Smoke, Dust, Arty, and You

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Martyr:

Redwolf,

I notice that your rounds after adjustment are (while still off target) much closer to the intended target. This is consistent with a pattern I've noticed in my tests: adjustments might not be on-target precisely, but they're closer (and sometimes close enough for government work).

That would still be an inconsistency big enough to name it a bug because a fresh strike with LOS will always be on target but an adjusted one with equivalent LOS at adjustment time will not. From a few tests I also see that you might be right that it tends to be closer, but it certainly doesn't come closer with two adjustments in a row.

Obviously the problem is that CM is trying to model an adjust without spotting rounds but no real observer would do that, if he couldn't adjust in one step he wouldn't continue to FFE to walk to the target if the strike is seriously off-target and maybe falling on friendlies.

Has anyone noticed whether this is the case more often than not? If so, it might be another instance of Working As Designed. Perhaps the (high) chance of adjusted fire still being off-target is the price you pay for adjusting a plot that (as far as the game is concerned) was blind at the beginning. Retargetting (blue line) with clear LOS will clear up the problem, but of course takes more time.

Just wondering. If it's a bug, I definitely hope it will be fixed.

The actual bug is going for FFE after the spotter could not verify that the strike will be on target, although the mission has been ordered as an observed mission. That is in no way realistic.

As I said earlier, CM apparently tries to simplify every strike into one of two case - observed and unobserved. But it makes a huge difference whether the thing has been ordered as an observed strike or not, you cannot just forget about that fact.

The adjustment which comes only closer but not close to the target is also obviosly designed to model the walking of a true unobserved strike into observed areas, in which case it is realistic. But it is not realistic if a) by the time you adjust you have LOS to the new target and the off-target strike is observed, too.

What we see here is a perfectly fine mechanism for true out-of-LOS missions. But squeezing missions that start out as observed missions and/or have the volleys land in observed space into this frame does not work realism-wise.

[Treeburst155]

Accuracy of the full strike (not spotting rounds) is NOT 100% predictable by the state of LOS at the beginning of the turn of firing. Your "case1a" proves this, thereby disproving my theory. I suspect the strikes that do not fit the model, such as your "Case1a" shows, will all be strikes with arty greater than 105mm.

If we assume that the ONLY difference between the big stuff and the small stuff is time between salvos, then the good strike/bad strike trigger in NOT the state of LOS at the beginning of the turn of firing. Then again, maybe I am misidentifying the "turn of firing" for the big stuff. Those big rounds are in the air for quite some time. Hmmmm...

Treeburt155 out.

[Redwolf]

Yeah, this is really confusing.

It seems clear that all strikes without spotting rounds are off-target, except the random point chosen for off-target can coincidentially (sp?) be the spot that was originally targeted

However, there are strikes with spotting rounds that are still off-target. It is easy to reproduce for one spotting round but as I said I am sure I have seen a case with two spotting rounds and still off-target.

[Treeburst155]

Working with 155mm spotters, if LOS is blocked at the point in time where the 60 second countdown begins, you get no spotting rounds. The strike will usually fall off-target. BTW, the first spotting round is fired at the same point in time as the 60 second countdown begins. It can take 5-11 seconds to impact.

If there is LOS at the 60 second point, you will get spotting rounds, and the entire strike will be good, even if LOS is quickly broken and not restored! This is true even when moving to the next turn. LOS at the 60 second point means an accurate strike, at least with the 155mm.

I'm blocking LOS fairly precisely by having the spotter move behind a burning building. I'm going to work with this type of LOS block awhile longer. It could be that smoke and dust affect spotter LOS differently than moving behind a burning building, but we still may learn something from this series of tests.

I'm thinking the key moment in time, where LOS must be good, is the beginning of the 60 second countdown. This appears to be the case so far. I need to do these tests with smaller stuff now.

If the key moment in time (if there even is a key moment)is indeed the 60 second counter, we have a problem because we never really know when that countdown is going to begin. We do know that it can only happen during a movie when we can't do anything about it.

I'm moving on to small stuff now.

Treeburst155 out.

[Treeburst155]

Working with Regular 81mm mortars, the behaviour is very similar to the big stuff tested above except the critcal time is at the 30 second mark. This is when the first spotting round will be fired IF LOS is clear at that moment. When I had clear LOS at 60 seconds; but blocked it before the 30 second mark, the strike was off-target with no spotting rounds.

Here is what I believe at this point, with the understanding that there are anomalies:

1) The blind/not-blind decision is made, based on spotter LOS, at a set point in time.

2) This point in time corresponds to the firing of the first spotting round. If LOS = True, fire spotting round, strike = accurate. If LOS = False, no spotting round, strike = blind

3) This critical moment may be different for each spotter type and/or experience level. However, it is consistent within type/experience. For example, a regular US 81mm spotter will ALWAYS have the critical moment at the 30 second point of the countdown.

4) The LOS state before or after this critical moment is of no consequence as long as you had LOS when you did the targetting, and at the critical moment.

In most of the more common cases the critical moment will occur in the same turn as the first round lands. This is what led me to believe that LOS at the beginning of the turn of impact was the key.

My new definition:

Every spotter has a consistent point in time, with respect to the 60 second countdown, at which he must have LOS to the target point if his strike is to be on-target. If he does not have LOS at this point in time, the strike will be a blind strike, regardless of LOS status before or after this critical point in time. If he does have LOS at the critical moment, the strike will be good regardless of LOS status before or after this critical moment, as long as he had LOS at the time of targetting too.

Things to be done:

1) Determine the critical moment for all common spotter types at all the different experience levels.

2) Try to make sense of what appear to be blind strikes that have spotting rounds. Do these strikes fit my latest definition except for the presence of the spotting rounds?

3) Try to disprove my latest behaviour definition.

If I am right about all this, we have no way of cancelling a strike before wasting rounds (or our own troops) because the decision point can only be reached in the movie phase when time is actually passing. At best we would see the decision point coupled with blocked LOS at the very end of a movie. This means every spotter with a fire mission must be watched throughout the movie because you never really know when the 60 second timer will start.

A good general rule is to note LOS status during the orders phase of a strike that is in the countdown process, or probably very near it. This will save your rounds and troops much of the time; but not always.

Well, back to work I go; because I'm not letting MY troopers get hammered by "observed" arty strikes. Never again will that happen to me, no matter what it takes!

Treeburst155 out.

[Treeburst155]

See post below.

[ March 28, 2004, 04:40 AM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[Treeburst155]

US 155mm Regular spotters will fire two spotting rounds at most. One will fire at 60 seconds, the other at 30 seconds IF there is LOS at these times. If LOS is blocked before the second spotting round, it will not be fired. However, the strike will still be on target. There is only one critical moment, and it is associated with the first spotting round.

In the case of Redwolf's "case1a" saved game, LOS was blocked at the critical moment. This prevented the first spotting round from firing at 60 seconds, and guaranteed a blind strike. LOS cleared soon afterward, before the second spotting round was due to be fired. The second spotting round fired! The strike was already spoiled however.

To reiterate, in the case of arty that fires two spotting rounds, either one could be prevented from firing due to LOS obstruction to the target point. However, the only one that is important is the first one. If it is blocked, the strike will be bad, even if LOS is cleared very soon after, allowing the second spotting round to be fired.

So, you can have good strikes with only one spotting round (the first one), and bad strikes with zero or one spotting round (the second one).

A couple things I noticed that could cause testing errors:

1) Not all visible dust blocks LOS. Very small, new clouds do not do so.

2) Some off-target strikes can be fairly close. It is clear that they are off-target; but you need to zoom in a bit to really tell.

3) When testing, don't forget about the invisible smoke/dust that blocks LOS if rounds hit very late in the previous turn.

4) Don't forget that blind strikes CAN be on-target occasionally; but will PROBABLY not have a spotting round (the second one could fire). It is possible to have a blind strike look almost exactly like a good strike if the second spotting round fires, and the strike just happens to be on target.

I believe I can now explain all of Redwolf's results. He disproved my previous definition of the behaviour; but I think this one still stands:

Every spotter has a consistent point in time, with respect to the 60 second countdown, at which he must have LOS to the target point if his strike is to be on-target. If he does not have LOS at this point in time, the strike will be a blind strike, regardless of LOS status before or after this critical point in time. If he does have LOS at the critical moment, the strike will be good regardless of LOS status before or after this critical moment, as long as he had LOS at the time of targetting too.

This does not apply to spotters that come under fire and become pinned, etc.. I'm talking only about what should be clean, simple, observed strikes.

"Critical Moments" for a few spotters, all with radios, are listed below. Much more research needs to be done in this area. It could be real easy, or there could be lots of different critical moments. Experience may play a part, or it may not.

US Regular 81mm - 30 seconds

US Regular 105mm - 30 seconds

US Regular 155mm - 60 seconds

German Veteran 150mm - 60 seconds

Once again I think the behaviour is fully understood. Only this time, it is much more difficult to deal with. Please, somebody refute my latest definition! It would be so much better if the bad strike could be consistently caught in the orders phase, before the damage is done.

Treeburst155 out.

[c3k]

Good work.

It seems that the overall problem is how BFC chose to implement FO's. They have some autonomy in how they perform their function, yet, the player must intervene. This is the only unit in the game for which this is true.

You gentlement are investigating and discovering some useful work-arounds. I applaud your efforts and look forward to being able to use the results.

The long-term solution for CMx2 would be one of two possible approaches: allow FO's to correct their fire automatically; or, allow the player to specify that spotting rounds be fired, and ease the manner in which the player corrects the spotting rounds. Once the player is satisfied with the correction, he can then toggle "FFE" for the full strike.

I.e., either put full control and correction in-game or to the player. Don't keep it split.

Ken

[Holman]

Treeburst and others, you're doing us a real service! Thanks for the hard work.

We still need someone from BTS to tell us whether this is a fixable bug or (as I suspect) a limitation of the current engine.

As for the micromanagement involved, I'm less interested than some in watching LOS all turn in order to maximize the number of rounds on target. CM is too much fun, even with its abstractions, for me to ruin my eyes watching for every spotting round!

What I do is watch for the pattern of the main strike: when it's way off, I'll know it and adjust accordingly. My sense of WW2 artillery is that it was a sledgehammer and not a scalpel, and I'm willing to accept the occasional hiccup of an engine limitation as an approximation of all the things that made front-line infantry sometimes hate and fear their own side's artillery.

[Treeburst155]

Yeah, I don't watch for actual spotting rounds either. They're easy to miss when lots is going on anyway.

Until the latest definition is disproven, here is the best procedure for minimizing the damage of "observed" blind strikes. Note that we cannot prevent them completely with the new definition of behaviour.

1) Know the critical moment for each of your spotters. This may be very simple. 30 and 60 seconds could be the only two possibilities.

2) With the spotter selected during the movie, watch for the critical moment. If a spotting round does not go out (ammo count reduced by one) at the critical moment, cancel the strike at the first opportunity.

3) If the FIRST spotting round does go out, your strike is good. You can even break LOS voluntarily at this point by moving the spotter. His job is done.

Treeburst155 out.

[John Kettler]

Troops,

Spotting rounds were easy to miss in real life, too, which is why the U.S. started firing WP (makes a nice, high smoke pillar) for that purpose. The downside? The Germans took notice and began to implement artillery evasion drills. Wish I could remember where I read that. I think it might've been one of those U.S. Army Lessons Learned links someone posted.

I have a question of my own, but maybe it should go in a separate thread. Considerable investigation has gone into examining the nitty gritty of how the game engine does or does not deal with dust and smoke when the spotting round is fired. What I'd like to know, though, is what happens if a fire mission is already underway and dust or smoke suddenly appears in the LOS? Does the artillery continue to come down accurately as before, or does it suddenly become blind fire? Also, what happens if one attempts to shorten range (maintaining deflection) on a shoot in progress, with smoke or dust now blocking LOS from FO to the target? If LOS obscuration automatically triggers blind fire in either case, then situations with hostile forces

near friendlies could become way too exciting, since the blind fire could easily crash down on one's own troops. This is particularly true when the only difference is in range.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Joachim]

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

Yeah, I don't watch for actual spotting rounds either. They're easy to miss when lots is going on anyway.

Treeburst155 out.

Mike,

during most of my games I note spotting rounds, as I usually target suspiciuous areas and readjust if the area is no threat or the flank protection with arty is unneccessary. Arty above 150mm (except the German 2 sIGs -spotter) usually have the 60 secs countdown. Arty below 105mm have a 30sec countdown. I never noticed a difference regarding spotter experience.

If I am unable to determine the correct time of the barrage, I often end with wasted spotting rounds (BTW a nice idea for scattering Gebirgsjäger plts) using responsive arty with delay in the 2-3 minutes range, so there is lots of data.

Gruß

Joachim

BTW: Computation of our current move will exceed 1 hour. Did not find appropriate time to start computation due to RL priorities. Have to check if overnight works...

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

I have a question of my own, but maybe it should go in a separate thread. Considerable investigation has gone into examining the nitty gritty of how the game engine does or does not deal with dust and smoke when the spotting round is fired. What I'd like to know, though, is what happens if a fire mission is already underway and dust or smoke suddenly appears in the LOS? Does the artillery continue to come down accurately as before, or does it suddenly become blind fire? Also, what happens if one attempts to shorten range (maintaining deflection) on a shoot in progress, with smoke or dust now blocking LOS from FO to the target? If LOS obscuration automatically triggers blind fire in either case, then situations with hostile forces

near friendlies could become way too exciting, since the blind fire could easily crash down on one's own troops. This is particularly true when the only difference is in range.

What you describe was the case in CMBO. You could in fact block LOS of the spotter if you had an idea where he is and have his barrage spread out even after it is underway.

This, I would say bug, didn't make it into CMBB and CMAK. Once your mission is underway you can continue on target, although of course you cannot adjust anymore.

[Holman]

Just a quick note. Something from the CMBB manual:

"Adjusted fire can STILL be inaccurate, though it is a lot more probably that it wil fall on the target than the first strike. So you need to watch the landing of the actual barrage to be able to re-adjust again if needed." (p.134)

Some of our discussions above seem to assume that green-line adjustments with good LOS should always fall on-target. This snippet from the manual suggests that they shouldn't.

[Treeburst155]

John,

Once the first spotting round has been fired (ammo count reduced by one), the strike will be good. The spotter can break LOS. Adjusting an accurate strike I have not studied; but I'd bet it works fine as long as the spotter has LOS to the new, nearby point.

Joachim,

Thanks for the countdown info! Critical moments for initial spotting rounds are probably either 60 seconds or 30 seconds for all spotters. This makes things easier.

On our game, crunch the turn when you can. No hurry. Our game would make a good CPU/Memory/Motherboard performance benchmark. In fact, I just might keep a few files for that.

Martyr,

Your quote from the manual is in reference to adjusting OFF-TARGET strikes. The only way to have an off-target strike is to target blind intentionally, or to have spotter LOS blocked at the critical moment. I've yet to see an off-target strike become accurate through adjustment. Then again, I don't do blind strikes.

Treeburst155 out.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

John,

Once the first spotting round has been fired (ammo count reduced by one), the strike will be good. The spotter can break LOS.

Err, my posted savegames show that there are strikes with one spotting round and the FFE is off-target.

I also had a game run with two spotting rounds and FFE coming in off-target but I didn't save that game. It was too hard to reproduce before my cold went out.

[Treeburst155]

Redwolf,

I have not looked at all your savegames; but I suspect the bad strikes with the one spotting round are strikes in which the first spotting round did not fire due to blocked LOS. This LOS subsequently cleared in time for the second spotting round to fire. Because the first spotting round is the "critical moment", the strike is bad even though the second spotting round was fired. This is the case with your "case1a".

If you can show a bad strike with TWO spotting rounds, you have disproved my latest definition of arty behaviour.

Treeburst155 out.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

If you can show a bad strike with TWO spotting rounds, you have disproved my latest definition of arty behaviour.

Oh well, I need to pick up a new cold virus then.

Can you send somebody with a cold over to get too close to, say a cute female sample of homo sapiens?

Seriously, this is a bitch to reproduce because you need to produce smoke that cheases to exist at exactly the right moment, the window you need is only a few seconds. Too short and the beginning of the turn is with LOS, too late and the first spotting round doesn't come. I already went as far as combining rotate orders and smoke fire orders to do precise fire of smoke but even then it was tedious. I would do that if I knew it would lead to something.

On the positive side, at least this is not subject to random factors as the savegames I already posted show, if one savegame leads to spotting round this and accuracy that then replaying it will show the same, so I don't have to go PBEM for this.

Ok, folks, what about this: can somebody give me a table how long smoke from Wespe, Hummel, 75mm Sherman and Priest last, by the second from the time of the shot, in different wind conditions, for one single smoke round fired (you need to edit the ammo in the editor)? If I have that when I come home today I could fit in arty timings and construct a reproducable case not by try-and-error but by computing things out to get the correct timing.

[Treeburst155]

Some things I think are true, but wording in the manual SEEMS to suggest differently:

1) Any ongoing ACCURATE strike can accurately be adjusted with a green-line adjustment, EVERY time.

2) All blue-line (in LOS) fire missions will be accurate regardless of experience level as long as LOS is not blocked at the critical moment. The exception to this is ROCKET artillery.

Rockets behave in a different way than other arty assets. They have no spotting rounds. This could mean they have no "critical moment". It could mean that ALL rocket strikes are blind except for prep-bombardments, and maybe TRPs. Rockets are entirely outside the topic of this thread. They are THAT different in how they operate. If I saw enough rockets, I'd study the behaviour. Maybe I will anyway. Joachim, what can you tell us about rockets?

Back to "normal" arty, adjusting BLIND strikes is a crap-shoot. Limited testing seems to support the manual, as quoted above by Martyr. Adjustments tend to move strikes closer to the target. I've yet to get an adjustment to an off-target blind strike to hit on-target however.

Treeburst155 out.

[ March 29, 2004, 02:54 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[Treeburst155]

Redwolf,

Considering the invisible smoke/dust issue, which only happens when a round hits within a very small window of time at the end of the movie, I would not be surprised if there is some fluke involving exact timing near the end of a movie to disprove my behaviour definition. However, if it is very difficult to reproduce, I don't think it will be very common in-game. If you can reproduce it, I'd love to see it; but is it really worth the time?

Treeburst155 out.

[Treeburst155]

Theory on Redwolf's bad strike with two spotting rounds (so far unreproducable):

LOS is blocked AFTER the "critical moment" as currently defined; but before the first spotting round actually impacts. LOS then clears before the second spotting round, allowing it to fire. If this is true, the critical moment may be tied to spotting round impact, not firing. We're talking a span of about 3-12 seconds here, in most cases. Looking for impacts is much more difficult than checking for ammo reduction due to firing. I hope you cannot reproduce this, Redwolf.

Treeburst155 out.

[Redwolf]

My working theory is still that the decisions

1) spotting rounds yes/no

and

2) FFE accuracy yes/no

are based on different moments.

From what I have seen the spotting round decision is (for each of the two rounds seperately) made when they are fired (or fall?), that means within the turn.

But the decision whether FFE is accurate or not seems to be based on a turn boundary point in time.

But all of this detracts from the true issue: whatever the reason is that the strike cannot be accurate, it is not realistic to go FFE if the spotter could not verify it will be on target. If it was you wouldn't bother with the spotter in first place.

[Treeburst155]

In no case, have I been able to get a bad strike if the first spotting round goes out. This is true if I immediately break LOS and never restore it. This is true if there is a turn break between the spotting rounds and the first full salvo. It's all tied to that single critical moment when the first spotting round is fired. Turn breaks are not involved. You proved that with "case1a".

As for the "true issue", to me the only issue is understanding the behaviour so I don't drop explosives on my own guys.

Treeburst155 out.

[ March 29, 2004, 07:08 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[Treeburst155]

Redwolf,

I managed to block spotter LOS after the first spotting round was fired (the critical moment), but BEFORE that same round impacted. The strike was still good. Timing that one was rather difficult. This further supports the current definition of the critical moment as the FIRING of the first spotting round, not the impact of that round. A prediction: You'll never be able to reproduce a 2 spotting round, off-target strike. The phenomenon is tied to a turn break glitch like the invisible dust/smoke. So far, you are the only one who has reported seeing such a strike.

Treeburst155 out.

[Larsen]

I am a bit surprised at the lack of responce from BTS in this thread. I would expect one of the following four at least:

1. Yes, this is a bug and we'll fix it.

2. Yes this is a bug, but we are not going to fix it. You have to live with it.

3. No this is not a bug. Everything works as designed. (a brief explanation here would be nice).

4. We are invistigating the problem.

But the complete lack of any responce is something that I wouldn't expect from a company that is as good with customers as BTS is. After all we are customers and we have a question about something that is not covered by the manual. It's been more than a week since the subject was brought up. Am I being unreasonable?