Ok...thats it...I am po'ed veteren Wespe knocks itself out

[Panther131]

Tiny :::::SPOILER::::::Elsdorf revised CM v1.1

My Veteren wespe has knocked itself out by firing a shot at a target, and hitting the side of the building that was protecting itself from its flank. This is the second time I have seen this. Is this a normal occurance during the war? The first time I saw this I couldnt believe my eyes. The second time I saw this...I couldnt believe my eyes.

[This message has been edited by Panther131 (edited 01-11-2001).]

[Panther131]

Ok...I have gone over the sequence again. This really annoys me. My wespe, right up against a building protecting its right flank was targeting infantry. Then she decides to target a M4A1 Mortar Carrier at 212 meters. The film shows exactly, that the Wespe has a LOS through a building, and better yet, through a window. It takes the shot, and knocks itself out.

[Guest KwazyDog]

Panther, I honest think you probably got unlucky, as I cant recall the last time Ive seen this happen and Ive been testing a LOT in the past few weeks.

That being said though, please feel free to send it in so it can be reviewed

Dan

[Gremlin]

The exact same thing (nearly KO'ed itself, but not quite, luckily) happened to me in the same scenario, using an earlier beta patch, though.

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War does not determine who is right--only who is left.

--Bertrand Russell

[Guest Rollstoy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Panther131:

The film shows exactly, that the Wespe has a LOS through a building, and better yet, through a window.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>When will tactical game programmers finally stop enabling this LOS-through-building 'feature'. There are enough uncertainties in the game as to justify the introduction of randomness to something as fundamental as Line-of-Sight.

Regards, Thomm

[retarded_keydet]

I was playing a QB as the Germans and my frigging wespe ko'ed itself when some silly American command group charged it at close range!

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There was a long silence of rememberance for the dead, to which I added these names:

Ernst Neubach, Lensen, Wiener, Wesreidau, Prinz, Solma, Hoth, Olensheim, Sperlovski, Smellens, Dunde, Kellerman, Freivitch, Ballers, Frosch, Woortenbeck, Siemenlies...

I refuse to add Paula to that list, and I shall never forget the names of Hals, or Lindberg, or Pferham, or Wollers. Their memory lves within me.

There is another man, whom I must forget. He was called Guy Sajer.

[Doug Beman]

The Wespe was armed with 015mm howitzer, which makes a big BOOM. Firing a shell at an enemy very close, as at infantry attempting a close assault, may well damage the vehicle itself.

As for "LOS through buildings," I don't believe it's a "feature." Rather, it is a product of not being able to model the interaction between LOS and buildings down to the centimeter.

Why the vehement tone Rollstoy?

DjB

[Maximus]

I had a Hummel knock it self out when it was in a hull-down position, but if I recall the round did clear the ridge, but I guess the shear concussion of its 155mm gun took it out.

[Guest Rollstoy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Doug Beman:

Rather, it is a product of not being able to model the interaction between LOS and buildings down to the centimeter.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Exactly.

And I think it would be a fairly good approximation not to let anything fire through buildings. Yes, I know that there are historical examples of tanks firing through buildings, but still, the CM world would be easier to understand if some basic rules are kept simple, like e.g. "Nothing can shoot through houses".

If, on the other hand, the building model was detailed enough to take into account openings and this could be exploited to deliberately set up guns, etc. then I (personally) would not object to this. But if it boils down to the use of random numbers, where a simple LOS Yes/No decision would be sufficient in 99% of real world examples, then I respectfully suggest to keep it as simple as possible, i.e. binary instead of fuzzy.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Why the vehement tone Rollstoy? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Because I had my share of tanks firing through houses in the Close Combat series.

Regards,

Thomm

[Pvt.Tom]

Similar thing happened to me one time, I had a Puma next to a building, he had a good LOS to some troops so I told him to fire. But when I watched the turn, boom, 4 out of 5 of his shots explode on the corner of the house, luckily it didn't knock it out. I guess the moral of the story is, don't park too close to a building.

Pvt.Tom

[Doug Beman]

Rollstoy, it's not a good idea to use Close Combat as the Bible of WW2 wargaming. Even a lot of the people who play it religiously mess about with the values to increase its accuracy.

In most cases, LOS and LOF are two different things, meaning the TC might be able to see the enemy target, but to get his gun to fire on it (especially low velocity guns like the Wespe) the gun has to be elevated in such a way that the path it will take through the house is hidden to the TC's view. He might decide to chance it, pull the trigger, and get blasted to pieces when the HE shell hits something inside the house that he couldn't see.

DjB

[Jackal]

I have had this to happen in both scenario and QB with different vehicles. Personally, shouldn't the gunner make a decision on the possibility of firing a round might hit the building and damage/destroy the vehicle???

[Guest Mike the bike]

I've had a wespe knock itself out by being too close to a building that it was shooting at in the "Midnight Madness at Pruth" scenario.

I just put it down to player stupidity(mine!) - why be 10m away from something when you can shoot at it from 100m??

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

No one has mentioned the actual problem with this, which is not the sighting through the building, nor the LOS and LOF being different. I have no problem with those things, frankly. Sure, there will always be slight kinks in such procedures, compared to reality. But CM does a good job of them, and I for one prefer the present situation to impenetrable "buildings" that are actually nothing but clapboard, when the shooter may be a 50 cal or more.

The problem is that the explosion of a shell soon after leaving a tube is not going to produce a circular blast. As near as I can tell, in CM the shell lands somewhere, and then it effects things in its blast radius. This is a good enough approximation most of the time. But it is not accurate about what happens with an explosion of a large shell moving at a high velocity on a flat trajectory.

The truth is the force of the explosion is carried forward with the momentum of the shell. The "kill zone" is an elongated ellipse, not a circle, stretched in the direction of the shells motion. For a shell coming down at a high angle, there is practically no difference. And for a small caliber shell, the blast radius is small enough there is little reason to monkey with the approximate effects.

But in the situation discussed, the building wall would be blown down, but most of the force of the explosion would carry into the building, not backwards up the line of flight. If the building was tall enough, the rubble might fall on the vehicle and damage it, to be sure. Or falling rubble might block the near track, or damage the barrel protruding that way. But the actual effects of the initial blast would be stretched forward along the line of fire by the shell's momentum, not evenly distributed backwards to the shooting vehicle.

It is probably too much to expect CM to model such things. But in principle it should be possible. Put the blast zone as an ellipse with the point of impact at one foci, for instance, and the other focus of the ellipse directly along the line of sight, by some distance determined by the velocity of the projectile and its impact angle to the ground.

It might be the case that accurate modeling like that would still take out the Wespe if the hit was close enough. But you'd have to be closer to get that strange result than with the approximation of a circular blast.

[Radar]

I've seen a 155's HE round explode on a slight rise, roughly 50m out from the gun tube (in real life, the gun was depressed during a direct fire exceresize vs. a target 1500m away). The schrapnell did go out in a ellipse, but it was a very wide ellipse almost perpendicular to the explosion. It was quite spectacular. Also isn't there some sort of minumum arming range for the fuses?

(I also know how easy it is to damage a fuse)

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'Lets go you apes! You want to live forever?'

[This message has been edited by Radar (edited 01-13-2001).]

[Guest Napoleon1944]

Exact situation happened to me with a Marder trying to fire through a corner of a building. Talk about PO'ed! I hope BTS fixes this.

[Subvet]

Last night my Priest took itself out with a close range HE shot. It does suck when this happens, no question there. My question is: is this realistic? Did this really happen that often in WW2? Has anyone ever seen anything written about such occurrences?

[Lacky]

Most open topped vehicles are able to knock themselves out. I've had a wespe, an american TD, and a german 75mm recon all self-KO.

I think in every situation, the vehicle was unbuttoned. Perhaps the round took out the TC and the crew bails?

[Bullethead]

Like Jason Cawley says, most of the force of the explosion of the shell should go into the building, not back at the shooter.

Also, I have another fundamental problem with this sort of situation. That is, would the shell's fuze even have been armed at that short a range?

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-Bullethead

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

[Guest Big Time Software]

Thomm wrote:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>And I think it would be a fairly good approximation not to let anything fire through buildings. Yes, I know that there are historical examples of tanks firing through buildings, but still, the CM world would be easier to understand if some basic rules are kept simple, like e.g. "Nothing can shoot through houses". <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

There is a basic rule in CM -> "Nothing can shoot through houses". Put another way, in no way shape or form may any unit, regardless of what it is, shoot through a house. Never. Not even in the strangest circumstances. LOS will not be calculated through a house. You are pointing your finger at a cause of this problem which does not exist.

The problem is that a building can be hit accidentally if the target's line of fire is too close to the edge of a buliding. CM is specifically coded to work this way because shells do not fly exactly as aimed, or shots are not aimed as exactly as the gunner thinks, so there are times where being off the mark in such situations makes the round detonate on the building instead off flying past it.

Sometimes you can see a LOS line draw through a building (or hill, thick woods, or any terrain feature). This is part of your unit's "tracking" the target. It doesn't mean that it can fire at it right then and there. This is a necessary feature so that if an enemy unit goes out of LOS for just a second or two the friendly unit won't stop targeting it. But again, it can not shoot if it doesn't have a line of fire, which is different than the line of sight.

The cause of this problem is that the TacAI is not "smart" enough to understand that the shot is too close to be safe at that distance. Hopefully this will be improved upon in CM2.

The question if the HE shell would even be armed at that range is a good one. I forwarded this off to Charles a couple of days ago when someone emailed me about it. However, Charles is doubtfull that HE fuzes were that sophisticated back in WWII as they are now. If anybody has documentation on standard "impact" HE fuzes (i.e. not proximity fuzes or the like) please post it to this BBS for further discussion.

And yes, so far as I know blasts from direct fire HE are elliptical and not circular. But a 105 HE round, striking masonry at a close range, is probably enough to knock something as thinly armored and open topped as a Wespe.

Steve

[This message has been edited by Big Time Software (edited 01-12-2001).]

[Panther131]

BTS: Ok, I have some very good and clear screenshots of a wespe having a LOS but not a LOF through a building. I am sending them to krazydawg. I would love to post them here, but from what I know, thats not possible without a url.

I must say though, It is very frustrating to watch your own vehicle destroy itself, when it has full protection from any threatning enemy firepower, while it is pummeling off HE shots at ememy infantry.

[Doug Beman]

Panther, did you read the BTS post? The LOS line you see is not your vehicle actually seeing the enemy on the other side of the building. It is your vehicle making its best guess as to where the enemy is in order to keep the turret pointed the right way to re-engage as soon as LOS is regained. Otherwise the tank's turret starts to swing back to full-forward, even if the enemy unit is out of LOS for just a second.

I saw this very plainly in a recent QB. I ordered a Tiger to move forward while shelling a MG nest in a building. During the playback the LOS was blocked by a smoke plume, but the Tiger kept its turret pointed toward the enemy location. The playback ended, and I examined the situation. I left the Tiger's orders alone, and during the next playback it regained LOS and was able to open fire immediately.

DjB

[Panther131]

Thanks for the heads up Doug. However, my queation is why is my wespe (veteren) taking a shot at this guess of a target through a building? Doesnt seem logical. Why would a vehicle shoot through a building, to effectively kill itself? My guess is...as good as...yours?

The building was taller then the wespe.

[This message has been edited by Panther131 (edited 01-12-2001).]

[Guest Big Time Software]

Panther:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Thanks for the heads up Doug. However, my queation is why is my wespe (veteren) taking a shot at this guess of a target through a building?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Please reread my post again. It is NOT trying to shoot through a building. Not unless you have uncovered some previously undiscovered bug, which KwazyDog will tell us about.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Doesnt seem logical. Why would a vehicle shoot through a building, to effectively kill itself? My guess is...as good as...yours?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have explained exactly what is happening. Please reread my post again.

Also keep in mind that when you get down to the nitty-gritty of such a situation, the graphical representation might not be totally accurate. First thing to do is change the graphic scale down to Realistic. Then keep in mind that LOS/LOF is drawn from the center of one unit to the center of the target.

Steve

[Panther131]

Steve:

I have reread your post, and I have checked back with my screenshots. Unfortunatly, I play in the second one up from realistic, so the screens are in that mde as well.

I understand your post perfectly, and I don't disagree with you, or refute what you have said concerning this.

I just find this to be a very unrealsitic part of the game. Not that everything is expected to be realistic.

The one thing that annoys me is that when I check the LOS by my eyes or the proposed LOS by my eyes in view one, I see absolutley no shot possible with the wespe. I think that may be my biggest complaint about CM in general. When scoping area's for LOS with my eyes for future possible positioning of tanks, infantry, etc... it is not WYSIWYG(view 1). This confuses me at times.