Panzerschreck/Bazooka Range and AI Behavior.

[Renaud]

I would think this can be addressed in scenario design by assigning your schreck/bazooka teams to ai groups with short ambush ranges. This doesn't help you in qb's of course, but scenario designers can fine tune.

[YankeeDog]

I would think this can be addressed in scenario design by assigning your schreck/bazooka teams to ai groups with short ambush ranges. This doesn't help you in qb's of course, but scenario designers can fine tune.

The problem with this is that you then always have to have your Shrecks and Zooks in their own, independent group, which isn't practical a lot of the time. And sometimes, Zooks and Shrecks are integrated into larger units with other weapons, so even if you make a unit with a rocket AT weapon to the only member of a group you can't, for example, tell a U.S. infantry squad carrying a zook to engage enemy infantry with their small arms at ranges in the hundreds of meters, but not fire the zook on enemy armor until the range is about 100 meters (which would be similar how U.S. infantry squads were trained to use these weapons IRL).

[Renaud]

True, it's most useful for ai groups on the defense. Split a squad AT team out and give them separate ambush ranges.

[Nidan1]

There is but one TacAI in the game. It is used both by the computer and human player. If the logic is changed on when a unit will open fire it will apply to both sides. The human player can, mostly, over-ride the TacAI's decisions on targetting, assuming he knows that there is a decision to take and is in a position to take it - not always guranteed in real time or WEGO.....................

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

I dont understand....there has to be seperate decision paths for the TacAI to take based on the conditions of "human player entering valid requests for targeting" or TacAI in control and its programmed decision path based on variables and conditions is taken.

Are you saying that if the max. range of a bazooka is set in the game not to exceed 150 meters, I as a player could not induce a bazooka team to fire at a target at say 200 meters no matter what the other conditions might be.?

[akd]

True, it's most useful for ai groups on the defense. Split a squad AT team out and give them separate ambush ranges.

You can't give a split-off team separate orders from the parent squad in the AI plan

[Bastables]

Still learning the game, playing the training missions. Taking it slow.

Last night I had a schreck team open up on my M8 from 250+ yards away. Of course, all of his rounds were falling short and the team never moved. I let my M8 sit there and shoot back while the schreck wasted rounds. I thought the team would bug out, but they stuck around and stayed alive . . . until the Shermans showed up and finally put the panzerschreck to bed.

Question: why is the AI set to open fire on targets which are well beyond the maximum effective range? Also, why would the AI not be programmed to move it's AT team after the first shot or two and when they KNOW they have been spotted (and are being fired on by both a fifty cal and a cannon)? It seems that self-preservation has not been included in their thought process. Isn't the AI supposed to mimmick human behavior? I can't imagine that any human being would play the way the AI played in this situation. Not a seasoned player, anyhow.

I am not a programmer so I am not questioning the programming ability of the Battlefront people. It just seems to me (an layman/idiot) that if in the CMx1 games, there was a calculated "chance to hit/kill", it could be written in that no AI/AT weapons would open fire on a target unless there was a greater than, say 60% chance of a hit/kill in CM:BN. I suppose the old "target lines" argument may come in to play here. Therefore, I'm not asking that the old CMx1 info to be displayed (I'm assuming it isn't, I have not played against tanks yet). I'm just wondering if it could be possible to make this information available to the AI . . . and if they can have it, why couldn't we? If I were a tank commander/AT gunner I would certainly calculate my "percentage to hit/kill" on any target that I was considering firing on. It would also seem logical to program the teams to move after the first couple of shots, instead of hanging around to get pummeled by the armor that they are wasting their ammo on.

This type of programming would also solve the rare, but incredibly aggravating situation where the AI makes a ridiculously lucky shot from well beyond max effective range.

Again, I would assume that any human player would know better than to make these AI mistakes, which is why playing a human being is when the real battle actually begins . . . but couldn't the AI be improved in this way as well?

It just seems like common sense to me.

Also, the only other thing that bugged me about the battle I played last night was that the first HQ team that I sent up to spot, would not move to the front of the building and therefore did not spot the MG teams, AT guns, etc. I spent three turns trying to get them to move to the proper windows, but they always stayed at the back of the room, looking out the side windows. When the reinforcements showed up, I ordered the other HQ team up there, and they went right to the front windows. What happened here?

It seems like the movment options where much more precise in CMx1. I know the fanboys will jump down my neck and tell me how wrong I am and that this is impossible . . . but perception is reality. I don't remember this problem in that game. Hoping to hear that it isn't going to happen very often in CM:BN. I'm open to the notion that I need to get used to how to properly use the CM:BN engine and that is what I am doing.

I don't know why people are misremembering CMx1 so badly. Even more odd is that we've forgotten CMx1 flaws and ascribed it to having better behaviour than CMBN. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=10982&highlight=Bazooka+range

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=10774&highlight=Bazooka+range

Shreks and zooks would shoot at long-range and at low percentages since the CMBO demo, the fix then as now is cover arcs, CMBB then introduced the 360 deg cover arc I think. The cover arc was the order you gave to force troops to follow a coy or battalion SOP engagment range.

After the Demo they moved the percentages around so you go from zooks firing at 200m on their own down to 150m.

[Invader_Canuck]

I just played a QB vs a friend where on about 4 separate occasions I had split tank hunter teams within 30 meters of a Sherman refuse to use their fausts or shrecks and instead plink away with their rifles.

[hoolaman]

Infantry units in CMx1 were singularity "electron clouds", a point entity abstractly representing a group of soldiers roughly centered around the plot point. From a technical standpoint, individual soldiers existed only in the sense that infantry teams lost firepower by quantum increments, each quanta representing the loss of an individual soldier.

Cmx1 infantry as quantum mechanics. I like it a lot.

[Blackcat]

I dont understand....there has to be seperate decision paths for the TacAI to take based on the conditions of "human player entering valid requests for targeting" or TacAI in control and its programmed decision path based on variables and conditions is taken.

Are you saying that if the max. range of a bazooka is set in the game not to exceed 150 meters, I as a player could not induce a bazooka team to fire at a target at say 200 meters no matter what the other conditions might be.?

No. As I said, the human player can, mostly, over-ride the TACAI when it comes to targetting orders. However, as I am sure you will have noticed, your pixeltruppen will often decide to open fire on a target without your intervention, their decision to do so is based on the same TACAI that the computer player uses.

[TheBlackHand]

I don't know why people are misremembering CMx1 so badly. Even more odd is that we've forgotten CMx1 flaws and ascribed it to having better behaviour than CMBN.

Well, I never said that this sort of thing never happened in CMx1. It did. Often. I simply would've thought they'd have at least found a better fix for it . . . since CMBO.

...the fix then as now is cover arcs...

OK, so that works for the human player . . . but what about when I'm playing the AI? In my example I showed you how I was able to park an armored vehicle well out of effective range and . . . as Blackcat said:

. . . if there is a hard limit of, say, 100 yards then I can place my tank at 101 yards distance and sit there blowing the snot out of anything I fancy in perfect safety.

This is simply one issue that I would like a better fix for from Battlefront. Make the "hard limit" a variable based on the experience (or other factors) of the AI/AT team . . . just make it REALISTIC. The realism of having an AT team open up on an armored vehicle feels about as realistic as the chance to hit/kill at that range. Ie. nil.

I expect to feel a pucker factor of ten if/when my vehicles approach 100yards of a likely AT team. That's why infantry should precede tanks into such areas. I don't expect to be able to exploit the AI by hanging back and waiting for the idiots to open up.

This is constructive criticism. I truly believe that Battlefront can do better here. I don't believe that cover arcs are the best answer. If they are, why doesn't the AI have them?

[Bastables]

But the shreck had a full range of 700m (designed), doctrinally static targets 400m and moving 100- 250m.

German and the Finn's discovered that the assumed effectiveness created a tendency of crews opening fire too soon. . .

Reports on combat use in Posen in march 1 1945 show successful use at 1000m in knocking out infantry positions and enemyantitank guns.

http://web.archive.org/web/20091027135407/http://geocities.com/Augusta/8172/panzerfaust3.htm#pzschreckusage.

What's realistic behaviour in your view?

[MikeyD]

I wonder how many people concerned over the use of shreks and zooks in CM:BN played much CMSF. In that game We've got RPG-7s, AT4s, even Carl Gustavs, RPG-18s and LAWs in the inventory. CMSF players have long ago grown used to the concept of the 'not exactly accurate' rocket launcher. A 1-in-3 chance of a hit sounds like pretty good odds to us. If we run out of ammo in the process - bummer dude, but c'est la guerre.

[TheBlackHand]

What is realistic in my view?

Anti-tank infantry teams that don't open up at ridiculous ranges. In my experience, anything over 100 yards is pretty gaddamn ridiculous. Of course, this is my GAMING experience. I have no actual experience firing Panzerschrecks at M8 Grayhounds from two or three hundred yards while receiving .50 caliber and 37mm fire in return.

I wonder how many people concerned over the use of shreks and zooks in CM:BN played much CMSF. In that game We've got RPG-7s, AT4s, even Carl Gustavs, RPG-18s and LAWs in the inventory. CMSF players have long ago grown used to the concept of the 'not exactly accurate' rocket launcher . . .

This isn't CMSF. I'm simply interested in a gaming experience that best simulates what I have come to expect from WW2 era weapons and tactics, based on what I've read. If I wanted to play CMSF I would be playing CMSF. I don't want to play CMSF. I want to play CM:BN. A game which is set in 1944, not 2011 or whatever.

[Bastables]

From Steve's post circa '99

"Cannon and Harrington went to the basement of No. 12, where they found

S/Sgt. Patrick H. Dennis and S/Sgt. Harold A. Hollands, both with rifles,

preparing to cover from the basement windows the bazookamen, then getting

set to fire through the roof. One of the two bazookas with old-type

firing mechanism failed to go off. From the other, the three men in the

attic launched five rounds in turn at the [self-Propelled Gun]. Only the

last hit, and it did no more than knock a fragment off the right side of

the turret. It did, however, cause the crew to jump out, and two were

shot by the four men in the basement."

(A map is included. The range of engagement is indicated as 185 yards.)

Taken from pages 205-6 of "Small Unit Actions", Historical Division, U.S.

War Department.

So what's realistic to you is based on your gaming experience. That's not quite remodelling the game based on realism that's modelling it with your expectations as the basis. Again the Germans and the Finns found that crews would open fire too soon with the shrek, indicating that during the war set in 1944 German shrek operators would fire beyond effective range.

[Nidan1]

No. As I said, the human player can, mostly, over-ride the TACAI when it comes to targetting orders. However, as I am sure you will have noticed, your pixeltruppen will often decide to open fire on a target without your intervention, their decision to do so is based on the same TACAI that the computer player uses.

Thanks, for some reason I have been under the impression that the human player had a different decision tree for basic unit commands than the TACAI.

I will now have to be more careful with my units and make sure that they all know what I would LIKE them to do.

[dieseltaylor]

From Steve's post circa '99

"Cannon and Harrington went to the basement of No. 12, where they found

S/Sgt. Patrick H. Dennis and S/Sgt. Harold A. Hollands, both with rifles,

preparing to cover from the basement windows the bazookamen, then getting

set to fire through the roof. One of the two bazookas with old-type

firing mechanism failed to go off. From the other, the three men in the

attic launched five rounds in turn at the [self-Propelled Gun]. Only the

last hit, and it did no more than knock a fragment off the right side of

the turret. It did, however, cause the crew to jump out, and two were

shot by the four men in the basement."

(A map is included. The range of engagement is indicated as 185 yards.)

Taken from pages 205-6 of "Small Unit Actions", Historical Division, U.S.

War Department.

So what's realistic to you is based on your gaming experience. That's not quite remodelling the game based on realism that's modelling it with your expectations as the basis. Again the Germans and the Finns found that crews would open fire too soon with the shrek, indicating that during the war set in 1944 German shrek operators would fire beyond effective range.

Given Steve's stated opinion of anecdote as a basis for game modelling this quote should surely be classed in the notable for rarity class. Compare it to Patton's letter regarding his belief it is a short range weapon.

In any event it is a notable that the target is not a tank but an SPG [with a turret?] of some type, and that the bazooka crew were firing surely from an enclosed space, and with the benefit of presumably of an extra 25ft of height.

The observation that the Germans and Finns noticed in 1944 that the troops would fire too early surely must have some rider as to whether it was trained troops or the dregs now needed. Perhaps there are links so this can be explored?

I certainly know the US troops were given assurances it could be used out to 250yds but I am very sure scuttlebutt shortly afterwards would have said it was a really dumb idea. After all the knowledge that a Sherman was the equal of a Panther did not survive very long

[Zonks54]

There is a big difference between max range and effective range, the effective range of the Panzerschreck (Tank Terror) was approx 150m, thats not to say that green troops, or troops in a shaken condition may let them of at a much greater range.

Maybe a feature like in steel panthers would be good where you could set the engagement range of a units weapon.

[gunnergoz]

Maybe if we allow the game kill off all the overeager, dumb pixeltroopen who open fire too early on tanks or who goad tanks with MG's (you know, the digital Darwin Awards), the smarter survivors will be the genetic prototype of a smarter class of computer soldiers. Any ideas of how to get them to reproduce? A leave plan in ole Paree?

[womble]

Maybe a feature like in steel panthers would be good where you could set the engagement range of a units weapon.

You mean like a 360 degree covered arc? Yeah, that'd be cool

[womble]

Maybe if we allow the game kill off all the overeager, dumb pixeltroopen who open fire too early on tanks or who goad tanks with MG's (you know, the digital Darwin Awards), the smarter survivors will be the genetic prototype of a smarter class of computer soldiers. Any ideas of how to get them to reproduce? A leave plan in ole Paree?

Might work, there'll still be some people playing this game when those pTruppen are old enough to enlist... cos CM 3 and 4 will be retrograde steps to some people...

[TheBlackHand]

...the bazookamen, then getting, set to fire through the roof...

I understand that this would not be possible in this game, correct?

[Bastables]

Given Steve's stated opinion of anecdote as a basis for game modelling this quote should surely be classed in the notable for rarity class. Compare it to Patton's letter regarding his belief it is a short range weapon.

In any event it is a notable that the target is not a tank but an SPG [with a turret?] of some type, and that the bazooka crew were firing surely from an enclosed space, and with the benefit of presumably of an extra 25ft of height.

The observation that the Germans and Finns noticed in 1944 that the troops would fire too early surely must have some rider as to whether it was trained troops or the dregs now needed. Perhaps there are links so this can be explored?

I certainly know the US troops were given assurances it could be used out to 250yds but I am very sure scuttlebutt shortly afterwards would have said it was a really dumb idea. After all the knowledge that a Sherman was the equal of a Panther did not survive very long

http://lib.ololo.cc/b.usr/Osprey_World_War_II_Infantry_Tactics._Company_and_Battalion.pdf

Sure anecdotal, but combined with references in US cannon company manual 1944 that state about rocket lunchers when issues with bazookas: "The Rocket has a maximum range of 650yds. It is reasonable accurate against moving targets at 300 yds." Would indicate that the US much like the German training manuals/handbooks oversold the effective range of anti tank rockets. the fact that 8,8cm doll rockets could travel to 700m and the bazooka rocket could reach 650yds would indicate that troops would when under stress and need fire them beyond what we accept in wargaming as effective range (150-100m).

The rockets can travel that far, Patton and the germans and finns thought it was enough of a problem that it was commented upon, how is the behaviour unrealistic? The Game even allows you to be a interested and competent officer by giving coy/batt SOP by the 360deg arc.

[womble]

They do the same thing with rifle grenades, lighting them off at ranges that mean the grenades are more likely to fall among your advancing troops than near the enemy.