I hate to say this, but I think I found a bug... A BIG bug...

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by engy:

Ok. Downloaded it.

My tactics? Sit in the woods/brush/rough and shock/button every halftrack. Then using rough move orders ('boxing' 6-8 units at a time), I sent them moving to locations in front and behind each halftrack, so when it wanted to move away, it had to move past/through a group of infantry. Starting with turn 10, I knocked out about 1 halftrack per turn.

engy

OK

Yes I did put the VL in the HARD place to hold

BUT I'm really gald to see someone take out all those Half tracks. I tried and instaed of waiting for them in cover I tried to chase them and swarm them and I was very unsuccessful. Mostly because I was an IDIOT German commander I think.

I'm thrilled to read about so many dead HT's.

Did you think the HT's were too hard to kill or would you conclude that that close assaulting the HTs is fine the way it is?

Thanks for testing that scenario

Did you think it was a fair test?

-tom w

[This message has been edited by aka_tom_w (edited 02-19-2001).]

[engy]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

<snip>

Did you think the HT's were too hard to kill or would you conclude that that close assaulting the HTs is fine the way it is?

Thanks for testing that scenario

Did you think it was a fair test?

-tom w

Honestly, I've never close assaulted a vehicle in CM before (20 or so PBEM games), so I wasn't sure what to expect. With that many infantry milling about and the halftracks unable to shoot back once they were shocked, I would have been surprised at any other result.

engy

[Doug Williams]

Ok, I'm going to play it myself soon, but I truly am glad to learn that engy was able to win that scenario. I love this game so much that I would hate for something like that to be wrong with it.

[Mr. Clark]

I'd love to give the scenario a whirl... but I've got a job interview in 45 minutes, and then work as normal for the night.

It'll be interesting to see people's results, so I do hope more people give it a try. It will certainly help ease the mind if others can REALISITICALLY beat the HT's.

I'm completely torn on this issue, because BTS says everythings fine (plus there are many other ways to kill an HT), and yet something just feels odd...

I don't usually get into these "bug, no bug" battles, but I'd hate to see a StarCraft type exploitable bug in CM.

I keep trying to let the issue go... really...

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Mr. Clark:

I'd love to give the scenario a whirl... but I've got a job interview in 45 minutes, and then work as normal for the night.

It'll be interesting to see people's results, so I do hope more people give it a try. It will certainly help ease the mind if others can REALISITICALLY beat the HT's.

I'm completely torn on this issue, because BTS says everythings fine (plus there are many other ways to kill an HT), and yet something just feels odd...

I don't usually get into these "bug, no bug" battles, but I'd hate to see a StarCraft type exploitable bug in CM.

I keep trying to let the issue go... really...

I can't really see anything exploitable in this bug.

To successfully "exploit" this issue you would have to KNOW that the infantry you are about to drive thru have no AT capability or heavy MGs at all. (and that there in fact ONLY infantry with grenades and small arms present beyond the immediate infantry that you plan to drive through). You are NOT likely to likely to find those favourable conditions IMHO.

I do not think it is very likely that this issue is exploitable in any way. The HT's will still die, in close assault it just takes longer now and its a little more dificult.

I would be interested to see one of my opponents try to exploit the "indestructable HT bug" and beat me with only HTs they are still not that hard to kill with plenty of other kinds of weapons.

-tom w

[This message has been edited by aka_tom_w (edited 02-19-2001).]

[Guest Madmatt]

One thing to add to that battle would be that it is highly unlikely that you would have 2000 points of infantry assets (what is that 45+ squads???) and yet not not have a single bazooka, shreck team, panzerfausts, gammon bomb or rifle grenade to spare?

I understand the reasoning behind such a test battle though and as was shown above it is possible for the infantry to still win in such a situation.

Madmatt

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Madmatt:

One thing to add to that battle would be that it is highly unlikely that you would have 2000 points of infantry assets (what is that 45+ squads???) and yet not not have a single bazooka, shreck team, panzerfausts, gammon bomb or rifle grenade to spare?

I understand the reasoning behind such a test battle though and as was shown above it is possible for the infantry to still win in such a situation.

Madmatt

Yes it was just a test

It was a real battle field test

(no islands were involved)

but it was still battle and a real 30 minute

scenario.

and yes

"There are 1995 points worth of Reg Rifle 44 squads (19 platoons = 57 squads)"

so yes I did edit them ALL so they had no AT capability at all only small arms and grenades for the purposes of the test (ont he battlefield)

I am very glad someone tried it with the German infantry and won, I thought it was a good example to highlite the specific nature of the issue here, and that is close assaults on HT's by infantry without any AT weapons.

The game the way it is now is wonderful and it now as all those wonderful anti gamey tactics things like no more fast jeep recon rear area suicide joy rides and things like that.

I really like the new accuracy algorythms.

I hav not been reading about any body complaining their main weapon can't hit the broad side of a barn. Instead now there are concerns (by a few) that there is too much first shot accuracy.

I like the game fine the way it is and I think a GREAT deal of effort and research and sweat and attention to detail has gone into it and it shows!

Great Game.

-tom w

[This message has been edited by aka_tom_w (edited 02-19-2001).]

[Guest Madmatt]

Allies Surrendered on turn 16. All but two HT's (they kept running away) were taken out with close assaults.

I played with no special tactics other than just plain old suppression (get the HT's buttoned up) followed up by squads running to within 10 meters and close assualting. Seemed to work fine.

Madmatt

[This message has been edited by Madmatt (edited 02-19-2001).]

[Mr. Clark]

Thanks for the test results MadMatt!

I'm not even gonna bother playing it, you have me convinced its all OK.

Thanks again! I think my mind may be able to put this issue (or non-issue) away now.

------------------

"Fear is for the enemy... Fear and Bullets."

"They didn't want to come... but I told em, by jeepers, it was an order."

[Guest Wildman]

Had this data last week and didn't get a chance to post it. I took 62 test of the 40x40 island test with a 250/1 against a regular US 44 platoon. All infantry started at a range of 15m - 20m. Which of course changed as the half-track moved. I can assume a normal binomial distribution, because the number of tests were above 40 and the percentage of success (IE. KO'ing or shocking the halftrack) was neither too close to 0 or too close to 1.

Results: Remember a Binomial only has two outcomes. True or False. Halftrack KO'd, abandoned or not. Halftrack shocked or not.

Probability that the halftrack was knocked out: 74.19% with a std dev of 5.56% or we can say with 95% certainty that the probability of knocking out a half-track is between 63.07 and 85.31%.

Now I counted half-tracks that lasted longer that 180 seconds (3 turns) and counted them as a survives, assuming that they would get away if they survived that long.

Probability of knocking out a half-track within 180 seconds: 53.23% with a std dev of 6.34%, or we can say with 95% certainty that the probability of knocking out a half-track is between 40.55 and 65.91%.

Probability of shocking a half-track: 33.97% with a std dev of 6.01% or we can say with 95% certainty that the probability of shocking a half-track is between 21.95 and 45.99%.

Now some interesting data on how the relationship between shocking and KO'ing is.

-If you shock the half-track you had a 100% chance of KO'ing the half-track.

-If you did not shock the half-track your chances of KO'ing the half-track drop to 35.94%.

Just thought I would apply a statistical analysis to the data. I draw no real conclusions as I have no data on the actual chance of knocking out a half-track in WWII. I can only hope that my numbers fall within the range that BTS' research or best guess showed.

---

[Ksak]

Wildman

Nice piece of work. Is the lesson learned that if your troops do not shock the HT in the first minute that it's time to di di mou the area?

[Guest Wildman]

Yes, unless you wanted to lose around a squad and a half to kill a half-track. I'm going to run the test again, with the 40x40 in a bowl to see if the higher elevation makes a difference.

[marsunit]

Originally posted by Jeff Heidman:

I hope we can get a comment from BTS on this.

It should be relatively easy for a squad (even a regular or green) to take out a hlaf track from short range.

Otherwise, they are going to become rather useful weapons. Just drive them through the bad guys front lines shooting everything up!

Especially the Germans, since the Allies mostly lack squad level organic dedicated AT weapons.

On another note, those three tracks had four fausts (all the 100m variety) fired at them from less than 35m, no hits).

Jeff Heidman

hey jeff,just ran the training sceneairo with the engineers and the last unit I had to destroy was a german halftrack that i had surrounded on both sides with 2 squads of vet engr.'s w/ satchel charges left.well...after 2 turns of running after this thing while it's heading off the map at a slow crawl in reverse and throwing something like 30 grenades they just got tired and threw the satchel charges in the damn thing and the explosion nearly dropped me from my chair,I laughed my ass off .So I guess you better use good ol' engineers from now on. and BTW the organic bazooka teams work best behind a tall pine tree hanging by the edge of the road.I get 3-5 kills per man,they really turn the road into a junkyard

[Guest Wildman]

Ran my test again to see if a height differensial made a difference. I put a 20x40 of the 40x40 island at elevation 5. Now the results of this test show no difference made for height. However, I should note that most of the half-track kills were made at the elevetion 7 and not in the depression made from the elevation 5.

Results of 62 tests:

Percentage shocked: 38.71% std dev of 6.01%

Percentage KO'd: 74.19% std dev of 5.56%

Percentage KO'd in 180 seconds: 53.23 std Dev of 6.34%

Avg Time to shocked: 8.38 std dev 3.44

Avg KO time: 192.91 std dev 245.60

Avg KO under 180 time: 84.375 std dev 48.68

Percent to KO a half-track if shocked: 100%

Percent to KO a half-track if not shocked: 40%

Since Elevation did not seem to make a difference I combined both tests for a higher sample size.

All results to show variation:

Percentage Shocked:

Test 1: 33.87%

Test 2: 38.71%

Both: 36.29%

Percentage KO'd:

Test 1: 74.19%

Test 2: 72.58%

Both: 73.39%

Percentage KO'd within 180 seconds:

Test 1: 53.23%

Test 2: 50.00%

Both: 51.61%

Since every shocked vehicle was KO'd. I am still determining how long it took to KO them after being shocked.

Probability to KO if not shocked:

Test 1: 35.94%

Test 2: 24.52%

Both: 30.10%

Yet more numbers to chew on. Given that BTS has said that distance is the largest factor in close assaulting. I will be test that today.

[Guest Wildman]

Not that anyone thinks the half-tracks are over-modelled any more. I took BTS' statement that close assault was heavily influnced by range. So I placed the half-tracks in a marsh to immobilise them. (NOTE: Place the vehicles on grass in the preview and then change the terrain underneath them, then padlock them in place)

Interesting results:

Percentage Shocked:

15-20m: 37.10%

10-15m: 29.03%

5-10m: 27.42%

Percentage KO'd:

15-20m: 74.19%

10-15m: 67.74%

5-10m: 62.90%

Percentage KO'd in 180 seconds: (3 turns)

15-20m: 53.23%

10-15m: 59.68%

5-10m: 51.61%

Percentage KO'd in 60 seconds: (1 turn)

15-20m: 33.87%

10-15m: 51.61%

5-10m: 43.55%

Probabilit of KO'd without shocking:

15-20m: 31.45%

10-15m: 62.52%

5-10m: 44.66%

Now what do these numbers show. (and I have the standard deviation if you want them they are all between 5 and 6%)

In actuality the chance to kill the half-track peaks at the 10-15m (30-45ft) range. The question is why? The observations I had were ones I could not quantify.

The reason for peaking at 10-15m is suppression of the infantry. If I remember correctly BTS said that MG spraying was modelled if ranges were short enough. I can in no way prove this, but there was less routing and causalities farther out that 10m.

Of course to me the most important stat is the KO'd within 60 seconds, because after one minute will allow half-tracks to reverse to a longer range and allows other units to suppress the infantry.

Like I said before, this controversy is already solved, but the number crunching was interesting.

---

[Mr. Clark]

Those numbers are very interesting. Even if the controversy is ended, it still helps us perfect close assaults in the game!

Thanks for posting those.

[Jeff Heidman]

How about a test a little more like what you are actually going to see in the game?

What are the odds for a single squad without ay organic AT weapons to take out a stationary halftrack sitting on a road before the tracks gets a chance to rive away? Say the squad sneaks up on it, and gets at least one attack before the track can move away.

I *think* they should be pretty decent, say 50% at least, assuming the squad can get within 20-30m or so. I would be willing to bet that in CM they are no where near that. Should they be?

We keep running test where the odds are massively stacked in the squads favor, and sometimes getting results that do not seem too far out of whack, if the odds were not stacked.

Jeff Heidman