Look at that lovely view through the windo... ahhh!

[xian]

Okay, okay I know I keep going on about it... but I am certain that infantry in buildings are far too vulnerable to small arms fire.

Could it be something to do with the fact that soldiers don't duck out of the way when reloading and spotting? Or is there an LOS modifier built in to approximate this? I can understand that it might be difficult to model the behaviour of soldiers finding cover in buildings, but a simple 'to hit' modifier could solve the problem.

Soldiers tend to stand stock still at windows, and I'm pretty sure that as a result the game engine sees them as more vulnerable to incoming fire than a soldier lying in the grass.

Is this something that BF are looking at - or am I a just a crazy lone voice in the crowd?

[Champagne]

Infantry in buildings gets shot up very quickly, it seems to me. It's worth being part of the on-going review process of the game.

[MikeyD]

An old CMSF method of 'hardening' a building in the editor was to run a line of low stone wall along the edge. Significantly increased resistance to gunfire for the first floor at least. Also, in CMSF you were mostly dealing with small-bullet carbines and assault rifles which tended to bounce off at anything but at short range. CM:BN rifles are firing the same big bullets as HMGs. There's probably lots of reasons why being being behind a building instead of in one makes more sense. Or if you've got to be up there, squeeze off a few rounds then bug out the back before the building's turned into swiss cheese.

This was an unexpected problem in CM:Afghanistan too. Russian special forces in one building, Mujahideen across the street in another, blasting away at eachother. Ruskies were dying quicker because the Muji's old bolt-action Enfields were better at piercing walls.

[Michael Emrys]

My company commander who was on the 2nd. floor of a building to spot for my mortars, got nailed, and apparently the corporal who is now in charge of the HQ group cannot spot for them. There went my artillery plan. I almost cried.

(It was a stone building, too.)

Michael

[dieseltaylor]

Weird!

[Pak40]

Just food for though on this topic:

From my paintball playing experience (sorry this is all I have to go by), windows and doors are magnets for enemy fire. I always hated being in a bunker, building or tower because you only have so many windows you can fire out of, and the enemy assaulting said structure knows EXACTLY where you must stick your head out of in order to defend it. These buildings were often death traps from any determined assault. Throw in the fact that rifle bullets can penetrate some wood/plaster walls and you've got a bigger death trap than you think. Unless you are in a definite stone structure, you may not be as protected as you think.

With all that in mind, I don't really have an opinion on whether CMBN models this correctly or not. I've mostly been playing as allies that are doing the assaulting. However, I'll keep an eye on this topic.

[dieseltaylor]

I imagine that 1940's ammo was not quite as efficient as modern day so one might need to edge the figures down - bearing in mind also these have already been rounded to the nearest 6".

I also think that we are a little short on data for brick strengths, and also what type of brick the US army was using in the tests. Without that information I am afraid that it might be considered anecdotal.

[Lunsku]

Edit: Argh, beaten by more informative post while typing this!

The US Army Engineer Field Manual (FM 5-15) from 1944 lists following rough guidelines for "Thickness required for protection against single shots by direct-fire weapons", against "Small arms and MG (7.92mm) fire at 100 yards", 7.92 being to my understanding the common German WW2 era caliber:

Brick masonry 1½ feet (~45 cm)

Concrete (not reinforced) 1 feet (~30 cm)

Concrete (reinforced) ½ feet (~15 cm)

Stone masonry 1 feet (~30 cm)

Wood 2 feet (~60 cm)

Timber 3 feet (~90 cm)

"Note: Protective thickness given is for a single shot only. Where direct-fire weapons are able to get five or six hits in the same area, the required protective thickness is approximate twice that indicated."

Those already feel to me kinda thick walls required for most materials. I guess we must remember that most WW2 era service weapon ammo pack quite a bigger punch than modern assault rifle ammunition.

There's also table listing "Thickness of materials required to protect against penetration of fragments from projectiles and bombs exploding at the distance of 50 feet". I'll list thicknesses against 75mm/105mm/155mm HE shells, respectively:

Brick masonry 4/6/8 inches

Concrete (plain) 4/5/6 inches

Concrete (reinforced) 3/4/5 inches

Timber 8/10/14 inches

Those are much reasonable numbers. And to remind these are about shrapnel from nearby explosion, not what would protect from direct shell hit.

[argie]

There's probably lots of reasons why being being behind a building instead of in one makes more sense. Or if you've got to be up there, squeeze off a few rounds then bug out the back before the building's turned into swiss cheese.

That was my favorite MOUT tactic on CMX1 also: to put troops with a bunch of SMGs behind the buildings and let the enemy to go in = massacre.

[akd]

I don't think penetration is relevant here, as the concern raised was the vulnerability of troops in front of windows.

If you want to test the protective value of the walls, either hide them, or even better, test them behind a wall with no windows or doors.

The vast majority of Norman walls are of stone masonry at least 12 inches thick, and often much thicker. Whether these are providing proper protection in the game is another issue.

[MikeyD]

I just ran a little test. First time I've done this. Three buildings in a row. Small indi house, mid-size modular, and one of the indi cathedral pieces. 200m away I dropped a trench line. Three US rifle squads in the trenchs and one German rifle squad in each house, ground floor. I just hit GO, did nothing else.

- The Allied trenchline seemed the safest bet, though I didn't pay much attention to that end of the map.

- The indi Cathedral building got very few penetrations that I could see. Either bullet ricochets or shots through the windows. It took awhile but eventually one soldier got tagged through a window. Soldiers enjoyed cowering as the incoming fire grew fierce but their morale stayed high.

- Down to the mid-size modular building. A lot more penetrations but a fair number of non-penetrating hits too. Troops did a lot of cowering avoiding the pretty accurate incoming fire, the squad LMG man was the brave one regularly spraying the distant trench line. One guy nailed, I think. Their morale stayed high.

- Third small house 1 floor with attic & windows. Bullets were going through it like swiss cheese. The squad put up a valient fight but their morale dropped and after their third casualty they broke and scooted out the back to lay on the lawn behind the building.

So it does make a difference what building type you're fighting from. There's a lot of small houses on those Normandy village maps and your men are getting small house-level protection. That might be skewing your observations somewhat.

[xian]

I don't think penetration is relevant here, as the concern raised was the vulnerability of troops in front of windows.

Exactly. It's the way troops behave inside buildings that seems to put them unrealistically in harms way.

I think it needs looking at.

[Childress]

If you want to test the protective value of the walls, either hide them, or even better, test them behind a wall with no windows or doors.

Another tactic is to garrison the second row of buildings in a town, leaving the ones facing the enemy line lightly manned with (sporadically hiding) scouts. On the downside one forfeits some juicy LOS opportunities.

[Pak40]

I don't think penetration is relevant here, as the concern raised was the vulnerability of troops in front of windows.

If you want to test the protective value of the walls, either hide them, or even better, test them behind a wall with no windows or doors.

The vast majority of Norman walls are of stone masonry at least 12 inches thick, and often much thicker. Whether these are providing proper protection in the game is another issue.

I think you're wrong in this case. He has a point that his soldier aren't ducking when firing(maybe it's abstracted by CMBN or maybe it's a bug) but the fact that there's probably not much more protection behind the walls than he thinks is a very valid point and probably the real reason why men are dying fast.

[dieseltaylor]

Its good to have some tests to show there is a difference. The question remains to a degree are even humble Normandy houses under -modelled in terms of wall thickness. However it would be true the rooms are smaller and that bullets bouncing around inside would make it a hostile environment.

The furniture would be substantial wooden items that might help but overall it does seem likely it is hostile environment. Not from wall penetrations I think but simply shots going through doors and windows and ricochetting around of things like the massive stone lintels and mantlepieces.

A larger building would be larger and more rooms , plastered walls ,more furniture so it figures troops would be happier and safer in it.

[SlapHappy]

Simulating basements

One thing I was experimenting with was piling terrain around the first floor of a two story building on three sides of the building facing the enemy and on each side. On the back of the building leave terrain at ground level and put wall skin with only one door as an exit. Total protection against small arms and excellent protection against arty unless the round comes in directly through the roof of the building. Troops can be moved to the second floor for spotting and firing if no bombardment threat is expected.

Crude but effective protection, and the basement troops only have to protect one rear facing door. Alternately you could leave the scout group on the second floor with a hide order to improve tactical visibility, with a decreased visual footprint.

[dieseltaylor]

Cunning stuff SlapHappy. And building into slopes is not that uncommon.

[gunnergoz]

I don't know if this is coincidence, but I've had troops in buildings survive for a long time, undiscovered even, as long as I severely restricted their fire arc to a few meters, basically to defend just the building they were in. This seems to, in effect, move them away from the windows, at least in coding terms.

The minute I open up their firing arcs, bang, they tend to get hit then. It is almost as if their being able to target the enemy somehow advertises their position to the enemy too. That is consistent with the real world behavior of troops moving to a window to look for targets.

Having them hide helps concealment, but it does restrict their vision at the same time.

[hoolaman]

Achieving local fire superority is just as important whether you are sitting on a hill or on the second story of a building. I tend to use buildings for observation but a building with good lines of sight is not a good place to fight from IMO. I get my scouts out of there early.

One thing CM doesn't model is even a rudimentary hardening of buildings which would certainly be the case if defenders spent much time in a town. Sandbags loopholes etc etc.

[Oddball_E8]

Another tactic is to garrison the second row of buildings in a town, leaving the ones facing the enemy line lightly manned with (sporadically hiding) scouts. On the downside one forfeits some juicy LOS opportunities.

I usually do a variant of this, but i place MG/HMG teams in the best frontline buildings (and spotters to act as scouts) and pull back when the enemy is nearing the 200-300 meters mark...

usually my opponent (wether man or AI) rushes the buildings with a somewhat large force to dominate whoever they think is in there, but instead get butchered by the teams i have in the building behind the first ones...

[Michael Emrys]

So it does make a difference what building type you're fighting from. There's a lot of small houses on those Normandy village maps and your men are getting small house-level protection. That might be skewing your observations somewhat.

My guy was on the second floor of a large two-story stone farmhouse. But he was standing before the window when he got popped. If I had known the risk was that high, I would have had him hide until I was ready to have him spot. BTW, from the start I gave the HQ group a ten meter cover arc, so that wasn't a factor. I'd hazard a guess that the guy who popped him was 100 meters away, more or less.

Michael

[beatmasta]

I think those tables of wall thickness against different types of ammo are pretty good ones. Would think that people tend to think about the covering factor by Hollywood movies where a thin table or a car door can withstand almost everything Not the fact that a 7.62mm bullet can penetrate 24" or about 60cm of wood!

[Michael Emrys]

...the fact that a 7.62mm bullet can penetrate 24" or about 60cm of wood!

That is indeed impressive, but let's not lose sight of the fact that not only must the bullet penetrate, but it must also retain enough velocity to do harm to living tissue behind the barrier.

Michael

[dan/california]

Do we have any volunteers for the 23 inch test?

[Michael Emrys]

You could use a block of gelatin, you know. Maybe not as much fun, but easier to get a volunteer.

Michael