Some questions ...

[Sigrun]

Originally posted by MorgTzu:

topics...another dynamic though is what happens with opposing squads fighting inside a house. Since no CQB is modeled, how do they represent room to room fighting, I don't think as a quality issue that they want to abstract too much as it wouldn't mesh very well with the rest of the game.

I'm sure CQB can be coded to take place, invisibly, inside houses. How do they plan to handle infantry that has assaulted a trench and got face-to-face with the enemy? Whatever the implementation is for that, use it for inside houses.

We, as players, are more than happy to accept the tank as an entity in it's own right, without requiring the ability to view the crew whilst inside it. Surely we can accept the same for infantry inside houses.

How about if a tank is immobilised and abandoned by it's crew? It effectively becomes a house, ready to be manned by anyone ordered to do so.

Isn't it all about perception? Somehow we've become used to the idea that houses should be treated differently to any other entity on the battlefield, and it has led the developers to abandoning them as useable objects. Which is rather a shame.

So let's take a step back and ask ourselves if we wouldn't rather have them as simple objects that can be fully used, rather than as opaque cinematic events that can't.

And rather than delay the impending release, stick them in an upgrade (along with mortars and rideable armor etc), I'd happily pay for that.

[Moon]

howardb - there is no specific hull-down command in the game. Of course this doesn't mean that you cannot find good spots yourself. I have yet to see if the AI is making use of them on its own, though.

ComradeP - good question, something that I wondered about myself recently, because in some battles I only got one captured gun even though I had actually used more than one. It might be that you need to have it crewed at game's end indeed, not sure.

Martin

Martin

[Copper]

I have not seen any pictures of armor crews exposed with thier hatches open. Will this be included?

[Melnibone]

Originally posted by Copper:

I have not seen any pictures of armor crews exposed with thier hatches open.

Is is just me or does that sound rude?

[Megakill]

Originally posted by Copper:

I have not seen any pictures of armor crews exposed with thier hatches open. Will this be included?

You will see all crews properly animated for all vehicles without the top. You will see how they aim, shoot, get shot, etc.

[Jussi Köhler]

Originally posted by Megakill:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Copper:

I have not seen any pictures of armor crews exposed with thier hatches open. Will this be included?

You will see all crews properly animated for all vehicles without the top. You will see how they aim, shoot, get shot, etc. </font>

[Megakill]

Originally posted by Jussi Köhler:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Megakill:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Copper:

I have not seen any pictures of armor crews exposed with thier hatches open. Will this be included?

You will see all crews properly animated for all vehicles without the top. You will see how they aim, shoot, get shot, etc. </font>

[Gpig]

Hmmm . . . interesting.

From what I've read, tank commanders more often than not, were standing in the open hatch, observing the battle field. Even during actual battle. (Any many TCs died or were wounded while up there.)

[Sigrun]

German commanders kept the hatch open and their head out at all times other than when enemy infantry was in close proximity. Soviets almost always kept their hatches closed. This was one of the reasons why the Germans had such a huge kill-ratio superiority on the eastern front (ONE of the reasons. Other reasons include technical superiority of German tanks and superior German training.).

[ComradeP]

Keeping a hatch open is, depending on the quality of the steel in the upper part of the hull, prone to allow bullets to ricochet into the tank, which also killed many tank crew members.

Sigrun: I believe Soviet tank design also helped the Germans, as some of the commander's positions were located in ridiculous locations, further limiting the view a buttoned up tanker would have.

A vehicle like the StuG wouldn't suffer much of a penalty, as the commander can look out of his tiny command tower (which is covered with a steel plate, but has openings in the sides) to get a 360 degrees pictures of what is happening around him.

[Copper]

My first post was ref to tank crew being open hatched for better vision or manning the Anti aircraft machine gun.

I can remember reading Michael Wittmann spending much of many armor battles with his head poking out the hatch to have a better view of the battlefield.

I agree with Sigrun

"German commanders kept the hatch open and their head out at all times other than when enemy infantry was in close proximity. Soviets almost always kept their hatches closed. This was one of the reasons why the Germans had such a huge kill-ratio superiority on the eastern front "

[Ace Pilot]

Originally posted by Moon:

howardb - there is no specific hull-down command in the game. Of course this doesn't mean that you cannot find good spots yourself. I have yet to see if the AI is making use of them on its own, though.

In CM, hull-down was a binary function - you either were or were not hull-down to a specific point. Will this be the case in ToW or will it be a more linear function? Will tanks have the option to go hull-down, or turret-down? Will a vehicle peaking around a building corner expose only a small part of itself to fire?

[Moon]

From what I have seen, TOW treats hull-down in a more linear fashion. It's not like you're hull-down or not. Instead, it appears that each shot is truly tracked based on the exposed area of the target. That is, however, just gut-feeling from playing the game.

Martin

[Megakill]

Every shot is indeed tracked. So if a small part of the tank is visible - then it will be vulnerable. Also you can "force" target various parts of the vehicle.

[John Kettler]

Megakill,

"Force" targeting? Great concept and firmly grounded in battlefield reality! Wittmann in his younger days as a commander of a stubby StuG III killed T-34s frontally with turret ring hits. Here's an excerpt of late war Sherman transmissions

upon rounding the corner in a German town and encountering a Jagdtiger face to face. (Voice rises rapidly in pitch and urgency)

"Shoot 'im in the tracks!

Shoot 'im in the tracks!

Shoot 'im in the tracks!"

Regards,

John Kettler

[Megakill]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

Megakill,

"Force" targeting? Great concept and firmly grounded in battlefield reality! Wittmann in his younger days as a commander of a stubby StuG III killed T-34s frontally with turret ring hits. Here's an excerpt of late war Sherman transmissions

upon rounding the corner in a German town and encountering a Jagdtiger face to face. (Voice rises rapidly in pitch and urgency)

"Shoot 'im in the tracks!

Shoot 'im in the tracks!

Shoot 'im in the tracks!"

Regards,

John Kettler

Well if you have a Stuart tank - it would be just plain stupid to waste ammo and shoot at the front hull of a Tiger. So you can give order to aim at tracks to your guys.

[Jussi Köhler]

Originally posted by Megakill:

Well if you have a Stuart tank - it would be just plain stupid to waste ammo and shoot at the front hull of a Tiger

For that there is the EJECT!!! command.

[Arkel]

Originally posted by Jussi Köhler:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Megakill:

Well if you have a Stuart tank - it would be just plain stupid to waste ammo and shoot at the front hull of a Tiger

For that there is the EJECT!!! command. </font>

[Moon]

Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Sigrun:

So make the buildings like tanks (immoblle ones of course). No transparency, no 'special privilages', just another crewable object (and clickable like one). If the enemy rush one, and get inside, the fighting inside is invisible. And so on. If all the kerfuffle is about "presentation" and suchlike, do away with it. Have an occupied house get a little neon dot on it's roof, it doesn't need to be transparent anymore than a tank needs to be so.

That's the building issue solved in my opinion. Multi-floored? Let the AI deal with soldier placement by floor/window etc, I don't figure that would be particularly hard.

interesting.

noteworthy idea.

commendable thinking. </font>

[Melnibone]

As all artillery is off map do we have a FO unit on map - or is it called in by normal units?

[Moon]

No forward observers. You can call arty (once available) anywhere on the map.

Martin

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by Moon:

Certainly an interesting idea. You can "crew" pullboxes in a similar way

thats exactly what i was thinking along...

and indeed, I agree with you...

- the soldiers, once inside, are not visible. But the pillboxes in the game are fairly small. An average house, by TOW's scale, is huge. But without it you turn a building into one huge "unit" which totally breaks with the scale of the simulation. I am not saying that it's impossible to do it, but it's certainly no trivial task.

... this abstraction becomes an irritation the bigger the abstraction is...which means the bigger the object is.

but please note I did not explicitly say that I think this should be done or would be very easy (though sure it is way easier than fully modeling house interiors etc.?).

I am intrigued by the *idea*. I commended the fresh thinking lying beneath that idea.

And, I think, I am more leaning towards it the smaller the object is.

I sure wouldnt want a huge factory abstracted so it would absorb a dozen squads. But, like you said, small objects like bunkers and the like.

I am pondering the idea.

MfG

M.H.

[ August 11, 2006, 08:19 AM: Message edited by: M Hofbauer ]

[Moon]

M.H. even though I quoted your post (because it contained the juicy bits) my comments were mainly directed at Sigrun.

BTW, not sure if it was clear from my post or not, but TOW does have pillboxes which work exactly in this way.

Martin

[stone75]

Hi,

Im sorry if this is already covered, my first post and not quite read everything yet. I was wondering how the game handles some french tanks for example. Due to no radios and often flag signals, a plan was usually pre formulated and difficult to change once the tanks rolled often ending with the tanks in their end positions waiting for a new signal as to what to do next. This allowed german gunners to flank and get on the weaker sides of the french where the humble 37mm could even penetrate and thus take out the less technically advanced foe.

As this applied to many early war tanks the germans faced it obviously would make a difference in ToW Engagement. Is it moddeled at all or even substituted by order delays like CM ?

Again im sorry if this has already been covered and am really looking forward to your demo.

Thanks, Steve..

[ComradeP]

Perhaps they will have a higher delay for executing orders, but I doubt the overall quality of the people inside the tank (who decide where to drive, unlike their real life French counterparts, who followed the original plan in most cases) will be lower.