Accuracy While Firing On the Move (OR FAST) in CMBO

[aka_tom_w]

I think this is a GREAT game!

I play at least one CMBO battle every day (some days more)

I prefer the Allies and I play them alot.

I don't want to start the gyrostabilizer flamefest all over again BUT I would like to state that it is my humble opinion that in my experience (in the game only, of course) Allied AFV's Especially the Hellcat and the Greyhound are NOT heavily penalized enough while shooting on the FAST move. Either that or I'm VERY lucky. I like the Allies and I'm glad these units are so accurate on the move, but didn't the Germans demand and require that tanks NOT halt and target when firing? (i.e. not fire on the move)

Shooting and moving in this game has grown to a new art form.

I hope that in CM2 that tanks that are NOT moving when they fire will have more of an advantage then they do now, perhaps MORE correctly I hope that tanks and AFV's firing on the move, (not just the hunt move, they usually stop and fire when hunting which works PERFECTLY in CMBO!) but when firing on the fast move they should have a VERY low chance to hit, and the fact that they are moving fast should be a penalty applied to all vehicles.

BUT it is still a great game and if you are fan of the German units you should see what those Yank Greyhounds and Hellcats can hit and kill on the FAST move!

It is now my opinion that in this game a Crack Hellcat and a couple of Vet Greyhounds are more than a match for ANY German tank (All the big Cats included), because they are fast and still accurate to fire on the move and that 37 mm main weapon can penetrate the flank or rear of just about any German tank from about 500m.

(While Moveing fast, faster than the turret traverse for example )

Just my humble thought for today

-tom w

[ 06-19-2001: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Mr. Johnson--]

Sad but true.

[Tero]

Funnily enough the spotting is supposed to have been tweaked down for moving vehicles but not the aiming and the first shot hit accuracy. An oversight ?

[CombinedArms]

It's gotten so I hardly use the Hunt command any more with fast Allied AFVs--Sherm and faster. They don't seem to lose any accuracy in Fast mode and are harder to hit--so why Hunt unless you're seeking a hulldown position.

I haven't studied this--and I'm sure it's been widely discussed somewhere on this board-- but my guess is that tanks in general hit their targets more often in CM than in real life. A JgPzIV took out one of my Shermans at about 500m w/ a single shot in the crease between a cloud of smoke and a nearby building. I was seeking to improve my position and didn't think the JgPzIV could even see my Sherman as it moved to new cover but he nailed it w/o blinking. This happens so often both ways as to be routine. I'm not really complaining--but in generally you have to expect I high level of tank accuracy.

[aka_tom_w]

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

It's gotten so I hardly use the Hunt command any more with fast Allied AFVs--Sherm and faster. They don't seem to lose any accuracy in Fast mode and are harder to hit--so why Hunt unless you're seeking a hulldown position.

I haven't studied this--and I'm sure it's been widely discussed somewhere on this board-- but my guess is that tanks in general hit their targets more often in CM than in real life. A JgPzIV took out one of my Shermans at about 500m w/ a single shot in the crease between a cloud of smoke and a nearby building. I was seeking to improve my position and didn't think the JgPzIV could even see my Sherman as it moved to new cover but he nailed it w/o blinking. This happens so often both ways as to be routine. I'm not really complaining--but in generally you have to expect I high level of tank accuracy.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I like the way MOST accuracy and chance to odds are modeled. (It was different in the Demo, and early release versions)

I think this game does a GREAT job of attempting to model the very difficult job of simulating the historically reality of "the chance to hit" when a round is fired.

I really like the higher accuracy model that is now in v1.12.

BUT those chance to hit percentages don't seem to drop very much at all for some Allied vehicles when they are on the FAST move.

OH well, pick fast Allied units and send them quickly up the flanks if you think the coast is clear

-tom w

[Stalin's Organ]

500m is point blank range for tank combat.

In CMBB you will expect T34-76's to be able to get a reasonable number of hits at 1000m, and they're supposed to have all sorts of problems with optics and command!

[Dittohead]

I never move my allied tanks fast to engage enemy tanks, too gamey for me.

[ 06-19-2001: Message edited by: Dittohead ]

[PzKpfw 1]

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

It's gotten so I hardly use the Hunt command any more with fast Allied AFVs--Sherm and faster. They don't seem to lose any accuracy in Fast mode and are harder to hit--so why Hunt unless you're seeking a hulldown position.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

And this bothers no one but me?, almost makes me wanna re-open the Gyrostabilizer threads; were talking about a WW2 tank here not an M1A2 etc.

Regards, John Waters

[ 06-19-2001: Message edited by: PzKpfw 1 ]

[Dittohead]

Well it would be nice if we knew exactly what the penalties were for the various vehicles for shooting on the move at different speeds. At least we would have a reference point on which to base our arguements.

[aka_tom_w]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PzKpfw 1:

And this bothers no one but me?, almost makes me wanna re-open the Gyrostabilizer threads; were talking about a WW2 tank here not an M1A2 etc.

Regards, John Waters

[ 06-19-2001: Message edited by: PzKpfw 1 ]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's right John

It bothers me Thats why I started the thread

I'm sure that when they say there will be no further work on CMBO that we are free to abuse this "somewhat" gamey loophole (if it could be called that) to our hearts content.

BUT.....

I mention it in case there is any notion of using a similiar chance-to-hit-while-on-the-fast-move model in CMBB.

I doubt (but I don't know) that either the Germans or the Russians employed anything like the Allied gyrostabillizer so I hope we won't have to worry about that issue again.

I mention this with the hopes that we will see a substantial chance-to-hit penalty modeled for tanks on the move, especially the FAST move in CMBB

Thanks for posting John!

-tom w

[Stalin's Organ]

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

I doubt (but I don't know) that either the Germans or the Russians employed anything like the Allied gyrostabillizer so I hope we won't have to worry about that issue again.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The Russians received lots and lots of Sherman 75's and 76's!!

Relatively speaking of course they weren't all that common - just a coupla' thousand each I think. But there was at least 1 Tank Corps equipped solely with them.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I'm not convinced it's a problem with gyrostabalizer modeling per se. I think it may be a problem with all vehicles. For example, the Greyhound has no gyrostabalizer.

[Ron]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B:

I'm not convinced it's a problem with gyrostabalizer modeling per se. I think it may be a problem with all vehicles. For example, the Greyhound has no gyrostabalizer.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The effects of the gyrostabilizer are there and apparent. I don't have my notes anymore but I did test the various hit percentages for Fast moving AFVs with and without the gyrostabilizer. What aroused my curiousity originally was seeing the Hellcat get hits while Fast moving in LD.

Don't quote me on the numbers as I am not interested going over that again, but IIRC I had a Hellcat and Greyhound Fast move in a circle around a Panther, range 300-400m. I probably ran them 25X and their hit percentages were both around 10% I think, with the Greyhound being a little better, but abysmal for sure. What I do remember was the hit percentages for the Stuart and Sherman76, both with gyros, being about double in the same test, around 20%, with the Stuart being a little better.

For what it's worth...

Ron

[PzKpfw 1]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Stalin's Organ:

The Russians received lots and lots of Sherman 75's and 76's!!

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

2007 M4A2 75mm

2095 M4A2 76mm

IIRC the LL M 4A2 had no gyrostabilizer it was omitted for simplicity.

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

Relatively speaking of course they weren't all that common - just a coupla' thousand each I think. But there was at least 1 Tank Corps equipped solely with them.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

3 out of the 9 Guards Mechanized Corps were equipped entirely Shermans, from 1944 on, 1st GMC, 3rd GMC, & 9th GMC. 1st & 3rd turned in their T-34-85s & 9th wasformed from the inception with M4A2s.

Regards, John Waters

[ 06-20-2001: Message edited by: PzKpfw 1 ]

[Vanir Ausf B]

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

The effects of the gyrostabilizer are there and apparent. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I wasn't suggesting the gyro didn't work or makes no difference. I simply meant that you often see people talk about getting frequent hits while on the move in reference to vehicles that have no gyro (such as the Greyhound in the first post in this thread).

[ 06-20-2001: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

[aka_tom_w]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B:

I wasn't suggesting the gyro didn't work or makes no difference. I simply meant that you often see people talk about getting frequent hits while on the move in reference to vehicles that have no gyro (such as the Greyhound in the first post in this thread).

[ 06-20-2001: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No question about that Vanir

I did refer to the gyrostabillizer "flamefest" in the opening post, but I should have stated that I knew the Greyhound did not sport the gyrostabilizer, I meant it just "sort of" feels like something like that is modeled because the Greyhound and the Hellcat (again no gyrostabilizer) seem to have surprising GOOD accuracy on the fast move. AND yes these units should not be confused with the Sherms and Stuarts with the gyrostabilizers modeled which also seem highly accurate on the fast move.

Good point.

-tom w

[David Aitken]

I have no idea how CM is coded, but I can envisage there being a problem with assigning a linear percentage hit chance to fast-moving vehicles. When your vehicle is rumbling along on rough terrain (or even a road), there are periods of a second or two when you're going smoothly, then you go over a bumpy patch, and so on. It's not as though fast-moving simply reduces the accuracy of your main gun – the gun remains accurate, but most of the time its platform is too jerky to get off a straight shot (even with a gyrostabiliser). However, there will be brief moments when it is possible to shoot accurately.

Therefore, assigning a linear hit chance may result in an unrealistically low chance of hitting targets while on the move. It means that you're very inaccurate all the time, instead of being mostly inaccurate and sometimes accurate. The result will probably be passably similar, but there is a fundamental difference. This would be more important if, for example, the gunner could choose to hold fire until the tank momentarily stabilises, and then shoot, whereupon he would be decently accurate but only when he chooses to fire, which would be irregularly.

[ 06-20-2001: Message edited by: David Aitken ]

[ferdinand]

David, wouldn't the same effect be achieved simply by reducing the rate of fire ?

[Redwolf]

Regarding Gyrostabilizers, some people in previous threads said that WW2 Gyros are not made to enable the tank to shoot on the move.

They are said to equal out elevation of the gun between two stops. That means, if you have adjusted in place A where the tank is 89 degrees vertical and you move to spot B where it is 81 degrees, your gun elevantion is automatically the same as before (relative to terrain , not the tank).

[David Aitken]

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

David, wouldn't the same effect be achieved simply by reducing the rate of fire ?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As a single alteration to the current model, yes, this would be an improvement. Moderately accurate but irregular fire. However, under certain circumstances a gunner may choose to fire anyway, so a fixed, lower rate of fire would not always be desirable.

[Slapdragon]

US gyros were designed to fire on the move, but they only handled vertical motion, not horizontal, which was handled by the gunner who kept the tank gun trained, and whose controls were fin enough to track objects. Accuracy did go down since the gunner needed to vary the lead on his target , but hit could and did get made (I should not that firing on the move was usually the realm of the TD units, whose training at that was much more extensive. This is especially true with the M18 crews which were considered elite and had the highest training standards, but this would be modlled by changing the crews experience rating, not by changing how the tank fired).

As to speed and gyros. Gyros work at any speed. The only question for a gyro is does the weapon it is attached to have a moment arm capable of swinging through a full range of motion that bumps in the terrain are putting it through. On very rough terrain, the answer could be no, and the weapon will not track a target because the gryo cannot physically make the gun do what it cannot do, fire above or below its fixed depression.

It is similar in a way to skeet shooting. A shooter can hit a slow or fast flung skeet, but only if they are lead by the promer distance. So moving fast over everything but rough terrain and moving slow should make no difference to the gyro. The issue is how well crews were trained with the gyros in the first place.

I think that the issue is not that US vehicles hit to often, but that players in QBs choose regular and veteran crews too often, making them better shots on the fly and leading to a potentially gamey tactic. If US players used green troop more often, to represent less experienced US tankers prevalent during 1944, it would not seem like the Shermans were so good (they are not all that good anyway, merely ok).

Allied TDs are a different story.

[Stephen Smith]

As a real-world comparison-

modern M1A1 tanks have essentially 'gyrostabilizers' on them. In training, we fired 'on the move', but 'on the move' meant 'driving approximately 15 mph along a straight gravel road. It did NOT mean driving cross country (even in a field!) or driving in any environment where there is much up and down motion, nor driving very fast. I don't believe it would be possible to fire modern M1A1s while 'on the move' in any but these very limited circumstances (i.e. relatively flat terrain, relatively low speed), for two reasons 1) it would be hard to keep the cross hairs on the target, and 2) it would be hard for the crew to keep themselves still enough to even look through the optics well enough to aim (the gunner would be thrown around the inside of the vehicle too much). And unless 1940's technology was much better than 1990's technology, I suspect the ability to fire on the move under any but very rare circumstances, even with a highly trained crew and a gyrostabilizer, is grossly overrated.

And-

I just read a book on Kursk which quoted a german gunner as saying the ideal range for engagements was about 800 meters. So what ranges should we expect in CM2? I would think about the same as in CMBO. While the optics and penetration of main guns may have allowed extremely high ranges (2000, 3000 meters in incredibly rare, extreme cases), I suspect that due to real-world terrain, actual engagements were probably conducted, 95% of the time, 0-1000 meters or so.

Steve

[aka_tom_w]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Stephen Smith:

As a real-world comparison-

modern M1A1 tanks have essentially 'gyrostabilizers' on them. In training, we fired 'on the move', but 'on the move' meant 'driving approximately 15 mph along a straight gravel road. It did NOT mean driving cross country (even in a field!) or driving in any environment where there is much up and down motion, nor driving very fast. I don't believe it would be possible to fire modern M1A1s while 'on the move' in any but these very limited circumstances (i.e. relatively flat terrain, relatively low speed), for two reasons 1) it would be hard to keep the cross hairs on the target, and 2) it would be hard for the crew to keep themselves still enough to even look through the optics well enough to aim (the gunner would be thrown around the inside of the vehicle too much). And unless 1940's technology was much better than 1990's technology, I suspect the ability to fire on the move under any but very rare circumstances, even with a highly trained crew and a gyrostabilizer, is grossly overrated.

Steve<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Great Point! Thanks a welcome post from someone with real tank firing experience!

Here's the problem:

In CMBO Hellcats and Greyhounds can move VERY fast, and they can, and do, fire on the FAST move and IMHO they get way more hits, even first shot hits while on the fast move than is realistically possible and these two units don't have gryostabilizers.

Would anyone reading this thread object to the suggestion that tanks in CM2 should not be able to fire on the the fast move?

If they can fire on the fast move then their accuracy should be LOW, like real LOW, like in the single digits no matter what the range (like a 1-9% chance of a hit at the best of times).

The issue here is more about how firing on the move will be handled in CM2 than how things work in CMBO.

Any further comments?

-tom w

[Amedeo]

As was pointed out in another thread the 'firing on the move' in CMBO should be an abstraction for 'firing from short halts', that was the standard practice in WW2. However this raises another question: given the actual accelerations attainable by WW2 AFVs and the typical time of engagement, would the average speed obtained while firing from short halts be comparable with the speed that units have in the game while moving & shooting?

Regards,

Amedeo

[Ron]

Just for kicks I set up another test re accuracy/Fast and found the results interesting. Here I had 4 Regular Allied AFVs, with and without gyros, Fast move from cover to cover(distance~500m) along a paved road diagonal to a rear facing toothless Panther(range 350-450m). I ran it for one minute, twenty five times. I had infantry spot for the tanks to negate the spotting penalty for Fast moving vehicles.

Cromwell VII - 9 hits/61 shots - 14.8% hit percentage

M4A3 - 12 hits/67 shots - 17.9% hit percentage

Greyhound - 13 hits/103 shots - 12.6% hit percentage

Stuart - 28 hits/110 shots - 25.5% hit percentage

The Cromwell(no gyro) and M4A3 both have the same max speed and generally got off 3 shots each in the time period. The Cromwell had a 'block' of hits on the first or second shot at first then settled down to missing all the time so I think it got 'lucky' on some of those.

The Greyhound(no gyro) has a higher max speed than the Stuart so that could have an affect on its accuracy. The Stuart got hits in 22 of the 25 runs and was the only one to achieve multiple hits, one time scoring 3 hits from 6 shots. Then and now, it was the most deadly.

True, no changes will be made for CMBO but since it's the only thing we have to look at....

Ron