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Clear lines of fire


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In CMx2 games, is it going to be necessary to make sure lines of fire are clear of friendly forces? In CMx1 games, you could run friendly troops in front of MGs and other friendly squads that were shooting, or you could surround an enemy unit and just blaze away and not worry about killing friendly troops on the other side of the circle. Tanks/guns could shoot through each other. I assume that latter is not possible anymore since AFVs offer cover.

But how about small arms fire - will this be handled differently in CMx2?

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Originally posted by SGT_56M:

I thought in CMx1 friendly fire would suppress and sometimes hurt friendly forces.

I know I lost my own troops to danger close fire missions for sure.

Same here.

Though it may be modelled less abstract in CMSF, now we have a true 1:1 infantry depiction.

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Originally posted by SGT_56M:

I thought in CMx1 friendly fire would suppress and sometimes hurt friendly forces.

I know I lost my own troops to danger close fire missions for sure.

In CMx1 friendly HE can definitely hurt friendly forces. I have seen friendly small arms fire suppress and (I think) cause a casualty in night fights. I dont know that I have ever seen small arms fire cause adverse affects on friendly troops in daytime - but even if it did I assume it is at the target point only - like HE is.

In CMx1 you can have an MG shooting at a enemy squad 150m away and right inbetween them a friendly squad that is also firing - and no suppression affects from that.

I am not a soldier, but I assume that keeping clear lines of fire is important in real life, and it just was not at all important in CMx1 (HE impact location being the small exception).

[ May 25, 2007, 08:00 AM: Message edited by: David Chapuis ]

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CMx1 categories of friendly fire that can cause casualties:

1) Misidentification in night fights: one of your units mistakes another for an enemy and deliberately targets it. Effects are the same as if the shooter is an enemy unit.

2) Misidentification by air units.

3) Small-arms area fire. If you have a unit at the point on the map where another of your units is directing area fire, and the latter unit doesn't cease fire, then the unit in the target area can suffer area-fire effects.

4) HE fire. Anything with a blast radius, including hand grenades and satchel charges, causes damage indiscriminately to units within that radius.

5) Friendly vehicle explosions (not technically friendly fire, of course). Self-explanatory.

No other possibility exists for friendly fire casualties.

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Originally posted by David Chapuis:

I am not a soldier, but I assume that keeping clear lines of fire is important in real life, and it just was not at all important in CMx1 (HE impact location being the small exception).

Most definitely. I am not a soldier either but I know enough from books and TV reality programs etc. to know that flanking of enemy positions is as much about preventing friendlies being shot in the back by their own side as anything else. You definitely don't want to be firing over the heads of friendlies if you can avoid it.
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I may have missed something, but I'm not sure that it does.

To put it succinctly: Can a friendly run in front of a MG firing at a distant enemy and not get shot? Or to put it another way: Can a MG engage a distant enemy if there are intervening friendlies?

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Yeah that thread covers the misidentification and deliberate engagement sort of friendly fire.

I have heard it said that the ballistics of every bullet are tracked so heres hoping that putting guys in the path of those bullets has an effect for either side.

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A simpler explanation of friendly fire possibilities in CMx1:

1. Explosions hurt everyone, friend and foe, day and night. It doesn't matter where it came from, nor whether it's a hand-grenade, mortar/tank/arty shell, bomb/rocket from a plane or whatever else.

2. Small arms fire affects friendly troops only at night. It doesn't matter whether the fire is directed at a specific unit nor whether we're talking about the targeted unit or a unit within the area of effect (which exists for aimed fire, too).

Dschugaschwili

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