WineCape Posted March 23, 2001 Share Posted March 23, 2001 The following PBEM scenario: 1 x crack, in command Sturmsquad, 52m from broadside, MOTIONELSS M4 Sherman, with clear LOS, ordered to fire from the saftey of tall pines on the above shining metal knight. They have 2 x 60m fausts/rifle grenades...whatever...in their arsenal. Made double sure that they were in LOS, plus after targeting, the green fire line stretched towards the Sherman, no problem. Even went down on *View 1* to make sure that the crack Sturm Squad have a clear, unobstructed view towards this (BTW, buttoned!) M4 Sherman. As the next PBEM round/movie started, my Sturmsquad did nothing, their green target line that was pointed towards the STILL MOTIONLESS Sherman being canceled automatically. There my squad remained, in awe of the meatl beast, doing bloody nothing for the whole of the 60sec. movie! Now, what am I missing with regard to the capabilities of these 60m fausts? Please enlighten me. Kind Regards, Charl Theron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Hankey Posted March 23, 2001 Share Posted March 23, 2001 I've seen similar behavior with faust 100's. In one game I'm playing, I have a SMG platoon with 1 faust-100 each. (They thought it would be nice to faust the infantry guys in the last fire fight, so they each shot off one apiece.) Anyway, I managed to work them into a position where they each have a shot at one AFV apiece. 2 stuarts and one armored car, from between 30 - 50 meters. So I targeted the vehicles, waiting for the three easy kills and of course, nothing happened. At all. Until 30sec into the movie where the vehciles noticed 3 sets of morons staring at them from the trees and subsequently started to mangle my foolish, foolish troops. I have no idea how to make faust's work effectively. On the other hand, in another game, I had a squad under fire from a Cromwell faust it to death from about 70 meters all on it's own, so there you go. Makes no sense to me, though. You tell me... BTW, you should have gotten a blue line for targeting LOS, but I get what you mean. Green is to adjust fire for artillery. [This message has been edited by Mr. Hankey (edited 03-23-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Offwhite Posted March 23, 2001 Share Posted March 23, 2001 If your targetting line was green, that sounds like an ambush command... perhaps ambushing infantry are more likely to wait for a soft target than a tank? Also, there's a recent thread about panzerfausts where folks have said that they're rarely fired at greater than half range. ------------------ Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap - Rudyard Kipling, "Tommy" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moosehead Posted March 23, 2001 Share Posted March 23, 2001 There should be an explicit cmd to fire them. I had a squad with 2 faust (60), that were 16m from an AC. What did they do? Threw hand grenades! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest wwb_99 Posted March 23, 2001 Share Posted March 23, 2001 While they can shoot 60m, their effective range is more likely 3/4ths of that. Not to mention Pfausts had a reputation as being just as, if not more, dangerous to the firer than the target. WWB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ari Maenpaa Posted March 23, 2001 Share Posted March 23, 2001 Originally posted by wwb_99: Not to mention Pfausts had a reputation as being just as, if not more, dangerous to the firer than the target. WWB What are you saying exactly? Yep, I know they are recoilless weapons and have some drawbacks, but so is bazooka. Is there more to it? No rumors please. Ari [This message has been edited by Ari Maenpaa (edited 03-23-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zakalwe Posted March 23, 2001 Share Posted March 23, 2001 The game doesn't explicitly determine the location and status of each man in a squad, right? Maybe the guys with the fausts were out of position to fire - simulated by a random check by the program? I've had similar occurences several times, but I thought nothing of it. I just figured that Hans was too busy thumbing through his pocket-size edition of Goethe (sorry, couldn't resist the pun). Then again, I come from ASL background, so all sort of weird randomness and abstraction is very easy to swallow... z Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Heinz 25th PzReg Posted March 23, 2001 Share Posted March 23, 2001 I just played a tcpip game where I had a Sturmsquad at 50% health with 1 faust left. The squad was positioned inside woods as a Sherman Jumbo comes along and takes up position about 50m away facing my squad. The sturmsquad fire the faust and kills the Jumbo! I rather like them fausts after that incident! Heinz ------------------ "To subdue your enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence." - Sun Tzu, The Art of War Visit my AAR site: home.online.no/~andhess/cm/ And my Panzer Elite site: 25th-pzrgt.de Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfish Posted March 23, 2001 Share Posted March 23, 2001 Originally posted by Zakalwe: The game doesn't explicitly determine the location and status of each man in a squad, right? Maybe the guys with the fausts were out of position to fire - simulated by a random check by the program? I'd buy that if it was a surprise encounter, but I've had squads waiting in ambush for several turns. You would think the faust shooter would be in position by then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FriendlyFire Posted March 23, 2001 Share Posted March 23, 2001 'faust usage is one of the random factors of the game. You can increase the chances of it happening (squad in cover, not yet spotted by tank, not suppressed, fausts to spare, etc etc), but you can't make it a sure thing. Sometimes you'll think you've got everything set up perfectly, and Hans will decide to blaze away with his MP40 instead. Sometimes you'll despair of anyone making it out of that squad alive, and Hans will heroically take out a Jumbo at 98m. Think of them as airstrikes. Out of your control, mostly disappointing, but occasionally, just occasionally, they'll come up with the goods... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted March 23, 2001 Share Posted March 23, 2001 Originally posted by Zakalwe: The game doesn't explicitly determine the location and status of each man in a squad, right? Maybe the guys with the fausts were out of position to fire - simulated by a random check by the program? z Or just plain scared and praying the tank would simply go away without seeing them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Germanboy Posted March 23, 2001 Share Posted March 23, 2001 Originally posted by Ari Maenpaa: What are you saying exactly? Yep, I know they are recoilless weapons and have some drawbacks, but so is bazooka. Is there more to it? No rumors please. There is more to it than rumour - firing a PF was a dead give away for one's position. So if you did not kill what you were aiming at (or there were friends of the intended victim around), firing it was a very quick way to get killed. As Michael says, maybe they just sit there and pray the tank goes away. The little cyber-soldiers may think rather differently about gaining the Nahkampfspange (or whatever) posthumously than you do in front of your screen. Annoying, isn't it? ------------------ Andreas Der Kessel Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted March 23, 2001 Share Posted March 23, 2001 Panzervernichtungsabzeichen, Germanboy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfish Posted March 23, 2001 Share Posted March 23, 2001 Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: Or just plain scared and praying the tank would simply go away without seeing them. Sorry, but I gotta disgaree. I don't think CM models fear of what might happen. Your men will try to accomplish every command you give them, no matter how suicidal those commands are. Remember, these are the same guys that, when told to target the tank, are all too happy to blaze away with rifles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted March 23, 2001 Share Posted March 23, 2001 Originally posted by Kingfish: Sorry, but I gotta disgaree. I don't think CM models fear of what might happen. Your men will try to accomplish every command you give them, no matter how suicidal those commands are. Remember, these are the same guys that, when told to target the tank, are all too happy to blaze away with rifles. That doesn't seem rational or brave to me. Could it be fear? The Germany Army used the slang term "hunde-angst", or "dog fear" to refer to soldiers incapacitated by fright. I would submit there are more than one type of fear. Whether or not that seems silly, let me say I do see where you are coming from, and you may have a point. Before we go farther into wild speculation, I do hope someday BTS will do up a detailed Designer's Notes - hell, I would pay for a 300 page paperback version. I obviously don't know what was modelled into CM or not, but perhaps we can agree that Broken and Routed troops are those who have reached their fear threshold and have taken flight. If not from fear, then what would you ascribe to their behaviour? So if there is a degree of fear modelled into CM, this would make your assertion incorrect. That still wouldn't answer the question of how fear affected the actions of troops facing a tank while armed with a PF - which is something we can't deduce from simply observing the game. Not trying to be confrontational or smart-alecky here, but we can both agree that a battlefield is a place where random events occur constantly, and without precise mathematical certainty - definitely one of the appeals of the game for me. As the ASL player beautifully put it, I too can live with the rationalization that some things are simply factored in without explanation. I fear (no pun intended), however, that those seeking further explanation will be frustrated and disappointed. Sometimes ya just gotta go with flow. I note with alarm the tendency of many posts these days to appear harshly worded, my own included. I hope this doesn't seem like a dismissal of you out of hand - I am simply disagreeing with your disagreement, with a view to further discussion. Your thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiger Posted March 23, 2001 Share Posted March 23, 2001 Panzerfausts are broken. If you had instead ran your men to within 10-15m of the shermans they would have fired instantly within this short range. Of course with the quick-spotting buttoned tanks in CMBO your men would likely have been cut up by the tanks. Whether intentionally broken like this by BTS is not clear. In the demo troops (regs) with PFs would fire them if something came within range, even though they weren't very accurate. If the pf30/60/100 have a combat range of 30/60/100, the troops should fire out to that range if you order them to do so, even with reduced accuracy. I'd rather them be modelled realistically than have to run up to the "now I can fire" 10-15 meter range. Instruction booklet for the Panzerfaust 60m : Die Panzerfaust ist Deine Pak! Du kannst mit ihr jeden Panzer bis auf Entfernungen von 80 m abschießen. Lies Dir Merkblatt richtig durch, dann kann Dir, wenn es darauf ankommt, nichts passieren. And now a picture of the warhead and sites for a Panzerfaust 60m: Note the # above "60" marked on the sites. There's also one other noteworthy feature about the sites. Can anyone figue it out? Note that the opening for the "60" range is much larger than that for the "80" range and the "20" range. I argue that range of 60 is the most effective range for this weapon, hence the weapon model designations denote the most effective range, not the maximum range. The instruction booklet for the PF 100m notes 150m, and the sites go up to 150m as well. Kind of brings into question this non-sense that the range of these weapons was 3/4 of the weapon model's designation of 30/60/100. [This message has been edited by Tiger (edited 03-23-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WineCape Posted March 23, 2001 Author Share Posted March 23, 2001 Now, at the risk of seeming/sounding flippant, this might be all bright 'an dandy with regard to a "fear model" built into CM or whatever, therefor the reason squads do not fire their 60m fausts. But for Pete's sake, ordering a squad to fire (which is in perfect range) and those little 'uns NOT even attempting to fire off the damn faust-60, smacks of not a well simulated scenario, particular with regard to this aspect. I rather let the squad FIRE the projectile and if they miss... say a randomness build into the game - and take my wild card chances *IF/WHEN* I miss - than have to discover (on this BB) that...No, NO, SIR, Da Faust could only be fired if sire is 15m/30m/50m away for the f-30, f-60, f-100 respectively! Really. I agree, let the manual for CM2 be more detailed with regard to these technical details ... much more fun to read this than detailed pages HOW to move your troops about the battle filed for beginners Regards Charl Theron Needless to say, I lost the PBEM game as described in the opening post. I suppose I am now a hardened veteran and now knows the hard, hidden facts about 'EM FAUSTs! Again, really.[i/] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pak40 Posted March 23, 2001 Share Posted March 23, 2001 I too have been disapointed in the panzerfaust modeling in CM. But, then again, I am probably spoiled from Close Combat where Germans fired panzerfausts as soon as the AFV was in range and seemed to have a better than 50% chance of hitting, even at long range. So I wonder which game models panzerfausts more accurately? Or maybe it's somewhere in between. Can BTS give us some rhyme or reason why squads don't use their fausts even when in perfect range of a juicy target? And what sources of material did BTS base their panzerfaust modeling on? BTW, WineCape, do you by chance have a beautiful sister who's a famous actress? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ASL Veteran Posted March 24, 2001 Share Posted March 24, 2001 The main time I have a problem with the Panzer Fausts is when I am 18 meters away from a Sexton with PanzerFaust in hand as the Sexton just pounds the snot out of my squad who just sits there and takes it for no reason. They should at least fire one off in an attempt to save themselves - regardless of how inaccurate it may be. ------------------ When we were in the Bocage country we were assaulted by them Tigers ... you know what I mean by assaulted huh? WELL I MEAN ASSAULTED!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfish Posted March 24, 2001 Share Posted March 24, 2001 Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: I obviously don't know what was modelled into CM or not, but perhaps we can agree that Broken and Routed troops are those who have reached their fear threshold and have taken flight. If not from fear, then what would you ascribe to their behaviour? I agree, but now we are talking about two different things. Broken or routed troops have reached that state due to enemy action, IOW, after they've been fired upon. That's not the same as troops so scared of an approaching tank that they refuse to fire. Also, keep in mind that even Elite troops refuse to fire their faust, and they have nothing to fear. If fear of firing is modeled in the game then shouldn't the fear of advancing into certain death be modeled as well? Right now I can command a squad of conscript volksturm to charge a battalion of Churchill crocs, and they will. Back to you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoePrivate Posted March 24, 2001 Share Posted March 24, 2001 Here's three tests for your information that may prove interesting: 1 - 2 Vet Rifle Squads w/2 PF30s each versus 2 buttoned Shermans, range 30m, sideshot a - 2 shots/2 KOs b - 2 shots/1 KO/1 Miss c - 2 shots/1 KO/1 Hit no effect d - 2 shots/2 KOs e - 2 shots/1 Miss/1 Hit no effect f - 2 shots/1 KO/1 Miss g - 2 shots/1 KO/1 Miss h - 2 shots/1 KO/1 Miss i - 2 shots/1 Miss/1 Hit no effect j - 2 shots/1 Miss/1 Hit no effect 2 - 2 Vet Rifle Squads w/2 PF60s each versus 2 buttoned Shermans, range 50m, sideshot a - 2 shots/2 Misses b - 2 shots/1 KO/1 Miss c - 2 shots/1 Miss/1 Hit no effect d - 2 shots/1 KO/1 Miss e - 2 shots/2 KOs f - 2 shots/1 KO/1 Miss g - 2 shots/2 Misses h - 2 shots/1 KO/1 Miss i - 2 shots/1 KO/1 Miss j - 2 shots/1 Miss/1 Hit no effect 3 - 2 Vet Rifle Squads w/2 PF100s each versus 2 buttoned Shermans, range 70m, sideshot a - 4 shots/4 Misses b - 4 shots/1 KO/3 Misses c - 4 shots/2 KOs/2 Misses d - 2 shots/2 KOs e - 4 shots/1 KO/2 Misses/1 Hit no effect f - 4 shots/1 KO/1 Miss/2 Hits no effect g - 4 shots/2 KOs/2 Misses h - 4 shots/1 KO/3 Misses i - 4 shots/2 KOs/2 Misses j - 2 shots/2 KOs Some observations, the squads with the PF30 and PF60 fired once each, they never fired their remaining PF. The TacAI probably concluded these were low probability shots at that range(30m and 50m respectively) and were 'saving' them. The squads with the PF100 had no problem expending all of theirs at 70m. I wasn't keeping track of any HQ bonuses. PF30 at 30m - 65% hits, 45% effective PF60 at 50m - 45% hits, 35% effective PF100 at 70m - 46% hits, 39% effective Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted March 24, 2001 Share Posted March 24, 2001 Kingfish - exactly right, and I do point out in my post that the two types of fear are different (or at least admitted that the broken/routed troops question was irrelevant to the PF issue). Good point though, and something I wish I could answer for you. Be neat to learn more about the design philosophy in depth, eh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radar Posted March 24, 2001 Share Posted March 24, 2001 Well I tried to post earlier...I wanted to say that I found that my troops reacted with more initiative in close ecounters if I left off the target orders and just worked out their placement. That way I give my squads more flexability yet retain overall control. That includes firing of AT assets. ------------------ 'There are no stupid questions...only stupid people' -My boss.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SenorBeef Posted March 25, 2001 Share Posted March 25, 2001 Perhaps a system could be implemented in which the TacAI only fired at close range of its own choice, but if you specifically target a squad at a tank within PF range, then it would follow your firing order.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark IV Posted March 25, 2001 Share Posted March 25, 2001 In the beta demo, infantry were almost unable to fire the 'fausts, and had to have an HQ in command and no other visible targets at all to engage a tank. I guess this was fixed in the gold demo? Speculating: the larger aperture for closer ranges is consistent with military peep sights, which often have smaller apertures for longer ranges (lower margin of error for a smaller-appearing object in the sight picture). What is somewhat baffling is the reduction of the aperture again under 60m, unless this was thought to allow the shooter to focus on a specific portion of the target. In other words, the 60 and 80m settings are center of mass type sights. At closer ranges, the shooter might be encouraged to focus on the turret ring, engine compartment, or other weak point, which would be indistinguishable at the greater ranges. I imagine under 20m the force of the explosion and resulting particles would be of some concern to the shooter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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