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

[Dietrich]

I'm not suggesting 'fudging unit stats' or making 'artificial changes' of any sort. Please forgive my unintended implying. I'm merely asking "Will a field/AT gun's shield afford a realistic degree of protection for small-arms fire and light shell fragments (from the front)?" In other words, say a rifle squad of mine spots a Pak 38 facing it and opens fire from 100m; will the Pak 38's crew have any protection from the rifle and BAR fire on account of the gun's shield?

[Kwazydog]

a Pak 38 facing it and opens fire from 100m; will the Pak 38's crew have any protection from the rifle and BAR fire on account of the gun's shield?

Such things are automatically looked after by the 3D nature of the engine, in the same way the shield on a humvee's .50cal offers the gunner protection.

Dan

[MarkEzra]

I'm not suggesting 'fudging unit stats' or making 'artificial changes' of any sort. Please forgive my unintended implying. I'm merely asking "Will a field/AT gun's shield afford a realistic degree of protection for small-arms fire and light shell fragments (from the front)?" In other words, say a rifle squad of mine spots a Pak 38 facing it and opens fire from 100m; will the Pak 38's crew have any protection from the rifle and BAR fire on account of the gun's shield?

This is all just a consquence of an my own un-intended comment My actual (and only) point is: let's be careful and test critically. What solves one issue can open a can of worms elsewhere.

[Redwolf]

I'm not suggesting 'fudging unit stats' or making 'artificial changes' of any sort. Please forgive my unintended implying. I'm merely asking "Will a field/AT gun's shield afford a realistic degree of protection for small-arms fire and light shell fragments (from the front)?" In other words, say a rifle squad of mine spots a Pak 38 facing it and opens fire from 100m; will the Pak 38's crew have any protection from the rifle and BAR fire on account of the gun's shield?

Why would that be affected from changes to area fire?

[Dietrich]

Why would that be affected from changes to area fire?

You're right -- it's effectively a different concern. And since I seem to be (at least temporarily) incapable of phrasing my question in a clear and concise way, I'll let it be.

[Battlefront.com]

Steiner14,

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?

The shields were abstractly simulated in CMx1, directly simulated in CMx2. In fact, Charles just finished up the coding on ATGs a day or so ago and we talked about this very fact The shields were designed for protection against small arms, shrapnel, and flying debris. Obviously different shields were more up to this task than others, some more able to protect the crews than others. But with the more direct simulation in CM: Normandy this should be far easier to assess than it was in CMx1.

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?

Rotation speeds in CMx1 were not very sophisticated. Traverse was rather slow, in general and if the traverse was outside of tolerances the crew would have to relocate the gun's carriage. I don't know exactly how Charles coded up traverse this time around, but I do know it's far more flexible than CMx1 so I'm sure that it can be adjusted to realistic standards.

I do think that the combo of simulating the shield and traverse better will likely aid ATGs in surviving near encounters with HE chuckers.

Steve

[Drusus]

I tried to play the game under the following rules:

1. No area target for vehicles if there is not recent question mark at the location. The question marks will fade slowly, and deciding what brightness is recent is up to you. If area target light is allowed to unknown locations is questionable. The idea for disallowing area target light, too, is to better simulate the poor spotting ability of vehicles, but this also prohibits recon by fire for vehicles.

2. Area target light for infantry to unknown locations is allowed. Area target is allowed only to recent locations.

This is surprisingly fun. I encourage you to try it. For US troops the difference isn't that big, the question marks will be passed quite fast to troops near each other.

The main difference this makes is that in real time mode you can not immediately area target enemy locations as soon as they are spotted by one of your units. The other effect is that you actually do need to keep your armor closer to your infantry in order to get those question marks. I did not see any effect to recon by fire. I haven't tried the effect on Syrian troops, but I think it would be much more noticeable.

[Thomm]

I would not mind Drusus' rules (or something similar) being implemented in one way or another.

Best regards,

Thomm

[Redwolf]

Rotation speeds in CMx1 were not very sophisticated. Traverse was rather slow, in general and if the traverse was outside of tolerances the crew would have to relocate the gun's carriage.

CMx1 guns did not know the difference between traversal of the barrel inside the carriage, and picking up the whole carriage. The guns turns with a speed that presumably always was for picking up the carriage (and in the case of a 37 or 50mm gun rather slow at that).

CMx1 did have code that made a difference between gun traverse and unit turning, but it was used only in non-turret gun carrying vehicles such as StuGs and ISUs, not for towed guns.

[Falconander]

Frankly I don't understand the issue here,

I think the game works just fine the way it is right now. You are asking for changes that are not realistic and dectract/delay from other important features of the game.

Area fire is only as gamey as you make it to be. So it is essentailly a non-issue in single player. Thus, I don't see the nature of the debate. If you are saying area fire sucks and is unrealistic, it is pretty obvious that you should live by what you say and not use it.

For multiplayer games, I think a gentelman's understanding of how it will be used in the game would be appropriate. If you can't reach a understanding or don't like the way the other guys plays, don't play them.

You are asking to pervert the game in many ways that would screw it up for other people. Steve and the others have addressed this adequately and I think it is one of those areas that you develop work arounds and drive on.

Last night I area fired a tree line as well as the approach of a convoy of vehicles. Both of these were practical and what my men would have done in real life.

Maintain the flexibility to use area fire the way it is right now and if you think it has gamey, don't use it in whatever way you think is gamey. Problem solved.

[BlackMoria]

Frankly I don't understand the issue here,

I think the game works just fine the way it is right now. You are asking for changes that are not realistic and dectract/delay from other important features of the game.

Area fire is only as gamey as you make it to be. So it is essentailly a non-issue in single player. Thus, I don't see the nature of the debate. If you are saying area fire sucks and is unrealistic, it is pretty obvious that you should live by what you say and not use it.

For multiplayer games, I think a gentelman's understanding of how it will be used in the game would be appropriate. If you can't reach a understanding or don't like the way the other guys plays, don't play them.

You are asking to pervert the game in many ways that would screw it up for other people. Steve and the others have addressed this adequately and I think it is one of those areas that you develop work arounds and drive on.

Last night I area fired a tree line as well as the approach of a convoy of vehicles. Both of these were practical and what my men would have done in real life.

Maintain the flexibility to use area fire the way it is right now and if you think it has gamey, don't use it in whatever way you think is gamey. Problem solved.

I second this. The whole issue is a byproduct of the player as god and having knowledge of the battlefield that their pixeltruppen can't possibly know. Don't act on that knowledge and there is no issue in regards to area fire. A gentlemen's agreement among players is a solution and if someone breaks their bond on this, treat them like you would anyone else 'cheating' at the game and don't play them again.

Besides, the next update (1.20) will apply FOW to muzzle flashes and smoke, making it even less likely for people to area fire locations based on those indicators and I expect this will hold true in CM:N.

[Redwolf]

Nah.

All that I suggest is making guns that are in gun emplacements to be harder to kill from fire that is coming from a unit that didn't see the gun.

That is entirely realistic.

If you do recon by fire you cannot possibly expect to kill those units that the whole enemy company helped to dig in. If you want to kill these guns you have to move somewhere where you get a good shot at them, and that means you need to see them.

I really don't see how this fix hurt's anybody's gentleman gameplay, but it will be a great improvement for competitive play.

Or let me ask you this: if you have one unit that spotted a gun, let's say a Sherman with a radio, wouldn't that Sherman ask over the radio for help in blasting that ridge the shot came from? Or wouldn't the other Shermans start shooting into the same place that the Sherman that spotted the gun is shooting into?

If you play realistic you have to use area fire. And you don't want it to unrealistically kill the gun right away.

[sfhand]

As one who is not a grog and who hasn't read all the combat AAR's from ww2, I've got to ask, in a combined arms operation is a frontal attack by tanks the most realistic way of taking out field guns? This player favors throwing HE at them via on map mortars prior to taking any action to knock them out. Frequently the mortar fire has been sufficient on it's own.

The amount of tanks I lost early in my CMBO experience using direct fire against field guns prompted me to look for other, less "expensive" solutions. Those tank losses, coupled with the notion that area fire is less accurate than direct fire, are partly the reason I question the need for a fix...

And then there is my belief that a defender can easily set up a situation in such a way as to penalize the player who tries to use Steve's example...

edit: additionally, using Steve's example, were I to use my preferred tactic of throwing HE at the pak with mortars and then having tanks 2 and 3 move into LOS with a pre-targeted area fire attack seems like a "non-gamey" solution to that particular field gun problem. Sure one could argue that the actual mechanic are gamey, but I would argue the mechanics were allowing a realistic action the game is incapable of providing, i.e. telling the tanks to move into los of the clump of trees the mortars are firing at and throw some HE at them.

[c3k]

Re Steve's example: There are many real life clues to fire origination which are absent in game. For example, the Sherman 1 which he says gets knocked out; is it "rocked" by the hit? Which side took the impact? What flew off? Is there an exit hole? The "crack" of the round? The "whoosh"? All these should give someone whose life is dependent upon these clues a little bit of a guess as to the location of the threat. Of course, sometimes these clues are missed, or absent.

However, there is a little more to the equation than Sherman 1 had LOS/LOF to/from the ATG and was knocked out. Sherman 2 had no LOS/LOF, therefore should not know where the ATG is.

Thoughts?

[Redwolf]

As one who is not a grog and who hasn't read all the combat AAR's from ww2, I've got to ask, in a combined arms operation is a frontal attack by tanks the most realistic way of taking out field guns? This player favors throwing HE at them via on map mortars prior to taking any action to knock them out. Frequently the mortar fire has been sufficient on it's own.

The amount of tanks I lost early in my CMBO experience using direct fire against field guns prompted me to look for other, less "expensive" solutions. Those tank losses, coupled with the notion that area fire is less accurate than direct fire, are partly the reason I question the need for a fix...

And then there is my belief that a defender can easily set up a situation in such a way as to penalize the player who tries to use Steve's example...

edit: additionally, using Steve's example, were I to use my preferred tactic of throwing HE at the pak with mortars and then having tanks 2 and 3 move into LOS with a pre-targeted area fire attack seems like a "non-gamey" solution to that particular field gun problem. Sure one could argue that the actual mechanic are gamey, but I would argue the mechanics were allowing a realistic action the game is incapable of providing, i.e. telling the tanks to move into los of the clump of trees the mortars are firing at and throw some HE at them.

The problem is seeing the suckers.

The tank that is getting shot at is most likely to see it. The next likely is the next tank, seeing where the first tank is firing.

Getting this down the chain to somebody who can call in mortar fire is highly nontrivial.

And as mentioned in this thread, sometimes you never find the gun, they extract before you can mass against them.

Most of the time all that happened when Allies advanced in Normandy is that one tank gets penetrated, the crew bails out regardless of whether the tank still works or not and the other evade. Nobody has any clue whatsoever where the gun was, or whether it was a gun in the first place. Then it will take some time outside CM scope to either make them drive down the same road again or to do anything about the gun, usually by saturating the area with indirect fires.

You can argue that it is unrealistic to shoot up a gun that has been spotted by a single Sherman and nobody else with mortars within the next turn. It is clearly most realistic to have other tanks shoot semi-aimed fire with a low probability to kill the gun. What I want is to make sure that semi-aimed fire as an appropriate low but existent probability to succeed.

[sfhand]

Then again, in Steve's scenario the player, as a godlike entity, knows the location and type of weapon that killed his Sherman. If none of his other units spotted the pak taking out the Sherman it, wouldn't it be gamey to take any action against it? Who among us would advocate this? Don't we send recon squads ahead to find the enemy, and if and when those squads get killed we usually know where they were and what killed them, when in reality we might not? Does this not boil down to the fact that we're playing a game which means the entire premise is "gamey"?

edit: god, did I really take that long to type this???

[sfhand]

I keep thinking of Band of Brothers, both the book and mini-series, and the multi-national combined arms Operation Market Garden incident where the US grunts warn the Brit tanker about the Tiger on the other side of the church. My point is, the way I play CM there is no way that Steve's scenario would unfold in the first place. I use tanks for overwatch and infantry for recon. So, when a field gun fires on a tank many people should have eyes on it. I don't want BF to fix this in a way that would interfere with my "realistic" approach... There is no way for the game to model those Ami grunts to warn the Brit tanker in this game as it is now. They didn't send the info up the chain of command as I recall.

Maybe BF could instutite a fix that doesn't allow recon by fire that does property damage for the brits...

[Redwolf]

Then again, in Steve's scenario the player, as a godlike entity, knows the location and type of weapon that killed his Sherman. If none of his other units spotted the pak taking out the Sherman it, wouldn't it be gamey to take any action against it? Who among us would advocate this? Don't we send recon squads ahead to find the enemy, and if and when those squads get killed we usually know where they were and what killed them, when in reality we might not? Does this not boil down to the fact that we're playing a game which means the entire premise is "gamey"?

edit: god, did I really take that long to type this???

That doesn't answer the question.

Would it be an improvement in realism to have heavily emplaced guns (as opposed to just foxholed infantry) not be as effected by area fire from units that didn't see the gun?

I'd say yes and even if you give up on this stuff entirely, would it hurt your situation?

[sfhand]

That doesn't answer the question.

Would it be an improvement in realism to have heavily emplaced guns (as opposed to just foxholed infantry) not be as effected by area fire from units that didn't see the gun?

I'd say yes and even if you give up on this stuff entirely, would it hurt your situation?

I'll try again, my experience with CMx1 is that tanks directly targeting field guns that aren't dug in frequently were knocked out - to the point that I am loathe to use tanks against field guns until I've suppressed their crews. Given that area fire is less accurate than direct fire, and given that any tanks I use will never be without proper infantry support(unless the scenario designer says there is no inf, in which case I'll probably pass on the scenario unless it's armor only) and given that dug-in guns should get addtional protection from being dug in already, and given that the player's godlike ability can be seen as an abstraction of grunts communicating with tankers (both realisticly and not) I see no reason to limit area fire lethality other than making it less accurate (I'm not even sure how realistic that is).

I'll go further and say that when I'm the defender, in CMx1, I drool over the thought of an opponent leading with their tanks as in Steve's example. In fact, I would be glad that they can pull forward and apply area fire on the location of the pak...

And to answer your question directly, no, I don't think it would improve realism if it adversely affects damage from recon by fire.

[Redwolf]

I'll try again, my experience with CMx1 is that tanks directly targeting field guns that aren't dug in frequently were knocked out - to the point that I am loathe to use tanks against field guns until I've suppressed their crews. Given that area fire is less accurate than direct fire, and given that any tanks I use will never be without proper infantry support(unless the scenario designer says there is no inf, in which case I'll probably pass on the scenario unless it's armor only) and given that dug-in guns should get addtional protection from being dug in already, and given that the player's godlike ability can be seen as an abstraction of grunts communicating with tankers (both realisticly and not) I see no reason to limit area fire lethality other than making it less accurate (I'm not even sure how realistic that is).

I'll go further and say that when I'm the defender, in CMx1, I drool over the thought of an opponent leading with their tanks as in Steve's example. In fact, I would be glad that they can pull forward and apply area fire on the location of the pak...

And to answer your question directly, no, I don't think it would improve realism if it adversely affects damage from recon by fire.

Sorry this does not match my play experience from many game, including the RoW tourneys.

Of course as a new player you fear AT guns like nothing else. And if you only have one or two tanks of course it's bad.

But the "all hands area fire" method was very effective against AT guns in any kind of game with many units.

And I still don't know why you think you would lose something from making indirect fire against gun emplacements weaker. In your situation you fire directly at the gun, with LOS, anyway, so no change for you.

[Dietrich]

There are many real life clues to fire origination which are absent in game. For example, the Sherman 1 which he says gets knocked out; is it "rocked" by the hit? Which side took the impact? What flew off? Is there an exit hole? The "crack" of the round? The "whoosh"? All these should give someone whose life is dependent upon these clues a little bit of a guess as to the location of the threat. Of course, sometimes these clues are missed, or absent.

Technically true, but consider certain aspects of the likely tactical situation which would have a bearing on this. A Sherman gets knocked out by an AT shell penetration through its upper right hull. True, the Sherman's crew realizes that the shell came from the right, but as they're bailing out, how can they reasonably pass on said information to any friendly units? (Granted, if friendly infantry are without voice range, one of the tank crew could shout to them "Hey, watch out -- there's an AT gun over to the right somewhere.") And just because they know that the shell came from the right, how do they have any idea where the fire came from except that it came from the right? If the Sherman's commander was smart, he had his hatch open and his head out the cupola, the better to spot and to hear potential threats. Even so, he wouldn't necessarily hear the report of the ATG nor spot the smoke of its firing. Once the tank crew has bailed out, they would likely be hugging the dirt, since they would be likely be ruthlessly targeted by small-arms fire from the enemy infantry, and thus they would be to busy/suppressed to say "Let's take a gander at our tank and see if we can deduce where that darn AT shell came from."

What I've read about tank crews in WW2 indicates that the situational awareness of the typical tank crew was rather limited because the interior of a tank of that era was quite noisy, so much so that it was virtually impossible to detect infantry nearby unless they were so nearby as to be actually on top of the tank. A crew could definitely tell when an AT shell ricocheted off their tank, on account of the jolt, the sharp clang, and the spark-type flash. Detecting the ATG itself, though, was much harder.

Naturally, I'm not saying that tank crews never or only rarely detected ATGs which had them under fire -- I'm just saying that there were a number of factors which would mitigate against their detecting such.

Of course, this is in a "one tank versus one anti-tank gun" situation. If there were two Shermans -- which there most likely would be, if not a whole platoon of four or five supporting each other -- the second Sherman's commander might have noted that the knocked-out Sherman got hit on the right side, and thus, as he moved his tank into a better position, he might very well search in that direction and thus might spot the puff of smoke from the ATG firing which then takes out his tank. =P

in Steve's scenario the player, as a godlike entity, knows the location and type of weapon that killed his Sherman.

At least in CMSF, more often than not no unit of mine spots the ATGM which blasted one of my Abrams or the RPG which took out one of my Strykers. So my only recourse, as far as area fire is concerned, is to blast every place which might be occupied by the enemy -- but before I've had a change to blast even half of those places, the ATGM or RPG in question has fired again and very possibly taken out another of my Strykers or Abrams.

my experience with CMx1 is that tanks directly targeting field guns that aren't dug in frequently were knocked out

Whoever is so inclined, you might find it enlightening to check out http://www.feldgrau.com/pnzfwd.html. Note a couple points pertinent to the "ATGs and tanks firing at each other" aspect of this discussion (italics mine):

9. When antitank weapons are encountered at long or medium ranges, you must first return fire and then maneuver against them. First make a firing halt in order to bring effective fire to bear - then commit the bulk of the company to maneuver on the enemy with the continued support of one platoon.

10. When antitank weapons are encountered at close range, stopping is suicide. Only immediate attack at the highest speed with every weapon firing will have success and reduce losses.

The first point implies that the locations of said antitank weapons have been more or less deduced. The second point suggests that the tanks which come under fire don't necessarily know quite where the fire is coming from, but nonetheless, better to kick it into high gear (to make your tank a hard target) and blaze away, even if you miss.

[sfhand]

Sorry this does not match my play experience from many game, including the RoW tourneys.

Of course as a new player you fear AT guns like nothing else. And if you only have one or two tanks of course it's bad.

...

But the "all hands area fire" method was very effective against AT guns in any kind of game with many units.

...

I'm not sure where you get the idea I'm a new player just because my experience and observations are different than yours. In my experience there is no point in a my gaming experience is more valid than your gaming experience contest...

Just because I've never used the "all hands area fire" method doesn't mean I'm a new player either. Clearly you must have because if you were on the receiving end you wouldn't know if it was area or direct fire. Which means, at some level, you are asking for BF to save you from yourself, something I understand quite well...

I'm still pretty unclear about how a unit area firing with LOS/LOF to an area with a smoke signature present (not modeled in CMx1 to my knowledge but there in reality) can be considered unrealistic. The Band of Brothers (Many years ago I was a member of the gaming ladder/club and played a lot of games with a lot of different players in addition to my favorite opponents who weren't in the club - yeah, okay so I couldn't resist) incident I referenced earlier is a perfect example of realistic things that aren't modeled being abstracted by the godlike ability of the player.

[Falconander]

I still have to vote for the open format and the ability to have the God view and use area fire as I deem appropriate.

As an M60 gunner there were times that my leader would paint a target with either heavy tracer fire (out of command radius) or by direction from yelling or squaking.

There were other times I would take the initiative as I heard commotion and saw firing going down range that there were possible targets inside a house/vehicle. So I would suppport the area with traversing fire even though I had no eyes on the target myself.

Also the pre op order would have possible strongpoints marked on the map and I could always use my natural horse-sense to say i would not want anyone to get "set-up" in a certain area so I would surpress it.

In the game I also use area fire to set up grazing fire in certain locations.

Area fire is a neccessary evil.

I kind of agree if you want to say that certain targets are harder to kill with area fire. But no delay maybe something in the code that would say if fire mode is area fire, to hit/damage modification takes place.

Has some BMPs drive through some 40MM and AT area fire last night and no kills happened. It happended kind of like I figure it would have.

The are a lot of things in this game that we have to "visualize". That is part of the beauty. My interpretation is going to be different than someone else's. Why dictacte how things will go when a small problem will likely turn into a bigger problem for more people?

[Steiner14]

Technically true, but consider certain aspects of the likely tactical situation which would have a bearing on this. A Sherman gets knocked out by an AT shell penetration through its upper right hull. True, the Sherman's crew realizes that the shell came from the right, but as they're bailing out, how can they reasonably pass on said information to any friendly units?

I don't know how it was in other armys, but in the Wehrmacht when ATGs were the backbone of defensive positions, they were always supported by MG42s, often several of them.

The HMGs make it in most cases impossible for the tank-crews, to think about giving signs to friendly tanks. They have to run for their lives and seek cover ASAP, like the infantry, that comes along with the tanks.

The tank-commanders of the remaining tanks, do not have the time to look for possible signs, too. When an ATG opens fire and the first tank is hit, they are under extreme pressure of decision-making, because usually they see nothing, they know nothing, but in the case of a direct hit with an explosion or blowed off turrets, they have to decide in less than 10 seconds what to do next. Waiting for bailing out crews in the hope to get some signs, is not an option.

[Steiner14]

Idea:

I don't know how it is handled already, but i'd like to see the sound information given to the player (i.e. from a unspotted ATG) being reduced to the amount, that fits to the real situation and does not give way to much information about the enemy's position away.

Although spotting by sound may not be that much of a problem playing RT, since the replay feature is missing, but playing WEGO, recon by sound was a great gamey help.