TacAI- Infantry Firing on Tanks

[Taki]

In PBEM Multiplayer playing Busting the Bocage.

I have Problems, setting Target Arcs and Infantry is well too often shooting on Tanks with Small Arms giving away their Positions.

Is this Bug or Feature?

[GreenAsJade]

Are you saying that Inf is firing on tanks _outside_ their covered arc?

If they are firing on tanks inside their covered arc, this is probably fair, if the tank is not buttoned: they are trying to make it button.

If they are firing on tanks _outside_ their covered arc, that would feel like a bug or "wtf" sort of feature...

GaJ

[womble]

I think infantry consider making a tank 'button up' to be a very high self-preservation priority, which means they'll override their target arcs when you perhaps hoped they wouldn't. I wonder whether it's because they're not good at telling whether a Tank is 'buttoned up', and so fire speculatively, even once it has blinded itself.

I've had the AI waste a lot of HMG ammo firing on my Shermans... I know there can be degradation, but mostly it just gets the MG's peppered with HE once the job in front of the tank is done, or sooner, if the MG might be able to fire on the squishies.

[Taki]

Problem is that they Fire INSIDE their ARc on Tanks that arent worth a target.

Actually it goes like this:

Well hidden HMG hides behind Bocage with Target Arc for Inf getting close.

Then a Tank shows up and they Spray Rounds on him, no effect.

Tanks see them, firing HE almost the whole Squad is lost.

Even with Target Arc its a Problem imho.

[womble]

There's no solution for that at the moment. Except putting an infantry AT next to your MG so it opens up on the unescorted Tank when the MG does.

Though I do believe the AI could do with some poking in this regard, adding some evaluation of the potential effect (by which I mean 'chance of causing damage', rather than anything complicated like potential consequences ) from firing on a given target, alongside the evaluation of the threat a given target poses, which would, respectively be low and high for an MG looking at a tank; not a good combination for choosing to attract attention.

[Cull]

Yep, it's annoying, but I'd bet we see a tweak in 1.1.

I'd like to see the return of an "ambush" command or similar---set a covered "ambush" arc and the unit will ONLY fire on units that enter the arc, period.

Then it's up to the player to decide if, upon seeing a nice target of opportunity outside the arc, he wants the unit to reveal themselves and take a shot.

For now the "hide" command is the only workaround, but of course the unit loses all spotting abilities.

Ideally, I guess, a unit using either "hide" (unit WILL NOT fire) or "ambush" (unit will fire ONLY at enemies in covered arc) would retain some spotting, but it would be limited. I assume, however, that that would probably be much more difficult to pull off, code-wise.

[akd]

Yep, it's annoying, but I'd bet we see a tweak in 1.1.

I'd like to see the return of an "ambush" command or similar---set a covered "ambush" arc and the unit will ONLY fire on units that enter the arc, period.

Then it's up to the player to decide if, upon seeing a nice target of opportunity outside the arc, he wants the unit to reveal themselves and take a shot.

For now the "hide" command is the only workaround, but of course the unit loses all spotting abilities.

Ideally, I guess, a unit using either "hide" (unit WILL NOT fire) or "ambush" (unit will fire ONLY at enemies in covered arc) would retain some spotting, but it would be limited. I assume, however, that that would probably be much more difficult to pull off, code-wise.

Units currently very rigidly obey cover arcs. And you can hide unit in combination with a covered arc. Hiding units don't lose all ability to spot.

[Wiggum]

Mhh, will a hiding unit open fire if a unit enters their cover-arc ?

Like if i give a unit a hide command + a cover-arc...will they start shooting if a enemy unit enters the cover-arc ?

[akd]

Mhh, will a hiding unit open fire if a unit enters their cover-arc ?

Like if i give a unit a hide command + a cover-arc...will they start shooting if a enemy unit enters the cover-arc ?

Yes, if they see it.

[lookeylou]

There should be a hold fire button added. And it should be tied to the strength of the leader and expirenece if the order is obeyed or not, if a tank or any thing comes within meters of your men. A tank should be more "stress" tho

If a leader has a -2 it should be like 75% penatly 75% they would fire lol

[Wengart]

Yes, this happens far too often and very rarely does it result in the TC getting killed, and it's usually not to the squads benefit to get the TC to button up.

[Taki]

Hope there will be a Tweak in 1.1 or so.

Any Patch planned dear BFC Gods?

[Wengart]

I would assume they have been working on version 1.1 since the game went gold.

[gunnergoz]

Yes, it would be nice if the cover arc command had flavors, like "infantry only", "armor only" or "any target."

[Fetchez la Vache]

Better cover arcs would be number 1 on my wish list as well. Mainly because I cannot figure out a suitable workaround except by simply withholding fire until an enemy unit is postively seen - and that's not very good for WEGO.

Was this not an issue and desired feature in CMSF?

[WineCape]

We have reported the issue via a test scenario and it is with the programming jar (Charles) up for consideration. Infantry troops (not hiding/no arcs) have a tendency to fire at unbuttoned enemy Tank Commanders at certain ranges all the way up to 250m and beyond.

[Wiggum]

Sounds like we will see a fix soon...

[YankeeDog]

We have reported the issue via a test scenario and it is with the programming jar (Charles) up for consideration. Infantry troops (not hiding/no arcs) have a tendency to fire at unbuttoned enemy Tank Commanders at certain ranges all the way up to 250m and beyond.

Thanks, WineCape. Appreciate your kicking this up the chain.

FWIW, I think the problem may not be simply that infantry tends to open up on unbuttoned tanks too readily, but also that they seem to open up with more or less full volume of fire when they do.

IMHO, with the possible exception of close-range ambushes, firing at unbuttoned TCs should take the form of occasional carefully aimed shots/bursts, rather than full-out suppressive fire. For example, and especially in the case of squads with a designated marksman carrying a scoped rifle, it should probably just be one or two riflemen shooting at the TC. In the case of MG teams, I think fire on unbuttoned TCs should be in the form of occasional, carefully aimed short bursts. This is not what I'm seeing right now -- from what I've seen, infantry teams left to their own targeting decisions will unload a fair amount of lead at an unbuttoned tank pretty darn quickly, even at moderate to long ranges.

Since CMx2s spotting model is pretty refined, if the infantry AI is tweaked to allow some kind of "harassing" fire vs. unbuttoned TCs, this should make the infantry less "spottable," as there won't be as many members of the unit up and firing, and they won't be firing as often.

It's very beneficial to force enemy tanks to button, so generally speaking, I want my infantry to take the opportunity to target unbuttoned tanks with small arms fire. But at the same time, I also don't want my infantry squads going cyclic on a relatively distant tank and revealing their position to every enemy unit in LOS... there's definitely a balance that needs to be struck here.

Exception to all of the above would be in the case of some lightly armored vehicles, where there is some decent chance of actually penetrating the armor with small arms fire. MG42 vs. M8 Greyhound flank or rear aspect, for example. In these cases, the infantry should probably go all-out when targeting the AFV, if the range warrants.

Great game, and looking forward to further refinements that will only make it better.

Thanks again,

YD

[RockinHarry]

Thanks, WineCape. Appreciate your kicking this up the chain.

FWIW, I think the problem may not be simply that infantry tends to open up on unbuttoned tanks too readily, but also that they seem to open up with more or less full volume of fire when they do.

IMHO, with the possible exception of close-range ambushes, firing at unbuttoned TCs should take the form of occasional carefully aimed shots/bursts, rather than full-out suppressive fire. For example, and especially in the case of squads with a designated marksman carrying a scoped rifle, it should probably just be one or two riflemen shooting at the TC. In the case of MG teams, I think fire on unbuttoned TCs should be in the form of occasional, carefully aimed short bursts. This is not what I'm seeing right now -- from what I've seen, infantry teams left to their own targeting decisions will unload a fair amount of lead at an unbuttoned tank pretty darn quickly, even at moderate to long ranges.

Since CMx2s spotting model is pretty refined, if the infantry AI is tweaked to allow some kind of "harassing" fire vs. unbuttoned TCs, this should make the infantry less "spottable," as there won't be as many members of the unit up and firing, and they won't be firing as often.

It's very beneficial to force enemy tanks to button, so generally speaking, I want my infantry to take the opportunity to target unbuttoned tanks with small arms fire. But at the same time, I also don't want my infantry squads going cyclic on a relatively distant tank and revealing their position to every enemy unit in LOS... there's definitely a balance that needs to be struck here.

Exception to all of the above would be in the case of some lightly armored vehicles, where there is some decent chance of actually penetrating the armor with small arms fire. MG42 vs. M8 Greyhound flank or rear aspect, for example. In these cases, the infantry should probably go all-out when targeting the AFV, if the range warrants.

Great game, and looking forward to further refinements that will only make it better.

Thanks again,

YD

+1

Prime task for infantry is dividing enemy infantry from its armored support, even in the face of getting plasterd by HE in return.

Just as YD describes, it´s oftenly more wise to fight a "point target" (HMG nest, HQ sections, unbuttoned crews and weapon crews) with the infantry squads most able marksman in a stealthy manner. This doesn´t necessarily needs a scoped rifle available, when the target is at close to middle ranges. I saw things like that mentioned in (german) WW2 infantry field regulations as well (HDV 130/2a & Feuerkampf der Infanterie).

I´d also vote to introduce a dual "vs soft & vs hard" covered arc for all appropiate units, in order to give better fine tuning opportunities.