Something unusual...........maybe even a bug?

[Stoffel]

grrrr,I ran some tests

150 mm FO (regular)on top of a hill.

TRP and area command.

TRP took 49 seconds with LOS 4 rounds all on target(100 meters,no spot round)

Area command,took 3 minutes for normal and 4 minutes for radio FO.

Both got 2 spot rounds out befor FFE.

1 FO had both rounds near the target area,adjusted once at the same spot,next barrage in a 200 meter diameter from the target area.

The other adjusted twice(radio)100 meters to left and 100 meters to the right from original target area.

Spot rounds kept falling far away from the target area as the FFe did.

I ran both tests 3 times,still the same results

The normal FO has a good ability to get FFE on target with adjustments at the same target spot,the radio Fo had a lot of near misses with the furthest rounds falling 600 meters from the targetarea.

So my conclusion is to adjust only on the same spot and not to use radio FO's

Maybe the experience I had was pure bad luck.

Henk

[Agua]

Question - what is the delay between the spotting round and the commencement of FFE rounds? It seems that the usual case is they both land in the same turn - no adjustments can be made between the spotting round and the barrage.

[Treeburst155]

Thanks, Henk!

Now I have to test all this myself. I'm too curious about the whole arty accuracy thing now.

Agua,

Good question. Spotting to FFE is probably different for different types of arty, but I don't know. I DO know I love it when it all happens in one turn so my enemy doesn't get tipped off to the coming barrage.

Treeburst155 out.

[Agua]

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

Spotting to FFE is probably different for different types of arty, but I don't know.

It is, I imagine, or at least it was in CMBO. The more common smaller stuff (not going to make a "cut off" point here, because I don't know where that is), seemed to typically fall in the same round.

[Silvio Manuel]

AFAIK the spotting rounds come in at 60 seconds and 30 seconds to FFE. The larger calibers (maybe greater than 155mm?) have NO spotting rounds. I'm pretty sure that this remained unchanged for CMBB.

[Agua]

Originally posted by Silvio Manuel:

AFAIK the spotting rounds come in at 60 seconds and 30 seconds to FFE.

Are you saying that FFE 60 seconds after the first spotting round, then 30 seconds after the second? If that's correct, then my assumption is completely at odds with reality. Happens. I'll check it out tonight.

[Kingfish]

The player receives no feedback if an artillery strike is accurate or not - it is important to watch the battlefield and see where the artillery actually falls. Look for that spotting round - if it's widely off target, chances are that the full barrage is going to be off the mark too.

Which leads to the obvious question: if the spotting round is widely off target, then why is the battery FFE? Shouldn't the battery hold off on FFE until it gets confirmation from the spotter that the spotting round is in fact on target?

[Treeburst155]

"Widely off target", according to my tests with a German regular 105 spotter is NOT a spotting round that hits 150 meters away. I had good accuracy without adjusting after seeing such a spotting round.

Here's what I suspect. I think, occasionally, a fire mission will be totally FUBAR. Perhaps the chances of this are more likely with certain spotter types. When this happens I suspect it will be quite obvious. The spotting rounds and/or FFE will hit WAY off target, several hundred meters at least. When it does you should re-affirm the target point (adjust real close). This is all speculation of course.

I just did four fire missions with my German regular 105 spotter and didn't adjust no matter where the spotting rounds landed. The furthest was 150 meters from the target building.

In all four cases the light multi-story building was destroyed completely.

Treeburst155 out.

[Redwolf]

Its pretty obvious:

the feature in CMBB where artillery can land off-target even with shooting in LOS is broken. Once a barrage has the "off-target" status, BFC's intention is obviously to remove that status on adjustment. This doesn't happen, the "off-target" status is never getting reset or reevaluated once the barrage had it, no matter what the player does. Pretty simple to me, plain coding error.

[Agua]

Re - Spotting round

Okay, just did three tests each with only June 43 German 75mm wire and 81mm radio, elite, crack, vet, reg, green & conscripts.

On these arty types, only 1 spotting round fell. In each test, with Vet & higher FOs, a spotting round did fall in the turn immediately prior to the barrage. I wanted to report that with regular and lower, the round fell in the same turn, but that is not what happened as there was a spotting round in the turn immediately prior to the conscript's barrage.

There was no consistency between the *amount* of time between the spotting round and the FFE barrage, within a given experience level of FO, that is, one trial, elite spotting round falls on second 45, next trial, on second 60.

SO, my comment that the spotting round typically falls in the same turn as the FFE was incorrect. With CMBO, I generally never spent the points on experienced FOs, so my comment was based on limited observation. Sorry for the rabbit trail.

Note - no off target barrages in the tests.

[Treeburst155]

Regular German 81mm Mortar Spotter-

Spotting round - 240 meters from ground zero

Fire Mission - on target without adjusting.

Treeburst155 out.

[JonS]

Hmm. I must have been wrong in my impressions. I'll need to see if I can recreate it. In the meantime, I will assume I was wrong and theat in-LOS spotting hits its designated target.

Incidentally - an FO would expect the spotting rounds to be off target. That, after all, is the point of firing a spotting round rather than going straight to FFE

Has anyone tested trying to adjust an out-of-LOS FFE?

Regards

JonS

[Treeburst155]

I'm going to treat spotters just like I do in CMBO until the knowledge base in this area grows. IOW, no adjusting for accuracy.

If I see a spotting round more than 300 meters off target, I will still not adjust. Only when the barrage is similarly off will I CANCEL the target. Still no adjusting.

When I've seen enough of these FUBAR barrages I will be able to determine what a FUBAR spotting round is and CANCEL sooner. Based on my observations so far, a 240 meter off target spotting round means nothing when it comes to barrage accuracy.

Treeburst155 out.

[Capitalistdoginchina]

OK, interest is mounting on this subject. Here is anothyer instance.

Vet 150mm Spotter, no LOS to the target area. All rounds were falling off target, at first i thought it must be my opponent firing at me because the rounds were falling near my attack. Anyway i try to retarget by retargetting the same foxhole i was trying to hit,i tried that 3 times - but the rounds keep falling in the same neat cluster 250 meters away from where i want them to fall.

I can take a screenshot but i can't post it here, you can see my spotter, the target line and the nice arrangement of craters that landed in a useless area, unless you really pay attention to your battles you can waste an entire arty spotter.

I see the problem being worse when the rounds fall near you own men because it is easy to think that it is enemy fire.....

CDIC

PS. Edit to mention that we are not concerned about scatter, it is the entire arty spotter arsenal that falls way off target - if it does start to fall off-target how do you adjust it back on target? I was trying to retarget the exact same area.

[ November 04, 2002, 09:17 PM: Message edited by: Captitalistdoginchina ]

[JonS]

Originally posted by Captitalistdoginchina:

...I see the problem being worse when the rounds fall near you own men because it is easy to think that it is enemy fire...

Which, believe it or not, is realistic. What isn't realistic is not being able to effectivly adjust the fire. But then, if the FO doesn't have LOS anyway, perhaps its not that unrealistic...

Regards

JonS

[Redwolf]

I ran 27 tests with spotters in LOS. Everytime the fire was on target.

Seems to me the effects here are limited to non-LOS targetting. Which still would appear to be broken if the off-target point would never be movable, not even to a new random point.

Also note that at least in CMBO non-LOS spotting had no spotting rounds and LOS targetting had spotting rounds. People here said they were not seeing spotting round, that would indicate no LOS. Keep in midn that smoke can dynamically change LOS to break.

[Agua]

Originally posted by redwolf:

I ran 27 tests with spotters in LOS. Everytime the fire was on target.

Seems to me the effects here are limited to non-LOS targetting. Which still would appear to be broken if the off-target point would never be movable, not even to a new random point.

Also note that at least in CMBO non-LOS spotting had no spotting rounds and LOS targetting had spotting rounds. People here said they were not seeing spotting round, that would indicate no LOS. Keep in midn that smoke can dynamically change LOS to break.

RW, I ASSURE you, I know how to read an LOS line and how to plot an LOS arty target. My experience related above happened with LOS to the target both at the initial plotting, and during the attempted adjustment.

[Redwolf]

This theory doesn't fit either. I just tried it without LOS. But there is no adjustment without LOS.

Is it possible that a temporary loss of LOS (smoke, spotter movement) causes these effects, the adjustment which doesn't adjust?

[Agua]

No smoke blocking LOS or movement of the spotter after initial plotting in my single experience of this. I wish to gosh I'd taken a screen shot. Last night, after playing daily for six weeks, is the first time that I *noticed* this type of event. It doesn't surprise me that it didn't occur in 27 trials, but believe me, it happens. I have no reason to lie about this and I know how to plot an arty barrage in LOS.

[Bullethead]

OK, I still don't believe anybody who says that it is possible to miss the target if the FO has an LOS. I haven't seen anything in 7 months to make me think so, and I just ran some tests to look for this and saw nothing of the sort.

The Test: A full friggin' 50 German 105mm wire FOs, regulars, on a mountain at my arty range aiming at bullseyes drawn on the ground. Each FO had 100 rounds.

</font>

• Waited until turn 2 before doing anything because all turn 1 shots are barrages and barrages are known never to miss.</font>
• Group selected all 50 FOs and gave them a target order at the center of a bullseye. Resulted in all 50 FOs targeting the same point. All FOs had LOS.</font>
• Hit GO and then fast-forwarded through all the movies, until the FOs all ran out of ammo. Watched this from view 8 looking for impacts off target.</font>
• Saw no misses at all. Repeated test 3 more times. Still saw no misses. All 50 FOs always hit right on the point of aim in each of the 4 runs.
  </font>

IOW, not once in 400 chances did an FO with an LOS miss the target.

The impact pattern always looked just like this (edit NOTE: the full target is 400m wide):

If any of you doubters still want to run the same test, I've also uploaded my arty test range scenario, complete with all 50 FOs lined up and your choice of bullseyes to shoot at. You might find the scenario useful for other tests. You can put guys on the hill with an LOS, you can put guys behind the hill to fire blind, you can use TRPs or not, and you can hide FOs in the cover provided and test the killing power of arty on various targets.

Arty Test Scenario

[ November 04, 2002, 11:47 PM: Message edited by: Bullethead ]

[Panzer Leader]

OK, admit the truth! What enemy unit did you put on the bullseye?

(That screenie is art, man.)

[Bullethead]

Panzer Leader said:

OK, admit the truth! What enemy unit did you put on the bullseye?

Actually, nothing. The only enemy unit on the map is safely sequestered in a level-0 hole in a corner surrounded by level-19 mountains.

(That screenie is art, man.)

Thanks. I think the moire' pattern of the target lines is cool

[Agua]

Ok. We don't know how to plot LOS. Only been doing it daily for over a year and a half, but never learned how to tell whether an artillery targeting line is in LOS. Also, the manual incorrectly states that it occurs.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by redwolf:

But CM does not have any capability to have multiple units in one foxhole, no matter what the sizes of units and foxholes are.

Hmm. I had an HMG and an FO in the same foxhole not too long back. And believe me, I was checking closely to make sure that both were in fact in the foxhole.

Michael

[Bullethead]

Originally posted by Silvio Manuel:

AFAIK the spotting rounds come in at 60 seconds and 30 seconds to FFE. The larger calibers (maybe greater than 155mm?) have NO spotting rounds. I'm pretty sure that this remained unchanged for CMBB.

Barrages and shots at TRPs have no spotting rounds. Spotting rounds come at about 1/2 and 1/4 the remaining delay time, regardless of what the total delay time is. So like if you adjust FFE and the delay is 12 seconds, you get a spotting round after 6 seconds and another after 9 seconds, then the FFE continues.

Of course, it's pretty silly having to use ANY spotting rounds for a mere 100m shift, and having them that close together makes them useless. But apparently CM's arty system can't do without them.