"Un-hittable Gun" Game Bug?

[Schoerner]

I.e. how much do you guess, is the total fall of a normal projectile of a 0.5 Browning-MG (v0=800m/s) at 100 meters?

Almost 8 cm.

At 300 meters, the fall is 80 cm!

And at 500m the projectile already fell 2.5m.

[ March 03, 2003, 02:18 PM: Message edited by: Schoerner ]

[Bone_Vulture]

One more time.

Want to destroy field guns? Use on-board mortars!

[TheCrow]

The trajectory of a projetile realism, is not the matter. the "unhittable-guns bug" matter(remember the post) are that THEY ARE NOT POSSIBLE TO DIRECT HIT, with LOS, but they can hit you.... It seems that yours tankgunners aren´t enable to adjust fire, this ocurrs in different distances, with differents tanks shooting the same target shot after shot.

In CMBO defilade A/T guns has a goodcover o very good of course this is a correct feature, but it cmbb sometimes A/T guns are "un-hittable" and they can hit you, I think thats problem it´s a

[BadgerDog]

Two quick questions...

1. What is the drop of Panther 75mm HE ordnance at 288 meters?

2. How does one take screen pics (capture) within CMBB?

My apologies if these are answered elsewhere.

Regards,

Badger

[TheCrow]

Finally bug or not bug, Due to the game´s unnatural feature of map contours and altitude levels (with lots of defilade positions). This "UN-HITTABLE A/T GUNS" feature will provoke use and abuse of defilade , in order to get, not good cover position but indestructible one . I think that it would be correct, in order to playability and common sense.

THAT´S ALL

THANK YOU BATTLEFRONT FOR THIS EXCEPTIONAL GAME

[Beckman]

I am shocked people think this is NOT a BUG. Do people who think taht way not know what a BUG is?

I have several games where, just as described, 88mm rounds from GOOD german tanks fall into the ridge, just short. My opponent, a good chap, is joking about how he is going to tunnel under the gun so it falls into a hole.

This discussion is not germaine; drop rates, trajectory. While all good, they are utterly and completely NOT germaine to this discussion. The ATG is NOT hittable. Is that clear all you "it's not a big crowd". Whittman can't hit the gun, no one can hit the target. There is NO variance in these shots. The tankers are shooting where they are programmed, at the gun, AND they think they are hitting it, based on what I have seen.

Because of bug, it is hitting a few meters short. If it was they are bad shots, you would see variance. I had 5 King Tigers and 3 105 stg's blast away at my ATG. ALL 83 shots, over a few minutes, landed within 4 meters of each other, hence the tunneling comment.

The software running the game is in error, no question, PERIOD.

I am shocked people think this is NOT a bug. lol

Anyway, I need to go back to work. I will post a screen shot tonight if that will help.

BTS, please fix, and fix SOON.

thanks

Beckman

[WWB]

The problem is, Beckman, that IRL there were such things as positions nearly unhittable from direct fire. Therefore CMBB should simulate such positions, which it does quite well.

How to defeat such positions? Use alternate tactics. Like targeting your DF HE on the hill slope just in front of the position, keeping thier heads down. Suppressing them with MG fire. Or call in indirect fire on the position to take out the fieldpiece.

In any case, it is not a bug. It is a good deployment.

WWB

[Visom]

I've had some experience of this. On these links there's a few shots (150 kb each) to help explain what I think the original poster meant. This is a bug for sure.

This Flak gun view shows my Flak gun from level 1. It has wasted some 30 (40?) AP rounds on the T-34 without result. Almost every shell hit the turret, so no problem hitting the two tanks from that end.

First T-34 has a good LOS to the gun. Nevermind the yellow target line, it's not relevant in this discussion. Distance is 180 meters. This tank tries to take out the gun, but misses all shots, most of them (roughly 10-15) hits the crest.

Second T-34 also has a good LOS. This tank also hits the crest a lot of times.

Finally, the crest. Gun is unharmed, 9 craters in two rows on the crest. (More shells hit it, but I guess they hit the already existing craters.) At the end of the battle the gun stayed hidden, as it had run out of ammo.

[ March 03, 2003, 03:46 PM: Message edited by: Visom ]

[White Phosphorus]

Originally posted by wwb_99:

The problem is, Beckman, that IRL there were such things as positions nearly unhittable from direct fire. Therefore CMBB should simulate such positions, which it does quite well.

How to defeat such positions? Use alternate tactics. Like targeting your DF HE on the hill slope just in front of the position, keeping thier heads down. Suppressing them with MG fire. Or call in indirect fire on the position to take out the fieldpiece.

In any case, it is not a bug. It is a good deployment.

WWB

But it is not simulated. The game does not know that such a position exists. The Tac AI doesn't know that such a position exists, and the computer opponent doesn't know that such a position exists. And if you trust the game tools, you will not know that such a position exists either. Various positions are simulated and explained through special tags and exposure/tohit ratings, but in this case the game completely ignores the fact that the gun is in a special position. And continues to operate as if the gun is out in the open.

[TheCrow]

THANK YOU VISOM, THIS IS EXACTLY MY "VISION" OF THE PROBLEM

If the aa gun had been a 75mm pak40 all yours t-34 would be destroyed, without possibility of a hit over the A/T Gun.

[Fionn]

" Is it reasonable that an AT gun emplaced just behind a wall and being fired on by direct HE would not suffer from chips of stone, flying rocks etc, when explosions are occuring all around it and against the intervening wall? "

Of course not. OTOH this isn't what is happening in-game. A gun with 0% exposure can still be damaged/destroyed by the types of near-misses you describe.

Roughroad,

In the real world well-placed and dug in ATGs survived FAR more than 13 minutes of the sort of fire you are describing when in ideal positions (as this one seemed to be). Your idea that a shell must land at the gun base to knock it out is incorrect. I have managed to take out many of these hull-down guns using direct fire with minimal loss.

" If you say Mg bullets can pinned defilade antitanks crew , but lots of HE rounds not, I´m sure, we have a problem with defilade."

Nope, we have something akin to reality. You are all probably trying to take it out with high velocity HE flingers ( precisely the WORST type of weapon to use). Where are your low velocity HE flingers, your area bombardments from your own military crests, your suppression, your IF HE etc?

Panther 75mm HE ordnance drop at 288 metres would be ROUGHLY 1.2 metres. Probably more than you thought.

[bbaker]

I think White Phosphorous made the point at the bottom of page 2 and he makes it again a couple posts up. If this is a feature and not a bug, the TacAI should be aware of it, giving you the equivalent of a "hull down." If it is, in fact, an example of just the muzzle sticking over the crest of the hill and a nigh-impossible shot for whatever direct fire is shooting at it, the game ideally should provide this feedback in a tangible way other than round after round plowing into the crest ahead of the gun.

We are, for instance, given the "hull down" notation because since this is a *game* we can't actually sit in the cupola of a tank and look out across a non-idealized landscape. The "hull down" message gives us information that a reasonably well-trained TC could ascertain if were in that position in real life. If this is really a serious issue for a large percentage of players (grogs out there -- please realize you are likely in command of knowledge and expectations the average customer may not be, despite the strength of the CM community) it is something Battlefront might want to take a look at, if not for this game then for the next iteration of the series.

Given that we're playing a game and that issues like this create a doubt in the mind of players (feature?/bug?) it would be nice if the game provided explicit feedback.

[UberFunBunny]

This is definitely a bug.

It will become a "gamey" issue methinks. (I know I use it to my advantage by default now.)

More evidence: I am pretty sure that a tank's secondary weapon (MG) can hit the target that its main gun cannot.

[SonBae]

The pics Visom posted are of a game he and I just finished and was the case I mentioned in my post.

There is a lot of confusion in this thread. Clarification #1, we are not talking about HE supressing a crew or MGs being the better way, the crew being fanatic or what. This issue is that a Tank (in this case) stops to shot at a gun (AA/AT/Inf) and the tank's shots hit the crest of an intervening hill, while the AT/AA/inf guns shots all aim true and will hit the tank.

The question boils down to is this a bug (like the seek-hull down bug) or is a "feature" that actually includes the rounds trajectory and max elevation/depression of the guns in questions.

I do not think the trajectory answer applies here because of the range involved in Visom's and my battle. gun depression could be the case (the T34 could not depress the barrel enough to hit the gun due to the guns location and the T34 being one a slope).

Not sure of the cause, but am curious.

[xerxes]

CMBO and CMBO do model the height of the shooter. The shot is calculated from the height and has definite effects observable in the game. This is clearly what is going on in the situations described, the height the gun allows it to look over a crest yet HE fired at the gun hits the crest.

Is this a bug? No, it's an accurate depiction of reality.

TacAI: The TacAI does not account for this phenomenon that emerges from the physics modelled in the game engine.

LOS indication: A targeting line is allowed even though the chance of hitting is at best vanishingly small (and in some cases may even be zero, hard to test for that).

Is there a TacAI bug? Yes, the TacAI should be smarter.

Is there a LOS bug? Maybe, it's almost impossible to test the difference between zero and almost zero. There should be an indication that you can shoot, but your chance of hitting is awful.

Should the nature of this position be indicated by the game? I'd say yes to that also, it's effectively a super hulldown position.

[Schoerner]

Originally posted by UberFunBunny:

It will become a "gamey" issue methinks. (I know I use it to my advantage by default now.)

I wouldn't call a situation that can be explained very well with ballistics a gamey issue.

Strangely this "gamey" issue leads to searching AT-positions very carefully (realistically) but - much more important - forces to use realistic tactics against AT-guns, instead of dumb head-to-head shootouts with tanks.

IMO a "gamey" issue won't lead to more realistic tactics on both sides.

More evidence: I am pretty sure that a tank's secondary weapon (MG) can hit the target that its main gun cannot.

Can you proove this assumtion?

That would be an evidence, that there's something wrong, 'cause the drop of a MG-projectile is much less, than a HE's vertical drop.

[SteveS]

I've come across this a few times in some recent battles and decided to do some testing by placing a target (a trench) near the crest of a hill and position an AFV below it so it had LOS to the trench. I can confirm that the co-ax MG can always hit the target in these cicumstances but that the main gun almost always smacks its shells into the hill side well before the trench.

Distance between target and AFV was around 150 metres.

As a sanity check I also placed the target on the side of the hill facing the AFV and the AFV hit it with no problem.

Unless the MG fire is signficantly more arced than the HE fire (are MG bullets modelled ballistically or do they travel in straight lines ?), what I would have expected to see based on the geometry of the situation was the HE shells fall on a very wide pattern in front of and BEHIND the target as the shells travel near parallel to the ground.

This is only a wild guess, but I wonder if what is happening is that the collision detection distance between the HE shells and the ground is simply too coarse, i.e. the shells always explode in front of the trench because the distance from the ground to shell is less than some minimum distance as the shell crosses the crest.

Seems too simple a bug, but you never know.

[UberFunBunny]

Originally posted by Schoerner:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> More evidence: I am pretty sure that a tank's secondary weapon (MG) can hit the target that its main gun cannot.

Can you proove this assumtion?

That would be an evidence, that there's something wrong, 'cause the drop of a MG-projectile is much less, than a HE's vertical drop. </font>

[Pud]

Might this be somehow related to the "infantry in open ground having 0% exposure even to stationary Tanks (ie my KV2) as close as 200m away" bug?

BF.C's total silence on these recent spate of bugs is perplexing.

[PeterX]

I guess the work around is manually engaging the MG and saturating the gun emplacement with area fire. And, maybe, giving the AFVs a short infantry cover arc so they don't revert to HE. This has been an eye opening thread. The Tank/AT Gun interaction will never be the same again. I'm already revising, reluctantly, my tactics.

[bbaker]

I'd be surprised if it's really a matter of projectile "drop". Although a shell from a gun may fall x centimeters when fired y-hundred meters, in this case it would only matter how far the shell falls after it passes the rise or ridge the gun is hiding behind. In these examples the distances seem to be usually on the order of 10-20 meters, and I'd imagine projectile drop over that range is negligible.

Actually, if the ground is sloping down on the other side of the rise, anyway, I can't see how the varying drop of different projectiles could account for, for instance MG rounds suppressing but HE shells not; I'm fairly certain the down-slope of the ground is going to more than compensate for the drop of either of those types of projectiles.

Battlefront is usually very, very good about responding to issues like this, so I'd imagine that either they are busy with something at the moment or are taking a well-earned vacation. It would be nice to hear from them, though, on this and some other issues (like why I can't indirect fire my 50mM mortars within 20M of a captured friendly )

Edited because I am stupid.

[ March 03, 2003, 08:16 PM: Message edited by: bbaker ]

[bbaker]

Legend42 posted this in another thread. It appears to be the same problem, but much more obviously a bug.

A reg 50mm at gun has a clear los to a bldg just over a crest such that 90% of the bldg is visible from the at gun's point of veiw.The los line is clear blue.I area target the bldg, but when it fires all of the rounds land short into the upper ridge right in front of it, even a green crew would not waste all this ammo into the hill, besides why isnt it hitting the bldg?,its a fairly easy target, i can see some shells going high to the right or left, but these all fall short.Whats up with that?

[Wicky]

Didn't this whole issue start of in V1.00 & 1.01 as an 'acknowledged bug' when afv's/guns were shooting from behind crest at targets in LOS and shots were landing right under their noses and almost blowing themselves up on occaison. V1.02 seems to have compensated for this by moving the 'problem' in the re-code/patch further up range to the next crest beore the target.

The only thing I can recall hearing from BTS (forgive me for lack of a pointer) is the rationilization that shots are walking up to to the target. Which they don't from observation as the average furrow being dug are quite significantly shorter of range and subsequent shots fall consistently within a limited short range (haven't noticed any overshoot getting anywhere near a target) than the most distant of a furrow grouping. Plus 15+ turns to possibly walk to a target to knock on the front door could be stretching it a bit far.

It seems strange that this fundamental has cropped up in CMBB as it didn't seem a issue in CMBO.

Great when it works for you but a bummer when it doesn't....

[ March 03, 2003, 08:50 PM: Message edited by: Wicky ]

[RoughRoad]

Referring again to the original post...

I've played another turn, and noticed that, surprisingly, the gun IS now getting hit by a fair amount of MG fire from the distant Russian armor, even as their massed HE fire continues to dig craters or whiff through the air harmlessly.

I'm not sure that this was happening all along-- it might just be happening now because the Russian armor is slowly advancing and thus possibly changing the gun's defilade. Otherwise, it sounds suspicious that MG's are hitting, but not the guns.

Anyway, this lone 105 field gun has now survived 14 turns engaging over 18 Russian KV's and T-34's, individually killed 10 of them now, been shot at over 200 times by HE with 0 hits-- but somebodies MG is finally getting morale results.

[JonS]

Originally posted by Wicky:

It seems strange that this fundamental has cropped up in CMBB as it didn't seem a issue in CMBO.

I saw it in CMBO.