Are troops in buildings stronger in 1.3?

[dan/california]

I have a question about troops in buildings and version 1.3. I am throwing enough ordinance at things to collapse the roof and the second story floor onto the first level, and there are still people alive when I send a squad inside. My admittedly questionable memory tells me that once floors start collapsing it's usually safe. Has anyone else noticed anything in this regard?

[Alan8325]

Troops on floors separate from the one where ordnance is exploding seem to usually be pretty safe in CMSF, regardless of the size of the explosion. I don't know if it's realistic or not, but you can hit the roof of a structure with several 155mm artillery shells and the troops inside will be mostly fine, but as soon as a single shell hits the ground right next to a wall, you see several casualties and lots of suppression. It's not new in v1.30.

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[bodkin]

I just flattened a three storey building with an airstrike and 155mm arty. I then sent a squad up to where the building once stood only to see them get gunned down by nearly a full Syrian rifle squad waiting in the rubble.

It reminded me of that scene out of the Blues Brothers when Jake and Elwood dust themselves off after their apartment block is destroyed.

Artillery seems almost useless now against defenders in buildings.

[Boche]

I just flattened a three storey building with an airstrike and 155mm arty. I then sent a squad up to where the building once stood only to see them get gunned down by nearly a full Syrian rifle squad waiting in the rubble.

It reminded me of that scene out of the Blues Brothers when Jake and Elwood dust themselves off after their apartment block is destroyed.

Artillery seems almost useless now against defenders in buildings.

same, something isnt right...

[Ron]

Hmm, to say artillery is useless against defenders in buildings is quite the hyperbole. I have entered rubble immediately after arty has collasped two story buildings to find several dead bodies therein, and I have caught them on the flank retreating from said buildings also. I can't say I have seen against-all-odds survivors, yet! Perhaps good order enemies are moving into the rubble?

[Fat Dave]

Like Ron says, there is a distinct possibility of guys bugging out, then returning.

[Boche]

Like Ron says, there is a distinct possibility of guys bugging out, then returning.

ive never seen this happen, is this actual AI behaviour?

[Eagle2]

I've seen them bug out, but never return to their old positions.

[ChrisND]

It could be guys bugging out from somewhere else.

I've only ever once seen AI inexplicably survive a rubbled building, and that was a ground floor with 81mm mortars. I'll run some tests and see what happens.

[dan/california]

Is returning new for 1.3 then? That would be a major change.

[ChrisND]

Is returning new for 1.3 then? That would be a major change.

Naw, I meant that they could in some cases be troops from some other location, and they bugged out into the rubble.

[Eagle2]

I don't think it is. I have seen guys run away to never come back. I did notice however that they can survive collapsed buildings more frequently than they used to. I pounded a two story building with 155mm arty for a whole minute with HE rounds and the building collapsed. Even after the building collapsed HE rounds were still flying in there. Everybody should have died, right? Well it turns out they had a tornado shelter or something in there because as soon as I moved up a Marder to cover my advancing infatry and enemy RPG launched out and killed it. It seems a bid ridiculous that anything could survive the pounding taken by those guys.

[dan/california]

That is pretty much what happened to make me start this thread.

[Alan8325]

An issue that is still there that has been there for as long as I can remember is the amount of protection that troops have on a separate floor from artillery strikes. This issue is easily seen by placing troops in a single story building and then hitting the roof with large ordnance to see what happens, then try hitting the wall to see what happens. You can test it by using a large on-map HE round, for example HESH from a Challenger. When I have more time tonight or tomorrow I'll post some pics.

[dan/california]

Steve has mentioned a number of times that explosion's kill radius is tweaked a little to offset the fact the engine keeps troops a little less dispersed than they would be in real life. It may be in this scenario its a little too tweaked. I know rubble makes a great fighting position after the dust has settled. I don't think it very healthy to be in buildings that are being caved in or flattened though. If nothing else it seems like the dust would choke and blind everyone for quite a while.

[c3k]

I've just had this issue raise its head in a Nato game. I hammered a building with Haubitze 2000; Medium, medium, point target, General. The building was reduced to rubble. The squad inside survived (no, not everyone) and decimated my advancing men. My men were on the scene within a minute of the last round.

I don't think there should've been survivors, but I am open to that possibility. However, their ability to mount an ambush so quickly after being hammered seems a bit, err, optimistic.

Ken

[Dietrich]

Before someone cites the "house from hell" incident in Fallujah where a building was collapsed by a 20-pound satchel charge but then a live grenade rolled/bounced out of the rubble toward the Marines, let me surmise: The insurgent who apparently survived to toss the grenade may have been on the roof on the building and thus would not have been directly pulverized by the satchel charge's explosion or crushed by the collapse of the building.

In CMSF, if I drop a dozen 155mm directly on a two-floor building (i.e., every shell hits the building; no near-misses) and it collapses entirely and two or three shells strike the rubble itself, I expect the six men who had been firing from the ground floor to be incapacitated or dead. But that's just me.

[dan/california]

That is one satchel charge. A 155 round has at least that much explosive power and we are talking about five plus of them. Not to mention the shrapnel a 155 distributes around.

Yes I am whining because my squad got whacked!

[bodkin]

I'm noticing this alot more often now, I just spotted a Syrian HQ squad on the second floor of a two storey building. I pounded it into rubble with a 155 barrage that kept going after the building was flattened, the following turn I counted six guys still fighting effectively from the rubble. I think unit experience has something to do with the survivability equation as well, but whatever the case may be this definately needs a tweak.

[Boche]

yeah, i mean this totally negates the point of even using arty...

[akd]

Y'all, this is very easy to test with the editor and mission skill set to "scenario author test."

Just ran through a few scenarios with multiples units inside of multi-story buildings and observed the following:

1. Units can survive many hits to overhead cover. Generally a unit will survive 4-5 hits on the roof/floor above without harm, but then one single hit will wipe out everyone on the floor, although the overhead cover is intact. Very infrequently, a hit might wipe out everyone on the 2nd floor even though the unit on the 3rd suffers nothing. This seems to suggest that penetration before detonation is modeled, but it is random and infrequent.

2. Units are somewhat more likely to suffer casualties if a hit destroys the ceiling/floor above them, or if their own floor (i.e. walls and ceiling) collapses, but they still occasionally escape without harm. They will then typically flee to the next floor down.

3. Units are much more likely to suffer casualties if the floor beneath them collapses or if the whole building comes down. The majority of units were wiped-out before total collapse of their building. Most total collapses destroyed the handful of remaining men.

4. The only way to cause casualties to multiple units on multiple floors simultaneously is by near miss to the building. I did not test if this was true for windowless buildings. No direct hit to a building ever causes casualties on multiple floors unless the hit collapses multiple floors.

The big problem I see here is the lack of delayed fuse for artillery targeting buildings (or bombs for that matter). Artillery would certainly not use "quick" fuse in these circumstances, and I believe that the "armor" setting for a mission should result in delays that at least allow for ceiling/roof penetration. I don't think quick/instant fusing would be used against tanks either, so this makes sense in general.

[dan/california]

Thank you, AKD

[Lanzfeld]

I would REALLY like to hear from Steve or Charles on this one. After all, its their baby.

FWIW when a building falls there should be almost no fight left in the survivors. The wounds/dust/disorientaion/whatever would be a huge factor. And when we are talking 155mm hits I dont think there would be any survivors hardly ever.

[Paper Tiger]

This point was brought up during testing... twice. It earned the nickname 'the Terminator Effect'. It was observed and reported, and some of the posts read practically word-for-word like the posts in this thread. Especially Lanzfeld's