordination occurs in CMx1, but sometimes, that's all you can do. CMx1, BTW, doesn't model the very real possibility of jamming a turret with something as mundane as MG fire, let alone larger, nonpenetrating stuff. The Germans did just this to Sherman they once cornered with an infantry company, literally gnawing it into impotence with nothing but MG and rifle fire. The hail of fire stripped the antennas, ruined the vision blocks, wrecked the telescopic sights and jammed the tracks. Now, imagine what 3 or 10 volley fired HVAPFSDS darts could do, each with the KE of a large bus doing roughly 45 kph focused down to the frontal section of the ~40mm wide penetrator.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ April 09, 2008, 04:55 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[Redwolf]

Well, people fire AT rifles at Tigers, too.

But still, you create a bigger problem by allowing it in a game than you solve. The game commander can ruthlessly exploit this statistically (aided by knowledge about how many hits are assumed to be gun and track hits and weak point hits by the game engine). The real-life commander doesn't know "OK, if I fire 7 FlaKs for 3.5 turns then it's dead with 90% probability".

I don't claim to have a solution, I'm just saying it looks easy to just flip the switch to turn this on. But it leads into a mess that you didn't expect.

In CM a bunch of 20mm FlaKs will (not can, will) turn out to be the better defense against a KV-1 than the same money invested in what the strongest AT gun is, let's say the long 50mm after it becomes available.

If that was realistic the Germans wouldn't have bothered building bigger and bigger guns during the war. There's a full autobiography available of a 37mm AT gunner during the early stages of the Eastern Front. Sure, they figured out what to do, and yes they fired with no hope of penetrating. But the book leaves no doubt that this person thinks that this kind of fire is useless all things considered and he was glad when he got a bigger toy, IIRC a PAK40.

[John Kettler]

Redwolf,

They did indeed fire AT rifles at Tigers, Kursk to be specific, and I saw the after action readiness report for a Tiger company online back around late 2000. Have been looking for it for years because I didn't bookmark it and I misplaced the printout. Grr!

Basically, it said that the entire Kompanie was unfit to fight. Aimed fire against the cupolas had destroyed so many vision blocks that not only were company spares gones, but ditto battalion, forcing a long delay until some could be obtained from the schwere Panzer Regiment proper. But it was much worse than mere vision blocks, for one TC had his face smashed in when block mit bracket got knocked in, necessitating surgery and weeks of recovery, and approximately a platoon of Tiger TCs

had to be treated for glass splinters in the face and eyes.

Aiming for the cupola is detailed here in the translated Russian antitank rifle use manual.

http://www.battlefield.ru/content/view/280/123/lang,en/

This isn't to say, though, that I disagree with your overall point. Having to rely on a turret ring hit or similar sucks as a basic military approach!

Regards,

John Kettler