What about Hulldown and M-to-C orders ?

[Tarkus]

Hi,

I've been reading some interesting topics on the hulldown order, but am still wondering what is the vehicle's stance while seeking the hulldown position. Is it considered like a simple "move" order, or rather "hunt"? Given the fact that one cannot be sure if the relative point of search will be in the unit's LOS, and that the vehicle has always a chance of keep moving in full view of the ennemy, it would be interesting to know if they simply roam around or are at least readying themselves for a fight.

I guess I am still trying to figure out whether the order has any use the way it is implemented in the game. I had rather bad experiences, to say the least, trying to use it, going from a "hehehe, be afraid, I am getting the best position to kick your butt" attitude to something like "WTF is this guy doing ?!?... stop ! stoooop ! *Kabooom* noooooo! -blushing all red in embarrassment" kind of feeling. Exciting, but not very healthy for my troops.

Also, I'd be happy to learn your way of using the Move-to-Contact order. Reading an interesting scout thread started by Bruceov on the CMBB board, someone mentionned using move to contact with a covered arc. Does this method enable the unit to react (meaning, stop moving) only to ennemy units sighted within the arc ? Or will the unit still stops at any sighted ennemy, even a lonely Kübel 3000 yards away ?

Here again, I am simply trying to figure out the best way to use the order. I know it has the advantage of modifying the unit stance from a neutral one (like move) to a more ready state of mind, with consequences on moral.

Best

Tarkus

[37mm]

I'd love a move to contact order order

[tar]

When used with a covered arc, the move-to-contact order only causes the unit to stop moving when something in the covered arc is spotted.

This was a user-requested enhancement, precisely to make the order still useful when there was a distant, but not lethal, enemy unit in sight. I'm not sure in which patch this got added, though.

[Screeny]

mhh now I know I knew teh answer but what was the difference between hunt (drive medium speed stop when enemy in LOS and shoot) and M-to-C (drive medium speed stop when enemy in LOS and shoot)?

[YankeeDog]

Hunt: Move at Medum speed; stop if enemy Armor or Anti-armor unit (ex: ATG) is spotted and engage. If enemy armor/anti-armor unit(s) are destroyed and/or move out of LOS, continue movement until final waypoint is reached.

MTC: Move at walking speed; stop as soon as *any* enemy unit is spotted or unit starts to take incoming fire. If a covered arc is set, unit will stop only if enemy unit is spotted within covered arc or incoming fire is received. Units on MTC orders do not resume movement if enemy moves out of LOS or is destroyed.

[37mm]

I meant a move to vehicle contact order!

It always annoys me when a platoon of T-34's stops moving because it spots an enemy tank crew. You then have to give new orders (for another one minute delay).

Meanwhile if you use move or hunt your tanks keep moving (which makes return fire useless) even if they spot or are engaged by an enemy tank.

[37mm]

I should say that I almost never see my tanks stopping for tank combat when using the hunt command.

[FM Paul Heinrik]

Originally posted by 37mm:

I should say that I almost never see my tanks stopping for tank combat when using the hunt command.

That is weird because my tanks do stop sometimes and shoot, sometimes they shoot on the move. Usually it seems they will stop moving and shoot when they don't kill on their 1st shot.

What's more annoying is when they start to reverse 50m to gain cover when there is good cover only 20m in front of them.

[YankeeDog]

That's odd. My tanks almost always stop to engage other AFVs when on the hunt order. The only vehicles I see them not stopping to engage are unarmored, or very lightly armored & armed vehicles.

The other exception I have noted is when my tank is clearly overmatched. If my hunting vehicle is significantly weaker, it will usually pop smoke and/or run for cover rather than stand up and fight. It seems like relative armor protection matters more for this "fight or flight" determination than does knock-out chance. for example, if you order a lightly armored, but relatively powerfully gunned AFV like an M18 Hellcat to Hunt, and it spots a Pz IV, it will often pop smoke and run rather than standing fast and engaging.

I don't necessarily find this unrealistic. If I was driving around a WWII battlefield in a thin-skinned AFV, I probabaly wouldn't want to stay in one place for very long, either. The problem is that, as noted, the AI isn't very good at picking the best route directing to run in order to break contact on it's own. For this reason, I find Hunt much more useful with really strong armor, like German Big Cats, that can afford to stand and fight. With lighter armor like Hellcats (and even T-34s and Shermans if I'm facing Panthers and Tigers), Shoot and Scoot is usually my movement order of choice. It pretty much guarantees that even if dramatically overmatched (ex: T-70 vs. Panther), my armor will still get off one good shot before making a break for cover. It also allows me to control exactly which cover my tank breaks for, which is generally better than leaving it up to the AI.

Cheers,

YD

[Tarkus]

Interesting. And it seems the hulldown order is rarely used, if ever. So I suppose it doesnt matter much what is the tank stance when moving after overshooting the ridge it was suppose to use for hull defilement, since it is never related to the initial intention of the player, that is, improving the position instead of gambling on a hazardous (and not quite voluntary) bound.

I guess shoot and scoot is probably the best order to adjust a firing position then. Fair enough. As for move-to-contact, I am happy with the change. The order now seems quite useful to me.

Best

[FM Paul Heinrik]

I do use "Hull Down" a lot but I'm not sure haow the ai looks for hull down. The ai seems to select hull down positions that are too restrictive or try and go looking for one in a bad spot. I as the player just assume the role and place my AFV in hull down positions. It really makes a difference with some tanks. Note that several German tanks have weaker turret armor than their hulls, so it is better to get a hull hit than a turret hit.

The actual map and position of the enemy will determine good hull down situations too. I like to use shoot and scoot from a hull down position. Just pop out a little to get a better view, shoot, and reverse back to hull down.

[Tarkus]

If you mean you use hulldown as a tactical disposition, I would venture to say that most CM player feel compelled, one day or another, to do so, since tank combat is so realistically depicted in the game.

My opening question was referring specifically to the "seek hulldown" order which, although deriving from a valid and most useful tank combat concept, is, IMHO, very difficult to use to good effect in the game. That being said, as I didn't know about the enhanced move-to-contact thing, perhaps there is something I also ignore about this hulldown order...

Example.

I got these nifty little BA-10 on my left flank, 4 of them, cool, odd and of doubtful usefulness, up a hill, in full defilement, with the sole task of discouraging any counterattack on that flank while I proceed on my right with the main attack.

Forward recce team spots two PzIIIs doing just that. From what I see of the terrain, it is rather open steppe, with all likelyhood of getting as good a LOS as can be. I order a seek hulldown to the point where the panzers will most likely get into position, hoping for a good shot or two before things get too hot, gambling on the fact that, somehow, four guys againts two give me some kind of an edge.

Of course, I was wrong on both counts. Not mentionning the poor odds on purely technical grounds, the seek hulldown induced my guys to move out of cover, fully, therefore giving away the sole tiny advantage they had. The panzers crew, obviously seasonned vets, were no doubt laughing big time on those sweet top notch optics.

What followed is some good lurking around these forums, only to discover that the order is not really used anyway. Or is it ?

In any case it was, at least, a good show.

Cheers.

[With Clusters]

I've got the same problem, Tarkus. It just seems that the 'seek hull down' order is somehow too vague, or too precice maybe, depending on how you look at it? Even as some omniscient commander with 'Borg' view, or whatever its being called here (why is that, by the way? Something to do with Trek, I assume?), its damn hard to know every dip and curve in the ground where an armored unit is operating. But this might be something a tank commander on the spot would have an eye for? So instead of giving an order for a unit to move off on a linear trajectory ("hmm, there's a good spot of to my right a bit, but I'm just gonna keep driving straight ahead...") where they may or may not find good position (and if they don't, boy, they are just screwed!), it would be nice if there was some kind of general 'seek an optimal fighting position in this given area in regards to known or potential enemy forces in that given area' or some such, and let the tank commander AI work out the details (or do nothing and complain that your orders are full of s**t if there is no such postion available!). Ah, to dream...

[junk2drive]

methinks seek hull down is not a generic order to be given when the enemy is unknown. it can be used as a fine tune tool when your armor has retreated from a now known threat, or advancing toward a suppressed enemy. but not always perfect. sometimes your armor wont move at all after the order given because of something it sees somewhere that you are not looking at.

[YankeeDog]

Good points, all.

A little background information:

"Hull Down" in CM is a binary condition; either an AFV is Hull Down, or it isn't. This isn't true in real life. IRL, any percentage of a vehicle can be in defilade, ranging from just a bit of the tracks behind a rise, all the way up to complete defilade.

Back in CMBO days, there was no "Hull Down" command; the only way to get Hull Down status was to eyball things on level 1 view, move the AFV into position, and then check to make sure you were hull down relative to the target area with the LOS tool. The problem with this was that if you guesstimated your hulldown position just a little bit off, you could end up either (1) not close enough to the crest and having no LOS to the target area at all, or (2) too far up the crest and therefore without Hull Down at all. (2) is particularly annoying since in CM once you crossed the imaginary line from "Hull Down" to "Not Hull Down", unlike RL you lose ALL benefits of defilade.

So for CMBB, BFC added the "Hull Down" command, which allowed players to order a vehicle to hunt towards a point on the map until it was hull down to that point, rather than crawling around on view 1 and guesstimating things for themselves.

Especially for new players and TCP/IP players (where the time it takes to plot orders can be an issue), I suspect the Hull Down command simplifies and streamlines things. Personally, I almost never use it because I got very used to finding hull down positions the old fashioned way playing CMBO. Also, the "Hull Down" command has some liabilities -- it stops the vehicle ONLY when the vehicle is hull down to the selected point, and AS SOON as the vehicle achieves hull down status to that point. If you misjudge things and the vehicle actually never gets a Hull Down LOS to the selected point (ex: LOS line passes through a patch of scattered trees that you don't think will completely block LOS, but actually does), the vehicle will continue to trundle along the movement path right over the crest towards the target area, potentially putting the vehicle in a dangerously exposed poisition. Conversely, sometimes the vehicle stops as soon as it finds hull down to the selected point, but an enemy vehicle that passes 1m away from the point is still 'out of LOS'. Generally, when you are looking for hull down position, you want hull down to a general target area, not just one point. Personally, I find I can more reliably achieve what I want manually than with the Hull Down order.

Whether you find Hull Down positions manually or with the Hull Down order, in general I only occasionally put an AFV into a Hull Down position *before* there's a target. Usually, my vehicles wait in defilade, with an infantry spotter out ahead of them to watch for the approach of enemy armor. When enemy armor shows itself, I "Hunt" them over the rise if I think I have enough of an Armor vs. Gun advantage to stay and duke it out. When Hunting over a rise at an exposed target, you don't need to use the "Hull Down" command - your AFV will stop and engage as soon as it can see the enemy, which will almost always be in a hull down position if there is one. It's a good policy to plot a "Reverse" command back down into defilade after the "Hunt" command so that if the enemy AFV breaks LOS or is KOed, your tank won't hang exposed on top of a ridge for the remainder of the turn.

Alternatively, if my tank is too weak in armor to have much of a chance in a protracted stand-up fight, I will "Shoot and Scoot" over the rise so I get one good shot before retreating to safety.

If you leave your armor exposed, even in a good Hull Down position, usually your opponent's forward infantry scouts will spot your armor waiting in ambush and you'll lose the advantage of surprise. Then he'll try to maneuver around the ambush, or smoke your LOS, drop heavy caliber Arty on your tanks, or whatever. Much better to leave you tanks hidden for as long as possible, and only roll them out when there is an actual target to fire upon.

There are exceptions. For example, in armor-heavy or armor-only battles in very open terrain, combat usually takes place at fairly long range. At longer ranges, armor in hull down position can sometimes remain unspotted until it actually fires. This is especially true if LOS at least partially degraded, such as with overcast skies, or if there is a bit of scattered trees or something between your tank and the target area.

A final note: IMHO, actually being in "Hull Down" is FAR less important in CM for most AFV types than finding Reverse Slope firing positions that add to your effective armor slope. A good reverse slope "Fighting Crest" position above a valley can easily add 15 degrees or more effective armor slope relative to potential enemy shooters in a valley below. In many common armor vs. gun matchups, 15 degrees can make the difference between a ricochet and a penetration.

Example: The IS-2s will survive frontal turret hits from the Panther's 75mm/L70 rounds at medium to long range much more often with help from negative slope, a hit it will only rarely survive with a level aspect.

Cheers,

YD

[With Clusters]

There's some practical advice I can use! Arigato, YD!

[Spotless]

On another somewhat misused command, Shoot and Scoot can be used to move forward as well as reverse. So on the occasion that you want to shoot and pass by (like a between two buildings or sets of trees) you can still get a shot or 2 off, then dash ahead for cover. Works well for high-deflection shots, and to continue the advance while firing at targets.

I tried this with a test mission, using a PZIVF2 vs. a target down a city street. I swung my cover arc 90 degrees left, and did a shoot and scoot to the road junction, then to the other buildings. He rolled up, shot twice and continued forward at a good speed.

[Tarkus]

Originally posted by junk2drive:

(...) seek hull down is not a generic order to be given when the enemy is unknown. it can be used as a fine tune tool when your armor has retreated from a now known threat, or advancing toward a suppressed enemy. but not always perfect. (...)

I think you're right on the mark there. I will experiment with this. It would be cool if you could designate a target out of LOS and that this designation would serve as the relative point for hulldown, instead of the terrain around.

Originally posted by YankeeDog:

"Hull Down" in CM is a binary condition; either an AFV is Hull Down, or it isn't.

This binary condition makes one wonder if it's more advantageous to try to achieve hulldown position with specific vehicles, since the passive protection of certain vehicles being structurally better than others on the turret/upper hull, OR the silouhette value modified being different on each type. I guess CM is computing all these things to come up with a basic modifier.

Now, imagine how things will differ if BFC decide to try and succeed in making the relationship between a unit and the terrain truly dynamic. In the specific case of armor combat, we can suppose the relative value of various vehicles would change somehow.

The Marders, for instance, although poorly armored, might get a new life among many people, for their guns are rather high on the superstructure, making it a reasonnably interesting ambush weapon if the vehicle can assume the proper hull defilement position.

originally posted by With Clusters:

There's some practical advice I can use! Arigato, YD!

Indeed. Very interesting. The reverse slope advice in particular. I'll pay attention to that. Thanks guys.

cheers

[junk2drive]

i am playing a battle with hills. far ahead is a pillbox. as i seek hull down, i pass the side of a hill on the right. before hull down ahead is reached, an unknown a t gun side punches the turret, kaboom.

never lead with armor. send the troops in first.