Night combat friendly fire issues?

[Sirocco]

I can't recall a single incident of friendly fire at night in either CMBO or CMBB, however in two recent CMAK QB games I've come across it.

The first was understandable, but the second was puzzling, and I thought it might be interesting to share experiences of friendly fire at night.

I was attacking with a British company across Italian scrub, a rifle platoon leading which had reached the forward edge and had two of it's three squads in the woods beyond it.

Behind the platoon were two Vickers HMG's with a Company HQ, and further back and slightly to the right was an FO. All units, apart from the FO, were in command.

I ordered the last remaining rifle squad into the woods. It was at all times under command. What surprised me was that as it was advancing into the woods it targetted the FO. It even switched to Area Target.

The FO was 160 metres behind it, in a crater, and the woods held the first point of contact.

Has anyone else had odd experiences with friendly fire at night?

[Redwolf]

That's nothing.

I have definding squads fire at their own people in the same trench, before the enemy was anywhere close.

The friendly fire code is a bit like the airplane code. For real realism you need friendly fire but if you skip all the steps to tune probabilities to make realistic cases of friendly fire more probable than unrealistic one it would have been better to leave out that feature in first place.

For more realistic night simulations use thick fog and dawn.

[Sirocco]

I came across a questionable example of friendly fire in another thread recently, which is partly the reason why I raised this. If it is a bug I'd like to see it addressed in the next patch.

[MikeyD]

You never saw friendly fire incidents in CMBB? Wow, consider yourself lucky! Sometimes it feels like the Three Stooges had snuck into camp that night. Panicing for no good reason, firing on friendlies, invariably dropping artillery in exactly the wrong place. Friend fire is designed into night battles. Its not much of a problem if you're fighting with crack paratroopers, but night fighting with green and conscript troops can be as frustrating as trying to herd cats.

...which doesn't sound historically inaccurate.

[Seanachai]

Originally posted by redwolf:

That's nothing.

I have definding squads fire at their own people in the same trench, before the enemy was anywhere close.

Sorry, Redwolf, but informed sources indicate that your style of leadership makes the men testy. It may be your tone, or something, but many of them just seem to want to lash out at who ever is available...

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

You never saw friendly fire incidents in CMBB? Wow, consider yourself lucky! Sometimes it feels like the Three Stooges had snuck into camp that night. Panicing for no good reason, firing on friendlies, invariably dropping artillery in exactly the wrong place. Friend fire is designed into night battles. Its not much of a problem if you're fighting with crack paratroopers, but night fighting with green and conscript troops can be as frustrating as trying to herd cats.

...which doesn't sound historically inaccurate.

I think the squad in question was actually Veteran, at least Regular. What I find odd is it was firing literally over it's shoulder at an area where there hadn't been contact. The FO wasn't a huge distance from the start line.

[tar]

Ah, but from the point of view of the squad involved, there HAD been contact. They spotted the enemy, and what was even worse, the enemy was sneaking up from BEHIND. Better kill them quick!