Retreating Monster Tanks revealed (monster pictures)

[Licensed Fool]

With respect,Battlefront can talk til they're blue in the face defending the A.I. but the inescapable fact remains that CMBB has a serious flaw in that AFVs slam into reverse far too often at the sight of an enemy AFV even though their vehicle is quite capable of standing and slugging it out.If it happened just rarely I'd accept it as a foible of tank crews human nature, but it happens too often by far.This is not good.

[Maxx]

I think Joques made a great point earlier. It's about rate of fire, as well as kill chance per shot. Including this variable one can easily understand the ISU backing out, no?

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Maxx:

I think Joques made a great point earlier. It's about rate of fire, as well as kill chance per shot. Including this variable one can easily understand the ISU backing out, no?

No. Not when it begins backing up before the first shot, and then either gets no shot off at all, or shoots on the move, surely missing.

Retreat to reload - fine.

[The_Capt]

redwolf,

You are either being obtuse by nature or on purpose either way it is growing old fast.

Your basic premise is that the PzIV is the "weaker" tank, when compared to the ISU-122 and as such why does the ISU reverse when faced with this punny AFV at a 500m range.

Well beyond the fact that Steve and others have all shown that the PzIV is not "weaker" than the ISU and is in fact some ways superior particularly wrt to fire control and ROF. You somehow fail to grasp this and cling to your belief that "my Tiger..whoops that was CMBO..my ISU is invincible and should be staying where I tell it".

Despite numerous test and rebuttles you still refuse to realize that a tank on tank duel is a very complex thing with many factors, beyond "big gun..thick steel..why he run away" AND you seem intent to whine on until BFC makes tanks chess pieces and infantry fly, complete with golden wings and flaming swords.

TacAI in this case is not a bug..it isn't even an accident. It is a design feature and a selling point because it will try to increase your chances if winning even when you try your best to lose.

IF your ISU stays put like the brave tank you want it to be..it will die. And I am willing to bet it will die more times than it will live at 500m against a lone PzIV.

Then I am sure you would be first in line with the "ISU TOO STUPID TO BACK OFF" thread.

[Guest Mike]

Personally I can see there might be a case to answer if the ISU retreats without taking a shot - but if it shoots and then retreats that's fine by me.

I liken it to a knife fighter and a rifleman facing off.

If the rifleman is within reach of the knife fighter then the optimum survival tactic for the rifleman is to get out of knife range and shoot from a range where he is invulnerable.

Similarly the ISU doesn't want to get into a close range fight with a P-4 at a range where the P-4 can kill it. It's got that bloody great 122mm gun an the optimum tactic for it is to be shooting at a range where the P-4 can't do any significant damage.

Sitting there letting the P-4 pop off 2-3 shots before it can reload is tantamount to suicide if it misses with its first.

Edited 'cos an ISU "hooting" at any range probably isn't an optimum tactic!!

[ December 01, 2002, 09:41 PM: Message edited by: Mike ]

[Redwolf]

The_Capt,

you still don't get that everything you say will justify retreat after firing for reloading just fine, in fact nothing you say is contrary to what I said.

Only you don't get that this retreat after shot for reload is not what I am talking about in first place.

[Tarquelne]

No. Not when it begins backing up before the first shot, and then either gets no shot off at all, or shoots on the move, surely missing.

But how unrealistic is that? A crew of cyborgs (well designed cyborgs, at least) would both calculate all the odds correctly and be in perfect communication. The driver/commander would know that the gunner was about to take a shot, and know that the shot was worth pausing for (or not)... balancing risk with possible gain.

But - according to the Russian Battlefield web site, very few of the ISU-122 crews were 'borgs. (And it seems doubtfull that the full-metal-jacket crews ever even made it to the front at all before the war ended.)

Anyway... the point being that while the observed behavior is not ideal*, neither were AFV crews.

*Since the ISU does different things on different run-throughs of the same turn it _must_ sometimes be making the "wrong" choice - the one with the lowest overall odds for success.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

To me now, the interesting point is the fact that the Pz IV's in The Capt's example didn't reverse when spotting an ISU 122 at 900 metres, hardly the ideal engagement range for a Pz IV against that heavy beast. If the tacAI is smart enough to realise that an ISU 122 with slow reload should back off against a Pz IV at 500 metres, why isn't it also smart enough to do the same when the tables are reversed on the German tanks at range?

Regards

Jim R.

[Guest Mike]

Good point - I haven't seen the file yet - I shall prolly d/load it tonight & take a look - but does the P-4 have anywhere to hide?

If it's stuck like a possum in the headlights on a dead flat plain then why would it try to go anywhere?

It's optimum tactic might be to stay still, pray the first shot misses, and shoot like crazy to KO the ISU before it gets a 2nd shot.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Mike:

Good point - I haven't seen the file yet - I shall prolly d/load it tonight & take a look - but does the P-4 have anywhere to hide?

My latest screenshot is from exactly this: I repositioned the Pz IV so that we would

a) just have to retreat to be out of LOS

not to have to rotate its hill to do so

The MK IV never tried to reverse, neither before or after shooting, although the backup opportunity I gave it now is exactly the same as the ISU has.

[ December 01, 2002, 09:47 PM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Battlefront.com]

Redwolf, I will make one more attempt to expose to yourself what everybody else appareently sees quite clearly:

Originally posted by The_Capt:

Ok but if it only happens in one quickbattle in one instance..it isn't a bug.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

It doesn't. We had several threads about this, this one the first started by me.

We also had you and others complaining about Sneak problems that didn't exist. Then there were the many accusations that we ruined the game by making the infantry more realistic because "they are not utterly useless". We also saw in the thread that preeceded this one that some people thought the ISU-122 was invulnerable to the PzIV at that range. An With CMBO how many threads did we have complaining about Tigers being destroyed by Shermans?

My point is this... it is easy to post things which are not correct. The fact that there are such postings doesn't make any of incorrect things put forward in them true.

Also... weren't you one of the people who was so sure that our Rarity system would fall flat on its face before you saw it in person?

This is included in the kill chance as displayed by the engine. The kill chance is still "excellent" for the ISU and "fair" for the MK IV, all armor factors included.

Boy... you know this for a fact? Even after I just informed you that these numbers are ROUGH and should not be paid attention to more than just a guideline? Or do you know the game better than I do? Well, did you know that the chance of a kill is directly related to the number of times hit? Therefore if I have a poorer chance of scoring a kill shot than you, but twice as many shots in the same space of time, with better accuracy, I am more likely to score a kill shot on you than you on me? This is simple and basic probability here that you repeatedly refuse to understand.

I you have read any of the recent posting, then you would have spotted that the issue here is retreat before the first shot.

It is only a Strawman issue, not a real one. The AI is designed to save the vehicle from destruction, not to risk snapping off one shot and then retreating. Not only is this a VERY risky thing to do (see my test results), but it is a horrible waste of ammunition. It takes roughly 3-4 shots to get a hit at this range. What do you expect of *1* shot being fired? A miracle?

See above for hit chances. They include any effect the optics might have. The hit chances are 27% for the ISU and 29% for the Pz IV.

See above comments about you again not knowing what the heck you are talking about.

Well, you are a talking about retreat after the first shot to reload.

In fact I think that is fine.

Unfortunately it is not what I am talking about, which is retreat before the first shot.

See above about how flawed your logic is and how correct the TacAI's is.

Well, great. The ISU kills the MK IVs. Isn't this exactly what I am talking about? The ISU is stronger in this match, even at 500m.

Good LORD! Would you stop repeating this crap? This is as bad as you repeating the "unavoidable" 15-25 turns of Exhaustion in the previous thread. YOU ARE WRONG! Repeating something that is wrong does not magically make it correct.

So why should the ISU be so afraid of the Pz IV that it retreats without a single shot in 1/3rd of the cases int he scenario?

Because in all the tests that were conducted, including your own if you paid attention, you would see that the ISU is several times more likely to die than the PzIV. How on Earth you can continue to delude yourself that the ISU is capable of a toe to toe battle in this exact spot with the PzIV at this range without fear is totally beyond me.

My conclusion is that Redwolf is once again locked into tunnel vision. Further argument with him will result in nothing productive.

Redwolf, might I suggest you just do as your intuitions told you to do... leave the forum for a while. Play the game and enjoy it. Stop trying to find flaws with it because, bluntly put, you stink at it. A good tester finds something that he thinks is wrong, points it out, and then LISTENS to the responses and adjusts his perceptions accordingly. You have (here and before) routinely ignored my attempts to correct your *factual* errors and instead keep going right on ahead with the same flawed logic based on factually unsupportable basis.

Now, to others... if you can find reproducable situations where a clearly superior vehicle chickens out of a fight, please... let us know about it. But before you do, put on your thinking cap and really look at the situation to see if there is anything really worth bothering about. I don't fault Redwolf for bringing this one to our attention, but I do fault him for ignoring what the scenario he made really shows.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Licensed Fool

With respect,Battlefront can talk til they're blue in the face defending the A.I. but the inescapable fact remains that CMBB has a serious flaw in that AFVs slam into reverse far too often...

What I see as the "flaw" is that players don't understand the shortcomings and limitations of their vehicles when putting them into highly unfavorable positions. The TacAI is simply trying to put right what the player has got wrong, either deliberately or through circumstance. When I overrode the TacAI's impulse to move the ISU-122 back from its firing position it died. And not, as Redwolf would invent, because it was prevented from getting a shot off. Even in tests where the ISU *DID* get a shot off it died. Yet another fact that Redwolf has no apparent problem brushing aside.

... at the sight of an enemy AFV even though their vehicle is quite capable of standing and slugging it out.

Reread this thread again. The ISU-122 is completly, and utterly, not capable of slugging it out with a PzIV at 500m. At least not in the circumstance of Redwolf's example. The smoking ruins of the ISU-122s from the many tests conducted show this quite conclusively.

Steve

[Redwolf]

Yeah, The smoking ruins of 4 or 5 dead Pz IV for no dead ISU in the 20 runs I posted in detail.

I am curious, how many dead Pz IV and ISU's do others get when running my savegame number 6?

http://65.96.131.208/tmp/isu-coward/isuretreat6.cme

Just run it in hotseat and hit "go" two times. And chase the ISU back into line after it reloaded when it retreats, but use "seek hulldown" to do so.

[aka_tom_w]

Good night folks

this one is over

-tom w

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

The AI is designed to save the vehicle from destruction, not to risk snapping off one shot and then retreating. Not only is this a VERY risky thing to do (see my test results), but it is a horrible waste of ammunition. It takes roughly 3-4 shots to get a hit at this range. What do you expect of *1* shot being fired? A miracle?

And you begin claiming that the Russians did not build the ISU-122 to shoot at enemy tanks?

What do you mean "*1*" shot? Of course it is supposed to shoot at the enemy. And not while already moving back, which is the real waste of everything, including itself.

[Battlefront.com]

The_Capt,

TacAI in this case is not a bug..it isn't even an accident. It is a design feature and a selling point because it will try to increase your chances if winning even when you try your best to lose.

Very well put. However, I don't think Redwolf will like hearing (yet again) that his perceptions are wrong and his tactics are less than optimal.

IF your ISU stays put like the brave tank you want it to be..it will die. And I am willing to bet it will die more times than it will live at 500m against a lone PzIV.

Ha! Only a fool would bet against you It is kinda like betting that tonight's lottery number is 1-2-4-6-9-0 after seeing it on the 11 o'clock news The tests with Redwolf's very on file show conclusively that the ISU-122 is nearly always deadmeat in that example.

Then I am sure you would be first in line with the "ISU TOO STUPID TO BACK OFF" thread.

Again, only a fool would be against you

Steve

[ December 02, 2002, 12:00 AM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

[Battlefront.com]

Redwolf,

And you begin claiming that the Russians did not build the ISU-122 to shoot at enemy tanks?

(sigh) No, they were not designed to destroy enemy tanks. And certainly not enemy tanks at 500m.

Zaloga states it plainly. So plainly that perhaps even you can grasp this...

"[The ISU-122s] were intended to support breakthrough operations against Germany [sic] infantry formations. They were used to destroy German strong-points and anti-tank defenses from long range. The ISU-122 could be used to provide overwatch firepower to defend against German heavy tanks".

So, could you please tell me why you are correct and Zaloga is wrong here?

What do you mean "*1*" shot?

See test results using YOUR file where the ISU-122s brew up nearly all the time when they stay put. It was you who suggested that they should be programmed to move up, fire one shot, and then retreat. I said this was dumb, you apparently didn't understand why even though I clearly explained it.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

I am curious, how many dead Pz IV and ISU's do others get when running my savegame number 6?

I guess your attention span isn't very long. Speaking for myself I already tested this and posted the results. I can't help it if you didn't read them or don't belive them. Others have also done tests and apparently you didn't see those either.

Steve

[Cull]

:mad: :mad: :mad: GGRRrRRGgGGRrrrRGGGRRRaaahhGrrrRR!!!! :mad: :mad: :mad:

[Mikeydz]

Originally posted by redwolf:

The Mk IVs are the weaker AFV here, and they stay, and the stronger AFV flees before the first shot, in about 1/3rd of the cases.

[/QB]

Just finished a 104 sample test of a Pz IVH vs ISU-122 one-on-one battle at 500m, with terrain conditions to simulate similar hit probablilities from redwolf's test file. (approx 25-30%). Terrain desinged on the ISU-122 side to prevent possible avenues of retreat.

Overall results were 82 dead ISU-122 vs 23 dead PzIVH. (Note 1 battle resulted in a simultanius kill, so numbers don't add to 104)

I'm not an armor grog, so I don't know if theses results are representative with that would happen in real life if you put these 2 tanks up head to head 104 times, but it's obvious why the TacAI is retreating the ISU-122. It get's spanked.

If anyone wanted a copy of my test scenario, to check my set-up, let me know.

[walpurgis nacht]

Originally posted by Mikeydz:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by redwolf:

The Mk IVs are the weaker AFV here, and they stay, and the stronger AFV flees before the first shot, in about 1/3rd of the cases.

Just finished a 104 sample test of a Pz IVH vs ISU-122 one-on-one battle at 500m, with terrain conditions to simulate similar hit probablilities from redwolf's test file. (approx 25-30%). Terrain desinged on the ISU-122 side to prevent possible avenues of retreat.

Overall results were 82 dead ISU-122 vs 23 dead PzIVH. (Note 1 battle resulted in a simultanius kill, so numbers don't add to 104) QB]</font>

[walpurgis nacht]

Originally posted by Mikeydz:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by redwolf:

The Mk IVs are the weaker AFV here, and they stay, and the stronger AFV flees before the first shot, in about 1/3rd of the cases.

Just finished a 104 sample test of a Pz IVH vs ISU-122 one-on-one battle at 500m, with terrain conditions to simulate similar hit probablilities from redwolf's test file. (approx 25-30%). Terrain desinged on the ISU-122 side to prevent possible avenues of retreat.

Overall results were 82 dead ISU-122 vs 23 dead PzIVH. (Note 1 battle resulted in a simultanius kill, so numbers don't add to 104) QB]</font>

[Mace]

Originally posted by Licensed Fool:

With respect,Battlefront can talk til they're blue in the face defending the A.I. but the inescapable fact remains that CMBB has a serious flaw in that AFVs slam into reverse far too often at the sight of an enemy AFV even though their vehicle is quite capable of standing and slugging it out.If it happened just rarely I'd accept it as a foible of tank crews human nature, but it happens too often by far.This is not good.

Hey look, a real TROLL.

Mace

[Mikeydz]

Originally posted by Walpurgis Night:

I don't see this as hitting the core of what doesn't *feel* correct about the ISU tendency to retreat so quickly. Let's just say these tanks are roughly even, or even favor the IVH a bit as Steve suggests. Fine. The problem is that the ISU retreats *feel* disproportionate to how other tank models in CMBB behave when faced by tanks of roughly equal in strength. Stupidly or not, they tend to stand and fight more.[/QB]

In my tests (assuming there is no huge fundamental flaw in my setup) the ISU gets killed at nearly an 80% rate. I don't know what variables the Tac-AI used to figure out if it wanted to retreat or not, but if it computes anything close to an 80% death rate, that it would order any vehicle to retreat. Sure, this matchup isn't quite a Stuart vs Tiger fight in CMBO, but it doesn't look good to me. Perhaps most other match-ups produce (pulling a number from thin air) something between a 40-60% rate, which the Tac-AI decides is a good gamble, so it doesn't order a retreat for either vehicle, so you get a slug-fest. This is all conjecture of course, since I don't know how the Tac-AI makes the decisions it make.

I think the heart of the matter of this whole thread is this. There is no "bug" in the Tac-AI in this case.The Tac-AI "knows" that at 500m the odds are not good for the ISU, based on the model BTS has implemented for this vehicle. So the only possible flaw would be in the model of the performance or combat effectiveness of the ISU at 500m. What redwolf needs to do to "win" this debate is then convince BTS using historical data that the ISU was alot better at hanging in a close range duel that the current model supposes. Like I said before, I'm no grog, so I don't have a good feel for this, so I leave it up to the "experts" to figure out those details.

[Battlefront.com]

Walpurgis Night ,

I don't see this as hitting the core of what doesn't *feel* correct about the ISU tendency to retreat so quickly.

I think this is for two reasons:

1. There is an obviously widespread misunderstanding about what the ISU-122 was capable of doing (in real life) against a PzIV at such short range.

Tactical missuse of a unit through ignorance (I don't mean this word in a judgemental way) will yield results that "feel wrong". People complaining about Shermans killing Tigers is a strong example of this. If you expect X, but get Y, it doesn't matter if Y is correct because it will "feel wrong" since it isn't X.

2. The difference between overt user feedback and what the TacAI sees. Or, in fact, what a good player could see if he chose to examine the situation more closely.

The combat model in CM is far more complex and detailed than most people assume it to be. It is certainly more complex than the feedback given to the user. That stuff is all the user needs to see of what goes on underneath. Seeing too many details would be like playing a game of Excel

Let's just say these tanks are roughly even, or even favor the IVH a bit as Steve suggests.

Actually, in the exact situation of Redwolf's one on one matchup, I suggest that the situation favors the PzIV between 3:1 and 6:1. That is a lot more than "a bit".

The problem is that the ISU retreats *feel* disproportionate to how other tank models in CMBB behave when faced by tanks of roughly equal in strength. Stupidly or not, they tend to stand and fight more.

True, but this is not something specific to the ISU, rather specific to the situation Redwolf kicked over to all us to check out. Put the ISU in a different situation (see my Page 1 tests, my long range tests on Page 4?, and the tests of others) and you get a different result. In those tests the ISU doesn't budge an inch. This means there is some set of circumstances in Redwolf's test that the TacAI doesn't like. And judging by how unfavorable the results are for the ISU-122 from staying put, I think the TacAI is correct.

Steve