Apparent problem with FO is specific circumstance

[Bimmer]

I think I may have discovered an issue that, in very specific instances (as described below), can be a major pain.

In a current PBEM game (QB), one of my two FO teams called in a 105mm fire mission; delay time was 7 minutes. At T-2 minutes (i.e., 5 minutes after the mission was called), the FO was killed; the remaining two members of the team were uninjured, and the radio remained intact. From this point forward, the 105 battery in question became completely inaccessible to any units capable of calling artillery, listed as "Denied" for the original FO team and "Busy" for everyone else. It proceeded to begin dropping spotting rounds as scheduled.

Now here's the problem. It has been dropping spotting rounds for the last 16 minutes with no sign of stopping, and I can't cancel the mission, since the FO is dead. The manual indicated that a battery may cease fire on its own if it fails to get a response from the FO (p.106), but I think that since the FO himself was killed but the team remains as a unit, the battery is not ceasing fire. 16 minutes of no response from the FO seems a pretty long time to go without the battery commander calling off the mission, and in any case, it would seem reasonable that the FO team's radio operator would be able to yell "cease fire!" into the radio.

As it stands, I've got 50 rounds of 105mm HE that I can't use to stem the tide of Germans. I'm all for not allowing the FO team in question to spot once the FO is killed, but having the battery stuck in an endless loop of spotting rounds for more than a few (5? even 10? how long should they keep waiting for a response before they give up?) minutes just seems silly. It also makes me wonder if the FO team's superior (in this case a company HQ) should be able to cancel the mission, but this might be beyond reasonable coding.

[A Canadian Cat]

<snip>I'm all for not allowing the FO team in question to spot once the FO is killed, but having the battery stuck in an endless loop of spotting rounds for more than a few (5? even 10? how long should they keep waiting for a response before they give up?) minutes just seems silly.<snip>

Well that is very inconvenient. What version of the game are you running? Is it the original 1.00 or the patch 1.01. I believe there were some fixes regarding spotting rounds in the patch. Those situations involved FO's not being able to see the spotting rounds land because they had no LOS to the area they hit. So, this situation is not quite the same but similar.

[Bimmer]

It's in v1.01.

[YankeeDog]

It sounds like you hit an unusual circumstance that exposed a bug - if your FO had been killed a little sooner, the mission probably wouldn't have gone though at all. If you FO had been killed a little later, the mission might have already gone to FFE.

It does make sense that there would be some confusion if an FO got killed right in the middle of adjusting fire for a mission, and that as a result the battery might be unavailable for other missions for a little while as they tried to figure out, over a radio line, what was going on several miles away (after all, they probably don't know the FO is dead). But 16 minutes does sound like an awfully long time for the battery FDC to just pop spotting rounds and wait for a response... I should think by this time, the FDC would either scrub the mission, or possibly, if he thought the mission was critical enough, and was reasonably sure he was close to target, go to FFE without any final communication from the FO (this latter seems unlikely to me, but I suppose might happen under certain circumstances).

[Bimmer]

I could see the mission going through without final communication if it was called in as "Emergency" - FPF and the like - but not likely otherwise, as you say. This was a Linear/Heavy/Long mission.

[Cymru]

As long as the radio is working, I am not sure why losing the FO is such a critical problem: surely the remaining members could call in the observed fall. Granted FOs receive some specialized training but I would rather have an untrained backup giving me arty support that get none at all.

[Bimmer]

You can make the argument for or against the remainder of the team being allowed to call artillery if the FO is eliminated, but that's of secondary concern IMHO. Any HQ unit with C2 can call artillery (well, at least the more common stuff), so getting support shouldn't be a major issue in most cases; it just might be delayed, which I would consider reasonable. Having an off-map asset go into zombie spotting fire mode as described above, however, makes them useless to everyone.

[womble]

I would guess this is an unintended consequence of no longer having FFE when the observed fire is off target. Since the dead FO is no longer present to say "enough", the battery continues to throw spotting rounds and somewhere the triggers mentioned in the manual which would cause the battery to realise it's no longer actually being controlled have been bypassed in the code.

[Freyland]

Just to check: You didn't have the order as Light or Harrass, did you? One of those two only drops one round per tube per minute and could easily appear like spotting rounds. Of course, you said your FO died at t-5, so this may not be it.

[Bimmer]

Nope. As noted above, it was a Linear/Heavy/Long fire mission. That, plus the fact that the battery still lists its status as "Spotting".

[DavidFields]

Too bad it is a PPEM game and you can't go back. Unless this is WAD, this is one of the few instances I think it would be legitimate to either go back to just before the FO died, or.........

I am sure you have thought this evil thought...

the rest of the FO team does a Bonzai charge.

[Speedy]

the rest of the FO team does a Bonzai charge.

Is anyone else getting mental images of minature ents charging the enemy?

[womble]

Is anyone else getting mental images of minature ents charging the enemy?

[raises hand sheepishly]

[c3k]

Bimmer,

Thanks for posting this. What a bummer. (Cheesy, but someone had to do it. )

Do you have a savegame?

I'll post it in the beta forum.

Thanks,

Ken

[Bimmer]

I have all the turns for this game. PM me with info on what you want and where to send it and I'll get it to you ASAP.

[c3k]

Bimmer,

Let's try 3 turns, if you don't mind. The one with the FO calling in the initial mission, one with him watching the initial spotting round (if that occurred), and one with the spotting rounds dropping after he died. Preferebly immediately after he died so we can get the full effect.

My email is in my profile: c3k(at)roadrunner(dot)com

Thanks,

Ken

[Bimmer]

On the way.

EDIT: Zip is too big to email. I'll send you a d/l link.

[Bimmer]

Update: After 25 turns, including 18 in which spotting rounds were dropped without any response from the FO, the battery just called FFE (which was verbally acknowledged by someone, perhaps the ghost of the dead FO). So perhaps it's not a bug, but just an inordinately long time for the battery to figure out that something's gone awry, followed by sending the mission anyway. This seems a little off on several counts.

- Should the FO team be able to at least call off a mission if the FO is killed before FFE? How about the team's higher headquarters?

- Should the battery drop spotting rounds for so long without any communication from the FO?

- Should the battery fire the mission in spite of the lack of communication with the FO? (As noted above, an "emergency" mission would seem to be the only case where this would make sense.)

I'm glad it's not a real bug, but I do hope the behavior can be tweaked to make things a bit more reasonable.

[Holien]

I have raised this issue of dead FAOs on another thread and I do hope it gets tweaked by BTS. I shall see if I can find the thread....

[c3k]

Thanks for posting the followup.

[TexasToast]

I had exactly the same issue, FO gets taken out early in spotting. The other two guys were fine and still had a radio icon. Battery shows up as Denied, spotting rounds were periodic, well past the original time frame, and way off target, then the FFE eventually came down about 100m behind my lines. Once the FFE was complete, I had access to the battery again.

[greginvan]

Yep, same issue for me..... my company commander who called in the arty gets kiad just as the first spotting round comes in. 12 minutes later and I'm still seeing the odd spotting round coming in miles from the FFE zone.

Meanwhile, I'm getting shellaced by advancing bratwurst. PBEM game...:eek::eek::eek:

[noob]

I experienced something similar, a three man FO with Veteran experience plotted two artillery strikes, both linear, two turns later "one" member was killed and the rest were rattled but the radio was still showing in the unit screen, the remaining two members recovered their morale but access to the two artillery missions and a further unused battery were denied for the remainder of the game and the plotted artillery fell sporadically and inaccurately until empty.

Given that the radio was intact and there were still two FO members alive i cannot see how they could not call in new or revised strikes, this is a bug in my opinion and a serious one given how devastating artillery can be in this version of CM.

[akd]

The spotting unit must have a qualified observer, so it is normal for a team that loses the qualified individual to be "denied" access to artillery. The problem is when this happen in the preliminary stages of a fire mission and the indirect asset gets locked up. Unless the unit has already gone to fire for effect, the mission should automatically cancel due to no response from a qualified observer. Instead, the firing unit continues on as if they are communicating with an observer that is still alive but blind.

[SelfLoadingRifle]

Question: historically, what training (if any) in calling in arty would the other members of the FO team have had?

SLR