Ballsy Sherman Crew

[dieseltaylor]

I understand that the tank crews are going to be calmed down from their current aggression when their tank s destroyed. However I have a new problem which is fairly major.

Tank spots 88 in wood opens fire with hull MG[!] This is from my opponent:

37:51 My tank fires, and a split-second later your 88 takes out the TC. He is dead. Perhaps the red cross means he is "red" dead instead of "brown" dead, but in any case he disappears from the tank in a few seconds.

37:40 A round from the 88 misses the tank

37:26 Tank fires. By now there is a new TC in the hatch, but he is another crewman. [later proved to be loader/radio man]

37:25 Tank is hit "top turret, partial penetration," and the new TC is killed.

37:11 Tank fires. 88 killed.

Damage to the tank is minimal: yellow for optics and treads.

So it looks like both your 88 shots hit the standing TC and not the turret or hull of tank. I wonder what a "top turret, partial penetration" means for a round fired from dead front? The round grazed the turret roof at a very low angle and skipped off? Could it indicate hitting the flipped-open hatch panels?

I can accept these results as physically realistic: both hits skimmed the top of the turret, killing the exposed TC but not squarely hitting the tank itself.

However, two issues might remain:

...........................

2) Crew morale is a definite issue. In the span of 40 seconds, my tank had two commanders torn apart by an 88 but still managed to get off three accurate shots (all while hauling at least one of the TC bodies out of the way). The tank neither backed off ("That 88 has our range!") nor panicked ("The bloooood!").

[Wego McPbem]

Steve was saying in another thread that normally a crew will bail out if they take two casualties. So yeah, particularly ballsy crew there.

[Oddball_E8]

the top hit thing i get quite alot when my tanks get fired upon by infantry so i think its the top hatch getting hit (i rarely get it on the panther with the slide open tophatch either so i genuinely think this is the thing)

as for the other issue... maby theyre just so "in the moment" that they didnt reflect on the fact that their TC and Radioman both died...

some react differently than flee/hide when faced with danger, some simply lash out and that might be whats happening...

[womble]

the top hit thing i get quite alot when my tanks get fired upon by infantry so i think its the top hatch getting hit (i rarely get it on the panther with the slide open tophatch either so i genuinely think this is the thing)

as for the other issue... maby theyre just so "in the moment" that they didnt reflect on the fact that their TC and Radioman both died...

some react differently than flee/hide when faced with danger, some simply lash out and that might be whats happening...

I got a "Top hull, ricochet inside" hit on one of my Shermans the other day from an MG 3/4 of a click away. Only way that could happen is hitting the closing hatch...

[dieseltaylor]

We have several unlikely events here.

One is the accuracy of the 88mm which damm near hits , misses and hits high on what would appear to be 100% chance if you believe the figures on accuracy. Now it is possible that the gun could only see the turret over the railway embankment but one would have thought similar difficulty for the tank. However the hull MG did fire so presumably all is visible.

The rates of fire are very similar which is laudable but having a body fall on top of the gunner would be a distraction.

The loader moving to the TC position also might seem to be a problem as he is there in time to be killed 14 seconds ahead of the gunner firing the fatal shot. So his carcasse falls into the turret also.

Not to wonder whether a turret hit might do something to the firing point given it damages the optics.

The driver and co-driver during this do not feel any urge to reverse the tank from as gun that has them under fire.

I am not saying it could not happen. I just think it extremely unlikely to a massive degree.

[gunnergoz]

Anything that can happen, will happen, sooner or later. Put 100 chimps in a room with 100 PC's and in a few billion years you just may end up with CM:N.

[Childress]

That reminds me of the the classic scenes in the Simpsons. The diabolical Mr Burns has a roomful of monkeys chained to their typewriters, pounding furiously. Burns grabs a sheet from one of the machines and reads: 'It was the best of times and the BLURST of times!'. And angrily crumples the paper and tosses it.

[MengJiao]

Anything that can happen, will happen, sooner or later. Put 100 chimps in a room with 100 PC's and in a few billion years you just may end up with CM:N.

My Chimps are not impressed with the 88. It seems pretty easy to spot and in the bocage it rarely has much of a field of fire.

In one experimental scenario, the 88s invariably got spotted and knocked out

by any random batch of Shermans before they could do any damage.

the German 75mm AT gun is another story. It usually does a lot better than 88s, at least in the Bocage.

[Blackcat]

That reminds me of the the classic scenes in the Simpsons. The diabolical Mr Burns has a roomful of monkeys chained to their typewriters, pounding furiously. Burns grabs a sheet from one of the machines and reads: 'It was the best of times and the BLURST of times!'. And angrily crumples the paper and tosses it.

Sheesh! I never knew the writers of the Simpsons stole jokes from Bob Newhart (his version was funnier though).

[Vark]

Yup, but the chimps will be unlikely to be able to do it, two in a row. The damage could be as a result of the shots slipstream causing the hatch covers to fall on the crew seriously injuring them (Macksey, a veteran tanker, has this occur in his book "Battle").

[Holman]

Anything that can happen, will happen, sooner or later. Put 100 chimps in a room with 100 PC's and in a few billion years you just may end up with CM:N.

"We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true."

-- Robert Wilensky

I'm dieseltaylor's opponent in the battle he's describing. (And I may have misinformed you of one thing, dieseltaylor: I believe the crewman who replaced the dead TC was the radioman, not the loader.)

I do think that the physical results are possible: the 88 got two hits very high on the vehicle, either skimming across the turret top or impacting the open hatch panel. Maybe a standing TC is considered a "top turret" component in his own right?

The morale thing is what seems wrong. Shermans ought to be more shy of 88s, especially when they've been hit not once but twice in quick succession, and with a crewman killed each time. It's hard to imagine a tank crew not panicking or at least backing off under those conditions.

It also seems too easy to replace a dead TC. As far as I can tell, this tank's loading and firing was not slowed in the least by two TCs dying in the hatch. The radioman was able to move himself into the TC position (removing the TC's corpse in the process, one hopes) in under 15 seconds.

I believe BTS has already acknowledged an issue with vehicle crew morale and behavior.

[dieseltaylor]

I believe the loader is also the radioman!!

[gunnergoz]

I did not mean to sound like I was brushing off the issue. Certainly the forum has a number of similar "you won't believe what just happened to me" anecdotes from the game, stories of events that stretch credulity and the odds. I don't want to sound like I'm "excusing poor AI behavior" or anything like that. I'm simply acknowledging that in their effort to make CM:N as realistic as possible from a historical standpoint, BFC has left open the possibility of such unlikely events happening in the game now and again. Which is not to say that a certain amount of this can be nerfed out, but in the process I hope that they don't neuter the Tac AI and make it more robotic and predictable.

[gunnergoz]

I believe the loader is also the radioman!!

It was a collateral duty for the loader but the TC could also access and operate the radio once they moved it into the turret bustle from its original place next to the co-driver/bow gunner.

[Pak40]

Look at it this way. The crew was a very tight crew with high respect for each other. No way in hell they were going to abandon their wounded buddies just to save their own hides. And quite honestly it doesn't matter what the crew's experience is in this matter, it's all about the bonding between the crewmen - green or elite, it doesn't matter.

[dieseltaylor]

I did not mean to sound like I was brushing off the issue. Certainly the forum has a number of similar "you won't believe what just happened to me" anecdotes from the game, stories of events that stretch credulity and the odds. I don't want to sound like I'm "excusing poor AI behavior" or anything like that. I'm simply acknowledging that in their effort to make CM:N as realistic as possible from a historical standpoint, BFC has left open the possibility of such unlikely events happening in the game now and again. Which is not to say that a certain amount of this can be nerfed out, but in the process I hope that they don't neuter the Tac AI and make it more robotic and predictable.

Remember the shock in Cm*1. That always seemed fine to me. I have not played a huge amount with armour/vehicles so I do rely on what others have been saying. But is there a similar state to shock - not panic but simply momentarily stupified.

As for BF and reality I applaud their work. However a suspcion crosses my mind that soft measurements - as in crew might be off. And the deletion of casualties in an instant might be one side of this. Two bodies falling on the gunner, plus the optics going, and the actually shock to the tank. I think they abstract the bodies and there is no calcualtion of what is happening in the turret.

Now if that is true I am not going to throw a huge wobbly. But they may need to think of adjusting accuracy where fatalities have just occurred inside a tank.

[gunnergoz]

I think the possible reactions of a crew to a crisis might well vary a great deal upon many factors. We can generalize and envision all we like, but in the end it is 5 individuals (or survivors) acting as unpredictably as any human beings under stress do. That does not mean we have chaos, more like there is a spectrum of responses that the game could choose from, some perhaps more likely than others.

Soft factors are in fact a b!tch to get right, because there is no real "right" and "wrong to them, only things more likely and less likely to occur."

As for crew loyalty, etc, there is some of that to consider, but when things get really ugly, it is just about saving one's self. I just have to recall the video of the famous Panther - M4 - M26 duels in Cologne and when you watch the crews bail from the M4 and the Panther, it is pretty much every man for himself once the fires start...seconds counted and they knew it. Nothing motivates humans into survival mode quite so much as fire imminent to their person. And survival mode is different things to different people.

[Holman]

I haven't enough experience in the game to know: how do less well-protected vehicles react to powerful threats? Does a halftrack open up on an 88 with its machineguns, or does it back away? What does a Stuart do with a Tiger?

It always seemed to me that CMSF vehicles exhibited a nice balance of courage and self-preservation.

[SlapHappy]

Well, I can tell you from my experience with the halftracks (specifically the German here) that they have no such compunction from running away from small arms fire when it is laid on fairly heavily. In fact, it's damned hard to get them to stand their ground and slug it out with the MG. They can be quite skittish, in fact.......

[Pak40]

As for crew loyalty, etc, there is some of that to consider, but when things get really ugly, it is just about saving one's self. I just have to recall the video of the famous Panther - M4 - M26 duels in Cologne and when you watch the crews bail from the M4 and the Panther, it is pretty much every man for himself once the fires start...seconds counted and they knew it. Nothing motivates humans into survival mode quite so much as fire imminent to their person. And survival mode is different things to different people.

Yes, but that Panther was a total penetration. The one or two guys that actually made it out of the tank did so by the skin of their teeth because they knew the round penetrated and exploded inside the tank. The case of the "Ballsy Sherman Crew" sounds a bit different. There was partial penetration or flaking that caused some injuries. I agree with you, more often than not, crews probably bailed when they were hit like this, but not these guys, they're like brothers.

[Pak40]

I haven't enough experience in the game to know: how do less well-protected vehicles react to powerful threats? Does a halftrack open up on an 88 with its machineguns, or does it back away? What does a Stuart do with a Tiger?

It always seemed to me that CMSF vehicles exhibited a nice balance of courage and self-preservation.

Oh, they back away big time and pop smoke if they have it.

[Holman]

The case of the "Ballsy Sherman Crew" sounds a bit different. There was partial penetration or flaking that caused some injuries.

If you could see the replay, you'd probably interpret it as two standing TC's each taking an 88mm AP round to the head.

[Pak40]

LOL, that's gonna give em a headache! Were they buttoned?

[Holman]

LOL, that's gonna give em a headache! Were they buttoned?

Both were unbuttoned, and the shells seemed to intersect them directly.

[MengJiao]

Look at it this way. The crew was a very tight crew with high respect for each other. No way in hell they were going to abandon their wounded buddies just to save their own hides. And quite honestly it doesn't matter what the crew's experience is in this matter, it's all about the bonding between the crewmen - green or elite, it doesn't matter.

I think the Sherman crews seem a bit courageous. I had one Sherman that kept single-handedly driving right into a village right past 2 immobilized and one burning Sherman. I can't imagine how many Panzergrenadiers he shot.

The problem was, I was trying to organize things elsewhere and every time I gave him a reverse or other order, I accidently stuck the waypoint in a field for which the only access was via the village. Unfortunately, I didn't figure this out until after he had seriously damaged the main defense of the village.

In its wild rides the excessively courageous Sherman was hit quite a few times by all manner of weapons, but it was moving fast and there was a lot of smoke (a few times he drove through US artillery and mortar barrages).

In the end I declared a ceasefire, and found the Sherman had only knocked out one STGIII and a few trucks. It's main opponent seems to have been 75mm infantry gun and some panzersheiks.