Failure to follow orders: Smoke

[jdmorse]

Okay this is my BIGGEST pet peeve. It irked me in CMBO and now in CMBB.

It is the propensity of tanks to be assigned a smoke fire mission and then willy nilly fail to carry it out because some other target opens up. Now I am not talking about self preservation here where the Tac AI sees a threat.

Example (from 15 mins ago) German tank given orders to fire smoke which will support and make possible infantry advance towards VL over open ground. It is a crucial order. Without it my guys are exposed and vulnerable to both target and enfilading fire.

Meanwhile, a suppressed russian squad which has been getting pummeled by other ground troops and another tank, finally breaks and runs for it.

My tank, forgets its orders to put down smoke up ahead to work with COMBINED arms and flails away at the russkies fleeing for ther survivial. Meanwhile my attacking guys either charge into crossfire, or the attack is aborted.

Fix of do sumfink! Actually a fix of "do this order except under the most direst of circumstances" would be appreciated or perhaps a "convene summary courts martial and execute accused" order in the following turn?

[Terrapin]

Will a cover-armor arc work?

I've never seen this problem, but then I don't really rely on the smoke too much, since I think that low-scale tank smoke is nearly useless for cover.

[Das Reich]

Originally posted by Terrapin:

Will a cover-armor arc work?

I've never seen this problem, but then I don't really rely on the smoke too much, since I think that low-scale tank smoke is nearly useless for cover.

it has happened to me trying to cover a MG position with smoke.

but you are right, tank smoke is not really good for covering an advance.

[Seanachai]

Originally posted by jdmorse:

My tank, forgets its orders to put down smoke up ahead to work with COMBINED arms and flails away at the russkies fleeing for ther survivial. Meanwhile my attacking guys either charge into crossfire, or the attack is aborted.

Fix of do sumfink!

It's a poor workman that blames his tools, JD...

[MikeyD]

Ah, this problem has nagged me for so long I forgot it was a problem! Yep, you call for smoke area fire for you artillery piece and tell your troops to charge into the anticipated smoke screen in 45 seconds. 5 seconds into the turn your gunner spots a rabbit on a distant hillside and decided to pound him with HE instead of obeying his fire smoke command. The result, my charging troops make it about halfway to their intended destination before panicing.

A fix might be to code a smoke command to override all others (which will inevitably cause problems of its own).

[ December 20, 2002, 01:55 PM: Message edited by: MikeyD ]

[jdmorse]

Originally posted by Terrapin:

Will a cover-armor arc work?

yes it seems to.

[ColdSober]

My tank, forgets its orders to put down smoke up ahead to work with COMBINED arms

I've had this problem with on-board artillery, as well as with tanks, notably in the Cemetery Hill battle. It really can be very annoying. I'll have to experiment with a cover arc to see if that makes a difference.

[tracer]

this can get complicated I think, because troop quality would have to be considered. A "green" unit would probably react to fleeing russians, and fire away at them, where as a "crack unit" would follow orders given. War is based so much on circumstances that how can you tell what a unit would do in a given situation. I understand that there are situations where you would pretty much know what a given unit would do, but there are some that are iffy, so in the situation as far as using smoke or firing at the enemy, all I can say is good luck to the programmer that can program this into the game, and I think if anyone can it would more then likely be BFC who could.

[aka_tom_w]

interesting thread.

-tom w