Retreating Monster Tanks revealed (monster pictures)

[Andreas]

Go to bed Steve

[Berlichtingen]

Redwolf,

If you have any credability at all, you are using it up fast. I just played out 10 tries with your saved game (#6) and got the following results...

In each, the Soviet got the first shot off

In try number 6, the 122 bagged the PzIV

In try number 8, the 122 got a gun hit on the PzIV and the PzIV beat feet outta there

In the other 8 tries, the 122 was killed by the PzIV.

The AI is wise to back off, as the PzIV is more than a match at that range.

Btw, that is a classic example of covered arc misuse

[Berlichtingen]

Originally posted by redwolf:

In what way the the ISU the weaker partner here?

Lower rate of fire, lower chance to hit

[Andreas]

Originally posted by redwolf:

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

OK, I just ran your savegame 50 times and I didn't see the ISU retreat a single time unless it was gun damaged or reloading.

You're on 1.01?

I wonder how you can possibly have tried it 50 times in 21 minutes. How long does it take your machine to load the 3D graphics?</font>

[Licensed Fool]

Perhaps the A.I. makes AFV crews TOO intelligent to the point of unreality? In the real world,given their tough national character trait a typical gutsy Russian crew would open fire immediately on any German AFV they saw if there was a halfway-decent chance of nailing it.

Are Redwolf and me and a few others the only sighted dudes in this forum of the blind?

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Licensed Fool:

Are Redwolf and me and a few others the only sighted dudes in this forum of the blind?

I could tell you what I think you are, but I have to check with my lawyers first if it could be construed as slander

[Mace]

Originally posted by Licensed Fool:

Perhaps the A.I. makes AFV crews TOO intelligent to the point of unreality? In the real world,given their tough national character trait a typical gutsy Russian crew would open fire immediately on any German AFV they saw if there was a halfway-decent chance of nailing it.

And your references for this statement are?.....

Are Redwolf and me and a few others the only sighted dudes in this forum of the blind?

Partly correct, a (very) few others.

Mace

[ December 02, 2002, 06:19 AM: Message edited by: Mace ]

[Berlichtingen]

Originally posted by Licensed Fool:

Perhaps the A.I. makes AFV crews TOO intelligent to the point of unreality? In the real world,given their tough national character trait a typical gutsy Russian crew would open fire immediately on any German AFV they saw if there was a halfway-decent chance of nailing it.

And you base for fact is?

[Pascal DI FOLCO]

In order to save this thread from degenrating into personal bashings fest / troll hunt posse , I'd be very glad to see it reoriented toward having a better understanding of "what's happening" when AFVs backup, that is what factors are taken into account by the AI to decide "Yeah, it's reverse time !" ?

I know there may be many many factors and exceptions, but surely an overview of the main factors would be enlightening

[Kanonier Reichmann]

I've now got off my bum and set up a quick hotseat battle between a Regular Pz IVH & a Regular IS2 (1944 early). The situation as saved is with the IS2 sitting hull down on a small hill facing towards a slightly higher hill where I've placed the Pz IVH just out of sight of the IS2. I plot the turn with the Pz IV hunting up the hill and moving into sight of the stationary IS2 about 580 metres away.

Now the stats say that the Pz IV has a marginal chance at best to penetrate an IS2's turret at that range depending at which angle it strikes the "curved" profile. Basically with my quick calculations it needs to strike the turret at about 25 degrees or less to have a chance at a penetration. There would appear to be almost no chance of a penetrating hit against the upper hull of the IS2 as it has a 30 degree slope and should definitely defeat a 75mm round from a Pz IV. Suffice to say that the IS2's chances of blowing the bejeezus out of the Pz IV are extremely good based on some earlier tests that whenever it hit at that range the Pz IV would be wiped with no crew survivors.

All I'd like to know from those more knowledgeable than I whether it is reasonable that the IS2 should back off every time when the Pz IV looms into its sights. So far from my 5 tests the IS2 has reversed every time against such an intimidating threat while the Pz IV sits tight every time without the faintist hint it's even concerned about getting blown sky high. Is this reasonable behaviour from the TacAI?

I'll happily email the save file to anyone who requests it and all they have to do is instruct the Pz IV to hunt about 7 or 8 metres up the rise in a easterly direction (northern end of the map) and then watch the movie play out from the Soviet side with your IS2 sitting in ambush in its hulldown position.

Just as an added point, when I was testing this similar situation earlier, I kept having the IS2 backing off from the emplaced Pz IV and only managing to get away 1 snap shot most times before reversing. When I finally buttoned the IS2 so it hopefully wouldn't spot the Pz IV too early it eventually stood its ground long enough(2nd attempt) and fired off a shot while stationary which utterly destroyed the Pz IV whereas in the previous turns it had shrugged off 2 hits to the turret from enemy shots with the shell breaking up on both occasions.

Any comments welcome.

Regards

Jim R.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Kanonier Reichmann:

Any comments welcome.

Regards

Jim R.

Are you using a cover arc for the IS2? Are you using the shoot&scoot command at all?

[Berlichtingen]

Send me the save

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Originally posted by Andreas:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Kanonier Reichmann:

Any comments welcome.

Regards

Jim R.

Are you using a cover arc for the IS2? Are you using the shoot&scoot command at all?</font>

[Andreas]

Try it again with a cover arc - worked for me.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Try it again with a cover arc - worked for me.

But the question is Andreas, is it reasonable for the IS2 to always "chicken out" first in the circumstances, with or without a covered arc, bearing in mind the differentials in kill chances once hit.

Regards

Jim R.

[ December 02, 2002, 07:21 AM: Message edited by: Kanonier Reichmann ]

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Kanonier Reichmann:

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

Try it again with a cover arc - worked for me.

But the question is Andreas, is it reasonable for the IS2 to always "chicken out" first in the circumstances, with or without a covered arc, bearing in mind the differentials in kill chances once hit.

Regards

Jim R.</font>

[Sirocco]

I can understand the ISU reversing into cover. I wouldn't expect it to attempt to slug it out with the PzKpfw IV when it has such a lower ROF. What I don't understand is why it sometimes reverses without taking even MG fire. In that case in particular I'd expect it to snap off the chambered round before pulling back. It's a good flank shot, after all. I'm also puzzled why the PzKpfw IV doesn't even rotate it's hull to face the ISU. It appears to consider more distant threats to be more dangerous. That seems to be the real basis of the discussion here, though it's been misrepresented as being about a basic slug-fest.

[Berlichtingen]

Ok, I just finished playing through Jim's saved game 12 times.

1. IS takes MG fire... TC killed, panics and retreats

2. IS Fires then backs off

3. IS Fires and kills PzIV

4. IS Fires, misses. PzIV returns fire, turret penetration, knocked out

5. IS Fires then backs off

6. PzIV fires, turret penetration, 1 casualty, IS Routs

7. IS Fires then backs off

8. IS Fires then backs off

9. IS Fires then backs off

10. IS Fires then backs off

11. IS Fires, stays put. PzIV returns fire (3 shots) turret penetration, IS knocked out

12. IS fires then backs off

This leads me to believe that the IS is backing off because its rate of fire sucks. So, I set up another test. Similar situation (bit closer range) and replaced the IS with a T34 model 43 (late). In 5 test runs, the T-34 stood its ground and shot it out. Someone want to setup to see how a StuH42 will react to a T34 m43?

[Berlichtingen]

Andreas,

I think the reason shoot n Scoot works is you are ordering the IS to do what the AI will likely do anyway

[The_Capt]

Ok here we go again.

I just ran a few of my own using the IS-2 1944 edition.

At 900ms the hit chnace is still "Low" which from exoerience means about 1 out of 4-6 hits will hurt.

In this case the IS-2 did the following.

Took one aimed shot and backed off. This is exactly what it should have done. I did this three more times and in each case it took a shot and backed off...why. Well first of all it isn't invincible against the PzIV even at 900m and the PzIV can put out a hell of a lot more lead than the IS-2. Is the IS suppose to sit there and take lead while it reloads..lead which can kill it?

Not once did it back off without firing first.

Now I tried again with the PzIIIM x 4.

BFC MY TANK DIDN'T BACK UP!!! The IIIM were putting out 4 shots to the IS-2s one. First the IS-2 had a TC cas..still didn't move. Then rounds were bouncing off it like crazy...still didn't move.

Took a shot and got one of the IIIMs..then got it's track blown off and bailed.

Now here is a cae where an obvious unbalanced match yielded what we all consider "normal" behaviour and the "uber tank" still lost.

Look fellas..we are all pretty much amateurs here. I am not saying the TacAI is perfect but I think this is not an issue.

MGs in CMBO were definitely not acting properly. I ran a lot of tests and it was pretty glaring.

All of the cases here have reasonable and in redwolfs case downright logical explainations. ROF is obviously a very big factor and make the big russkie tanks cautious, at least after the first shot...as they should be.

[Redwolf]

Folks, the bug is retreat before fire. Please do not post appearences of retreat for reload as examples of inappropriate retreats. I think we all agree that the 122mm armed Russians can rightly retreat for reload.

As for the test case with 102 tests, I am afraid I can only accept runs of my test scenario as sample data on how likely it is that the ISU or the MK IV are killed.

I know this sounds silly, but otherwise you give Steve more reason to shut your tests down:

1) the isolated test never shots the ISU retreat before firing, so the situation *is* different somehow

2) Steve keeps claiming this very situation in my scenario is so special that it places the ISU in some magically difficult situation, despite favourable kill and hit probablity display. So to correctly figure how likely the ISU and MK die we have to use this one

3) don't forget all are hulldown there

4) the patch of woods in front of the Mk IV makes the hit probablity low, so effectively the hit probablity is the same as in a much longer range duel. If you just use the same range without woods you get higher hit probability. If you use longer range, you might not see the TacAI magic ability to realize of optimal engagement range

Anybody ran my savegame number 6 some more times?

[Kanonier Reichmann]

I tend to agree Capt. It seems that ROF is a very big factor in the equation to determine whether the IS2 or ISU 122 or whatever backs off after loosing off a shot. Because the Pz IV can fire off shots relatively quickly it seems to be happy to slug it out with a heavy Soviet tank even if its penetration chances are marginal to say the least. provided it has some chance of a penetrating hit it seems to be willing to continue the shot trade.

One thing I did notice however when trialling my example a few more times, the IS2 was definitely more willing to fire off a shot at the sudden appearance of an enemy tank before getting the jitters and backing off provided it had an armour covered arc in place. Futhermore, although based on limited number of tests, the IS2 also seemed quite a bit more accurate with the covered arc in place as it was scoring first shot hits on the Pz IV much more frequently than without it.

Learn something new every day I guess.

Regards

Jim R.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Andreas:

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

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

OK, I just ran your savegame 50 times and I didn't see the ISU retreat a single time unless it was gun damaged or reloading.

You're on 1.01?

I wonder how you can possibly have tried it 50 times in 21 minutes. How long does it take your machine to load the 3D graphics?</font>

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by The_Capt:

I just ran a few of my own using the IS-2 1944 edition.

The_Capt, I really appreciate your contributions.

Let me just politely mention that nobody so far could reproduce the retreat-before-first-shot behaviour in an isolated test placing some tanks on an empty map. The retreats for reload you see I can live with. It took me the effort to remodel the actual battle scenario with terrain to see the behaviour that I call "bug". What you get is good behaviour and it is no wonder you find it ok, but nobody really disagrees with that to start from.

But we had three of these threads now and that indicates that in actual complex battles the real problem is not that uncommon.

So who here honestly thinks that starting to retreat before first shot is a good idea for a ISU against a Mk IV ever?

And who doesn't find it fishy that the Mk IV never retreats before first shot? If you say this models a screwup on the crews part, then why doesn't a Mk IV screw up ever?

[EDIT: Off to work, I'll not post from work. I hope the personal attacks don't get this thread locked - I'd hate to have to open a new one ]

[ December 02, 2002, 08:32 AM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Andreas]

I am really getting more and more convinced that this is an issue where people do not use the commands in CMBB correctly. I.e. PEBKAS. IN CMBO, the Hunt command was needed for this type of action and you used it to put an automaton tank into action. In CMBB we have vehicle morale, Hunt, Cover Arcs and Shoot & Scoot, and they all combine together to give the player more control and the game more variety. If you use the correct combination of these, you will get your tanks to engage. To expect that just the Hunt command should work as it did in CMBO is probably the problem here - too much has changed.

Have you seen the retreat before firing issue if you gave a cover arc to the IS2? My guess is you won't.

Personally I am quite happy to see the IS retreat immediately if it hunts and suddenly finds an enemy. That is because it gives me a chance to engage the enemy on my terms, rather than on his. After thinking about it, I think that this increases player control, and is therefore a welcome change. If I want my IS/ISU to fight, I use cover arcs and shoot & scoot.

I am just glad that this mistaken notion of the IS/ISU Ubertank is slowly being put to rest in this thread. I'll take a Panzer IV anyday thank you very much.