v1.05 Curious how you feel about small arms accuracy now.

[Battlefront.com]

Hoolaman,

It should be kept in mind that CMSF is supposed to represent a somewhat conventional conflict, so not ever lesson from Iraq will apply.

True, though one can model a lot of the Iraq situations pretty well in CM:SF if the designer is really careful with doing so. But I honestly don't think it will be much fun to hunt through 30 buildings to find one sniper with nothing more than a platoon of infantry. Or to have a couple of Humvees and have one blown up by an IED and then move around to secure the area while the enemy doesn't come out to fight. Again, possible but not the sorts of things people are trying to play out here.

Oh, and of course CM:SF doesn't simulate politics and an active civilian population going about its daily work. That would be a whole 'nother couple of games rolled into one '

Adam1 ,

I'm reading about how squads attacking through Fallujah managed to accidentally infiltrate the enemy lines. Well, either that or the Muj let them... This was a fully equipped NOD unit too. I'd sure like to be able to do something like that in CMSF.

Well, this gets back to tactics and the entire laundry list of reasons I gave that makes a wargame, any wargame, not comparable to real war. The player in CM:SF, even in RealTime, is never going to have the level of confusion and predisposition to small tactical maneuver mistakes that happen in real life. And likewise, on the other side the amount of coordination is vastly superior to anything that would be seen in real life. On top of that, if you're playing the AI you're playing against something that isn't in the same ballpark.

Now, having said that you can certainly have situations where things get all confused and units find themselves in the wrong place, for better or worse. Happens all the time when I play, so maybe I'm doing something "wrong"

Steve - I'm open minded,

Comments like this, just a few posts up (not to mention others) don't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling about your statement of open mindedness:

"CMSF has a very very long way to go"

"I have no idea how CMSF can get there in either case."

"I can't imagine what Charles has in mind to make a better model."

"Let's not just be satisfied with something that isn't there yet."

These hardly seem to be open minded comments to me. In fact, based on what you wrote it would appear that you've made up your mind that the current modeling is terrible and that the chances of it getting better are slim to none. If you do not really feel this way, then I suggest not making statements that really can't be interpreted any other way by a reasonable person.

why don't you point me to a combat account remotely like what I'm seeing in CMSF, or even with similar results under similar circumstances?

Well, it depends on what circumstances you're talking about. If you have a scenario that has a full up mech clash at close range with fairly well equipped and motivated Red forces with competent Blue forces from a "1st rate" military power... there are NO examples to draw from. None. So the bulk of what people are playing out in CM:SF have no parallel to anything that has already happened. Which is why we found the subject matter to be interesting enough to spend three years on.

If you are talking about medium sized asymmetric encounters between a scraggly light infantry force and a moderate sized mechanized or mostly infantry force... Fallujah I and II have some good examples, An Nasiriyah is another. For the latter battle, which I studied quite a bit because it was well covered and fairly unique to OIF. Quick assessment of US casualties:

] The bloodiest day of the operations for the Marines was also March 23, when 18 men of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, were killed by a combination of mortar rounds, RPGs, and indirect tank fire. A friendly-fire incident occurred when an A-10 strafed Amphibious Assault Vehicles by mistake, killing at least one serviceman.[3] Two other Marines, from the 6th Engineer Support BN, Corporal Evans James[4] and Sgt. Bradley S. Korthaus[5] drowned while trying to cross the Saddam canal under fire the following day. A third Marine from the Marine Air Control Gp-28 died from hostile fire.

This was a heavy mech force consisting of Abrams, AAV-7 APCs and other support vehicles. They were backed by artillery, organic mortars, and (tragically as it turned out) air power. They faced a light infantry force with limited artillery support and few heavy weapons. For the 6 days of the battle:

Iraqis (estimated)

359-431 KIA; +300 POW; +1000 WIA

Marines (and the Army convoy that started the battle)

29 KIA; 6 POW; 60 WIA

At the end of the one day of combat I referenced above, a Marines Rifle Company (which is larger than a US Army Rifle Company) was combat ineffective due to its losses.

Now, I'll say this again because in a prior post you rejected it as irrelevant...

The nature of CM:SF being a game, the nature of one player as God, the nature of pixel soldiers vs. being real ones, etc. means that the battle results at the end of a CM battle will likely never look much like a real battle result. The same was true for CMx1 and it is true for all other wargames. Yes, sometimes the results do come out to be pretty close to some of the worst case real world situations, but vs. run of the mill combat... usually there is no comparison. Gamers want to fight the worst case scenarios, not the cakewalks. OIF was full of cakewalk battles punctuated by fierce combat of a limited spectrum of warfare (compared to what CM:SF offers).

Steve

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[Battlefront.com]

Oh, and let's not forget the examples from Chechniya, though BIG caveats must be used when looking there. A better example, though unfortunately not well documented yet, is the IDF in Lebanon during their recent summer offensive. There are a few segments of that battle that are interesting to examine, though it's a little early to be sure reporting is accurate. The original accounts of An Nasiriyah were not borne out after all witnesses and facts were in a couple of years later.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Adam1,

I'm just going to stop criticising the game altogether, because it seems to me that no matter how I word it, if it is negative (even open ended statements, with "yet"'s and "I don't knows" prefacing them), I get a lecture.

You could just engage in a discussion of the modeling instead of speculating and condemning the model and its future. You'll note that I respond to your criticisms directly and in a debate style. It's the baggage that comes with it that I "lecture" you on.

So, you'll get no more criticism from me. In fact, I'm not even going to report the bugs anymore.

Your choice, of course.

That should keep you warm and fuzzy for a long time and spare me the lectures on how to write. It bugs me probably as much as criticism bugs you, so peace on earth, good will to men...

The criticism doesn't bug me at all. After 10 years of dealing with criticism of the games I make, do you really think I'd still be here if it really bothered me? I *like* having critical discussions. But I only like doing it when I feel the other person is being open minded. Otherwise it feels like arguing with a brick wall, and that's not neither enjoyable nor productive for anybody. So if I "lecture" you it is simply to highlight those aspects of your posts which aren't in keeping with what you say you want to achieve here.

I'm not saying you have to like CM:SF or its underlying engine. I only ask that you take a step back and try to see that perhaps some of your perceptions of it are not as accurate as you may think. For example, you asked what the military guys think and then, apparently, ignored what they said. If you're really interested, then it would be good to see you respond to that feedback directly.

Thanks for the example, it was informative.

Not a problem. I will note that I gave the same battle examples a few pages ago, though without the details of one.

One question - do the Abrams tanks in CMSF have "plume" detectors or anything like that linked in with their IR equipment? (Something that perhaps will swivel the turret right onto the IR source?)

There is no overt simulation of IR detection. What we do have is simulation of various types of IR equipment in terms of spotting and targeting (two different things sometimes, depending on equipment). If the equipment is present those abilities of the vehicle in question increase when situations warrant (i.e. night, cool weather, etc.). The two most powerful systems are the 2nd Gen FLIR found on Abrams A2 and Bradley A3 vehicles. The LRAS3 systems found on most of the US scout and FIST vehicles is in some ways better.

Steve

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[aka_tom_w]

This was a heavy mech force consisting of Abrams, AAV-7 APCs and other support vehicles. They were backed by artillery, organic mortars, and (tragically as it turned out) air power. They faced a light infantry force with limited artillery support and few heavy weapons. For the 6 days of the battle:

Iraqis (estimated)

359-431 KIA; +300 POW; +1000 WIA

Marines (and the Army convoy that started the battle)

29 KIA; 6 POW; 60 WIA

At the end of the one day of combat I referenced above, a Marines Rifle Company (which is larger than a US Army Rifle Company) was combat ineffective due to its losses.

Thanks Steve, yes, those are interesting real world stats for a 6 day period.

[ December 22, 2007, 11:25 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Battlefront.com]

Thanks Adam.

TomW, I don't have the vehicle loss stats handy. I think something like a half dozen AAV-7s were destroyed and damaged to the point of not being immediately useable. Most were knocked out by RPG fire, but a couple were chewed up by A-10s in what was OIF's worst instance of friendly fire from what I remember.

As it happened, the Abrams spent most of the big one day battle stuck in a sewage pit. But when they did bust loose... they really cleaned up.

Keep in mind that the quality of RPG rounds used by the Iraqis was extremely poor. We simulate this sort of round in CM:SF, but only when you come up against fairly crappy forces. Otherwise they have generally better RPG-7V rockets than the Iraqis had, and the best quality units have even better ones. Then of course there are the RPG-29s, which are a massive threat to Abrams. In short, from reading the 1st hand accounts of the Abrams roll down "Ambush Alley", I don't think they would have done as well if the enemy forces were employing the better quality RPG stuff that you often see in CM:SF. Kinda like CMBB when using Pak36 instead of Pak40... big difference

Steve

[JasonC]

If we are collecting anecdotes about what typically happens in a modest scale but sustained firefight between a more heavily armed and capital intensive modern force, and a numerically larger light infantry force, in terrain with adequate infantry cover (whether from vegetation or buildings), I have a whole list of them standing by.

LZ X-ray, 48 hours heavy contact between 500 US infantry and 2000 NVA regulars, results 200 US KIA+WIA, 850 NVA KIA, balance of NVA probably WIA. Useful because one of the most heavily documented close infantry combats ever, with personal AARs from nearly half the US side participants.

Mogadishu, 24 hours heavy contact between a similar sized US force and irregulars similar to the above, 100 US side casualties, comparable to the above irregular losses.

Fallujah II, 8 days heavy contact between US forces of brigade scale (4 Marine IB, 2 army heavy MIB less heavily engaged) and several thousand enemy irregulars, results about 500 US casualties.

In the first case the US side had heavy 105mm artillery support ongoing, plus helos and tac air. In the second, some air support especially AC-130s later in the fighting. In the last, significant heavy armor and episodic air support (own side restraint, available whenever warranted).

In all of them, the ratio of losses topped out around 10 to 1, and the winning and higher tech side took losses on the order of 20%. All took tens of hours. In all cases, ammunition was continually resupplied to the winning side, meaning for the most part firing was opportunity limited not supply limited. On the losing side, it was casualty limited - we may assume the men lost fired some fraction of their personal ammo loads only.

Allowing that easily half of the losing side casualties were inflicted by heavier arms than the small arms, MGs, and grenade weapons of the infantry, the averaging winning side infantry participant in these fights accounted for only a handful of enemy, on the order of 2 men hit each. The best documented performances are an order of magnitude higher than that but are rare. Over many hours, expending multiples of a single ammo load.

The enemy side probably fired on the order of 100,000 rounds in each of those engagements, maybe several times that in the last. They were achieving rounds per hit on the order of 500 to 1000, not on the order of one shot in three or one shot in 30. If they had achieved even the lower of the two latter figures, the winning side force would have been wiped out in each case.

An appreciable portion of the documented winning side losses in all of the above cases occurred in an offensive stance or during periods of especially hazardous movement, or early in the engagements. E.g. at X-Ray, 10% of the losses were to a single cut off infantry platoon as it was isolated, and easily another 20% occurred during 2 premature attempts to attack and reach that platoon. The other significant occasion of loss was a near overrun of one company on the perimeter.

Outside of those occasions, US losses over tens of hours under fire by hundreds of NVA regulars with AKs and LMGs, were very slight. Why? Because the US side went stationary in cover and improved positions. The last NVA attack took hundreds of causalties while inflicting only 8 light wounds, because by then the US infantry was dug in and supported by registered 105s, M60 MGs with cleared fields of fire, etc.

Or take the second - the US side losses were concentrated in the early part of the engagement, during hazardous movements. Over night, US losses were very low, with continual air support a significant part of the reason.

But even in the later parts of the first daylight period, US infantry were in contact with large forces of enemy for hours, and only lost men if ammo limits prevented small groups from defending their immediate surroundings. Once well into cover, the enemy could not rack up continued causalties at any appreciable rate by just putting more guns on line around the US forces and pulling triggers long enough.

In Fallujah II, a large portion of the US losses came from offensive stance aka movements directly into defended enemy locations, or from periods of exposure in the streets accompanying that, also from hazardous movement to assist the wounded (a feature in every single one of these fights). Men not currently engaged in such movements, consequently, suffered negligble losses despite hours in contact with enemy infantry.

What is my point? Infantry that gets into what the men consider adequate cover, as a response to initial fire, do not typically waste away from continual losses from the enemy just continuing to pull triggers. Instead, only hazardous maneuver by either side brings about renewed occasions for loss. And usually quite asymmetrically - the attacker succeeds with some losses if the defender is adequately suppressed and not helped by unsuppressed friendlies nearby, and the attacker takes serious losses otherwise.

I submit that there is less room for subjective divergence over what typically happens in these real world cases than one might think. The evidence is in fact remarkably consistent, as is the scale of the losses and the maximum exchange ratios achieved.

The next item of business, it seems to me, is to conduct a few tests using the 1.05 version of CMSF to see what typical suppression and loss results actually happen right now, once cover has been taken by the shot-at side. I suggest the following example match ups be tested -

vehicle MG vs. infantry squad in a trench

vehicle MG vs. infantry in a building

vehicle MG vs. infantry in vegetation

emplaced foot MG vs each of the above

squad with SAW and rifles vs. each of the above

at ranges - 400m, 200m, 100m.

for time periods of 2 minutes, 5 minutes, and 15 minutes.

The shots should specifically occur mostly after the shot-at unit has taken its first fire and suppression effects, and not be triggered by continual new attempts at hazardous movement in the open.

Expected results - at ranges of 400m, fire should be able to suppress only and ongoing losses should be incidental. Pretty much regardless of time spent firing. Extended fire at men in cover at such distances with small arms and MGs should waste ammo and maintain moderate suppression only - the unit should be able to move if it wants to risk it.

At 200m, vegetation cover might be inadequate to prevent a few continued losses, especially against a vehicle MG (if higher caliber e.g. 50 cal I mean). Suppression should be maintained with fire, movement difficult to impossible. Light enough buildings and 50 cals, again some ongoing losses possible. Not vs. a trench or heavy building.

At 100m, a few more occasional exposure casualties perhaps.

Now, realistically, it is new movements to get a fresh angle on an enemy that breaks the "fire ineffective" stalemate that should result from these situations. Or the use of weapons against which the cover employed is simply ineffective (e.g. indirect arty into concealing vegetation, direct fire HE into buildings, lobbed grenades or mortar fire etc into trenches).

Here is what should not happen - the firing MG or vehicle can simply burn through ammunition at theoretical rates of fire, with enemy infantry losses a straight linear function of the total MG ammo expended, right up to "wiped out".

What actually happens today in CMSF needs to be tested. We should not rely on anecdotal impressions. Nor do we need to write more essays about imaginative reconstructions of how such major engagements integrate little dyadic firefights upward to the whole fight. It is enough that we can know with certainty that no one would have walked away from them alive, if it were not physically possible to get into nearly perfect cover that keeps losses for the non-moving, not-maneuvered-against, to neglible levels.

Right now we just need to know more objectively whether it is possible to achieve the right sort of protection in CMSF as it is. If it isn't, then clearly CMSF can be tweaked to correct this, and we can safely leave the right implementation and level of tweaking to the designers. They require detailed feedback on the level of lethality the game yields right now, in the above "sustained small arms fire into cover" cases.

I hope this is helpful.

[ December 22, 2007, 12:53 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Dennis50]

Here's a link to a site about the LZ X-ray that JasonC is talking about http://www.lzxray.com/

It has an animated battle map of that fight which is interesting.

Regards,

Gunz

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[JasonC]

Adam - very useful test, thanks. And it fits my subjective impression that only buildings were meaningfully helping my infantry in the games of CMSF I've played (those impressions were formed pre 1.05 though).

The one additional version we clearly need is to have the shooter be a squad with 5.56mm SAWs and M16s or M4s. Why? To test how much of it is pure volume of fire, and how much might reflect generous cover penetration handling for 50 cal rather than 5.56mm. Also it would show handheld vs. stabilized and sight-assisted, if that is another important variable.

Finally, there is another form of cover im principle worth testing, but from the previous results unlikely to differ from what you saw with the trench - cresting infantry. I mean using shallow depressions or just barely having "grazing" LOS over a hill mass. In principle this ought to be able to give perfect protection from small arms once sufficiently suppressed, or nearly so.

The empirical lesson I gleaned from my CMSF experience to date was that firepower rules, maneuver is a luxury, and the thing to do is shoot the heck out of everything as long as it takes, and that infantry is quite weak. Against building cover, use direct HE or ATGMs and level the building itself. Against anything else, just fire continually. I've had excellent success this way using MBTs against nearly everything.

Much as I like the real world case for MBTs, I think this behavior undermodels the ability of the squishies to exploit cover. I've suggested one piece of a solution - pairwise fp reduction that bumps with each bit of inflicted suppression, so eventually a firing dyad is just saturated and continued fire isn't going to do anything. With the ability of fire from a different compass point or significantly different range, or movement by the shot-at side, "resetting" this "gone deep" cover. (Which should have a cost incidentally - the side benefitting from gone deep x% should also lose spotting ability and its own outgoing fire frequency, in a similar portion).

Maybe there is a better version of that, or a simpler one than tracking it "dyadically" (like, perhaps, just having it depend on current suppression state "times" the cover one is inside). Perhaps trench and cresting cover needs to be beefed up more generally, or should benefit the most from this effect.

As an aside, I note that in CMx1 as well as current CMSF, firepower is usually limited by supply or total ammo load considerations - very occasionally by how long a unit lives itself, instead. In real firefights, the fighting is prolonged far beyond the CM timescale without firepower being supply limited, for the most part. It is instead largely firing-opportunity limited.

This suggests firing *sometimes* becomes far less frequent than we see in CM, for extended periods. Whether because everyone has "skulked" out of LOS, result lull, or because of the sort of "gone deep" cover-saturation effect under discussion.

To see this, just notice that LZ X-Ray losses of 200 men were considered extremely heavy fighting, but amounted to approximately 1 man hit per company * hour of the battle. (The first battalion on the spot landed 4, and 2 others were landed to assist as the first took casualties). Mogadishu, a similar figure. Fallujah II a fraction of that (3-5 per company *day, depending on how one counts the less heavily engaged flanking forces and the like).

Now obviously, that does not mean the fighting wasn't considerably heavier than that at its peaks - but it does mean long lulls had to have occurred in which most forces were completely safe, despite being in close proximity (few hundred meters, tops) to literally thousands of enemy infantry. Either the sides are regularly and mutually "skulking" to the point where LOS is broken completely, or deep enough cover is found "in LOS".

FWIW...

[LongLeftFlank]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

We don't need to have broken down cars and rubble barricades graphically represented to make that happen. Just a variable tweak and that's all that is needed.

But including just these very 2 items -- rusty Fiats/Toyotas and some piles of cement rubbish and rebar -- as flavour objects (I honestly don't care if they have any effect on LOS/LOF or not) would make the urban landscapes so much more photorealistic and less generic and "sterile". Pleeeeeeeeease, pretty please (grovel, bow, scrape) consider adding these items for the Marines module (I have no dignity left, I'm a married man ).

Oh, and I'm very glad this thread still has legs, as resolving the casualty curve issues will have a HUGE payoff for the CMx2 game system as a whole, regardless of theatre or era. Everyone who has posted here so far seems to have the very best hopes for the game, and we're down to really short strokes now. Hang in there!

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[JasonC]

Whoever wants to, it shouldn't be hard.

Another item for comparison would be prone men in the open, to see what effect the vegetation type cover is having, e.g. Clearly from your own tests, it isn't remotely enough to withstand fire from a single APC even at medium range, for any length of time. But it would still be useful to see it side by side with the loss at minute N stats of open ground, prone infantry. (Also the same but slightly uneven ground aka shallow depressions, with light brush e.g.)

If you have a testbed for it, shouldn't be too hard - and other than the maxed out vegetation, all of it can be readily created in a hotseat game anyway. Typical ordinary vegetation might be a more useful benchmark anyway (though obviously if even maximum vegetation is inadequate cover, that is worth knowing).

[c3k]

If it's only vegetation, I'd be disappointed if there were ANY statistically significant changes to casualty levels.

If concealment is assumed and area fire is used, then the saturation level of any area should be equal.

Now, if you're trying to test varying levels of COVER, that'd be different.

CONCEALMENT hides from view, COVER protects from fire.

Concealment shouldn't matter. If I see a tarp covering an 8m x 8m area of ground and I know there are 9 Syrians in there, I'm going to spray and pray. If I see an 8m x 8m area covered in friggin' lilacs and I know there are 9 Syrians in there, I'm going to spray and pray.

In either case, the ammo expended is what counts.

So, let's break the concealment and cover aspects from each other.

I AM interested in levels of COVER and how the game models casualty rates due to varying incoming firepower.

Regards,

Ken

[Battlefront.com]

Sorry... only time for some quick comments:

A recent change was made to the RoF in the mid-long ranges. This was done to simulate, better, the delays inherent in acquiring and firing at more distant targets. Early testing has shown a marked decrease in casualties at such ranges, which was one specific source of complaint.

There is a big difference between Cover and Concealment, of course. So when conducting tests make sure the terrain match whatever you're trying to test. Concealment should, to some extent, retard casualties because it makes target acquisition more difficult. Unloading on an enemy soldier in plain view means (in theory) that all shots are going towards a known point. If you simply know the enemy is there, shots are going to a known area. The effects, however, can be identical depending on the circumstances.

v1.05 has significantly strengthened buildings. They should now take a pretty good pounding before they collapse.

The effects of fire from more than one vector is simulated directly in CM:SF (it was in CMx1 too, as a matter of fact).

No cover is perfect. If you stay in a position long enough, someone is going to figure out how to hurt you. Be that through direct contact with a projectile, or through indirect contact such as rock chips, wood splinters, glass shards, etc. Staying in one place too long will likely result in more casualties, not less.

One has to be very careful to not forget about the factors that aren't simulated in games that happen in real life. In real life firefights that last "hours" are usually several sharp encounters followed by lulls. During these lulls units tend to at least reshuffle their immediate tactical positions, if not maneuver for better effect the next time the enemy is engaged. For many reasons the "lulls" are not very well simulated in wargames. The primary reason is that neither side finds them much fun, so they tend to be far rarer than in real life. Fewer lulls means more continuous shooting, which means (in theory) less maneuver and greater expenditure of ammunition for a given period of time vs. real life. Toss in other game specifics (God view, Borg units, pixel warriors, inexperience, etc.) and it probably means more casualties than in real life.

CMx2 gives players the ability to resupply, so it is therefore possible to expend large amounts of firepower and still have the ability to pour out more (when properly managed). This is not only realistic, but it can prevent the CMx1 gamey of overrunning enemy units at the end of a battle when you're (pretty) sure he's out of ammo. No such certainty exists in CMx2, though we have to fix an oversight with the Syrian's ability to resupply (hopefully with v1.06).

The testers and I are, and have been for a while now, discussing these issues based on our experiences and the discussions here. I expect more changes to come, tough there isn't anything more for me to report on them at this time.

Steve

[ December 23, 2007, 10:34 PM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

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[molotov_billy]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

The testers and I are, and have been for a while now, discussing these issues based on our experiences and the discussions here. I expect more changes to come, tough there isn't anything more for me to report on them at this time.

Steve

Thanks for taking the time to read and respond to the discussions here, as well as making appropriate changes to the game to move things forward. Much appreciated!

[JasonC]

Steve - thanks for the feedback, glad the discussion is stimulating thought. I look forward to whatever you all come up with...

[Secondbrooks]

Have to agree that basics are pretty much what i think they should be, atleast in heavily forested area, where defenders were in trenches and whole area was 'grass, 3 trees (most covering type i quess) and brush + logs lying around'-tiles. Troops did open their fire automatically inside 40 meters (which is quite right), but i could manage their firepower with target orders (both target and area) to 60-70 meters long and still their accuracy of fire was somewhat consentrated on one point... My idea is that they don't see nothing to this distance and so firing should not consentrate on one point, but every soldier should be shooting in wide arc area in front of them.

There was several ways how attack (2 attacking platoons vs 1 defending platoon) would turn out. Defenders are in trench line 60-70 meters long (whole platoon) while attackers are comming in 75-90 meters long line. Reader can laugh now, but that is limitation of engine (squad can form only 20 meters long line), as i can't form much longer fireline with unified killzone. I quess defending platoon could have been stretched to 100 meter long line (still 100 meters too short from real life) without damaging "unity" of killzone too much... But i got lazy. And fact that squads still are compressed into 20 meters area so they are easily to be suppressed.

1. frog leaping to trench with out firemanagement: Attacker didn't much do but killed it self. This is what AI does, and human as well if not giving target-orders to units (god i hate managing this!)If i order my men halt to 40-50 meters from trench and do not give target orders then they just sit there (both sides).

2. Lots of fire and no movement after all units can fire to trench (managing fire with target orders, god i hate this!). Defenders suffers some casualities (too much i say, i'll come back to this later), but can't be destoryed. Without movement to trench battle can't be finished, defenders are pinned down, but not destoyed.

3. After minute or two heavy suppressive fire, half of attackers assaults the trenchline. Defenders can cause casulities to attacker (usually casulities comes in trench, as defender will not rise their heads to shoot charging enemy), but gets overrun and destoyed. It seems that squads which are assaulting the trench and having target orders are very effective, They can cause severe casualities even before getting into to trench.

4. No suppressive fire phase, but attacker regroup to line, they get target-orders and movement orders (assault for infantry-squads and HQ-squads gets move). Results are pretty much like in 3.

Seems that defenders are too easily to be suppressed.With movement+fire they are easy to be destoryed as they can't fight back. Most likely too thightly packed formation is main problem in this. You suppress one (with very effective target-orders) and there are several others near which will get suppressed as well. But would more wide formation (lets say 50 meters per squad) affect to this, because CMSF is having squad based morale system, which means 1'm pinned down -> everyone else are pinned down?

Basically it was handgrenades and launcher grenades which seemed to cause most casualities to defender. One or two grenades usually took out half of the squad in trenches. Again formation is too thight to give survivability to squad.

Small arms accuracy and guys ability to spot targets (without target-orders) in those distances was pretty much what i think is in reality, it took quite a deal of fire from several guys to score hit into target which was barely visible. But greatness of target orders is something i, atleast now, think to be the fishy case. Ofcourse they are using alot of ammo during that order, but i think the issues are with visibilty (shold not see nothing to that distance) and consentratio of fire when guys should not see nothing.

So mathematical:

Too thight formation + greatness of target orders = something fishy.

Ps. Hopefully someone gets something out of it... I'm sick at the moment, so my brains can't focus.

Also wasn't it during ww1 when one kill required averagely much less than 100 bullets? If i remeber right it was 20-30 bullets. Quite a marksmen they were (or there was some other factors)

[ December 26, 2007, 03:52 AM: Message edited by: Secondbrooks ]

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[JasonC]

Secondbrooks - thanks for the test, and I agree that the represented troop concentration may well be too high, and that may be part of it. Interesting observation on high casualties from single grenades - I've notice that HE weapons "nuke" squads in CMSF, well beyond what seems realistic (e.g. single HEAT rounds from rocket launchers nearly wiping out 7 man units etc).

On the issue of average accuracy in WW I, though, I think your figure is off. 20-30 is more like the number of heavy artillery rounds produced (by all sides) for each infantry casualty suffered (by all sides). Small arms expended over the whole war exceeds infantry hit from all causes by many orders of magnitude. It was normal for single nations to supply their force with 100 million rounds per year and up, while losses ran single digit millions over the whole war - with the lion's share caused by artillery.

[Battlefront.com]

Adam1

(I also don't really see lowering RoF at mid-long ranges, particularly on the crew served weapons, as the right way to make it fit my perceptions.)

It's actually extremely realistic and it should have been in there the whole time. Heck, CMx1 even had it The simple fact is that the closer the target is the more willing a soldier is to expend ammunition since the threat is higher. On top of that closer targets are inherently easier to hit so accuracy is less important. As range increases, the incentive to fire a lot of rounds and to refrain from aiming well are both reduced. So I'm curious to know why you think the opposite should be true?

The cover vs. penetration stuff should be really objective. What can x round penetrate? That is something easily researched and implemented without any subjectivity.

Not as easy as it sounds because in real life there are a wide range of materials to hit but we can't simulate each one individually. For example, there is a significant difference between a wall made out of solid stone, bricks, or hollow concrete blocks. Probably other types too. But we only have one type of wall, so which material use? This is true for buildings, trees, and pretty much any other cover you wish to name.

One thing is fairly true, though. .50mm rounds go through just about anything that isn't specifically armored against it. I've got some test results that show rounds punching through one side of a concrete block house (typical Iraqi type), through a dummy with frag vest, continuing on through furniture, through the interior wall behind it, and (IIRC) in the opposite wall of the adjacent room. 7.62mm pretty much can punch through as well, the 5.56mm getting through only with repeated bursts in the same spot. And that brings up another problem...

In real life repeated shots at a single spot can, if accuracy is good enough, allow penetration whereas one shot can not. This is not something we can afford to track specifically, so we have to abstract it along with materials in general.

In short, we have the ballistic qualities of the rounds and their affect on materials. The problem is that we can't use this data literally since it's far too detailed for the environment.

Units which take fire and get pinned or suppressed, if in certain terrain tiles, can drop contact within a short time, forcing the shooter to area fire or hold fire entirely. That means they go to question mark icons and the digital soldiers disappear.

I don't see this as being a positive change. In fact, I think overall it's something that is going in the wrong direction. When a unit seeks cover it does so unevenly. Since spotting is yes/no/maybe for the entire unit, as long as there is spotting contact with some of the unit then the entire unit is shown to some degree. But LOF is not the same so it can not be assumed that if you can see a guy you can shoot at him. Which means going to "?" only happens when LOS has been lost to all of the enemy soldiers, and when that unit is an entire Squad of 9 men the chances of that are pretty low unless the cover is exceptionally good.

As I've said before, if the values for cover aren't doing as much as they should be, the solution is to tweak the cover.

Units area targeting abstractly lose firepower.

The game has always done this. Same for CMx1. What happens is the fire is presumed to be spread out all over the Action Spot (or neighboring ones in some cases) and therefore not aimed in any true sense of the word.

A question about the squad fire - I notice PK fire going very far left and right of targets as close as 200m, often in exactly the same two spots on either side. This is with direct targeting, not area target. What am I seeing?

Could be that the PK is not on a tripod. Prolonged bursts of automatic fire cause "walking" fire effect and it can not be controlled even by a burly, experienced gunner. It's one reason why the MGs are best used for suppressive fire or spattering rounds at a target rich environment. Precision is not something they do well unless they are firing in very small bursts, which is what the riflemen are supposed to be doing.

Steve