testing on building protection

[Georgie]

Yes it will be too bad if castles are't at some point available in the game. I would like to play a scenario where a castle is the main strong point in an infantry only battle. Maybe with a few 81mm mortars with just a few rounds as the heavy stuff for the attackers and a couple of 60mm mortars in the court yard as the main battery for the defenders. Of course the attackers would have to have some engineers to blow the gate. Think of the scenario designers rushing to be the first with the best castle scenario. Sounds like fun to me.

[Broadsword56]

Then with castle building models we could also make those towers for the bridge at Remagen :-)

[akd]

Yes it will be too bad if castles are't at some point available in the game. I would like to play a scenario where a castle is the main strong point in an infantry only battle. Maybe with a few 81mm mortars with just a few rounds as the heavy stuff for the attackers and a couple of 60mm mortars in the court yard as the main battery for the defenders. Of course the attackers would have to have some engineers to blow the gate. Think of the scenario designers rushing to be the first with the best castle scenario. Sounds like fun to me.

No fun without boiling oil.

[A Canadian Cat]

In a previous thread, I proved out the resiliency of the large cathedral segments (the 3 story and the 8 story)

<snip>

No joy however: both building types took 8-12 105mm rounds each to demolish.<snip>

Thanks for doing this testing. The up shot is that all buildings except the cathedral and its tower are destroyed after 8-12 105 rounds. Very interesting.

Can I step back and ask - couldn't we argue that is about right? Eight 105 rounds is a lot of HE power. Are we really just wishing that some buildings could stand a bit more and other a bit less and that the lack of variability is the issue? Or are you arguing that eight to 12 rounds is too few for total collapse?

[LongLeftFlank]

Hello everyone, I ran a series of tests on the individual houses and learned that the protection that the individual houses offer varies a great deal. In fact in some of the tests the troops outside were very much better off. But in some cases the troops inside the building fared much better and were able to decimate the troops outside. I proposed the idea that the houses be modded to reflect whether they were of a "heavy" construction or a "lite" construction. Maybe a Greek "H" or "L" in the trim of the house. This would aid considerably in setting up a defense or an attack and it would't, I don't think, be gamey because troops should be able to see the type of construction that a house is. A lot of testing would have to be done and I am willing to lend a hand in that although I am sure that there are some players who are much better qualified than I am. The results of my tests showed that, counting from left to right on each row, houses 1 thru 6 offered no protection. Houses 8,9 and 12 offered good cover. Any one is welcome to verify or refute my finding.

Ian, post #16 by Georgie quoted here is the only one that reports finding specific differences in the cover value of specific non-cathedral buildings, although he doesn't give much in the way of specifics. No fault of Georgie's -- his interest is appreciated! -- but if he didn't take a statistically significant sampling, he could well obtain "outlier" results that while actually random would appear on their face to indicate that specific structures were better.

I use 105mm because it gets results fast and my time is limited (I'm not in a position to run a test with 60mm or 81mm to establish statistically that it takes 38-52 rounds to rubble building type n with a confidence interval of 2 sigmas.

I did know from prior testing that the cathedral tiles seem to absorb any amount of 105mm without collapse and I simply wanted to know whether there were any non-cathedral tiles that behaved similarly. The answer appears to be no.

If someone has time to "step down" a level of FP and establish whether there are consistent differences in strength at lower calibres, I'd be interested to see the results. Otherwise, I have seen no evidence so far to convince me this is true at any calibre, or that there is really such a thing as a LIGHT, MEDIUM and HEAVY building type (other than cathedrals)

EDIT: As to my own opinion, the changes I'd like to see are

(1) addition of a thick-walled Modular Building whose resiliency vs light-medium HE is comparable to the cathedral

(2) a mild nerfing of the terrain destruction (not antipersonnel) effects of mortar rounds and grenades -- you simply shouldn't be able to level an apartment or breach bocage using ordinary (non-demolition round) 81mm even with 50+ rounds!

(3) a large increase in the % chance that a rubbled building (including 1 story buildings) is gutted but the first level of walls remain largely intact to offer cover to surviving or subsequent occupants.

(4) the little single story village church being made as tough as a cathedral

But I can live without all those things.

[LongLeftFlank]

Then with castle building models we could also make those towers for the bridge at Remagen :-)

Not to mention the Nijmegen Valkhof.

[LongLeftFlank]

A few more test results, these on concealment.

German 3-man FO team Hiding from 2 x M8 ACs at 225m distance. 2 plays each (with Player as US and German). Base layer is always Grass, conditions dry and clear daylight (default).

Time to spot first German:

1. In open ground: 10-15 seconds

2. In brush: 10-15 seconds (brush provides no concealment benefit that I can see)

3. In long grass: a little less than 2 minutes

4. In Heavy Forest with 3x Type D orchard trees looking through Light Forest with 2 x Bush B: Never -- gave up after 15 minutes. German spots US vehicles in 30-45 secs

5. In Modular large rectangular building ground floor (2 windows plus door): never. German spots US vehicles at once

Hypothesis: buildings provide about as good Concealment for Hiding infantry as is available in the game. If anyone is finding different, let me know.

Next I intend to test how our poor FOs hold up under fire. And whether adding various "layers" of additional surrounding protection helps them.

[LongLeftFlank]

Still testing, for those interested.

Before I left the woods edge, I decided to see whether having the FO entrenched rendered it more likely to be spotted. Sure enough, it did! In 3 plays (1 playing German) one of the M8s spotted the foxholes within about 45 seconds and opened fire within a minute thereafter (compare this to the above result where Hiding infantry unentrenched were never spotted).

At 225m, the entrenched and Hiding Germans are fairly resistant to the MGs, but the 37mm is lethal -- took no more than 2 minutes of shooting to kill a target once spotted.

I suppose the entrenchments are more easily spotted than just infantry because they are treated (like bunkers) as a kind of immobile vehicle.

[LongLeftFlank]

So on to the buildings.

We have established tentatively above that if the Germans remain Hiding in a building, they won't generally be spotted at >200m.

I therefore pelted them with Area Fire, first using Target Light with the two M8 machine guns. After about 6 minutes of plinking, the Germans had been pinned for most of that period but remained unhurt. Once I allowed a 37mm to join in, it inflicted a casualty almost at once and finished the 2 other men within 2 minutes... the M8s never actually spotted the German FO team however (used Area Fire throughout).

[LongLeftFlank]

So with the baseline set, I added a low rural stone wall around the house. It had no noticeable effect on the longevity of the defenders vs 37mm fire, although it did absorb a couple of rounds.

My next test was to add a low brick wall to reinforce the corners where the men were. It didn't seem to help the troops much -- the bricks were demolished by a single 37mm within 6 minutes, sometimes by the same shot that inflicted a casualty. Perhaps it extended the time it took to kill all 3 Germans by a minute or two.

[LongLeftFlank]

Final test of this evening: wall off the front of the house altogether with a high stone wall. This definitely furnished some solid protection vs 37mm -- the men inside didn't Cower once. Until, that is, the 25th round or so (~5 minutes of shooting) finally collapsed a section to expose the house itself. The very next shot felled a German.

[RockinHarry]

Another "limitation" with houses is that there obviously are no blind spots when shooting from high buildings straight down a street. This also goes vice versa. For that to happen in real life, you need to free handly hold your weapon out of the window and shoot blindly at what´s below. No good...

Yet some interesting reading about masonry and brickworks at Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masonry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brickwork

[Killkess]

I decided to see whether having the FO entrenched rendered it more likely to be spotted. Sure enough, it did!

Which sounds pretty pretty wrong. Neither were Foxholes constructed above ground nor they used sandbags for the construction. I see no reason for people in foxholes getting easilier spotter.

[LongLeftFlank]

I agree... Foxholes should be harder, not easier, to spot. The reason the opposite is true in game is because fortifications are low profile non-moving vehicles, and it seems all vehicles are by definition easier to spot than infantry. I hope BFC considers tweaking this in a future patch. The only workaround seems to be to deploy lots of empty holes as dummies.

[LongLeftFlank]

Another "limitation" with houses is that there obviously are no blind spots when shooting from high buildings straight down a street. This also goes vice versa. For that to happen in real life, you need to free handly hold your weapon out of the window and shoot blindly at what´s below. No good.

Well it would seem possible to spray blind with a MP40, grease gun or Sten. But a grenade or two might be better

One of the neat things about having buildings in high walled courtyards is that units have limited entry points (bad) but some shelter from fire inside the building (storeys 1-2 anyway). As anyone who's walked the mean streets of my Ramadi map knows very well.

[RockinHarry]

Well it would seem possible to spray blind with a MP40, grease gun or Sten. But a grenade or two might be better

True, but it´s well aimed rifle and lMG fire. Even 8 story modular buildings do not appear to have blind spots. I´ve also yet to see hand grenades flying into and out of windows.

Also can´t get rid of the impression, that the corner seams of adjoining walls (floor to a story below/above included) oftentimes are transparent to soldiers, so they can spot and shoot through. The more I play with CMBN buildings, the less I seem to understand their nature.:confused: