PSW not firing 20mm HE automatically?

[Binkie]

I just noticed that the last three times that I've brought a PSW/1 to bear, it has only fired its MG at the infantry target, even though it has fully acquired it, with the red line and all. In all cases I had to manually target and confirm "USE MAIN GUN?" in order to see any 20mm action.

Is this a possible bug or am I missing something? They all had scads of HE ammo...certainly worth the attempt, even if the targets were in some sort of cover.

[Michael Emrys]

I don't know if it is a bug or not, but most often my tanks won't fire their main guns on personnel unless I give them specific orders to do so. They use their MGs instead. Doesn't seem to matter how much ammo they have on board, they do it the same at the start of a game as at the end.

Michael

[Maximus]

I dunno about PSW 234/1's, but PzIIL's sure do let loose with their 20mm cannon on infantry.

EDIT: I'm sorry, I mis-spoke. It was a damned M5A1 Stuart that was poking the hell out of my infantry that I was trying to use to close-assualt it because I was totally out of other AT assets.

[ 05-28-2001: Message edited by: Maximus ]

[David Aitken]

I suspect 20mm cannon are for killing light armour and aircraft. They're not much use against infantry.

[Stuka]

A 20mm sized hole in me would tend to slow me down a bit.

[Stalins Organ]

Dave the 20's usually have 4 times as much HE as AP ammo!

I wonder if it is something to do with the A/C being a "vehicle" rather than a tank? IE it's a recom asset rather than a battle asset, and so the AI just doesn't shoot as much with it? I don't have any data to support this - just musing.

[David Aitken]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Mike the bike wrote:

Dave the 20's usually have 4 times as much HE as AP ammo!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

HE is used for antiaircraft purposes.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Stuka wrote:

A 20mm sized hole in me would tend to slow me down a bit.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well you have a much bigger hole in your mug, and I'm sure all the hot air coming out of there would slow you down, if not propel you backwards...

[Michael Emrys]

I've just come from playing several turns of my latest QB (pant, pant) and several times I observed my tanks firing with their MGs and not their cannon. This includes one occurence when a German halftrack wandered into view and a Sherman began popping at it with his MG instead of a nice fat AT round that would have polished the roach off handily. If this bug gets away on account of this I will be sorely tried.

Michael

[Capt Canuck]

I know this doesn't exactly relate to the topic, but if someone could send me the original .wav file for the 20mm cannon because I downloaded a sound mod that replaces it, and since then I have grown not to like the sounds, I think there's something wrong with the timing, it sounds like a whoomnmp poouump-pooump-puhnh, :confused: I don't remember it sounding like that before, so if anybody has the original file, could you please pop it over to tulliofascinato@home.com

Thank you very much in advance!

Ciao

[Stalins Organ]

Dave that's true, but the A/C's were NOT AA assets - they were recon/patrol/convoy protection assets. any AA fire was incidental to their main role.

IMO the HE was there mostly for use against ground targets.

Hence I do not think they were meant to only engage armour, or even primarily engage armour - they just have too little AP ammo, and the load out of HE is far too high for this purpose.

FYI IIRC the British 20m Aerlikon mostly fired an APHEIT shell by the end of the war for air-to-air combat - that is it had a strengthened nose for AP, carried both HE and incentiary charges, and had a tracer base.

Obviously the HE and incendiary charges in such a projectile would be very small, but aircraft systems are quite vulnerable to fragment damage and the AP nose was designed to put the projectile inside the skin where it would do the maximum damage.

[ 05-28-2001: Message edited by: Mike the bike ]

[Vanir Ausf B]

In every game I have played (1.12) it has been my observation that tanks and 234/1 WILL fire its HE at infantry without being told to until it gets down to about 1/3-1/4 of its initial HE load. Then it stops using it unless you tell it to.

I have never seen a tank or AC with its full HE load not fire it at infantry at every opportunity. If you are seeing this we are not playing the same game.

[Vanir Ausf B]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Capt Canuck:

I know this doesn't exactly relate to the topic, but if someone could send me the original .wav file for the 20mm cannon<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No need. You can simply copy the original file off the CD.

[Gyrene]

I've had lot of issues with vehicles and units like flamethrowers no shooting when you need them too. This could be due to the way spotting works, perhaps a driver will see something and use his hull MG but the rest of the crew will be looking somewhere else.

Only non bug answer I can think of.

Gyrene

[Binkie]

Vanir, in all three of the cases I'm remembering, the 234/1 had not shot a single round of HE before it had made contact with the enemy infantry in question. They had well over 100 rounds in storage.

Gyrene, here's a little targeting frustration story for ya. I once had a SPW halftrack with a forward MG keep trying to target a flamethrower in the woods 100 meters behind it, while it was moving on FAST away from it, toward an enemy .50 cal halftrack. For three turns I kept trying to get it to shoot at the HT, and for three turns it kept uselessly targeting the flamethrower, and not actually shooting at anything at all. Eventually the .50 cal got him.

[Olle Petersson]

AFAIK there's no bug.

The real issue is efficiency of the used weapon.

At short ranges, up to 200m or something, the MG is at least as effective as the main gun against infantry, and is thus used to save the large calibre ammo for long range targets.

When these cars engage infantry at ranges over 400m or so, the main gun will be used, by default, since it's more accurate than the MG.

Cheers

Olle

[Binkie]

That would make some sense, Olle, if I were playing an operation or something. But with so much HE ammo on board, and just the one battle going on, I want that sucker to fire both at all targets!

[Olle Petersson]

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

I want that sucker to fire both at all targets!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I guess the programming in CM is more like all or nothing.

Before all AFVs used all weapons on any target within range. That wasn't good for those with larger guns and less HE than MG ammo.

So it changed to where it is now.

I guess you'd better change your tactics instead, to engage at longer ranges.

If you're so close that the Lynx won't use it's main gun then you're wulnerable to HMG fire...

Cheers

Olle

[Grunto IV]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>So it changed to where it is now.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

i'm not so sure about that. in my scenario, 'midnight' there are a lot of psw 234/1s and they fire their he at infantry regularly, and at ranges inside of 100 meters.

now, assuming what you're saying is correct, is it because the los in 'midnight' is only ~120 meters (night) that i'm seeing the psw 234/1s firing away with their main guns?

if night/day isn't the answer here, it's almost as if i'm playing a different game than the original poster. is there a patch later than 1.12?

andy

[Splinty]

It must be a range thing,I've been playing the operatin "Drive to Mortain" against the AI as the Allies and my tanks have no problems using HE agaist the infantry at all.One thing that may come into play is if the infantry is dug in or not. They are in this case.

[Vanir Ausf B]

It's good to see that I'm not the only one who has never had this problem. I was starting to question my grip on reality

[Londoner]

Test.