One idea to deal with area fire that gets around relative spotting rules

[c3k]

Smoke and muzzle flashes are now subject to FOW rules - as you'll see in 1.20.

Be careful what you wish for

This is great news! Thanks for throwing a bone...

[c3k]

BTW, delays for area fire are strict out according to Steve. If we want to keep the Borg return fire down we need to find something else such as what is proposed here.

I don't want to put words in Steve's mouth, but my understanding is that a blanket delay for ANY area fire is out. I think Steve proposed (I do not remember if he even said it was doable!) a delay for area fire ordered against an out of LOS action spot. Drusus suggested a refinement to make the delay in that case only applicable to heavy weapons.

Is that your understanding?

[Drusus]

I made the suggestion to delay heavy weapons area fire always. The reason why I propose it is that out-of-LOS area fire delays will not solve anything in real time mode. You can first move the unit to LOS. Then area target the gun, without any delays. In WEGO one can micromanage the moves so that the tank will be in LOS only for the last seconds of the turn. Then you can issue the area fire order immediately in the beginning of the next turn.

So, for RT this does nothing. For WEGO this would improve the situation, but not much.

The reasoning why area fire delays should not be implemented is that it penalizes legitimate recon by fire.

The counter argument is that recon by heavy weapons fire isn't that common. So if delays are implemented only for heavy weapons, then the delay would not be a problem for recon by fire. The counter argument is based on the assumption of uncommon heavy weapons recon by fire. I don't know if that is the case.

EDIT: I must add that in my proposal, area fire is not delayed when there is a question mark at the location of the enemy ATG. If the tank crew knows the location of the ATG (or any other unit), then it can area fire immediately.

[RSColonel_131st]

Well, if the delay would be implemented, you can move in RT a single unit to LOS and order Area target without delay, but not multi units. That's an improvement.

Besides, for me it isn't as much a thing for "taking away cheats" but rather a thing for my own convenience as single player. If I play SP as the attacker, I get unrealistic good performance out of Area Fire commanded without LOS. With the delay, I would still command Area Fire first and then move the unit (simple because for me that's the logical way to do it if I don't want to micromanage) but then I'd get realistic performance. Of course I still could micro-manage a movement to LOS and THEN target, but that's not what I would do.

[Redwolf]

Maybe it would help, if we could find numbers, how realistical the use of area-fire against heavy weapons was?

I want to raise an additional aspect why area-fire in CMx1 is so effective: it's the immobility and slowlyness of ATGs (also HMGs).

Therefore someone only needs to have two 81mm mortars available for each attacking group and every ATG is toast without any chance to escape and without own losses. With almost 100% success.

But in reality they could change their positions quite quickly if cover was available.

There are two things that I'd like to see fixed with towed guns in CMx2:ww2:

1) traverse. A real gun could quickly turn towards a new target as long as it was within the traverse that you could do without picking up the carriage. In CMx1 you only had one traverse speed that was about the speed of pickup up the carriage.

2) no backing up. Guns in CMx1 could not back out of position. They would first turn 180 degrees, then walk forward.

1+2) these two underdevelopments combine into being unable to get guns anywhere. You are unrealistically forced to turn 180 degrees, and the turning is too slow to boot.

If the gun could more quickly fire at different things inside the traverse angle, then back out of LOS in a realstic timeframe without turning 180 degrees first they would be more realistic.

[Redwolf]

The game system already has Area Fire as quite inaccurate, so it would take a significant amount of fire to cause significant damage to something like a Nashorn or a dug in Pak40. At least on average, because of course a lucky hit is always a possibility.

The big difference between CM: Normandy and CMBO is that the Yellow Lines of Death (tons of targeting lines on single target) isn't a problem with CMx2 since if the TacAI can't see the target it can't fire at it. In CMx1 the TacAI always saw the target, so it was only a function of LOS/LOF that would prevent a unit from firing (in theory, since we did have some dumbing down code to take the edge off). It's one of the unsung major improvements in CMx2 vs. CMx1 that comes about due to Relative Spotting. However, as Redwolf points out this can be overridden by the player using Area Fire.

Previously we discussed this issue of Area Fire in another thread. Since the primary unrealistic threat to immobile heavy weapons (or anything, for that matter!) is Area Fire, the two things are directly linked. I said it was critical that we distinguish between legitimate Area Fire and "illegitimate" Area Fire. By and large this is impossible to do, so restrictions on illegitimate necessarily have a negative impact on the legitimate stuff. So there is no sort of universal fix that I can see.

However, I do see a specific situation that we might be able to do something about. And that is the situation where a mobile asset is out of LOS/LOF of the enemy, it's given an Area Fire command (because it can't see the target, it doesn't know it's there), then moved into LOS/LOF so it can engage that area as soon as it is able to. Now the chances of the defending asset to respond first is reduced by quite a bit, especially if the advancing firing unit is coming at it from an angle where the defending unit would need to rotate to fire at. Rotation speeds of things in WW2 were generally pretty slow, so this will be a definite negative for the defending unit.

OK, so as we always do... we start by looking at the realism of the situation. Let's use the example of some Sherman 75s (great HE capability!) moving against a dug in Pak40 (low target, but very vulnerable to even nearby HE).

The Pak40 engages Sherman 1 coming down Road A. It takes a shot, misses, and alerts Sherman 1 that there is something shooting at it. The Pak40 fires again and Sherman 1 spots it, then gets knocked out seconds later. There are no witnesses except the player, because he's God and sees all

The attacking player selects Sherman 2 on Road A and Sherman 3 on Road B. Both are currently out of LOS/LOF, but can get it very quickly by moving a little bit forward. Neither one can saw the Pak40 engage Sherman 1, but they know that Sherman 1 was toasted. So realistically they are VERY aware that there is some form of deadly AT weapon in the area, but no idea what. The player, on the other hand, knows exactly what shot and exactly where it is. This, unfortunately, is where the problem lies and inherently there is no fix for this at all.

The attacking player orders Shermans 2 and 3 to Area Fire the gun's location, then tells them to both HUNT forward. They do this and as soon as they get within LOS/LOF they start firing their beefy 75s at the Pak40. This is, of course, unrealistic since neither Sherman would know exactly where to fire without some sort of confirmation by infantry or something else like that. Even then the accuracy of their shots would be highly conditional (quality of information, confusion of terrain, etc.).

OK, so the two Shermans advance and start wailing on the Pak40. Since Area Fire is inherently inaccurate, and the Pak40 is in a good position, it's possible that the Pak40 will survive and even take out both Shermans. But the Area Fire has unrealistically reduced that chance. What should happen, in real life, is the two Shermans would move forward and then have to ID the Pak40 first, which would likely result in at least one Sherman getting knocked out, decent chance of both getting knocked out.

What can be done about this?

Two possible suggestions:

1. Completely, and utterly, prevent Area Fire commands from being issued to points currently out of LOS/LOF. This would fix the problem described above 100%, guaranteed.

2. Assess some sort of penalty on Area Fire commands made when out of LOS/LOF. This won't guarantee the problem is fixed, but it greatly increases the chances that the end result will be more or less realistic.

I personally favor #2 because there are times when it is legitimate for a unit to apply Area Fire without having LOS/LOF ahead of time. Especially in urban terrain. So completely outlawing it would nix that, and I think that would be suboptimal.

What kind of penalty, then? I think a delay in firing would be the best approach. Not a blanket delay penalty proposed for all Area Fire, rather one specific to this situation. So Shermans 2 and 3 move up and are now exposed to the Pak40 but aren't shooting. The amount of delay would be random, so the player couldn't count on when the firing would kick in. If they spot the Pak40, legitimately, then as would be the case now the Area Fire is cancelled and the Pak40 becomes directly Targeted without delay.

This appears to fix one of the primary abuses of God Area Fire without impacting Recon By Fire. It doesn't fix Area Fire against the gun if there is LOS/LOF exists, but in that case the Pak40 isn't disadvantaged much if the Sherman is already spotted since it can take it under direct fire pretty much right away. And if the Pak40 hadn't yet seen the Sherman then the Sherman has actually disadvantaged itself because if had just sat there it might have spotted the Pak40 without giving its position away through Area Fire.

What do you guys think?

Steve

I think you are trying to address a different problem.

The problem I was thinking of is a tank that either is in LOS but hasn't spotted the gun, or a tank that does have LOS to the ground right next to the gun, so that area HE fire would destory the gun. The latter is what people used in CMx1.

You seem to think of an entirely different problem, which is moving tanks deliberately into positions with LOS to a gun positions that only god (the player) knows about. I didn't have much of a problem with this during CMx1 times and I think it's a lesser problem. Your suggestion #2 seems to take care of it, although I wouldn't understand why you would consider delays on area fire in this situation but not in general.

Anyway, back to the problem of HE fire right next to a gun, I think that just assuming that guns in emplacements are more resistant to area fire right next to it would work fine. That way the attacker can either keeping trying, potentially wasting lots of ammo, or the attacker moves the tanks into LOS, which is mostly fair game. At least the gun can shoot back. If you solve the traverse problem (you have a mechanism in place for StuGs) that would overall be pretty good.

[Battlefront.com]

Good discussion gents.

RSColonel,

For me the main question would be: How can you simulate the information transfer between units that lead to legitimate "out of los" Area fire?

That was the challenge I posed to you guys to help me figure out in the long thread about Area Fire. I think we all concluded that it isn't possible to do without resorting to Suggestion #1:

No Area Fire when out of C2 ever, not at all, zero, zippo. Delays? How on Earth can it be considered "realistic" to delay something which shouldn't ever be allowed? That's like saying units should only be allowed to travel into the future to see where the enemy was, then return from the future to act on that knowledge. But once they return they get a 30 second penalty to do so. I'm serious, hence no smiley.

To go back to my example, if Shermans 2 and 3 don't have any communications with Sherman 1, then there is no way it could know what the player as God knows. Since it is the God's perspective that allows the Area Fire command to be placed, then that means Shermans 2 and 3 are being given divine guidance, not acting on C2 information no matter how long you delay them. Because there is no way to determine when the player is issuing Commands based on divine knowledge, the only way to prevent it (at least with Area Fire) is to eliminate the ability to use Area Fire at all, under all circumstances, always. Except for outlier situations, this would reflect reality very well.

Unfortunately, it also restricts reality quite a bit since Recon By Fire is now completely eliminated. How frequently was this used in WW2? Pick up any low level book on fighting in Normandy, for starters. I doubt you can find a single book detailing low level combat, at least from the US perspective, that doesn't include copious amounts of descriptions of Recon By Fire.

Oh... actually, AKD posted this standard tactic the US employed:

Rifle platoons, during those last days of training, practiced at making attacks in which the squads used their Browning automatic rifles to "spray" the hedgerow running parallel to the front while a few men with grenades worked their way up the lateral hedgerows. Sometimes a squad would remain at the base of fire while the other squads worked forward on either side of the hedgerow toward the front, or sometimes smaller groups would work forward, always with support of machine guns.

Combat History of the 134th Infantry Regiment, by Major General Butler B. Miltonberger (former Commanding Officer of the 134th Infantry Regiment)

http://www.coulthart.com/134/combat_history_index.htm

And there were other tactics noted by AKD's findings, like the one where the Shermans would rush through a breach and fire at the corners of the parallel hedgerow. BLINDLY assuming there was someone there.

So please guys... let's just drop the doubts that Recon By Fire is worth of preservation. It is essential to preserve it, even if it gets hobbled a little bit so as to make a larger improvement. Which is why I say this:

No solution which eliminates Area Fire will ever be implemented. No solution which blanket penalizes Area Fire will ever be implemented.

The latter means absolutely no way are we going to start discriminating against specific weapons systems. There's no justification for that from a realism standpoint and that's the first hurdle something has to get at least mostly over. Fail that one and poof... there goes any chance of that suggestion being implemented.

My suggestion does offer some amount of unrealistic penalty to out of LOS Area Fire. Ideally the best way to handle this is that there would be a delay added to the movement of the unit, not on how long it takes to fire. But this is full of gameplay problems, particularly with UI, which I know for sure we don't want to work through. Therefore, from my perspective I'm willing to give some amount of penalty to out of LOS Area Fire target orders. It doesn't fix the problem, but there is no fix so it's either take a bite out of it or leave it intact.

Also, as covered in the previous discussion about Area Fire, "?" indicators are not a good thing to use for determining when Area Fire should be penalized or to what extent it should be. That's because doing so runs into the same penalty problems which the C2 approach runs into since, not surprisingly, "?" indicators are a factor of C2 Which means that they are both using the same flawed logic that C2 is somehow the key to this issue and not the player's über knowledge.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Redwolf,

I think you are trying to address a different problem.

Same basic problem. What we're all trying to prevent a unit from using Area Fire on the exact location of something the player knows exists but the unit couldn't possibly know is there. That's the underlying issue that all of these suggestions are trying to get at. But there is no blanket "one thing fixes all" approach that I can see being feasible, so the alternative is to break the problem down and try to nip away at it as best we can.

The situation I described is the one which causes the most unrealistic problems for the defending unit. I tried to illustrate that earlier in my initial post. And that is when you move something with an Area Fire Command from out of LOS/LOF into LOS/LOF you basically rob the heavy weapon of one of its biggest advantages... the need to be spotted before being engaged. Since a lumbering tank in the middle of a field is going to be easier to spot than a Pak40 dug into a hedgerow, this offers the tank a significant advantage it shouldn't have. I don't think it is as bad as it would be in CMx1, but it definitely will be there in a way none of us would like to see.

The problem I was thinking of is a tank that either is in LOS but hasn't spotted the gun, or a tank that does have LOS to the ground right next to the gun, so that area HE fire would destory the gun. The latter is what people used in CMx1.

That's true, but in this case the weapon being fired at has LOS/LOF to the unit doing the firing, so it's either already had a chance to kill it (and failed for whatever reason) or it's now on at least an even footing to return fire if it survives. So I agree that it's a problem, but IMHO it's not as big of a problem as the one I described from a probability standpoint.

You seem to think of an entirely different problem, which is moving tanks deliberately into positions with LOS to a gun positions that only god (the player) knows about. I didn't have much of a problem with this during CMx1 times and I think it's a lesser problem. Your suggestion #2 seems to take care of it, although I wouldn't understand why you would consider delays on area fire in this situation but not in general.

Because it is a specific situation which is easily measured and accounted for by both the game system and the player. It isn't entirely realistic, but it does have some merit. A blanket application of delaying the fire is out of the running because it is akin to using a shotgun in a china shop to kill a fly. You'll likely kill the fly, but the price paid is too high.

Anyway, back to the problem of HE fire right next to a gun, I think that just assuming that guns in emplacements are more resistant to area fire right next to it would work fine.

This is quite easy to do and is already, in fact, being done now. It was also done in CMx1 and that obviously didn't solve the problem, so I don't think it's going to change anything.

Steve

[Redwolf]

This is quite easy to do and is already, in fact, being done now. It was also done in CMx1 and that obviously didn't solve the problem, so I don't think it's going to change anything.

In CMx1 there was no difference (for HE fire against infantry or heavy weapons) between area fire and directly firing at the unit. They all were implemented as hitting the ground around the target. That lead to a whole bunch of problems.

CMx2 presumably can directly fire at the unit if it is in LOS.

Thus, CMx2 would give you the opportunity to make area fire less effective against things in emplacements but leave firing directly at a spotted unit at full effectiveness.

My estimation is that this would be a huge improvement in itself. Whether you want to do something against unrealistically moving tanks into sight comes on top.

[sfhand]

Steve,

Please don't change anything...

or, if you do, please make it a RT fix only...

here's why:

As a wego player the only time your example comes into play is near the end of a turn. In wego, giving movement orders to armor without overwatch usually results in many knocked out tanks... so one could argue that the other tanks, while not actually seeing the pak, would know in what general direction to look and would, no doubt, proceed to throw HE in the general area of any smoke clouds they spot, which is what they'll probably be looking for.

But wait, there's more:

Having been granted godlike powers by the game mechanics (and its developers - Thanks for that!), isn't it ultimately up to the player to decide how to use them? As you said earlier, you don't want to try to fix "gamey features" by adding more "gamey features" and I agree with you. That is why I'm trying to talk you off this ledge before you jump... If I'm playing against a human and they start taking advantage of "gamey features" the chances are pretty high that I won't be playing many more games with them.

What about a situation where there is a clump of trees just out of LOS that I'm convinced has a threat in it. Shouldn't a player be able to order a unit to move forward until it has LOS and then immediately engage the clump of trees?

But if you must make a global fix, please consider having it take the form of a new level of play - might I suggest "RTmicromangementfix".

[dan/california]

But recon by fire is a legitimate tactic, and was heavily used by all forces in WW2.

I vaguely recall reading about tank driving exhibition by a senior U.S.armor officer with WW2 experience. He machine gunned every bush in LOS and then machine gunned each additional bush as he SLOWLY advanced and it came into LOS. Anyplace that could hide an enemy was treated as if it was hiding an enemy.

If you were low on MG ammo you weren't sufficiently well supplied to attack.

[dan/california]

I would assume the Russians and Germans were both even less worried about collateral damage, they may not have had as high a level of supply on average though.

[Battlefront.com]

Redwolf,

In CMx1 there was no difference (for HE fire against infantry or heavy weapons) between area fire and directly firing at the unit.

Not true The system knew if a shot was fired directly or Area Fire, so the effects of Area Fire were dumbed down to simulate bad aim. Remember, there was no 1:1 representation in CMx1, therefore the "head of the pin" that a unit stood on within the game system required all kinds of abstractions to get realistic results. Simulating Area Fire being less well aimed was just one of those things.

CMx2 presumably can directly fire at the unit if it is in LOS.

Thus, CMx2 would give you the opportunity to make area fire less effective against things in emplacements but leave firing directly at a spotted unit at full effectiveness.

Yes, which is how it also worked in CMx1 This is mostly achieved in CMx2 by spreading the fire out over an entire Action Spot of 8x8m and then modifying the effects based on things such as cover, stance, etc. As I said earlier, if the Area Fire gets lucky and achieves a direct hit by pure chance, then that's it's going to be strictly up to the damage assessment code to determine what the damage should be. This means the chance of hitting something blindly is inherently reduced already. It might not make a difference in a particular situation, but that's just what chance is all about.

My estimation is that this would be a huge improvement in itself. Whether you want to do something against unrealistically moving tanks into sight comes on top.

As I said, I think your suggestion is already in place and working. We could, probably, dumb it down further but then you get into the risk of making legitimate Area Fire less effective than it should be.

sfhand,

As a wego player the only time your example comes into play is near the end of a turn.

? It comes into play at any time if the unit is out of LOS/LOF from the previous turn.

In wego, giving movement orders to armor without overwatch usually results in many knocked out tanks... so one could argue that the other tanks, while not actually seeing the pak, would know in what general direction to look and would, no doubt, proceed to throw HE in the general area of any smoke clouds they spot, which is what they'll probably be looking for.

In the situation I described... how would the Shermans both know to put HE on the same exact 8x8m spot? There is no reasonable argument to make that they could.

The situation you described is, of course, legitimate. But that's what Cover Arcs are for In real life that's what the tanks would likely do in this situation (if they couldn't wait for infantry to spot the unit for them, which is the #1 solution). The tanks would rotate their turrets in the direction of where they expected the enemy to be, would focus all their attention on it, and then proceed to move with that high state of alertness. If they got lucky they would spot the emplacement and engage it before being engaged. As happened more-often-than-not in the real war... the tank came out on the losing end of things.

The way to compensate for this, in the game as in real life, is to advance with several tanks with Arcs. If the Pak40 fires before being seen, the chances are that BOTH Shermans will see the emplacement. Perhaps the Pak40 gets lucky and kills one Sherman on its first shot, but the probability of realigning and taking out the second Sherman before getting hit with accurate HE fire would be extremely low. Unless there was more than one Pak40 or AT weapon covering the same area And that's exactly what the Germans tried to do whenever possible.

Having been granted godlike powers by the game mechanics (and its developers - Thanks for that!), isn't it ultimately up to the player to decide how to use them? As you said earlier, you don't want to try to fix "gamey features" by adding more "gamey features" and I agree with you. That is why I'm trying to talk you off this ledge before you jump... If I'm playing against a human and they start taking advantage of "gamey features" the chances are pretty high that I won't be playing many more games with them.

I agree, which is why the blanket time delay for Area Fire is a very bad idea, as is disallowing Area Fire completely. Neither one of them passes the first critical test... is it overall more realistic to do it this way than the way the game already is. Big "no" to both ideas. But putting a delay, which should be quite random and not fixed, for designating a specific spot on the map that currently isn't even viewable is defensible from a realism standpoint. Not perfect, but I think overall makes things more realistic.

Remember, CM has always been, and always will be, about realism first. Without consistency in that philosophy the whole thing falls apart from a realism standpoint.

What about a situation where there is a clump of trees just out of LOS that I'm convinced has a threat in it. Shouldn't a player be able to order a unit to move forward until it has LOS and then immediately engage the clump of trees?

Sure, but weigh this against the % of times this comes up vs. the % times where the player is "convinced" because of knowledge that particular unit would never have and it's very small. First of all, the unit shouldn't even know about the clump of trees and therefore couldn't possibly evaluate it as a potential threat in the first place. The exception to this, and almost always there is an exception , is when a unit has previously been in LOS, then moves out and is suspicious (without player knowledge) that something is in those trees. Again, I think overall this happens a very small % of the time so I'm willing to sacrifice it for the greater good.

But if you must make a global fix, please consider having it take the form of a new level of play - might I suggest "RTmicromangementfix".

This whole discussion of "illegal" use of Area Fire applies as much, if not more, to WeGo than to RealTime. It's also not about increasing micromanagement, but rather limiting its effectiveness. There's no difference to the player's control over the unit or how it behaves, it's just the results that will be different.

dan/california,

But recon by fire is a legitimate tactic, and was heavily used by all forces in WW2.

Absolutely. Still is at times. I saw a video of a US Special Forces unit driving through some place (Baqubah IIRC) and they were using small arms, MMG, HMG, Mk19s, and even their awesome mini-guns indiscriminately while driving at about 30-40 mph. It was impossible to know why they were doing it, but it was obvious that they had no known targets in their crosshairs. Completely indiscriminate fire. Quite a spectacular thing to see especially because it was being done at night with a night vision camera. A serving officer friend of mine looked at it and said "I don't know what they were doing, but it certainly wasn't winning hearts and minds".

So hopefully we won't see any more attempts to say that recon by fire isn't important to retain. It most definitely is.

I vaguely recall reading about tank driving exhibition by a senior U.S.armor officer with WW2 experience. He machine gunned every bush in LOS and then machine gunned each additional bush as he SLOWLY advanced and it came into LOS. Anyplace that could hide an enemy was treated as if it was hiding an enemy.

The US was also well known for leveling entire villages with artillery and/or airpower on nothing more than the suspicious of significant German resistance. If the Germans weren't so hated the French wouldn't have been so forgiving as they (generally, but not always) were.

I would assume the Russians and Germans were both even less worried about collateral damage, they may not have had as high a level of supply on average though.

Absolutely. Warfare has changed a lot since WW2 and it shouldn't be forgotten.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

BTW, here is the video I noted above. It was actually Sadr City:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ACgSkko86o

The part I was referring to starts around the 2 minute mark.

Steve

[Redwolf]

As I said, I think your suggestion is already in place and working. We could, probably, dumb it down further but then you get into the risk of making legitimate Area Fire less effective than it should be.

I think that would be fine.

Recon by fire can be pretty ineffective against a well dug in unit, where "well dug in" means "a gun in a gun emplacement". It might suppress it but probably can't kill it. So low effect of area fire against guns in emplacements sounds fine.

If you want to kill it, move to where you can see it, then your fire becomes more effective.

That would leave recon by fire against light infantry such as scouts, Panzerschrecks and the like intact, because they aren't in gun emplacements.

%%

I like the idea of making area fire less effective against gun emplacements by lowering the effect of the fire better than simulating the same effect by giving it inaccurate fire at full effect. If you simulate by inaccurate fire a gamey attacker will still knock the gun out by the sheer volume of fire and hence gaining lucky hits.

[Battlefront.com]

Redwolf,

I like the idea of making area fire less effective against gun emplacements by lowering the effect of the fire better than simulating the same effect by giving it inaccurate fire at full effect. If you simulate by inaccurate fire a gamey attacker will still knock the gun out by the sheer volume of fire and hence gaining lucky hits.

It really amounts to the same thing. Lowering the effect should never preclude a hit, just reduce the chance of it. Lowering the accuracy should never preclude a hit, just reduce the chance of it. Increasing the amount of shots on the target increases the chance of a hit either way. In the end you wind up with the same thing.

Again, Area Fire is already "dumbed down". It was that way in CMx1 as well. If this approach were to work I think it already would have. Clearly since we are still discussing this issue, some 4 games later, it's not looking hopeful. So instead we should be looking at what really gives the attacker a "gamey" advantage.

It all comes back to probability that the defender can get in a fair shot at the attacker before the attacker gets in a shot at the defender (presuming it isn't spotted already, of course). The extreme example of this is the case I outlined where the attacker is designating a target from the safety of being out of LOS/LOF and then gets to act on it, probably, before the defender has a legitimate chance to. It's situations like this we might be able to do something about while not harming the overall game.

Blanket effects are likely to either not solve the problem or, worse, create more problems than they solve. That's because blanket solutions are inherently blunt and not really good at handling diversity/subtlety.

Steve

[sfhand]

...

? It comes into play at any time if the unit is out of LOS/LOF from the previous turn.

...

This whole discussion of "illegal" use of Area Fire applies as much, if not more, to WeGo than to RealTime. It's also not about increasing micromanagement, but rather limiting its effectiveness. There's no difference to the player's control over the unit or how it behaves, it's just the results that will be different.

...

Steve

I guess our visualizations of your example are somewhat different. In my view, while playing wego, the tanks are entering into the pak's LOS sequentially. (I'm also guessing that your focus is on the exploit, whereas I am focused on the movement order and how it may/may not evolve into an exploit) In my imagining of your scenario the sequence isn't measured in minutes but in seconds, e.g. 20-30. The only way it can be exploited by the wego player is if the lead tank is taken out at the end of a turn prior to the other tanks entering the pak's LOS - a relatively small envelope of opportunity in my imagining of your scenario. The rt player can use the exploit every time - hence my reference to rt micromanagement.

While I don't know the %'s, I think it is safe to assume the opportunity to use this exploit in wego is much less than in rt due to the above mentioned envelope of opportunity.

In my opinion, the %'s that need to be considered are how often a player would send a sacrificial unit forward in order to take advantage of this specific exploit (maybe this is what you were attempting to describe in your scenario - I thought you were describing an ordinary movement order) vs how often a player would want to conduct recon by fire on highly suspicious locations.

As one who is not a grog, or an expert of any kind, thanks for taking the time to read and reply to my thoughts on this.

[Dietrich]

The US was also well known for leveling entire villages with artillery and/or airpower on nothing more than the suspicious of significant German resistance.

Sure; why send in the infantry (even with a hefty numerical advantage) when you can just bombard the village to rubble? Though I recall hearing/reading something about Patton ordering that a certain village not be artilleried into oblivion because a cherished cathedral or some such was in said village.

The Combat Studies Institute (http://cgsc.leavenworth.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/csi.asp ; I would provide a more accurate link, but I can't get the page to ever finish loading) published a study of tactical responses to heavy artillery attack. According to this study, a characteristic German tactic during in response to Soviet artillery bombardment during Operation Bagration was to withdraw from the MBL to second-line positions during the bombardment, then reoccupy the MBL positions once the artillery had stopped firing. Also, the study notes that the most detriment the Germans suffered from the combined artillery and aerial bombardment that opened Operation Cobra in Normandy was not due to losses in men or equipment (a fair number of guns were demolished, and tanks were flipped onto their backs by the countless explosions, but they didn't suffer that many actual casualties) but because the shells and bombs severed their field telephone lines and wrecked radio antennae, so that the German communications were severely disrupted, such that by the time the German generals had gained any sort of picture of the situation, the US forces had penetrated their lines.

[Battlefront.com]

sfhand,

Note that this really isn't a grog vs. no grog issue. It's one of the rare examples where there is a pretty wide consensus that Area Fire poses significant problems for how the game plays. Some mind it more than others, some are more bothered about for one reason than another, but pretty much it seems that the bulk of people understand that it would be nice to limit "gamey" use of Area Fire to the extent possible without wrecking the times when Area Fire should more-or-less work the way it does now.

I guess our visualizations of your example are somewhat different. In my view, while playing wego, the tanks are entering into the pak's LOS sequentially. (I'm also guessing that your focus is on the exploit, whereas I am focused on the movement order and how it may/may not evolve into an exploit) In my imagining of your scenario the sequence isn't measured in minutes but in seconds, e.g. 20-30. The only way it can be exploited by the wego player is if the lead tank is taken out at the end of a turn prior to the other tanks entering the pak's LOS - a relatively small envelope of opportunity in my imagining of your scenario. The rt player can use the exploit every time - hence my reference to rt micromanagement.

It's more complex than that. There are interesting balancing/counter-balancing things which take place when comparing WeGo and RT. This makes direct comparison sometimes quite difficult to do.

In RT you might not have a chance to stop Shermans 2 and 3 from getting within LOS because, well, you're doing something else at the time, so they trundle up after the first Sherman and risk getting toasted. Having lost a fair number of units in RT because I wasn't around to save them from themselves, I can assure this does happen

This same situation can happen in WeGo too, of course, which is the situation you're outlining if Sherman 1 gets nailed on (say) Second 1 of the turn and that allows 59 more seconds for both Shermans 2 and 3 enough time to get into LOS/LOF before the turn ends.

So it comes down to chance more than anything. In RT the option to intervene whenever you like definitely exists and in WeGo it definitely doesn't. However, a WeGoer is more likely to have complex, carefully thought out and double checked, solutions to situations like this. The RT player generally goes with the flow and tries to improvise on the fly.

While I don't know the %'s, I think it is safe to assume the opportunity to use this exploit in wego is much less than in rt due to the above mentioned envelope of opportunity.

For any one single specific incident, I would agree. But as I said, when looked at battle wide, over many games, I'd bet that its the WeGoers that have exercised exploitations of over coordination more so than the RealTimers. If for no other reason than people that tend to play RealTime are looking to play the game differently... less certainty, more chaos. Otherwise I don't have a clue why anybody would want to play in RealTime over WeGo

In my opinion, the %'s that need to be considered are how often a player would send a sacrificial unit forward in order to take advantage of this specific exploit (maybe this is what you were attempting to describe in your scenario - I thought you were describing an ordinary movement order) vs how often a player would want to conduct recon by fire on highly suspicious locations.

The Sherman/Pak40 example I made up was thought of as being circumstantial, not deliberate. These sorts of situations come up very, very frequently in WeGo games. It's just the nature of the beast that something happens towards the end of a turn that causes the player to make radical changes to his units going forward. If they're already in the line of fire then popping smoke and reversing could be the response, for example, while instructions are given to Shermans 4, 5, and 6 to avoid going down Road C until things are sorted out, then seeing about moving a FO from the street up to the 2nd story of a building so he can see the field. Etc. This can, of course, be done in RT with the game PAUSED, but as I've said I think most RealTime players are loath to do this all at one time while the game is Paused. At least not as a rule.

As one who is not a grog, or an expert of any kind, thanks for taking the time to read and reply to my thoughts on this.

No problem! It's an interesting discussion because, as I said above, it appears everybody would like to find a clean solution to this problem. Unfortunately, one doesn't exist, so it's either leave it as it is or try to chip away at particular pieces of it.

Steve

[Steiner14]

Steve,

if you don't want to reduce the effectiveness of area-fire against AT-guns that much, could it be a solution, if the shield of the AT-gun and it's position would offer a (much) better protection against area-fire effects that appear somewhere in front of the gun?

Since CMx2 can consider the extremely small silhouette of well dug in ATGs and faster movements and turning of ATGs are considered, could that maybe be already enough for more realistical results?

[Redwolf]

Steve,

if you don't want to reduce the effectiveness of area-fire against AT-guns that much, could it be a solution, if the shield of the AT-gun and it's position would offer a (much) better protection against area-fire effects that appear somewhere in front of the gun?

That's won do I think. HE area fire lands all around the gun. People don't bother with coax MGs on suspected PaK40.

Since CMx2 can consider the extremely small silhouette of well dug in ATGs and faster movements and turning of ATGs are considered, could that maybe be already enough for more realistical results?

Steve said that faster turns for guns are considered? Where?

[Dietrich]

What, though, about scenarios where one side has ATGs and the other side has no tanks (or tank-destroyers or self-propelled guns or anything that could just take out both ATG and crew with a single HE shell, whether through direct targeting or area fire)? Am I reasonable to figure that an ATG's shield will afford at least a modicum of protection from rifle/MG fire (at normal ranges, that is)?

[Redwolf]

What, though, about scenarios where one side has ATGs and the other side has no tanks (or tank-destroyers or self-propelled guns or anything that could just take out both ATG and crew with a single HE shell, whether through direct targeting or area fire)? Am I reasonable to figure that an ATG's shield will afford at least a modicum of protection from rifle/MG fire (at normal ranges, that is)?

My understanding of the original idea is that any area fire doesn't go "through" the gun emplacement walls as easily.

For rifle fire this doesn't seem to be that much of a problem since you rarely have infantry in rifle range when an anti-tank gun ambush triggers. Or any kind of ambush involving guns, no matter whether AP versus tanks or HE against infantry, would normally trigger before the enemy infantry is in rifle range. That leaves HMGs to shoot back but they have setup time.

[Dietrich]

Presumably the walls of a gun emplacement would be built to withstand plenty of small-arms fire, yes. But I was referring to the shield of a gun (either an ATG or a field gun), irrespective of whether or not the gun is in a prepared position. The raison d'être* of the shield is to afford the crew a modicum of protection from small-arms fire and light shell fragments. (The Pak 40, for example, was fitted with a spaced double-layer gun shield which afforded greater protection than would a single plate about 30% thicker than the two layers combined.) And besides, an ATG isn't necessarily always in a dug-in position.

Sure, an ATG or field gun can engage infantry at greaters ranges than infantry can respond with anything more than suppressive fire (though LMGs would do better at this, and HMGs in overwatch would be even more suited to it). But an ambush involving ATGs or field guns wouldn't necessarily be launched when the enemy infantry is that far away. (Were I commanding the defenders, I would have my troops hold fire until the enemy forces were within range of both my ATGs/field guns and my small arms.) And just because an HMG takes a while to set up doesn't mean that by default it isn't already set up in at least partially concealed overwatch positions while the bulk of the infantry advances.

* raison d'être = French for "reason for being"

[MarkEzra]

Artificial changes to an AT Gun size or shield to improve ambush characteristics is an EXCELLENT example on unintended consequences. I want to reduce a players gamey tactic of Area Target Fire use so I make AT gun "smaller" to hit and the gun shield tougher to penetrate. Now my human player is just rolling those AT guns down the street at me... The solution to limiting area fire will not be successfully found by fudging the unit stats.