Explain this....

[civdiv]

I spend all this time having this PIAT guy sneak up on this German halftrack, and now I can't even see him. The more I get into the details of this game, it seems as if the LOS mechanics are just plain screwed up. I've had open shots like this and had no LOS, while at the same time I've have the AI shoot through bushes that clearly obstructed the LOS. Am I missing something here? Now these screenshots are taken with unit scale at realistic (smallest), tree and terrain both at extreme.

LOS from the PIAT guy to the HT;

LOS from the HT to the PIAT guy (PIAT guy circled);

full screen of the last is here;

http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/6802/los27yp.jpg

And the blocked LOS;

[ February 02, 2006, 04:08 PM: Message edited by: civdiv ]

[Moronic Max]

Terrain is an abstraction; there're enough trees and branches and leaves in the way to block LOS, even if you can't see them on the map.

[Kingfish]

The PIAT team is in scattered trees. I can't tell the distance, but appears to be far enough that the trees would block his LOS.

I'm not sure if you know this, but the tree graphics do not represent actual trees in the game, so you can have what appears to be a straight, unobstructed shot when in reality the computer reads it as blocked.

[Wicky]

See page 49 in the PDF manual (Environment) which covers the abstraction of trees.

"...their actual placement plays no role for the game as such, as can be seen by the fact that tree density can be toggled by the user to fit hardware performance ability...

Most of the time such things are clear from looking at the map (and your judgement will become better with playing experience), but when in doubt, the LOS tool provides the answer.

Terrain also changes with the different seasons. For example, depending on the scenario thick (summer) or leafless (winter). Grain fields also change dramatically with the seasons and weather. This has a direct impact on the concealment and cover provided by such terrain."

[ February 02, 2006, 03:11 PM: Message edited by: Wicky ]

[gautrek]

I seem to be having a LOS problem with this bleeding thread.

I have to scroll to view the whole text.Now i know how your PIAT guy feels.

[JasonC]

See the orange part of the LOS line, before the black bit? That is how far he can see through the trees. At the edge of that, incidentally, his chance of actually hitting the critter is basically zero, because there are so many branches in the way. If you want to tag a vehicle with a PIAT, you need to be near the edge of the trees, not 50m deep inside them.

[civdiv]

Originally posted by gautrek:

I seem to be having a LOS problem with this bleeding thread.

I have to scroll to view the whole text.Now i know how your PIAT guy feels.

There you go gautrek, I resized one image. I had purposely left it large so you could see the PIAT guy.

In regards to the abstraction of the LOS', it makes this a real pain in the ass to play. As I said, sometimes I have a clear LOS, visually, but I my LOS turns out to be blocked. Sometimes the LOS is clearly, visually blocked, but the AI tears me a new one.

Well, my PIAT guy crept closer and took 8 shots, with the lowest hit % being 28%, and he missed everytime. The HT ended up slaughtering 4 squads that I had crept close, trying to assault the vehicle. The HT ended up killing 24 of my guys until a 3" mortar ended up getting a lucky hit, after expending about two dozen rounds (My 50mm mortars missed with another 30 rounds or so.). The guy stayed buttoned but he kept on firing.

In related news I crept 2 squads up behind a trench with 2 MG-42s in it. My guys got within 10 meters or so before they started shooting. I ended up giving them an advance. As both squads were slaughtered to the man, and their HQ reduced to one man who surrendered, should I have assaulted? I mean, the runs started running from about 10 meters away, and the MG-42s still had time to swing around and nail both squads at point blank range. WTF?

But I did get a marginal out of the scenario.

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by civdiv:

In related news I crept 2 squads up behind a trench with 2 MG-42s in it. My guys got within 10 meters or so before they started shooting. I ended up giving them an advance. As both squads were slaughtered to the man, and their HQ reduced to one man who surrendered, should I have assaulted?

Should have blasted away with the 2 squads and HQ for at least half a turn, and then send one of the squads in while the others provided covering fire.

[David I]

Civdiv,

ALWAYS check your LOS with the Line of sight indicator not your eye.

David

[JasonC]

To amplify Kingfish's comments, you take ground by fire. Attempting to enter the same cover and location as an intact, up and firing enemy unit will frequently result in entire unit KIA. The order involved has nothing to do with it, except insofar as it changes the likelihood they fire on the way. It is the fire that does all of it.

Anywhere inside 35m your men will be throwing grenades as well as shooting, and you should just go stationary to maximize their firing time. Sending a unit within 10m means initiating close combat, and should only be done to finish off a unit you can see is already heads down and trying to crawl away.

[MeatEtr]

Wow, this one brings back memories from several years ago when cmbo first came out.

Originally posted by civdiv:

In regards to the abstraction of the LOS', it makes this a real pain in the ass to play. As I said, sometimes I have a clear LOS, visually, but I my LOS turns out to be blocked. Sometimes the LOS is clearly, visually blocked, but the AI tears me a new one.

Actually, the LOS tool makes the game a helluva alot more easier and intuitive to play.

[civdiv]

Ok, some related questions, and then I'll post some screenshots that really confuse me. Shots that clearly show LOS' bbeing traced through the ground. Not through bushes, not through scattered trees, but right through good ol' mother earth. Or am a beating a dead horse here? I can see terrain features such as individual bushes being approximated, but the actual ground also?

1. Anyways, sneaking, hiding, etc. It seems that my infantrey squads in particular, seem to have a habit of coming out of hiding and/or firing, even if I give them a sneak and hide command. I would assume a sneak and hide command would make them sneak for a while, and then coninue to be stealthy when they reach the end of their movement. And I am not talking about firing at nearby units, I am talking about targets that are almost 200 meters away.

2. Also, if I give a unit a sneak and hide command, and a covered arc, will that cause them to pop out of their sneak hide status to engage the target?

3. The same with a movement command. If I give them a covered arc and an enemy either enters the covered arc, or the unit moves close enough so the enemy is in the covered arc, will they cease movement and begin to engage?

4. The same question as 3, but what if they are sneaking?

[civdiv]

David and meatetr,

I agree the LOS tool helps a lot. But my problems center around picking out good positions to move to, to engage particular targets. You can't check LOS, besides with the mark-1 eyeball, unless you have a unit occupying the location you want to determine LOS from.

jason,

Having spent a lot of time in the military, I know what orders and such I would give my guys, and I'd have a good idea of how they would respond. I'm just trying to translate that into the mechanics of this game.

So what is the equivelent of; 'Ok, sneak towards that halftrack there and get into a good position to nail him with the PIAT. Now, if he spots you, take your shot'

[stikkypixie]

What about move to contact?

[flamingknives]

With a cover armour arc.

[Other Means]

Estimate the distance from the edge of the woods to the HT. Add 10m. MTC with a cover arc set to this value towards the HT HT through the woods. Keep the HT buttoned with fire = probably a dead HT. Probably.

You're best having him stop before the end of the minute as close to the HT as possible without leaving cover and without firing. Then fire for the full minute the next turn.

A PIATs max accurate range is ~40m, or at least that's what I play to. It looks to me like you're trying to fire 93m through trees - would you do that in real life?

I've never seen LOS through the ground. There's issues with woods etc but you learn that 1 10*10m "tile" can probably be seen through but any more than that no.

Scattered trees can go out to 25 or so. Just guesses, find your own values.

You only assault when you know there's no one with a full loaded machine gun waiting for you.

Find, fix, flank, finish.

Find the enemy.

Fix them in position with fire - get their heads down.

Flank - get to a positon you can fire past their cover, generally at some angle to there current facing.

Finish. Kill them. Generally with bullets but the final holdouts can be cleared with grenades.

Not find - charge.

One of the best things to me in CM is seeing these small scale firefights and how you can take some cover to flank a position, and then use that position falling to get leverage on more positions until the line is broken. But it's all done with fire, not bodies.

[civdiv]

Well, I had a saved game from a couple of turns previous to the disaster I described above. One of the causes for the disaster was Murphy showing up near the halftrack. While I had my PIAT guy plinking away at the halftrack, I had mortars firing at the HT trying to get it to button, and two squads assaulting it. The mortars did button the HT, but then I learned yet another lesson in CM; a buttoned HT still fires. Buttoned tanks can't use the mg in the cupula, so it makes no sense whatsoever, except maybe the fact that the HT has a small gun shield.

Anyway, just as the two squads assaulted, a half platoon of German reinforcements appeared litterally 5 meters from the two squads. The squads made short work of the reinforcements, but it kept them from assaulting the buttoned HT, that promptly slaughtered them. Maybe CM should show off board sound contacts to let you know something is about to appear? But that is definately a contributing factor in the HT causing 24 casualties.

Anyways, on to the tale of success. On the mg's in the trench, I crept close, and then dropped some area 76mm mortar fire on them (I could see the trench but I had no targets.). While I did take one casualty due to the mortars, I did suppress one MG and the HQ element. My two squads fired on them to suppress them more for one minute. One MG (the pinned one) did quickly recover, turned, and killed my HQ element and got two guys from one squad. But the other MG panicked and routed, and was gunned down by my other squad. With both squads concentrating on the other MG, he was routed, and then my squads closed in a wiped them out.

On the other flank I moved my PIAT closer (around 40 meters), and he nailed the HT with his first shot.

[ February 03, 2006, 09:38 AM: Message edited by: civdiv ]

[civdiv]

A PIATs max accurate range is ~40m, or at least that's what I play to. It looks to me like you're trying to fire 93m through trees - would you do that in real life?

I'm not very familiar with the PIAT. I guess I sort of equated it with a shorter range bazooka. But regardless, the first time I tried with the PIAT he started with a 28% hit chance. He probably took 6 shots from that location, and then he moved up, and missed twice more. The HT wasn't moving, nor was the PIAT guy taking fire such that he was even cautious. He still missed with all 8 shots.

What would I do in real life with a PIAT? I'd throw it away and nail the HT with an AT-4.

[Grimly Fiendish]

I have a situation related to civdiv's 1st question---actually, the opposite question. I just lost a Sherman to a schreck firing about 50 meters or more from woods through a small heavy building that my Sherman was right behind. I can't give you a screenshot, but on the lowest scale setting, the house definitely covered the tank completely---although the tank was initially able to fire at the schreck before it hid and popped him. So I guess the tank was firing through the house too, but just around the corner and A LOT CLOSER!

I know you can target and sometimes fire a tank shell or hail of bullets through a building. But a schreck? How is this possible? And of what use are game mechanics if this is allowed to happen?

(Pointless whining: Why don't tanks use area fire to protect themselves from AT teams they can't see? I know they can do it to other tanks.)

[ February 03, 2006, 09:55 AM: Message edited by: Dave Stockhoff ]

[civdiv]

Now, another case of a screwy LOS computation;

Hmmmmm......

link to full picture;

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/589/losa8vb.jpg

It is clearly (to me) blocked by the actual ground;

link to full picture;

http://img431.imageshack.us/img431/1500/losb6km.jpg

Here it is with terrain and trees removed;

full image;

http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/2192/losc4ic.jpg

Hmmmm...., mirrors;

full image;

http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/679/lose0po.jpg

[ February 03, 2006, 10:41 AM: Message edited by: civdiv ]

[Wicky]

@civdiv - Quick question to clarify: What FOW setting are your playing on?

Edit: Sorry Dave S not to you - yours is like a fluke winning Euro lottery or rather not winning the jackpot after buying 176 million tickets or sumfink

From the pics the soldiers were presumably standing when they were legitimately spotted behind the small rise on the edge of the woods. The 'targeting' line has a small linger time even when the target drops out of LOS and was that when you took the screenie?

If I were in that situation I'd either immediately 'hide' the crunchies, to try and maintain a break in contact, and give them a sneak order deeper into cover, or aternatively issue a withdraw order again deeper into cover

[ February 03, 2006, 12:29 PM: Message edited by: Wicky ]

[Grimly Fiendish]

Don't know if you mean me, but I always use Extreme.

[junk2drive]

civdiv I had the opposite happen with a unit (PB?) below a ridge. As my troops moved above the ridge they were hit and went to ground. I had no LOS to the unit but it continued to fire at the troops.

Remember that we see three solidier icons but the game sees 10-12 men spread out in a "footprint".

[Grimly Fiendish]

Good point for infantry, junk2drive. But what about a tank?

[junk2drive]

Sherman tankers bow their heads when they pray = no LOS