Shielding of Reverse Slope vs BLAST - CM Feature

[Claymore]

Aaaahh...welcome to the new and improved forum Now for a little factual discussion instead of the usual divel.

Question: Do defenders on a reverse slope sustain lower casualties due to BLAST damage on DF HE that strikes LOW?

Preamble: We all know that the projectile path in CMBO is at present all just eye candy. Placing you ATGs (for example)just below the crest line affords you little protection against being HIT by DF.

CMBO operates on the principle (for infantry, support units, and unarmoured vehicles) that there is nothing analogous to being "HULL DOWN" in a tank. This is quite different than in reality of course

where infantry often used the reverse slope and where completely protected against DF shelling (re: Waterloo for example) The Pak40 was often used so that its barrel was only 1 foot or so off the ground

hiding the bulk of the ATG from harm and sight.

The algorithm currently:

1) CMBO determines if LOS exists (if it exists then you might as well be out in the open for all the good being behind the crest does - not including HULL DOWN tanks of course)

2) calculates a "to hit" percentage

3) rolls the die (so to speak)

4) if a miss is projected, CMBO semi-randomly places the shell impact (left, right, high, low) off target.

Obviously when considering units just below a crest line, those misses that are high (random =0.5 whereas CMBO ~0.25) sail lovingly over your defenders and impact on the horizon. This appears to be the only "benefit" from

digging in on the reverse slope (as we shall explore below)

My question concerns those misses which fall left, right and especially low. In the real world the bulk of the hill side shields the defender from the BLAST damage from LOW DF HE. CMBO instead seems to consider only the

slant distance between the DF fall and the unit location. The "shield factor" of buildings, walls, and other barriers are yet to be investigated.

THE TEST: 3 Elite PaK38 ATGs (no ammo) placed behind a crestline in thick woods, completely out of LOS of 3 ELITE M4(105)s (but not too far down the hill). The M4s are ordered to AREA fire the hill side directly opposite the ATGs. Because of the slope of the hill the horizontal distance between the ATGs and the 105 impact zone is about 20m.

A second group of the same Axis and Allied forces are also chosen, but this time the ATGs hiding about 20m inside thick woods and the M4s are ordered to AREA fire the edge of the woods nearest the ATGs.

In both cases the DF HE arrives within ~20m horizontal distance of the ATGs.

Now...if things were kosher the crestline ATGs should survive much much longer than the ATGs in the flat.

However...after numerous tests (ok...a bunch) the crestline ATGs sustain casualties at the same rate as the others. When running the test you must be careful

to exclude those DF falls which by chance are directly on top of the ATGs in the second group. Consider the effects only of DF falling NEARBY the ATGs.

Other than the LOW strikes being displaced by greater distance (x^2 + y^2 + z^2) than on the flat (x^2 + y^2), the bulk of the hillside seems to do nothing.

Any comments or argument? After all, this is the CMBO forum.

Question for the Bonus Round:

Should massive casualties sustained to nearby friendly units add stress to that unit? Consider a sliding scale where Green troops are influenced more than more veteran troops.

Likewise, non-fatal, non-casualty inducing hits...should they also cause penalties for stress? (Think Goodwood in 06/44)

Cheers

Murray

nothingemial

[Claymore]

A shameful and self serving bump. Nobody willing to discuss this topic or does everybody wait for Monday so they can cruise the forum during working hours.

Looking for the next factual topic to discuss on the forum. Since the topics are now comprised of:

1. Mobile FLAK question - which has been put to bed by BTS.

2. New CM-ers wanting simple answers

3. Where's the MOD!

Cheers

Murray

[BloodyBucket]

Good question on the reverse slope effects. I think that is a worthy point, perhaps for inclusion in CM2. I know the importance of using the military crest versus the actual crest of a hill was pounded in to us from boot camp on.

[lcm1947]

I certainly agree with you that much improved protection should be afforded a unit by a hill but maybe it can't be done??

But yeah put me down for an improvement.

[kmead]

I have noticed this in the past and have been frustrated by not getting any shielding effect from the brow of the hill. The only real advantage is hte one you already noted, you are sved form blast effects on the rounds that were long. Yes this would be nice to have fixed in CM2 and if the BTS gods were smiling a backdating of the feature to CMBO (theres so much time to fix up the older product, not!). I wouldn't mind paying for a "new" CMBO down the road with all the new features as I really like the "Western Front" alot and would like to continue to enjoy battles in this theatre.

[lcm1947]

I agree, I would be willing to pay for another CM with all the new ideas and stuff they are going to put into CM2. I also love the Western Front and will continue to play it the rest of my life. Plus I can't imagine having to start downloading all the new mods that will come out for CM2.

[Andrew H.]

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

Question for the Bonus Round:

Should massive casualties sustained to nearby friendly units add stress to that unit? Consider a sliding scale where Green troops are influenced more than more veteran troops.

Likewise, non-fatal, non-casualty inducing hits...should they also cause penalties for stress? (Think Goodwood in 06/44)

Cheers

Murray

nothingemial<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Probably not, although it depends on what your definition of "nearby" is. I would suspect that, in most cases, units would not know what causualties nearby units suffered, since (1) the troops are probably prone in all the dips, etc. that even open ground has; and (2) even if they saw another trooper go down, they would probably have a hard time telling whether the troops sustained massive casualties or just went to ground.

I know that, in the Bulge, anyway, routing troops tended not to have much effect on troops that they routed past.

[Jeff Duquette]

Great Topic Claymore. I especially like the reference to Waterloo. How about CM4: “AGE OF NAPOLEON”?

[Juardis]

the reverse slope effect is illustrated in "Citizen Soldiers" by Stephen Ambrose wherein he relates something along the following...

The area was a hill near St. Lo. The Germans were counter attacking and the US was letting them penetrate deeper and deeper because the US was actually going to encircle them (but didn't). Anyway, there was this hill (don't remember the name) and this FO (don't remember his either). The FO crawled to the top of the hill and was shielded from the 88s below simply because 1) if the 88s were long, then it overshoot. If they were short, then the fragments would disperse up and away from the top. In short, a direct hit from the 88s and SPAs below was all but impossible. Arty and mortar was a different story, but at the top of the hill he was pretty much immune to direct fire. He spent 3 nights on that hill, called in 130+ arty missions, held the hill, and won a medal for his valor.

Now, when I read this I got to thinking that in CM that this would not be possible. Simply because, and I don't know if this is true but I'm speculating it to be so, simply because a blast is assumed to resonate radially and can kill anything in that radius. Regardless that it may be physically improbable, as the real life example above illustrates, CM seems to simplify direct fire in this instance and does not take into account fragment disbursement. One value fits all situations so to speak. Wish it weren't so, but that's my simplistic take on it...

[Claymore]

Juardis,

Yes that is the point I was making exactly!

IMO forget the efficacy of MGs (sorry Pillar), the speed of turrets, the camo pattern on 2nd SS Panzer Div PzVs in June/44. These are incremental changes affecting modeling of reality by factors of 2 or 3.

If BTS were to invest time in fixing the effects of terrain on ALL fire (e.g reverse slope) then they would move CM a full order of magnitude along the path of a being a true tactical simulator.

I know something of what I speak since I have had long conversations with people who have developed and currently maintain the US Army wargaming software. Wargaming software which modeled terrain such as CMBO is a curiosity at best but no tool for real soldiers. Obviously we are talking scale and resources here...but the point is still worth making.

Now, I have no idea of the algorithms that BTS have used in CM but the difficulties in ironing out the HULL DOWN bugs took considerable time and effort to work out (if indeed they have been solved at all). This in all likelyhood means that CM2 (or beyond?) will not model terrain properly. Comments as to what the faithful can expect from CM2 mirrors these conclusions as well. A sad conclusion IMO since in many way I try to play CM using tactics faithful to the real world.

We have been spoiled by BTS's excellent software support for CM and perhaps guilty of the old adage which states "give and inch and they take a mile". I would make the arguement though that BTS's support has been better than the typical behaviour by factors of 2 or 3. BTS could IMO be better than their peers by another order of magnitude by plowing the CM faithful's "care abouts" back into the software.

Hmmm...do I see another thread forming...

Cheers

Murray