Why do my vehicles keep getting bogged?

[Private Bluebottle]

In several games I've played lately, my tracked and semi-tracked vehicles keep getting bogged!

The funny thing is, that my wheeled vehicles apparently never do.

I was under the impression that the later Panzers (Panther/Tiger II, in particular) and the various Russian tanks, such as the T-34 and KV-1s had very wide tracks with superior flotation across mud and soft ground. Yet these vehicles, no matter how fast I move them, often end up bogged.

Is the chance to get bogged too high?

[Oddball_E8]

I just see it as "Bogged" meaning more than just getting your tracks/wheels stuck in the terrain... other things such as engine overheating, gear problems and so forth are all collected into Bogging... that way it makes a little more sense when a tank gets bogged on a nice dry asphalt road (has happened to me)

[Jim Boggs]

Originally posted by Private Bluebottle:

In several games I've played lately, my tracked and semi-tracked vehicles keep getting bogged!

You talk as if it were a bad thing!

Is the chance to get bogged too high?

The odds grow with each post. Your time has now come.

[theike]

No matter how fast u move them?

The faster u move them the more change u have that they will bog.

So down on the speed, and maybe avoid the more elevated bits, and try to keep settings as dry as possible, and dont turn too much, nore too quick.

(also try keeping to roads)

I bet then u atleast halfen your bog percentage.

[Edward Windsor]

If I remember correctly, the chances of bogging were reduced slightly with the patches - are you running 1.03?

Plus there was a good post quite a while back by a chap (Paul something?) who suggested the current model was rather basic ... I think the conclusion was that with a lack of hard data on the effectiveness of all the different designs, a simple ground pressure calculation is made - obviously this is bad news for the Big Cats.

I'm sure someone more technically-minded than me can enlighten you further ... or completely disprove everything I've just rambled on about.

Teddy

Edited to add: As far as I'm aware, speed doesn't affect your chances of bogging - in fact, getting somewhere quickly is beneficial as there's less time to get stuck...

[ September 09, 2003, 11:24 AM: Message edited by: Edward Windsor ]

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Edward Windsor:

As far as I'm aware, speed doesn't affect your chances of bogging - in fact, getting somewhere quickly is beneficial as there's less time to get stuck...

I've been proceeding on the opposite assumption: that the faster you go, the more likely your driver is to make a mistake and either drive into the mud or hit a rock or stump that will break the tracks. Presumably speed is also harder on the engine and running gear.

Has anybody ever actually run any tests to find out if speed effects the bogging chance? And if you do get bogged, does it matter what speed you set to get unbogged? I had three or four tanks get bogged in a battle recently, and all but one got free when I gave them Move commands.

Michael

[ September 09, 2003, 01:16 PM: Message edited by: Michael Emrys ]

[Oddball_E8]

i believe that speed has nothing to do with it. IIRC there was a mentioning of this in a post about bogging some time ago. I think that it was mentioned that there was a static bogging chance for each "square" a tank moved through. This chance depended on the groundpressure of the tank and the terrain in the "square" but it was tested only once per turn/square the tank moved there... so if you pass ten squares of soft ground in a turn the computer made ten "rolls" for bogging that turn. No matter what speed you were moving at...

of course i have been known to make mistakes... from time to time...

[Edward Windsor]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

Has anybody ever actually run any tests to find out if speed effects the bogging chance?

Here you go Michael.

There are stacks of previous threads on this stuff, but the guy with all the fascinating tidbits was Paul Jungnitsch - try searching for some his posts (one here) for illuminating info and fascinating facts.

Toodle pip,

Teddy

[Michael Emrys]

Yeah, I wonder whatever happened to old Paul. He had some good stuff.

Michael

[Sergei]

I felt an urge to test this for myself. My test scenario included the following:

Tanks are crossing a ~720 meter distance over clear, flat terrain. There are 20 T-34/M44's and 20 StuG IIIG's. 10 of each move on Fast orders, 10 on Move orders.

Then I run this under two different settings. One is with dry terrain conditions. Other is muddy. The dry version I run four times, the muddy one twice. The following results for muddy I have doubled to make the figures easier to compare.

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">DRY CONDITIONS Bog/Imm. w/Move w/Fast F+M comb.

StuG III G 2/1 3/1 5/2

T-34/85 M44 2/0 0/0 2/0

.

(The following are doubled:)

MUD CONDITIONS Bog/Imm. w/Move w/Fast F+M comb.

StuG III G 48/12 64/14 102/26

T-34/85 M44 16/0 22/4 38/4</pre>

[JonS]

Paul still has the papers on MMP stored here

[Michael Emrys]

Thanks for the link, Jon. For some reason, the page wouldn't load all the way, but the illustrations that I could see were very interesting. I hope this data will be incorporated into CM.

Michael

[Mies]

Has anyone ever tried to shift to reverse when getting bogged. It seems to me that if you (fast) move a vehicle and it gets bogged the best change of freeing it is not to put another move command in. If you order it to reverse (even for 1 meter) and than to move ahead on its slightly altered path it looks as if it has a better change of freeing itself.

Just my own method there of course !

Mies

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Mies:

Has anyone ever tried to shift to reverse when getting bogged. It seems to me that if you (fast) move a vehicle and it gets bogged the best change of freeing it is not to put another move command in. If you order it to reverse (even for 1 meter) and than to move ahead on its slightly altered path it looks as if it has a better change of freeing itself.

Just my own method there of course !

Mies

Nah. That's your imagination only. Of the same category as kissing a rabbit's foot before going to combat. Just look at my test results. You'll see that the majority of bogged vehicles managed to free themselves and continue without any help from me, the player. And I remember Steve or other such saying officially that there's no trick to getting unstuck. The best thing to do is to just wait and see if the crew manages to get free or if their vehicle becomes immobilized - there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

It has also been officially noted that you get stuck more easily in valleys than on hills.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Sergei:

It has also been officially noted that you get stuck more easily in valleys than on hills.

Which makes sense as water tends to collect and remain on low ground whereas higher ground tends to be better drained.

Unfortunately, valleys are usually where I want run my forces as they are less likely to get shot at there.

Michael

[theike]

: i allways reverse when bogged.

And as soon as possible beciause i found that waiting around with the vehicle still on move meant after a minute it would allmost surtain be immobile, but if u reverse it as soon as u are abble to, it had a bigger chance of unbogging.

I talked about this to my brother and he seemed to be doing the same thing, if possible...so maybe, more do, because it feels reel.

If it actualy helps; well i dont know.

But what the hell; i will just keep doing it anyways, u never know

[MikeyD]

I've always assumed you're more likely to bog in the lowland bits of territory, a opposed to the hills and ridges. Others have told me I'm imagining things, though.

I get the feeling the T34 boggs more than it ought in more passable terrain than it ought. Compare T34 track width to PzIV track width.

[Private Bluebottle]

Thanks for all the replies. My own observations were that:

Vehicle speed does seem to affect the likelihood of bogging - fast moves are more likely than hunt orders;

Crew experience appears to make no difference - I would have assumed that the more experienced the crew, the less likely the chance of bogging but I've seen green crews go across a patch of ground easily, only to see a crack vehicle get bogged there, when it followed;

Location is seemingly unimportant - I've had vehicles bog on the sides of hills, while vehicles in valleys have simply sailed along;

Vehicle type appears inconsistent - as I mentioned in my original post tracked vehicles appear to get bogged more easily than wheeled ones. Again, I've had wheeled vehicles cross a patch of ground without getting bogged followed by a tracked vehicle and the first was free while the second was bogged as well as vice-a-versa.

My own military expeirence was such that I regularly had to recover or help recover wheeled vehicles which had become bogged while tracked ones rarely got bogged from my observations (and bear in mind, this was in Australia were when it rained, everything turned to deep mud.

From my understanding, tracked vehicles, as long as they can prevent themselves from "bottoming" - getting their bottom hull plates firmly in contact with mud will keep going reasonably well. Once that happens though, suction will prevent them moving.

I still believe that the chance of bogging is too high for tracked vehicles and not sufficiently high for wheeled vehicles.

My remedy for bogging has been to immediately reverse the vehicle, if possible. This generally seems to get the unstuck but not always.

[Redwolf]

Bluebottle, there is indeed a bug in CMBB.

Try the Axis 4-wheel armored cars. They are practially unsinkable, they are much better than tracked vehicles. Somebody didn't correct adjust the bogging chances of wheeled and tracked vehicles.

Can you say anything about the turn rates of tracked vehicles?

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Oddball_E8:

i believe that speed has nothing to do with it. IIRC there was a mentioning of this in a post about bogging some time ago. I think that it was mentioned that there was a static bogging chance for each "square" a tank moved through.

No, Martin (Moon) said that fast move has a higher bogging chance. But there was some confusion whether that was per meter or per second.

He said the bogging chance per meter would be higher in fast move. My tests however indicate the chance is only higher per second in fast mode. Since fast move is, well, faster, you can go more meters per average bogging chance in fast than in hunt or move.

Which makes perfect sense for me. I never drove tanks, but I drove a lot of wheeled stuff through mud, brush und other crop and it is the easier you faster you get. I also read WW2 reports how tank drivers literally tried to glide through areas of soft ground - which obviously requires a high start speed.

[Sergei]

But with high speed the risk of the vehicle getting out of control and getting stuck onto a tree stump or other such grows larger. It is more a matter of technique, and the driver can't really be choosing a good route and driving 100 km/h at the same time (even the RAC teams have the route all surveyed before the contest).

As the terrain in CM doesn't have variety in muddiness (unless there is "SOFT" ground tiles) the way there is in reality, you don't get to choose the precise route. But I would think it's reasonable to assume that the "driver" can see things, and that his chances of noticing puddles of mud is greater if he's moving slower. And at micro level, he might actually be doing short spurts across soft ground just as a measure of keeping going.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by redwolf:

He said the bogging chance per meter would be higher in fast move. My tests however indicate the chance is only higher per second in fast mode. Since fast move is, well, faster, you can go more meters per average bogging chance in fast than in hunt or move.

I'd like to see these test results. It seems contrary to my findings.

[Mies]

Quote by Theike:

But what the hell; i will just keep doing it anyways, u never know

That's my idea too. Whether reversing immediately after getting bogged actually works or not, it feels as if I (my crew that is) have done the utmost to get going again.

Mies

[Private Bluebottle]

Originally posted by redwolf:

Bluebottle, there is indeed a bug in CMBB.

Try the Axis 4-wheel armored cars. They are practially unsinkable, they are much better than tracked vehicles. Somebody didn't correct adjust the bogging chances of wheeled and tracked vehicles.

Can you say anything about the turn rates of tracked vehicles?

As in the game or real life? My understanding it has a great deal to do with the type and quality of the gearbox. Say, a Merritt-Brown will allow much greater variability than a crash-box in a Russian light tank.

[tar]

I did some tests a while back which, although not entirely conclusive in all cases, certainly suggested that you will travel farther without bogging or immobilizing at faster speeds than at slower ones.

My conclusion was that it was never worthwhile to move vehicles at slow speed.

See a thread I started a while ago:

Bogging Not Affected By Speed