CMBB Area Fire question

[Patrocles]

I had the Panzer IV tank area fire at soviet icon (behind a stone wall) in hopes of suppressing the once visible soviet squad. During the turn the Squad reappeared about 50m behind the wall and was seen to retreat. My Panzer IV continued to area fire at my original designated point. I read in the book that the Area Fire can suppress units over a larger area and I assume this is what the tank was doing to the soviet squad. But it would have been nice if the Panzer IV switched back to direct fire at the retreating soviet squad in the hope of inflicting casaulties.

Is there any way to have a tank "monitor" a target even when it disappears and reappears? Is this idea too powerful (all-knowing player stuff)?

[Thompson]

AFAIK, if you target an enemy unit and that unit e.g. ducks behind a wall and breaks LOS, your unit will still "keeps tabs" on that target and if it reappears later, will again target it (unless other more threatening units are spotted). This "monitoring" should already be in the game.

What I would like to see, would be a way to give two kinds of targetting orders: "hard" and "soft" (for want of better terms). Normal targetting orders would be "soft" and would work like targetting works now in CM, i.e. your unit is quite free to switch targets if it needs to. However, "hard" targetting orders (e.g. given by pressing CTRL while clicking your Target-order) would be much stronger and your unit would be very reluctant to change targets (would have to be a close by, very threatening enemy unit to retarget). This way you could e.g. order a MG team to keep firing on a certain unit or area for as much and as long as possible (concentrating on that target). Now, at least once a battle, I have to shout at those virtual men behind an MG42 or Maxim (yeah, I know they can't hear me, but you never know... ) to not change targets against my orders. Damn, it's infuriating at times! OK, I should use the "cover arc" command more.

[Redwolf]

You might try this:

First set area fire where you see the "lost unit" marker

Then set a cover arc over the area where it may appear while retreating. But the cover arc should not include the area fire point.

If it allows you to do that I think it is likely to change to a target in the cover arc, ignoring the previous order. Let us know how it goes.

[Patrocles]

Originally posted by redwolf:

You might try this:

First set area fire where you see the "lost unit" marker

Then set a cover arc over the area where it may appear while retreating. But the cover arc should not include the area fire point.

If it allows you to do that I think it is likely to change to a target in the cover arc, ignoring the previous order. Let us know how it goes.

Your idea sounds brilliant!

[Redwolf]

So, did it work?

[Eric Alkema]

This reminds me of a new addition to my wish list. I don't know what Patrocles is talking about with not changing targets. I can't remember that ever happening to me, at least I don't remember being unhappy about it. In fact, I have the opposite complaint. I am doing recon by fire or suppressing fire and a target pops up close to the target area and my troops keep merrily blasting away at the bushes. My thought was that area fire would cover the entire back end of a cover arc but switch to direct fire on any targets that appear within that arc. In addition I would like another command that would let me target an enemy icon. The idea would be to lay down suppressing fire focused on the spot the enemy was last seen, and if an enemy pops into view close to that point, switch to aimed fire at that unit. This seems like reasonable behavior to me. But what do I know?

[tar]

I suppose you mean something akin to the "target wide" option for artillery, but applied to units with automatic weapons? That would seem to make some sense -- at least as applied to MG units.

[Eric Alkema]

Yeah, I am mostly thinking of MG units. I guess I would take "Target Wide" but in actual use I am almost always more interested in width than depth. I suppose that if in CMX2 we could have some control over the impact pattern of artillery, the same thing might apply to MGs. Or any other weapon for that matter.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Eric Alkema:

This reminds me of a new addition to my wish list. I don't know what Patrocles is talking about with not changing targets. I can't remember that ever happening to me, at least I don't remember being unhappy about it. In fact, I have the opposite complaint. I am doing recon by fire or suppressing fire and a target pops up close to the target area and my troops keep merrily blasting away at the bushes. My thought was that area fire would cover the entire back end of a cover arc but switch to direct fire on any targets that appear within that arc. In addition I would like another command that would let me target an enemy icon. The idea would be to lay down suppressing fire focused on the spot the enemy was last seen, and if an enemy pops into view close to that point, switch to aimed fire at that unit. This seems like reasonable behavior to me. But what do I know?

Sounds good to me.

Michael

[CMplayer]

It would be pretty cool if 'area fire' actually targetted an area. As it is now, it's actually 'point fire', at least if using ordnance.

So for instance, you designate a zone, and the tank fires at anything turning up in the zone, or if nothing is visible, it puts rounds into different parts of the zone (such as sweeping a woodsline).

[ November 12, 2003, 04:32 AM: Message edited by: CMplayer ]

[Andrew Kulin]

There is scatter to where the rounds fall with ordnance when using area fire.

I suppose you could use conscript tankers/gunners to get some real big area fire.

Andrew

[CMplayer]

Originally posted by Andrew Kulin:

There is scatter to where the rounds fall with ordnance when using area fire.

The scatter tends to be long/short, which doesn't help much if trying to cover a lateral area. But of course what you mention does make a difference, and sometimes if you get just the right angle you can threaten several enemy units by putting an area fire target right in between them.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by CMplayer:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Andrew Kulin:

There is scatter to where the rounds fall with ordnance when using area fire.

The scatter tends to be long/short...</font>

[CMplayer]

One thing that irritates me about area fire is the way it's not 'sticky' if the ordnance decides to target something else.

I've got a 50mm mortar, area firing the spot where a gun is located. It then decides to stop area firing to target the gun. Then the gun disappears and the mortar stops firing. Bad Tac AI. Bad.

What's even worse, it seems like the mortar team has to start again from scratch ranging in the target each time it goes from area fire, to targetting the gun, and back again (even though the two points are a couple of meters from each other).

[CMplayer]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by CMplayer:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Andrew Kulin:

There is scatter to where the rounds fall with ordnance when using area fire.

The scatter tends to be long/short...</font>

[Joachim]

Originally posted by CMplayer:

One thing that irritates me about area fire is the way it's not 'sticky' if the ordnance decides to target something else.

I've got a 50mm mortar, area firing the spot where a gun is located. It then decides to stop area firing to target the gun. Then the gun disappears and the mortar stops firing. Bad Tac AI. Bad.

What's even worse, it seems like the mortar team has to start again from scratch ranging in the target each time it goes from area fire, to targetting the gun, and back again (even though the two points are a couple of meters from each other).

Set a very small covered arc for the mortar (or gun, or tank) and the area target will (usually) stick.

For mortars it works best with HQs as spotters, so there is no threat to the mortar, it will probably never see anything itself and it will not shift.

Gruß

Joachim

[CMplayer]

Originally posted by Scarhead:

Set a very small covered arc for the mortar (or gun, or tank) and the area target will (usually) stick.

Thanks. I'll try it, but the problem is that I'm talking about it switching to the very thing lying at the place where I'm area firing. See what I mean? I area fire onto a 'last seen' marker, then the thing reappears right there, and the mortar targets it, and has to rebracket etc etc etc. That's why it seems so ridiculous if the team forgets the range after every switch. If it weren't for that I could live with it.