accuracy targeting and hits and misses

[aka_tom_w]

I would like to offer the opinion based on reading the Piat/bazooka thread that CMBO does a REALLY good job of modeling the fluky nature of hits and misses with these weapons.

Same as 'shrecks and 'fausts, the chance of a hit or miss seems to be VERY well received (by the players) and no one is complaining about too many misses or too many hits. So its just rignt now.

Same thing goes for chance to hit percentages for main weapons from tanks and AFV's. (generally)

I mention this because there used to be a great deal of complaining about too many obvious misses. This situation has been addressed now and there seems to be (in v1.12) more accuracy and more hits then there used to be, a generalization over all. I think this is good and realistic and I comment on it here because no one is complaining that there are too many hits or that getting a hit is too easy. Or that there are too many misses.

There is still plenty of opportunity to miss at long range and and misses still make evey shot a matter of some luck. (Its NEVER a sure thing.)

I think this is ALL GOOD and would like to compliment Charles for tweaking all the hit and miss algorythms now to a point of near perfection where no one is complaining about too many hits or too many misses.

GREAT work

the anti-tank teams work great as well (Luck is still a big factor there!)

THANKS!

-tom w

[This message has been edited by aka_tom_w (edited 03-27-2001).]

[bigmac@work]

I have to whole-heartedly agree with ya on this Tom! This single factor is why we're all playin' the hell out of this game. It's the sheer unpredicatability that makes every movie with a showdown in it a mesmerizing experience. Will it hit? Will it miss? Hold your breath and feel your sphincter tighten as the turrets turn to face each other, or as your AT component identifies and targets an AFV... I can tell you that if EVERY meeting you could say item A would beat item B (as per the TYPICAL wargame), then this game would have been a flash in the pan. Sure, we'd have played it because of the pretty 3D, but after we "figured it out", our interest would begin to wane and we'd be looking around, scratching our heads and saying.... "Next?". As it stands now, I could give a damn if another war game NEVER comes out (except CM2...3...4...etc of course).

It's a good time to be a wargamer.

Bigmac out!

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[KiwiJoe]

Ive just got 1 question: How often did 1 penetrating shot knock out or force the abandoning of an afv? In CM it seems to be around 90% with 75mm or larger rounds.

I have no idea if this is right or wrong, just woundering if some1 has info on this issue.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by KiwiJoe:

Ive just got 1 question: How often did 1 penetrating shot knock out or force the abandoning of an afv? In CM it seems to be around 90% with 75mm or larger rounds.

I have no idea if this is right or wrong, just woundering if some1 has info on this issue.

Hi KiwiJoe

I look at it this way......

IF the round hits

AND

If the round penetrates,

I would think that 90% is not too high a percentage for a KO or an abandon.

I think your impression of 90% is too high because there are some rounds that hit the gun and knock it out (without causeing the vehicle to be abandoned) and there are some rounds that cause imbolization (track hit) that is not a KO or an abandon either.

I would hope that alot less than 10% of the rounds that actually penetrate the armour result in no damage or or casualties.

I think it is GREAT the way it is.

(as opposed to the Beta Demo for instance!)

-tom w

[bigmac@work]

Imagine, if you will Kiwi, being shoehorned into a metal box with the rest of your crew. Now an AP shell goes clean through this metal box. Unfortunately, the flesh inside it isn't as resistant to having clean holes punched through them. They have wet stuff inside that can leak out. I can't even begin to imagine the terror inside one of those things when an AP made a clean punch THROUGH the tank. Any surviving crew members are too busy wiping offal off of themselves, trying to determine if it's theirs or not, and then getting the pieces of their dead crewmate off of them. I'd say their fight (at least for that particular day) is effectively over. They abandon that box as quickly as they can, because everyone in the box had a vital role to play in the effective use of it as a weapon. That effectiveness is gone. Now it's nothing but a death trap. Time to bail! I'd say 90% sets well with me. The 10% that they don't abandon could be attributed to AP going through non-manned areas of the tank, or missing any crew members/ordinance inside cleanly. Sometimes I reflect on what is REALLY going on inside the AFV's when you see "** Penetration" or "Flaking armor", and realize the men that climbed into these things to fight for what they believed in were incredibly brave heroes! (or were young and green enough not to know what they were getting into)

Bigmac out!

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[FriendlyFire]

It's even worse than bigmac suggests - when an AP round penetrates one side of a tank and gets inside, it typically hasn't got enough energy to punch out the other side. However, it often does have enough energy to bounce around all over the place inside the turret or hull, shredding whatever it hits until it finally comes to rest.

[Hurricane]

In my opinion, crew survivability is just a bit too high. As you mentioned above, a penetration will often be disastrous for the crew inside. But still, most of the time 3 or 4 of the crew will bail out and run for safety. I can´t remember even one time when the whole crew would have been killed after a penetration.

[bigmac@work]

Ya, thanks Friendly. You're right on there. I'm sure there were penetrations "through" both sides, but that would more than likely be the exception. Let's face it, how much kinetic energy has the shell already expended in penetrating through the initial side impact? Oh NO! I'm sure someone will join the thread and let us know the answer to that question... Now that I think think about it, the chance of it punching through an equal amount of armor on the other side seems iffy. Hurricane, I have had brew ups that had no survivors in past games. Seems to happen more with allies though, and allied crews survivability feels worse than their German counterparts in their abandonments (not implying it's broken, just my gut feel).

Bigmac out!

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[Mattias]

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[This message has been edited by Mattias (edited 03-28-2001).]

[tss]

Hurricane:

In my opinion, crew survivability is just a bit too high.

I seem to recall that someone posted some statistics that showed that the average number of casualties in a knocked-out Sherman was around 1.2 (barring catastrophic explosions).

- Tommi

[Shriker]

<<I can´t remember even one time when the whole crew would have been killed after a penetration.>>

You're lucky then - I had one of my (appropriately nicknamed) "Ronsons" travelling up a lane with a 10 man rifle-squad riding on top, and it got hit by something (either a German tank or a tactical nuke, based on the resulting explosion) and my tank catastrophically blew up taking out the tank, the entire crew and the 10 guys unfortunate enough to be riding on top...although the explosion was such that a couple of the squad members may have been blown high up into the air, landed in Switzerland, and were subsequently interned for the remainder of the war. There's always hope, I suppose.

-Steve

[Maastrictian]

You're lucky then - I had one of my (appropriately nicknamed) "Ronsons" travelling up a lane with a 10 man rifle-squad riding on top, and it got hit by something (either a German tank or a tactical nuke, based on the resulting explosion) and my tank catastrophically blew up taking out the tank, the entire crew and the 10 guys unfortunate enough to be riding on top...although the explosion was such that a couple of the squad members may have been blown high up into the air, landed in Switzerland, and were subsequently interned for the remainder of the war. There's always hope, I suppose.

LOL!

Seriously. There are several example of unbuttoned tank comanders being thrown out of their tanks (way out, like 20 feet) when their Ronson was hit by an AT round. They generally walked away while their crew mates didn't.

--Chris

[Leonidas]

I'm not sure that I would be so quick to hop out of the tank. I'm in a PBEM right now where two thirds of the AFV kills have been by zooks and fausts. Several times the AFV crew has hopped out and has promptly been mowed down by the infantry that just killed the AFV. Seems like it could sometimes be safer inside the tank.