Hellcat Stops To Engage Panther. Why Dammit?

[Col Deadmarsh]

Some random thoughts since there are so many people I want to take quotes from and yet I'm too lazy and have too much real work to do to actually do that.

First of all, Seanachai brought up the question of whether CM should model real world combat or should it act more (in my own words here) like a game of chess with no such things as random events.

Now, I agree with him that I like the randomness of these things, except of course when bad things happen to me . The question is, do these random events happen too often? Are they more a product of bad AI or are we being too judgemental of the AI, expecting our carefully calculated moves to be carried out in full so if something does go wrong, we are the only ones to blame?

As much as I'd like to believe that the things that happen in the game can be attributed to real world circumstances like a tank commander panicking and giving an order to stop and shoot when his initial orders were to wheel around the enemy's flank, I have a hard time doing this.

Maybe I should start to look at things in a different way but half of me views CM as a 21st century version of chess with JagdTigers playing the part of Queens and infantry acting out the duties of pawns.

When I look at the game this way, I expect randomness to occur once in a blue moon which would be just enough to remind me that there IS luck involved and not every command I issue will be carried out to a "T". Unfortunately, there have been more than several random encounters which cause me to become furious because I no longer feel I have control of my men and make me question why I even give out orders at all if they are not going to be carried out the way I issued them. I've had mortar teams refuse to fire smoke when I told them to, I've had tanks stop in one place for 10 seconds at the end of a movement order before turning, even though they only had to slow down to complete the last one, etc. There are more than a few of these occurances and this to me is not randomness, but problems with the AI.

Now, I'm not exactly bagging on CM's AI. Coming from CC2 land, this is way better. But sometimes I think the people on this board try to chalk up AI screwups to real-life situations and this is just not modeled in CM. Of course, if fooling yourself into thinking this gives you peace of mind when playing this game, go for it. Maybe I should look into it too.

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Youth is wasted on the young.

[Leonidas]

Originally posted by Germanboy:

That would be the same 'real' soldiers who were told (lied to, more like it) that there Sherman tanks were the cream of the crop and no German tank could stand up to them? The same soldiers who were drafted out of the infantry when tanker losses ran too high? The same soldiers who were commanded by 90-day wonders?

Just wondering if those are the soldiers you are talking about. Because if not, you are not talking about the US tankers in WW2.

You believe what you like, but everything I've read indicates that the men in WWII, in every theater on every front, were eager to acquire any kind of information that might help them survive the war. They were not robots that believed whatever the brass told them. They would talk with those who had seen action and learn the latest about what the enemy was doing and what hardware he was doing it with. Usually the information passed in informal conversations among the men were to technical and esoteric that the brass wouldn't have understood them anyway.

Sure there were times when people were unprepared for their job due to personnel or training shortages. That's why CM has green and conscript troops. But if we're talking about regular troops, I assume that means they've gotten a fair bit of training in their job. And considering that their lives depended on doing that job well, I bet they paid attention.

[Guest Germanboy]

Originally posted by Leonidas:

You believe what you like, but everything I've read indicates that the men in WWII, in every theater on every front, were eager to acquire any kind of information that might help them survive the war.

Well, my post was an exaggeration, granted. But your 'hours upon hours of absorbing data' was what brought it about. Have you had a look at the daily schedule of a tank unit in Normandy? For the Commonwealth, these guys were very lucky if they got more than four hours sleep. And that was not because they were trained, but because of their duties.

Churchill tankers were told that in the UK that they would only be able to defeat a Panther frontally by hitting the shot-trap. That was the extent of it.

I simply do not believe, and have never read an account saying that they did go around with measuring tape looking at the armour of the German tanks, comparing that to the muzzle velocity of their tanks, discussing whether they would have a better chance at defeating a Panzer IV J because of the slow turret, or a Panzer IV G because it has less armour.

All this is info you have in the game, that realistically would not have been present in the mind of these tankers. You will no doubt disagree with me there, but we will have to leave it at that.

I have a fair number of books, some by vets, on the topic and have not come across mention of the detailed info you claim they possessed and used. Maybe they did and I just read the wrong books. In which case, any pointers would be appreciated.

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Andreas

Der Kessel

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[Leonidas]

The book that comes to mind here is "Easter Day, 1941." It's a great little tale about some Brits in North Africa in a captured Italian armored car who have been left behind after an attack by Rommel. The author describes how they knew what types of tanks Rommel had, and could generally distinguish them by engine noise. They knew the thickness of the enemy armor, the penetration capability of their own shells, the thickness of their own armor, and the penetration capability of the shells from various German AFVs and guns.

Now maybe that particular author was puffing his own tale, but it sounds entirely realistic to me. If I were going to battle in a tank, I would sure as heck spend as much time as possible finding out what to expect and how to survive.

Another good book is "Wings of Morning." It's about a bomber crew instead of a tank crew, but it gives a good feel for the intense training that WWII recruits were put through. Maybe the tank crews weren't given as intense training as airplane crews, but I doubt it.

In fact, the information and training for the men was mostly about maintenance, which was a really complicated subject. Tankers, like airplane crews, were expected to know their machines intimately, so that they could maintain them properly and cope with damaged equipment. Compared to tank repair, I would think that basic information about armor thickness, ammo types, ballistics and resulting tank tactics would be pretty simple.

The reason I make this point so emphatically is that I think CM would be a better game if players could give more detailed orders and SOPs. But if I just come out and ask for more order detail, this is shouted down as 'micromanagement.' So I'm taking a step back and trying to argue that the people under the company commander were not idiots. They did make good decisions, based on substantial information. That's why it would be more realistic to let the players give detailed orders all the way down to the tank or platoon level, subject to morale and command delay limitations.

[This message has been edited by Leonidas (edited 03-07-2001).]

[Pak40]

Originally posted by Colonel_Deadmarsh:

As much as I'd like to believe that the things that happen in the game can be attributed to real world circumstances like a tank commander panicking and giving an order to stop and shoot when his initial orders were to wheel around the enemy's flank, I have a hard time doing this.

I too had become totally outraged at CM for the exact same things. I'd yell and scream that it had to be a bug or bad AI programming. Only after I quit screaming like a child did I realize upon further review that there were either logical programming explanations or real life explanations of why my mortar team quit using smoke (the team decided that an enemy unit was a better target); or when my tank decided to stop in middle of a fast move to engage another tank (13 second delay penalty for new orders).

I read these boards every day and there is always someone screaming "bad AI" or "bug". 99.5% of the time it turns out that there is something logical in the programing that caused what they are seeing. If these people would only take the time to re-examine their footage then they would realize that they're not seeing "bad AI" or bugs.

Originally posted by Colonel_Deadmarsh:

When I look at the game this way, I expect randomness to occur once in a blue moon which would be just enough to remind me that there IS luck involved and not every command I issue will be carried out to a "T". Unfortunately, there have been more than several random encounters which cause me to become furious because I no longer feel I have control of my men and make me question why I even give out orders at all if they are not going to be carried out the way I issued them. I've had mortar teams refuse to fire smoke when I told them to, I've had tanks stop in one place for 10 seconds at the end of a movement order before turning, even though they only had to slow down to complete the last one, etc. There are more than a few of these occurances and this to me is not randomness, but problems with the AI.

Thank god there is all of this "randomness" in CM. Otherwise this game would seem like every other computer game in existence: PROGRAMMED AND PREDICTABLE.

Charles did use fuzzy logic in his programming which would lead to any "randomness" you are seeing. He could better inform you as to why he used this type of programming but I think it's because of two reasons:

1. There are lots of things in combat that are random/luck. For instance, a man 20 feet away from an explosion gets killed while his buddy is unharmed 5 feet away from the explosion.

2. Humans are involved. Humans do stupid things, especially when they are scared ****less on a battlefield. Judgement gets clouded, orders get misinterpreted, and others are just plain stupid.

I've never been in combat, but I've read lots of 1st person accounts. From everything I've read, I'm willing to bet that there's A LOT MORE "randomness" and stupid human decisions than "once in a blue moon".

Believe what you want to believe, but I'll settle for randomness anyday over predictability. Even if it does make me mad every once in a while.

[This message has been edited by Pak40 (edited 03-07-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Pak40 (edited 03-07-2001).]

[Echo]

I've noticed since the last patch that most armor that gets into trouble is now moving foreward instead of backwards. This is a pain when moving into a town full enemy infantry and you armor decides to do some site seeing in the center of town.

[Guest Andrew Hedges]

Based on what I've read, I don't think that all - or even most - allied tankers had much detailed knowledge about the armor composition of the German tanks they went up against, although there is so much variation that it's hard to generalize. For example, I recently came across an account of a Stuart driver who, in Sept. '44 was amazed that he hit a Panther 3 times in the glacis and did not knock it out.

Of course, you also get reports of tankers who knew how to bounce shots off of pavement so as to hit the underside of Panthers.

[Sig]

Originally posted by Pak40:

Thank god there is all of this "randomness" in CM. Otherwise this game would seem like every other computer game in existence: PROGRAMMED AND PREDICTABLE.

(snip)

Believe what you want to believe, but I'll settle for randomness anyday over predictability. Even if it does make me mad every once in a while.

I absolutely agree with you!

And these unpredictable events are in fact a major plus to the game interest: they force you to adapt *all the time*, imagine new ways to win, create new solutions.

Bad for the nerves, good for the brain.

Sig