Mud Posted October 10, 2002 Share Posted October 10, 2002 Hmmm. Just thought I'd toss this one out: Does the presence of captured vehicles affect the probability of friendly fire (or of not drawing hostile fire)? - mumbling: When there are no captured vehicles, just knowing the general model/shape of the vehicle is sufficient to judge whether it's hostile. A German soldier who suddenly sees a KV-class tank move past him can guess that it's hostile, even if he doesn't know whether it's a KV-1 or a KV-1S or a KV-2 or variants. But if there are captured vehicles of a type also fielded by the enemy... then there might be doubt. This doubt might be greater far away, or at night, or from the air, or other conditions that hamper visual ID. The Russian-controlled infantry and vehicles might also be more hesitant to assume that a KV-class vehicle is friendly, once they know that the enemy is fielding KV-class tanks. And from the POV of a fighter-bomber, well, hope those aerial recognition panels work... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akdavis Posted October 10, 2002 Share Posted October 10, 2002 While an argument could be made for friendly fire in all sorts of circumstances, not just with captured vehicles, I think that level of fog of war could prove very frustrating (Do you really want one of your squads to accidently open up on another retreating squad, or your tanks to blow up a building you just rushed an HQ into?) Operate under the assumption that your soldiers are aware that their side is using captured equipment and know when and where to expect it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patolino Posted October 11, 2002 Share Posted October 11, 2002 Originally posted by Mud: Does the presence of captured vehicles affect the probability of friendly fire (or of not drawing hostile fire)? I don't know about CM:BB (doubt it does this) but when reading some authors it seemed it was a standard German SOP to put a T-34 in front of a PzIV column and drive through soviet-held villages without anyone noticing ...and if there wasn't any available, never mind, them Ivans won't recognise German tanks anyway. At least in the stories in the book Panzer Aces they regularly do this So ok, probably '41 sov infantry would not know the German tank models all that well and maybe the national insignia was camoflaged... but I guess this would be very hard to do in CM. If you spot a tank you cannot command it's certainly not one of yours and at latest in the beginning of the next turn target it... so no wild cruises through company after company of enemy infantry I'm afraid... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maj. Battaglia Posted October 11, 2002 Share Posted October 11, 2002 I would agree with akdavis about your side knowing captured weapons are in use. One would imagine that at this level troops would be familiar with their nearby comrades. I suppose a case could be made for unexpected reinforcements, however. Someone posted a URL a while back with an interview of a Soviet officer whose armored unit was equipped with Shermans Emcha. He spoke of Matildas from a neighboring unit being fired on returning from battle because their tanks were not recognized by the AT gunners. So certainly this sort of thing happened. However, not only from this account, but from reading others, I suspect most friendly fire incidents happened outside the context of the heat of battle, such as preparatory bombardments falling short (this would be interesting though frustrating in CM), bombs dropped on wrong location, misidentification of formations, etc. Since I don't have CM:BB yet (anyone have a CM:BB-capable Mac they wish to donate?), I can't speak to it per se, but I have not seen anything about the friendly fire model being tweaked. Certainly in CM:BO the nights can be dangerous. But overall I would guess what Mud refers to is pretty rare in the CM context; it does not seem to me compelling that it be included, but if it is, all the better. [ October 11, 2002, 04:01 AM: Message edited by: Maj. Battaglia ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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