Suggested night battle improvements

[Cpl Steiner]

One observation from trying to make a night battle scenario:

For the Syrian side, any unit other than Special Forces with Excellent equipment (Night Vision devices) is incapable of returning fire on the Blue side when controlled by the AI. If you switch sides and play Red it is immediately apparent that these non-SF Syrians do pick up "question mark" contacts. However, when AI-controlled, they don't engage these question mark contacts, even when receiving enemy fire. Since they don't have NV equipment, that means they are pretty much sitting ducks for the enemy, unable to return fire.

Is this realistic? Non-SF Syrian troops are generally green or conscript, so in theory they aren't smart enough to worry about giving away their position whilst at the same time they are more prone to panic and fire blindly in the direction of the enemy.

Come to think of it, this might apply even to daytime battles, in which you would expect green and conscript Syrians to be firing bursts at question mark contacts as much as at identified enemy targets. From the pictures of these sorts of troops I've seen on the TV, area fire with small-arms is pretty much the only way they know how to shoot!

To solve the game-balance problem of Blue being immune to return fire in dark conditions, and to better represent the nature of 2nd and 3rd line Syrian forces, I propose that the AI be allowed to target question mark contacts with area fire.

[dan/california]

They will get hammered just as bad when they run out of ammo.

That may or may not be more realistic.

[flamingknives]

There's another gripe. PKMs come with very little ammunition and can't be stocked up, either by vehicles or in the editor.

[Cpl Steiner]

They will get hammered just as bad when they run out of ammo.

That may or may not be more realistic.

I did consider the ammo implications when I posted this, which admittedly could be a problem given the relatively low quantity of ammo these troops typically carry. However, I still think area fire against question mark contacts is a viable option as long as the rate of fire isn't too high, and slackens off as ammo begins to get scarce. Only one soldier firing at a time, staggered 10 or 20 seconds apart, could make the ammo last quite a while.

[Dietrich]

My most thorough observation of the phenomena Steiner describes has been in the several times I've played theFightingSeabee's "Afghani Stan" scenario. This may be due more to the Red AI plan(s) than anything else, but the Uncons come jogging into grenade range of my five-man Army SF teams, hardly returning fire at all before they get thoroughly fragged.

The ammo supply problems mentioned by dan/california and flamingknives show that setting Red ammo supply to Typical yields what seems to me to be no more than a couple magazines per guy -- it's all the easier for Blue to prevail if Red simply runs out of ammo.

[stoex]

Having just played a night battle from the red side, I would like to add some points and also a few questions to this discussion...

The battle was 'Insertion and Interdiction' by Mike Duplessis. Not primarily meant to be played as REDFOR, of course, but an interesting scenario with some intriguing surprises for the Syrians none the less.

First off, the Syrian regular forces and uncons a my disposal couldn't ID anything in the dark. They were fairly able to spot enemy units at ranges of about 250-300 meters, but only the Kornet launchers with their optics equipment could ID anything at all beyond 30 meters (!). I mean this quite literally. Target arcs didn't change anything either.

So here I am knowing exactly which Marines units are approaching me, thanks to the ATGMs, but unable to put any kind of small arms fire on them directly because trying to shoot at question marks results in area fire to an action spot, which is generally useless with small arms.

The absolute epitome of this was the inability of an Syrian army RPG team (regular experience) to ID and therefore fire at a LAV 120 meters away, standing broadside in clear sight (one would think, the target command showed LOS to everywhere within a 20 meter radius around the vehicle and everywhere between the RPG team and the vehicle, which had been ID'd by a different REDFOR unit close by). The LAV was on the other side of a slight depression in terrain, with no obstructions save for low grass to block LOS, and my RPG team had a tight arc covering its position. No go, however. At least 3 minutes passed (RT so not sure how long exactly) without the RPG taking any action other than spotting (they had a question mark at the exact position of the LAV all the time, of course), then they got blasted to bits by an Abrams that came out of the woods some way to the left of the LAV and spotted them immediately.

Now, I find this wildly unrealistic in terms of the RPGs ability to see in the night. Try going out in the countryside where it's really dark at night, with a friend, give yourself 5 minutes to adjust your eyes to the darkness, lie down in low grass and pop your head up. Scan the area around you roughly, but keep your main attention in the direction you're facing. Now see how long it takes you to spot a car parked, with its engine and lights off, about 120m away right in direction you're facing under the terrain conditions described above, using nothing but your 2 sets of Mk1 Eyeballs. See how long it takes you to roughly ID the size, color, type (compact, sedan, station wagon etc.), maybe even the make of the car. I guarantee it will take you less than a minute unless you both have extremely bad eyesight and no glasses or are, in fact, blind. Which are not characteristics I realistically expect of two Syrian army regulars. To this I slyly add the fact that a LAV-25 is rather larger than a passenger car, and makes a noticeable bit of noise even when idling. I'll grant it was probably not showing any external lights at the time, but you get my point .

Enough of the griping, then....the question this raises for me is: What is the meaning of the question mark icon, anyway? Does it mean:

'There's a person/vehicle here, but I'm not sure it's dangerous' and/or

'I can see something here, but I don't know what it is' and/or

'I think there's something here, but I'm just not sure' and/or

'At some point there was something here, but it's gone now' ???

The answer is probably all of the above, and yet none of them applies to the situation in question, as anybody who does my stipulated RL test will agree with. You may even agree without doing the test .

Another troubling fact is that the question mark is the same for one man foot units and huge tanks, which is not realistic and not helpful.

I'd love to provide a save game or screenshots of this, however as I said it was RT play, I wasn't saving much because the battle was going well overall despite the spotting troubles, and I don't have FRAPS. Well, didn't have FRAPS, as I have gotten it now to document such stuff in the future. Maybe I can recreate this somehow but it will take time for sure....

Can someone point out to me just how to justify the rather incomprehensive (to me at least) use of the question mark?

[stoex]

And another one on spotting, from a little ways back (also no screens, no saves, sorry...if anyone wants them, I'll take the time to recreate as well as possible):

This one was 'Road Kill' by MarkEzra. Love your stuff, MarkEzra, and this really has nothing to do with the scenario per se. Just where I noticed this particular problem the worst.

Also playing REDFOR here, discouraged by MarkEzra, but sometimes I just get the urge to be 'the bad guys' for a change . Bright daylight I might add.

The BLUFOR starts behind a crest round a corner in this one, and is not handled well by the AI, but I digress....in the very beginning they position an M707 HumVee in a stand of trees on the slope, which is spotted quickly.

First problem: When I select the M707 to see which of my units can see it, none of my units are highlighted. Also, none of my units can target it. Weird. But it's harmless, so I leave it be for now and take care of the trucks and Marines coming round the bend piecemeal. This goes on for a while, and when the action seems to have stopped, I decide to foray forward to see what I can see and maybe take out some enemies that don't seem too eager to make a showing. I send a 4 man Syrian command team (Veteran), loaded with RPG rounds, up to the crest to hunt for a firing position on said M707.

This works only halfway, because unfortunately, every time the team comes to the edge of a crest and spots the HumVee, they immediately all lie down behind the crest and lose sight contact. They keep lying down and never get up on their knees or even stand for a moment until I give them another move order. After several failed attempts this way I decide to take them up to the highest part of the crest, where there is a real 'edge' and a steep cliff falling away on the far side, towards the enemy. They get there fine and when they reach the cliff edge, in 'Hunt' mode, they suddenly spot several more HumVees, two trucks and a AAV sitting around in the BLUFOR assembly area. 'Great', I think, 'this could be fun!'. The RPG team immediately lies down again (smart of them in this case), with their heads and even some of their upper bodies protruding out over the cliff edge, clearly peeking over it...

Well, so much for WYSIWYG on that account, for immediately all the vehicles turn into question marks. I look at the situation from all angles (they ought to be able to see into the valley on the other side, I'm sure it's meant that way), then check their LOS. Sure enough, they can see over the edge, but only about halfway down the slope on the other side of the valley. Mind you, they are lying on a flat piece of terrain leading up to the cliff edge, not on a severe upslope or anything, and their 4 heads are all poking out over the cliff.

End of story is, I tell them to get up and get back since they're such useless nincompoops, and the moment they rise from the prone position, the AAV grinds them up with its MK19. All dead. Serves them right? Maybe. But still very frustrating...

Particularly since this is an item in the v1.11 feature list: 'Soldiers placed near the top of of a steep slope (looking up) are more likely to crouch than lie prone, so they can get a clear LOS/LOF over the rim of the slope.' I said they were in a pretty flat action spot in the end, but this shouldn't prevent them from looking over the crest, should it? Also, in the attempts before the last one, they were on upslopes sometimes and never, ever went to kneeling positions.

It almost seems to me that the internally assigned height of a prone soldier's Mk1 Eyeballs for spotting purposes is close to zero above ground level. Quick measurements done myself reveal that my eyes are about 60cm above ground when I am lying on my tummy, propped up on my elbows trying to see stuff. When I'm 'scared' and only raising my head slightly, trying to keep my shoulders down, I reach a height of 30cm. It also turns out that when I stick my head out over a sheer edge, I can actually see beyond that edge....

Thoughts or info on this, anyone?

[Thomm]

Hi stoex!

No thoughts or info other than that you perfectly describe a hole in the current spotting system.

I ran into exactly the same situation with a FO overlooking an enemy area of deployment, perfectly aligned with the terrain edge as described by the release notes, but unable to trace a LOS from his head instead of his belly. Nearly drove me crazy. The moment I decided to crawl over the edge a T72 spots the guy almost instantly (no undermodeling there) and sent him to his maker.

It is something that hopefully can be fixed at some point.

About not being to be able to target id'd enemies, this is something that haunts me lately, also. I am not able to say exactly what causes it, but I have seen it in several different instances. It makes a squad in tall wheat, e.g., completely combat ineffective.

Best regards,

Thomm

[stoex]

Thanks Thomm, always good to share the frustration even when we don't know what to do about it . Glad to hear someone else having similar troubles...

While you're here, what's your opinion on the modeling of the Mk1 Eyeball's spotting capabilities at night as stated in my previous post? Sorry these posts are so long and possibly tedious to read, it's something that helps me vent my anguish, I guess...

[stikkypixie]

The absolute epitome of this was the inability of an Syrian army RPG team (regular experience) to ID and therefore fire at a LAV 120 meters away, standing broadside in clear sight (one would think, the target command showed LOS to everywhere within a 20 meter radius around the vehicle and everywhere between the RPG team and the vehicle, which had been ID'd by a different REDFOR unit close by). The LAV was on the other side of a slight depression in terrain, with no obstructions save for low grass to block LOS, and my RPG team had a tight arc covering its position. No go, however. At least 3 minutes passed (RT so not sure how long exactly) without the RPG taking any action other than spotting (they had a question mark at the exact position of the LAV all the time, of course), then they got blasted to bits by an Abrams that came out of the woods some way to the left of the LAV and spotted them immediately.

Now, I find this wildly unrealistic in terms of the RPGs ability to see in the night. Try going out in the countryside where it's really dark at night, with a friend, give yourself 5 minutes to adjust your eyes to the darkness, lie down in low grass and pop your head up. Scan the area around you roughly, but keep your main attention in the direction you're facing. Now see how long it takes you to spot a car parked, with its engine and lights off, about 120m away right in direction you're facing under the terrain conditions described above, using nothing but your 2 sets of Mk1 Eyeballs. See how long it takes you to roughly ID the size, color, type (compact, sedan, station wagon etc.), maybe even the make of the car. I guarantee it will take you less than a minute unless you both have extremely bad eyesight and no glasses or are, in fact, blind. Which are not characteristics I realistically expect of two Syrian army regulars. To this I slyly add the fact that a LAV-25 is rather larger than a passenger car, and makes a noticeable bit of noise even when idling. I'll grant it was probably not showing any external lights at the time, but you get my point .

Have you checked the weather condition and what's in the sky for that battle? A while ago there was a thread about this and spotting for infantry without night vision improves dramatically when there is moon light. But when it's overcase without any stars it's just absolute pitch dark.

[Thomm]

TWhile you're here, what's your opinion on the modeling of the Mk1 Eyeball's spotting capabilities at night as stated in my previous post?

Sorry, I do not have too much own experiences to contribute in this specific area. Not enough to post anything meaningful, really.

Best regards,

Thomm

[stoex]

Good point there, stikkypixie...

Just checked it and it turns out the weather was hazy in that battle. However, it also turns out that it was dawn and not the middle of the night. 5 o'clock by the time the incident occurred. This relieves me a little (though it also means I'm a little silly for not having checked it before my gripe ), but I still find the particular spotting issue a bit strange, unless 'hazy' means 'thick fog' like in CMx1.

It was only 120 meters for crying out loud :eek:

[c3k]

stoex,

I feel your pain! However, your Mk I eyeball analysis may be off a little bit. As you've just posted, haze (or any other obscurant) makes a HUGE difference in night time visibility IRL. As well, all modern ops include percentage of illumination. The primary factors that play into that are moon phase, sky cover, ambient illumination.

If you're in a suburb with streetlights, businesses, traffic, and house lights, I don't care how far out in a park or field you go, your ambient illumination is far greater than if you were in the boondocks. (Or if air strikes had destroyed the power grid and traffic was halted due to fear of death.) Given a total absence of man-made illumination, the only source of light would be stars and moon. (Or, when I play CMSF, the blazing wrecks of my vehicles!)

Now, laying on ground and looking around in those conditions is pretty hard. If there are surrounding obstacles such as tree lines, higher terrain, dark buildings, etc., there is almost no chance of seeing the car you've postulated. Especially if the owner of the car has painted it a matte paint and ripped off the shiny plastic bits and reflective windows, mirrors, and sidelights, etc. Unless the vehicle is silhouetted against the night sky it will be close to invisible.

Data point: I was leading a night march, clear sky, little or no moon, sparse pine forest, in Rockies, when I stepped off a 25 foot cliff. The cool part about the fall was the impact. I was so out of breath that I couldn't call out a warning. That was too bad, because I was then subjected to cushioning the fall of the number two! While he took his turn thrashing around trying to breathe, I was able to warn off the rest. The resiliency of youth!

So, a relatively low illumination percentage meant that I literally could not see the ground in front of my feet.

I think a lot of people think it's dark outside when they step onto their front porch and turn off the light. They are mistaken.

Just thought I'd toss this out there to offer another perspective.

Regards,

Ken

[cabal23]

In ancient times, mariners (pirates), would cover one eye and stare at a candle for a few minutes before they boarded a ship. They would then board the ship they wanted to take down and would have more night vision than their enemies. Perhaps BF could find a way for the Syrians to do this. It might improve their odds at hitting something in the dark.

[stoex]

Thanks c3k for the real life input...makes me glad I'm not feeling your pain *wink*...

As I have conceded to stikkypixie already, the haze in the mentioned battle will have been the deciding factor...still I must repeat that it was dawn, the battle began at 0430 under a decidedly pinkish-red sky and 'the situation' occurred at around 0500, so there will have been some light for sure.

I do agree with your statement about ambient light in full - i have been in the boondocks in pitch black and I know what it's like. For the record, though: in the great outdoors there is always at least a little bit of ambient light except under the most extreme circumstances of cloud cover, new moon, dense forest and thick fog. And the human eye can use this little bit of light very well once it has adapted to it.

A lot of factors must have conspired against my pitiable RPG team in the described situation and I do accept that it was probably OK the way it transpired by now. One thing that comes to mind now that I hadn't really processed before was that other units further away and with arguably somewhat obstructed LOS were IDing the LAV for some reason. Don't know what that means, just throwing it out there.

Points made about haze, matte paint, no reflection points etc. are duly noted and have reduced my frustration beyond the point that my rant alone could have . Thanks again.

[dan/california]

I don't think CMSF models this, but even if your eyes start the battle very night adapted, it is not going to take many fireworks to greatly reduce that once the shooting starts. The flash bulb effect is going to be quite severe in some cases.

[stoex]

Also a good point, dan...

However in the case at hand there had been no action anywhere close to, or in view of, the unit in question. All other action was on the other side of a wooded crest from them.

All in all it was rather like I stipulated in my RL experiment a few posts back, actually. All quiet around the area, nothing else going on nearby, clear LOS as far as the target command was concerned.......WAIT A MINUTE!!! This brings something else to mind - back in CMx1 the LOS-line changed color to show the quality of LOS. It doesn't do that anymore in CMx2. In fact regardless of weather conditions the line is always baby blue if there aren't any obstructions....

I think the target line in CMx2 measures only terrain obstructions and disregards fog and suchlike entirely. This means that you can only tell to where your units can (theoretically) see without solid material obstruction, but not how far they can see. I don't even know whether that is modeled internally, but I certainly hope so.

EDIT: well, it does recognize smoke, and there isn't much fog in Syria ever, but still. There's 'haze', right? How far can units in CMSF see through haze? All the way to the nearest tree, it seems, regardless of whether the tree is 20 or 3000 meters away...

[cabal23]

I have a scenario where haze is making impossible for my Syrians to identify Marines 100-200 meters out. All I see is floating blue question marks. I have about 10 guys directly in front of them and they can't see squat. This is taking place around late afternoon. I am sure they see me as they have done a good job of whittling down my forces. I could swear the Americans and their carrot brethren have better eye site than the goat eating Syrians. Some days it's not worth getting out of bed if you are Syrian.

[Falconander]

c3k,

Thanks for the laugh...

I remember the 'Cat Eyes' on the back of our helmets on jungle patrol in Panama. You could tell the rise and fall from the cat eyes at times. Due to the undergrowth walking with night vision was almost impossible.

It was always funny when you would suddenly see one of the cat eyes quickly disappear followed by a muffled holler and the breaking of vines and trees etc... You would freeze at that moment since some of those drops were really steep and into Black Palm.

It was funny until it is you...

At Fort Lewis went off a smaller ravine to be only followed by my M60 belt of rounds which pulled the M60 ontop of me.... I remember just thinking crap here come all of my rounds and oh damn...BAM! right into my face the M60 came.

[SlowMotion]

What about illumination rounds for mortars? Would help spotting of all units without night vision equipment.

[Falconander]

Illumination rounds would be very good....

Ok... I know you guys are sick of my stories but when I was in RIP (Ranger indoctrination program) one of the guys found a starburst flare on land nav. He decided we wanted to see what it did but there was noise light discipline and range cadre out in the woods. So he shot it at the ground:eek:

The flare bounced off the ground and went up his BDU top and proceeded to burst within his BDU top. When we saw him come back (from the hospital) he was a head to toe mummy. The funniest and saddest thing I ever saw there.

Mind you star burst flares are not just one flare but a burst of several flares. That boy is lucky he did not die. He had burns over 90% of his body... ouch...

[akd]

Ouch indeed. Illumination rounds, especially for red, are needed in game. Would just be a cool effect, too.

I would propose the following: that units fire on unidentified contacts with modification by the following primary factors:

-unit discipline

-orientation of contact to expected direction of enemy

-population density

[tc237]

Yeah Falcoander, I've seen that happen too.

Anyone know Chuck Zingenfuss, from Project Valour IT or milblog fame?

As a young Sct LT he burned his hands pretty good with a star cluster, I had another LT that shot himself in the eye with one.

[Secondbrooks]

No one hasnt' mentioned Muzzle flashes, or is it just me? In dark those are very visible. Once Syrians sees one he probably sends wild bursts at it's direction. Very unaccurate fire, but still now he has idea where his enemy is and he has change to suppress them (if fire is intense enough). Right now Syrians don't have even idea what is on them and from where it comes from.

We had funny firefight in pitch black night, where little path surrounded with dense young forest seperated us and opponents, both sides just fired short bursts or rapid fire at opponents. No NVGs or flares, just few flash&bang alarms but those were not much use for illuminating porpuse. Basically idea in that sitauation was to fire at visible muzzle flashes and after firing fastly move away (as you just highlighted your vicinity with your muzzle flahses). I guess we kept changing position after each shot more than opponents, none of us did get hit while opponents Miles-vests seemed to signal many times as sign of near misses and wounds (They probably had 7-10 guys aginst our 5 guys). Wound didn't matter as after 3 minutes of lying on back guy was able to shoot again, we were on training mode and not in simualtion. One of our guys had circled behind opponents and calmly "executing" them one by one. As he said every time he saw muzzle flash, movement or sound he started to greep at it, when he saw back of opponent it he just calmly aimed and took a shot. Pretty damn effective, lots of KIA signals confirmed that.

I personally didn't like NVGs at all, i believe they were 2nd generation. Maybe reason was that at same time with i was in Army i also practiced alot of Airsoft with my frends during weekend leaves, we usually played at night (risk of getting caught while playing in areas where we shouldn't was minimal ) and i got used to use all my senses pretty well. In brigade NVGs were nice as there usually was enough ambient light. In the wilds i don't remeber single time i would have been very pleased to them. Usually it was because it offered so narrow zone of vision and bad guality picture. And we usually operated in forests, basically they were enough to spot movement but not much for anything else. Well.. our squad had thermal optic attached to ATGM-launcher so maybe that was main reason why NVGs seemed so much waste of money as they seemed

[cabal23]

Illumination rounds would be very good....

Ok... I know you guys are sick of my stories but when I was in RIP (Ranger indoctrination program) one of the guys found a starburst flare on land nav. He decided we wanted to see what it did but there was noise light discipline and range cadre out in the woods. So he shot it at the ground:eek:

The flare bounced off the ground and went up his BDU top and proceeded to burst within his BDU top. When we saw him come back (from the hospital) he was a head to toe mummy. The funniest and saddest thing I ever saw there.

Mind you star burst flares are not just one flare but a burst of several flares. That boy is lucky he did not die. He had burns over 90% of his body... ouch...

I thought there was at least a minimum score to the ASFAB to get into the Marines? What did he think it was going to do, stick into the ground and go off like a Roman candle? Darwinism at its finest.