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

[Bullethead]

Michael emrys said:

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.

Yes, this can be done. It appears that foxholes are like vehicles and have a "passenger" capacity. So like your typical tank can carry 1 squad or 2 teams or small HQs, so some craters can also fit multiple units. But it seems they have to both be small units.

Still, the idea that some unit can jump in a hole and toss out another is kinda silly, especially if the evicted unit is something heavy like an ATG.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by 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.

Wouldn't it be nice if the FO would by default remain in spotting mode until the player issues an order for FFE?

Michael

[Treeburst155]

What we've learned:

1) If you target blind, your barrage may be way off. If it is, you cannot adjust it.

2) If your spotter has LOS, your barrage will be accurate regardless of spotting round locations. No adjusting necessary.

3) Spotting rounds are only of any value to your enemy. They tip him off that he's about to get hit.

4) The manual is wrong because of #1 and #2

5) Agua knows how to plot observed target points with spotters

6) CapDog likes to target blind

7) BFC needs to fix or do somefink to either the game or the manual

8) With CMBB 1.0 arty should be handled just like in CMBO, but NEVER fire blind.

9) Bullethead refers to Soviet turn 1 prep bombardment as "barrage". This could be confused with the barrage associated with a standard fire mission.

10) Bullethead's test scenario is quite useful IMO. I will be playing with it for awhile.

Treeburst155 out.

[ November 05, 2002, 01:01 AM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[Epée]

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

What we've learned:

2) If your spotter has LOS, your barrage will be accurate regardless of spotting round locations. No adjusting necessary.

Treeburst155 out.

I repeat: I had a CRACK spotter WITH LOS fire WAY OFF target. I readjusted and IT STILL fell of target.

Despite the test and all, aren't other people on this thread having the same kind of experience?

Epée

[Eden Smallwood]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

Wouldn't it be nice if the FO would by default remain in spotting mode until the player issues an order for FFE?

Oooooooooo, ahhhhh... Emrys shoots & scores. Even better than spelling "cooperation" with an umlaut.

I'm adding this one to my xmas list.

Eden

[Capitalistdoginchina]

Originally posted by Epée:

Despite the test and all, aren't other people on this thread having the same kind of experience?

Epée[/QB]

Only a few of us i guess. It looks like it is more prevalent when there is no LOS. The question is, how do you retarget? If i retarget the same foxhole it has no effect. ??

CDIC

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

Bullethead refers to Soviet turn 1 prep bombardment as "barrage". This could be confused with the barrage associated with a standard fire mission.

Bullethead is right. Not an unprecedented occurrence.

The standard fire mission should be referred to as a "fire mission". Barrages are a special form of fire mission, usually of massed guns on preëstablished targets.

The use of the term in the careless, sloppy, overgeneralizing way typical of greenies (my goodness, I've been reading too many of Seanachi's posts! :eek: ), is misleading.

Michael

[ November 05, 2002, 03:58 AM: Message edited by: Michael emrys ]

[Dschugaschwili]

Bullethead, have you tried your test with radio FOs? Somebody on this thread suspected that only radio FOs miss in-LOS targets.

Dschugaschwili

[JonS]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

The use of the term in the careless, sloppy, overgeneralizing way typical of greenies [...] is misleading.

Well, if you want to be like that about it, you're both (you and Bullethead) wrong

A barrage is a line of fire perpendicular to the line of advance that moves forward with the troops, jumping ahead about 100m every three minutes. This was a speciality of the Commonwealth, derived from their WWI experiences. It cannot really be re-created in CM as the game currently stands (bastard versions of it can, but not terribly well).

The pre-game artillery strikes could probably best be described as 'fireplans', though I have little hope that will catch on, except among artillery afficiandos

Well, some of us anyway :confused:

Ok, ok, just me

[Ace Pilot]

This comes from BFC's CMBB web page under "New Features."

Artillery targets are shifted randomly if a spotting round is not used, which occurs when the FO is incapacitated or cannot see the target, rockets are being used, or the strike was planned on turn one (i.e. it’s a ‘preplanned strike’). Note also that spotting rounds are not used when firing on a TRP, but in this case the target is not randomly shifted nor is it shifted for Prep Barrages.

Artillery adjusting - If you have an artillery strike that’s coming in off-target (NOTE! If a spotting round is used, which is typical, the strike will come in ON target, so this is important only for strikes out of LOS and rockets, which don’t use spotting rounds) and you want to correct its aim, you should adjust fire onto the originally desired target. Further aiming error will often be reduced, but this is not guaranteed.

This contradicts the manual which implies that artillery can be off-target even when the spotter has LOS. Given the lead time that manual printing requires, perhaps this was a feature that was changed at the last minute, but couldn't get updated in the manual? Any comment from BFC?

I'm also curious to know if radio spotters are in any way less reliable than wired spotters (because of radio problems).

[Treeburst155]

Great contribution, Ace Pilot!

This backs up the theory that only out of LOS (no spotting rounds) targets can miss the mark. Actually, we should quit talking about LOS completely. It is the absence of spotting rounds for whatever reason that makes a bad strike possible (with the exception of TRPs and prep bombardment), and maybe not even adjustable.

All this confusion is a result of inaccuracies in the manual. Perhaps the manual needs some manual adjusting?

Treeburst155 out.

[ November 05, 2002, 11:00 AM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[Agua]

It backs up the theory that only out of LOS fire plans (see Jon? I learned )are subject to off target barrage if the "new features" page was, in fact, a description of the most recent mechanics of the feature. If this is, in fact, what is going on, then I'll chock it up to just a very wierd event, but I know what I saw.

In any event, it appears that either: 1) the manual needs revision; or 2) if in LOS fire plans can be wildly inaccurate, as indicated in the manual, we need some clarification as to how the adjustment is to work; or 3) if the "adjustment" is broken, it needs fixin' or somefink.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />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</font>

[Redwolf]

Agua,

if you read my postings again you will find that I first said "seems it had to be out-of-LOS targetting" but a few minutes after said, "hm, that theory doesn't fit either".

In a word, I believe you and anyone else who said they were targetting with LOS, got spotting rounds and FFE off. The spotting rounds are actually proof that you had LOS, because you only get spotting rounds when you have LOS.

Seems to be a very rare event (~1% or so), and it certainly is broken in that it is unadjustabe. Needless to say we need savegames of this, I am certainly too lazy to push my testing to cover a 1% chance. If I have a bad luck factor of 10, I would have to run 1000 tests.

[ November 05, 2002, 11:25 AM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[demoss]

Artillery targets are shifted randomly if a spotting round is not used, which occurs when the FO is incapacitated or cannot see the target, rockets are being used, or the strike was planned on turn one (i.e. it’s a ‘preplanned strike’). Note also that spotting rounds are not used when firing on a TRP, but in this case the target is not randomly shifted nor is it shifted for Prep Barrages.

Note also the self-contradiction, unless I'm missing something. The first sentence says that preplanned strikes are shifted, while the second sentence seems to say they aren't!

Maybe Battlefront doesn't know either.

[Treeburst155]

Demoss,

I noticed this too. It's just not well written. I think the writer was just mentioning, in a paranthetical way, all the cases where spotting rounds would not be used.

Treeburst155 out.

[Agua]

RW,

Apology for my brusqueness. It is very frustrating when I see what is happening and someone who hasn't seen it tells me it isn't happening.

And yes, if it *does* occur, as the manual indicates, then it is a rare event. If it does not occur, then it was just a freak occurance.

[Fly Pusher]

A possibility I would like to suggest:

Mabe a FO with LOS to a target but without LOS to the point of impact of the spotting rounds will fail to see the spotting rounds come down and so be unable to corect appropriately ?

Also you can you target a FO onto somewhere out of LOS and during the fire delay move that observer into LOS.

However, does the resulting fire land as for an observer who always had LOS or is it as if the target was still out of LOS ?

I would suggest that its only important to have LOS to see the spotting rounds but have recently had most of a 150mm barrage arrive off map in such a situation even when the FO had LOS for the actual shoot.

[TSword]

Also had some oddities with LOS Arty fire.

Maybe the problem arises when the spotting rounds fall into terrain out of LOS (which, btw would be logical) ?

One might have to do a test in targeting the border of a wood where further LOS in target direction is obscured by the forest ?

Greets

Daniel

[JonS]

Originally posted by Agua:

It backs up the theory that only out of LOS fire plans (see Jon? I learned ) ...

LOL - cheers, but you still got it wrong

IMHO, FWIW:

Fireplans: Artillery plotted during turn one (only), and which is guaranteed - regardless of LOS - to come in on target. Note that you can give it a delay to have it come in on subsequent turns, but it still counts as part of the fireplan. The main distinction of this type of fire is its reliable accuracy, and the fact that once started it can't be turned off or adjusted.

Concentrations: Any other fire called in during a CM game. Has many sub flavours. Well ok, two actually.

In-LOS Concentration: Fire called during a CM game onto a target within LOS from firing FO. Two spotting rounds will be fired, and FFE will be on target.

No-LOS Concentration: Fire called during a CM game onto a target without LOS from firing FO. No spotting rounds will be fired, and FFE will be off target.

Barrage: Not implemented in CM. Using it to describe some feature of CM artillery is simply confusing.

YMV, and the other usual disclaimers.

Regards

JonS

Edit: added barrage

[ November 05, 2002, 03:19 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[Ozzieboy]

Originally posted by demoss:

I was one who had a spotter with LOS and was FFE off-target. Now, what does 'the FO is incapacitated mean' ?? Maybe this was the case = I had LOS when I targeted, but latter was pinned or something and could not see the spotting round.

We need clarification!!

BUMP

Epee aka Ozzieboy

[Treeburst155]

Ozzieboy!

Your pinned spotter was your problem. In effect, once that happened you no longer had LOS to the target point. Spotters must not be disturbed while actually observing a fire mission.

Treeburst155 out.

[Agua]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.................................. I believe the guy did hit the dirt. But we could use some clarification on this.

[Eden Smallwood]

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

Spotters must not be disturbed while actually observing a fire mission.

OK, wait- he said he didn't see the spotting round. Ok.

But if arty has already been give command to fire for effect- continue firing until spotter says otherwise. Even if spotter dies, rounds should continue, right?

Eden

[ November 05, 2002, 07:41 PM: Message edited by: Eden Smallwood ]

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

Your pinned spotter was your problem. In effect, once that happened you no longer had LOS to the target point. Spotters must not be disturbed while actually observing a fire mission.

I don't think this is actually the issue here.

Supressed spotter lose the target altogether.