Zook vers. Mark4 in Woods... arrrgh

[YankeeDog]

If you want the file email me...I named it Super Panzer.. Did I mention after killing the first zook team it drives up on a waiting M10 who puts a round penetrating into him? The Super Panzer doesn't even flinch.....he calmly stops rotates over and fires, destroying the M10.

So, I assume then that AP and HE are not modeled? I mean earlier in that same turn the tank shot and blew up the zook team (must of been HE) then a few seconds later fires again blowing up the M10 (must of been AP) whom he didn't see until after been hit by it.

Tanks will drive with a round in the tube... normally AP. If there is a target that requires the opposite it is quicker to fire the wrong round at the target then to try to reload. (at least this was army doctrine in the 1990 when I was a tanker. So, in the above scenario the tank either was combat loaded with HE when he blew up the zook team (AP rounds on troops are pretty worthless) then reloaded with AP, which makes no sense, after just finding grunts in the woods I know my TC would of ordered my to load more HE. So, if HE was loaded he destroyed the M10 with HE... possible but not likely.

Well, AP and HE are definitely modeled in the sense that tanks shoot one or the other, depending on target and availability of ammo. But I don't know if there is any modeling of carrying a round "up the spout". I suspect not. And this may be a difference between modern and WWII-era tank SOP. At least in my reading of interviews with WWII Sherman crews, and also training manuals, is would appear that traveling with a round up the spout was not always SOP in WWII; it may have been done sometimes, but other times it clearly was not.

But back to the original issue, I scanned through this thread, and apologies if you're already aware of this distinction, but I didn't see this brought up yet: Were your bazooka teams actually in "Light Woods" or "Heavy Woods" ground terrain, or were they just amongst a copse of trees under which there was "Open Ground"? There's a difference here in CMBN that did not exist in CMx1.

In case you're not already aware, in CMBN, you can have trees standing in open ground, representing something like a carefully tended orchard or stand of trees on an estate, where there are large trees but very little ground cover. Zook teams in terrain like this would probably be very easily spotted, especially at close range. At the other end of the spectrum, you can have "Heavy Woods" ground cover, which represents lots of ferns, small bushes, saplings etc. and offers very good cover & concealment. Usually, map designers combine "Heavy woods" ground cover with lots of trees, but they don't have to -- you could use "Heavy Woods" without trees to represent a dense thicket of vegetation with no large trees, for example. "Light Woods" ground cover is somewhere in-between, of course.

Also, were your 'zook teams actually on "Hide"? You usually don't want to do this in CMBN if you're trying to set an ambush -- "Hide" in CMBN represents a team making maximum attempt to maintain concealment, and very little effort spotting. Seriously -- think nose to the dirt, counting ants.

Theoretically, a unit on Hide with a cover arc will break the Hide to fire on an enemy that enters the arc, but they spot so poorly when hiding that this generally doesn't work very well. If you want to ambush, you usually want just the cover arc, no Hide order. Hide is best reserved for situations where you really don't want a unit to be spotted, or to engage, at all. It's also useful for reducing casualties when under artillery fire.

Speaking for myself, I have frequently had my tanks fail to spot enemy zook/shreck teams firing on them from fairly close range for multiple shots. And I have also had considerable success ambushing enemy tanks with zooks/shrecks (especially if the tank is buttoned). So if there is a problem here, it must be with a specific situation or combination of elements.

In regards to tank accuracy, the only comment I would make here is that you have to be very careful drawing broad conclusions from individual incidents. IMHO, accuracy might still be a little on the high side (it was tweaked downward a bit in 1.01), but not by much. One of the nice things about playing WEGO is that you can go back, re-load and re-run turns where improbable results occur, just to see what other outcomes might have happened (and with what frequency). It's pretty surprising just how much variation there is in possible outcomes.

[Sgt Schultz]

Tread, if you have the calculation turn before the uberpanzer movie, you may want to go back and do as Yankee suggests.

See if it happens again and again.

Go back one more turn and take the zooks off hide, if they were hiding. See if that alters things.

I have done countless scenario author tests of zooks and schreks in many different conditions against all sorts of targets. Not for empirical testing, just making scenarios. I have seen some strange things, and what you describe is quite possible. But, there are many variables.

Any AT asset that cannot find targets from at least 50% of max range may want to find a new place to hide. And DON'T use actual Hide.

Hide is for when you have already seen the unit coming towards you, and you want the enemy to ride on by in ignorance for a turn.

Coming off Hide takes time, you will not get insta-spotting. The boys stretch and yawn, and then look around, and then report up the chain. Covered arc speeds this up a bit for anything inside the arc.

Hope some of this helps.

[Tread Head]

My zook units were NOT under hide orders...

It was woods, not a little patch near open ground.

A tank would been HEARD and SEEN well before it saw two guys laying prone. Heck, those guys could of been doing jumping jacks and had a less chance to be seen then a multi-ton LOUD tank crashing through the woods.

[Tread Head]

Not to mention the other teams zook round hitting a tree? Really? Give me a break... if the woods were that thick the German should not be able to drive through it.

[YankeeDog]

Not to mention the other teams zook round hitting a tree? Really? Give me a break... if the woods were that thick the German should not be able to drive through it.

Oh, that part doesn't concern me at all, at least not as a one-off "this could happen occasionally" thing. Zook rounds had fairly sensitive fuses, and were also very susceptible to being deflected by even light vegetation. Add to this the stress of combat, inherent inaccuracy and difficulty of use of the weapon and I could definitely see a WWII-era rocketeer shooting at a tank at ~25m in light to moderate woods not being at 100% thing. A good chance of hitting, to be sure. But not 100%.

Now, if you re-run the turn, and he misses the tank all or even most of the time, this would be something to consider.

Regarding the spotting results, since you've confirmed that the zook teams were in woods terrain, and not hiding, this is puzzling to me. It's not something I can replicate in casual tests so there must be something particular to the specific situation in your game.

[LemoN]

I've had similar experiences with a panther, where it simply killed and routed two entire companies of US infantry in a dense forest (it was light, but there were so many trees that all the zook rounds and so forth were stopped). The tank usually spotted the infantry far before the infantry spotted the tank, the tank was regular, the infantry regular/vets. Often times the tank would spot the infantry (prone but not hiding) out to 50-75m through the forest, while two entire infantry companies and another infantry company in a supporting position up on a hill some 500m away only rarely spotted the tank... if it was closer than 25m.

[A Canadian Cat]

<snip>Vet paratroopers in the woods... waiting with cover arcs on.... they see nothing... then BOOM, one of the two teams are dead (The moving through the woods tank sees 2 guys with a zook in the woods in the prone position before they see him!!!!)<snip>

Sorry to hear of your frustrations. Just wait until they get a hit with a zook shell... that might not do anything:-(

In one battle my zook team took four hits to kill a Panther. They immobilized it with the first one and took three more to kill it. They only got away with that because the main gun was already NS due to an earlier encounter with a Sherman.

In another battle a zook team immobilized one of my Panthers before getting blown up. My opponent then surrounded the Panther with two platoons of soldiers plus an extra bazooka team for a total of 20+ guys and three bazooka teams. It took him 10 minutes to kill it (I have no idea how many of his guys the Panther took out yet but I can hardly wait to see the report at the end). In the end it was a hand grenade on the engine deck that finally knocked out the tank.

There are plenty of variations in the outcomes that happen. If you play the game enough you will see all the frustrating combinations happen:-). Just this morning I was watching a PBEM turn where my tank failed to kill a Shrek team in the open between two buildings. My friend and I are playing Cat and mouse between a Sherman and a Stug III. I was planning to surprise him because he did not know there was a second Sherman behind him but he had a surprise for me - the battle is really between a Stug and a Shrek team vs two Shermans.

One of the Shermans (open hatches) came around a corner and spotted the Shrek team in the open between two buildings at 30m away. The tank crew start shooting with two MGs including the commander with the .50. They fail to hit anyone (but the shrek team did duck and not return fire). Them the Sherman pops smoke and reverses out of there. Then seconds later the other Sherman comes through the smoke from the other side to spot the cowering Shrek team. They too open up with their MGs and take out one guy (not the guy with the tube of course) before they pop more smoke and reverse away.

I was yelling at the screen.

Gotta love this game.

It's all in your perspective:-)

[cptcurt]

RT is not the promlem. The problem to me is mainly in wego. In RT I would hide men until I have a clear shot. Guns in both I have problems with tanks spotting them first.( even buttoned)

[BadgerDog]

For what it's worth ....

In real life, closed down and viewing just through the CC's cupola (or any of the periscopes), vision is so limited you wouldn't see infantry unless they were standing in the open about 25 yards in front of you. In fact, seeing other tanks at any distance was almost as bad a challenge, so we use to rely on spotters to send GRefs of possible enemy contacts.

The armored cupola glass is so distorted and the vision through it is so bad, you actually tend to pop the hatch slightly and try to peer out through the crack between the top of the hatch and ring.

One would never see hidden infantry in ambush, which is why we never moved through close quarters without infantry screens and skirmishers out.

Regards,

Doug

Regards,

Doug

[LibyanRebel]

Come and see, so to speak.

There are undoubtably glitches around some "counters" and when playing pbem or real time, such glitches annoy or ruin a particular Scenario.

Did your paras actually spot, where they hiding, did they choose not to fire?

I for one would try and stay hidden at 25 metres range, with a panther bearing down. just cos they are vet troops, doesnt mean they are not scared!

do let me know, i found that woodland gives infantry the best chance of beating off tanks with zooks, i have sent a few panthers packing or at least a retreat.

Artillery, i think it is just more realistic to get the rounds on the target area, based on real difficulties, rather than poor orders or requests from units.

Always use FO teams, and be realistic in your targetting based on LOS

appreciate your frustrations, but the game is not broken, the AI will never equate to a human opponent, just be real in your expectations and enjoy it for what the game is, the closest recreation of WW2 combat yet devised!

i love it, and the glitches are always being worked on

[LongLeftFlank]

Well the people with RL tank experience seem to be of the opinion that buttoned (and moving!) AFVs spot infantry in cover far too readily. That opinion carries some weight IMHO. Worth a look for a future patch.

[BadgerDog]

Although I date myself with RL experience on the M4, for me CMBN is just a game, not a simulator, so I view it that way when I play, adapting to the idiosyncrasies of the programming and trade-offs the developers had to make.

I enjoy it a lot, purely as a game and find the new CMBN, although different in many ways, as much fun as the old CMBO, CMBB and CMAK I used to play.

There are dozens of inaccuracies and errors on the M4 Sherman that make it unlike the real world version, involving everything from driver handling to magic bullet gunnery and crew vision capabilities, that you have to suspend belief of reality in order to enjoy the game, which I do ....

Having trained and qualified on a lot of contemporary weapons portrayed in Battlefront games, I'd love to participate in the beta part of development as it relates to the M4, Lee Enfield No.4 Mk1 rifles, Bren Gun and Sten Gun, all of which I qualified on.... hmmm... I guess that kinda shows my age ...

Heck, I own all of them (except the M4) and even an MG42 which I did get to fire in the U.S. (so did my wife .. she collects Enfield rifles). I wish they'd fix the sound for the MG42. It was called "Hitler's Buzz Saw" for a reason and the stock sound doesn't seem right.

Regards,

Doug

[John1966]

Well the people with RL tank experience seem to be of the opinion that buttoned (and moving!) AFVs spot infantry in cover far too readily. That opinion carries some weight IMHO. Worth a look for a future patch.

Yet in the game I've had a 'schreck team fail to see a Sherman a few feet away from them on the other side of the bocage and I have managed to get a Sherman to sneak up on an AT gun's flank and not be spotted until it fired from about 8' away.

Multiple observers who couldn't see or hear 30 tons of noisy tank at point blank range? You'd have thought they could smell it at that range...

Yet you'd also have thought that an infantry man who doesn't want to be seen by a buttoned up tank would normally have a fairly easy job of doing so. Isn't that why armour was so vulnerable in closed and urban environments unless they had close infantry support? Seem to have a vague recollection of reading about phones being fitted to the back of tanks in Vietnam so that the infantry could tell the tanks exactly where to shoot. In CMBN they seem to fair far too well in these environments even without support.

Anyway, I suppose I'm just saying that tanks should be easier to spot AND should find it harder to spot infantry when buttoned. Definitely something for a future patch.

[womble]

While it does seem that tanks might be a bit too observant, and gropos a bit sensorialy limited, another factor in spotting (though it doesn't really make grunts failing to spot a tank 8m away any less, erm, idiosyncratic) is whether other units with C2 links can see what the armour can see. If there's infantry nearby who can either get info up and then back down the command net to the tanks, or direct the TC where to look (hand signals? don't think phones on the outside were common in the CMBN theatre/timeline), they could conceivably, perhaps have a better chance than we might otherwise think of spotting the hunkered-down enemy infantry.

Cos, while it is as Doug points out a game, it would be a better game of its type if such spotting "anomalies" were perhaps a bit less frequent and we had to suspend disbelief that little bit less.

[Tread Head]

Well the people with RL tank experience seem to be of the opinion that buttoned (and moving!) AFVs spot infantry in cover far too readily. That opinion carries some weight IMHO. Worth a look for a future patch.

Agreed.... This is my point... Tanks need to be spotted easier and Tanks should have a harder time spotting.

[stikkypixie]

Yet in the game I've had a 'schreck team fail to see a Sherman a few feet away from them on the other side of the bocage and I have managed to get a Sherman to sneak up on an AT gun's flank and not be spotted until it fired from about 8' away.

Multiple observers who couldn't see or hear 30 tons of noisy tank at point blank range? You'd have thought they could smell it at that range...

Yet you'd also have thought that an infantry man who doesn't want to be seen by a buttoned up tank would normally have a fairly easy job of doing so. Isn't that why armour was so vulnerable in closed and urban environments unless they had close infantry support? Seem to have a vague recollection of reading about phones being fitted to the back of tanks in Vietnam so that the infantry could tell the tanks exactly where to shoot. In CMBN they seem to fair far too well in these environments even without support.

Anyway, I suppose I'm just saying that tanks should be easier to spot AND should find it harder to spot infantry when buttoned. Definitely something for a future patch.

Just a question, were the infantry suppressed or have lowered morale?

[Sublime]

Seem to have a vague recollection of reading about phones being fitted to the back of tanks in Vietnam so that the infantry could tell the tanks exactly where to shoot. In CMBN they seem to fair far too well in these environments even without support.

.

Actually I recal the phones being used in WW2 as well

[John1966]

Just a question, were the infantry suppressed or have lowered morale?

No. I think they were blissfully unaware they were even in a battle.

[Sublime]

Seem to have a vague recollection of reading about phones being fitted to the back of tanks in Vietnam so that the infantry could tell the tanks exactly where to shoot. In CMBN they seem to fair far too well in these environments even without support.

.

Actually I recall the phones being used in WW2 as well. IIRC there was a box on the back of the tank that could be opened with a direct line inside the tank.

[YankeeDog]

Actually I recall the phones being used in WW2 as well. IIRC there was a box on the back of the tank that could be opened with a direct line inside the tank.

Only a limited number of tanks were ever equipped this way in WWII, though, and generally late war. IIRC, this modification originated in in PTO where terrain was usually very dense and tank-infantry close cooperation critical. At least initially it was a field mod; Shermans were not rolling off the assembly line with tank-infantry intercoms installed. I seem to recall that this modification was also implemented to a limited degree in the ETO, though I don't recall if it was something that was likely to be on a U.S. tank at all in the Normandy timeframe.

Edit to add: I also have references to tank crews carrying an SCR-536 radio (the small "handie-talkie" radio), and using it to communicate with infantry in their immediate vicinity. They had to string the antenna outside the tank somehow for good reception, but apparently this did work well. Note that by late war, U.S. infantry platoon HQs would typically have an SCR-536. The SCR-536 ran on AM band, in contrast to the radios actually installed in the tanks, which transmitted FM band. With the tanks' regular FM band units, tankers could talk with infantry units that had the larger, backpack mounted "walkie talkie" unit (the SCR-300 -- typically seen in Company HQs, amongst other places), which was also FM band, but not the smaller SCR-536.

[Georgie]

My understanding is that a tank or anything else can't be "spotted" by sound unless it has already been "spotted" visually so even if the unspotted tank is 5 feet away from an isolated gun crew and approaching from the rear it is silent unless a member of the crew turns around and sees it and then they can hear it. Am I correct? :confused::eek:

[stikkypixie]

My understanding is that a tank or anything else can't be "spotted" by sound unless it has already been "spotted" visually so even if the unspotted tank is 5 feet away from an isolated gun crew and approaching from the rear it is silent unless a member of the crew turns around and sees it and then they can hear it. Am I correct? :confused::eek:

What's the use of putting sound contacts in if you need to visually spot it first? As I understand it sound contacts are in. Spotting is determined by a lot of factors, so it might be a glitch, the crew might have a hide order, or they might be suppressed. It's hard to say .

[YankeeDog]

My understanding is that a tank or anything else can't be "spotted" by sound unless it has already been "spotted" visually so even if the unspotted tank is 5 feet away from an isolated gun crew and approaching from the rear it is silent unless a member of the crew turns around and sees it and then they can hear it. Am I correct? :confused::eek:

Definitely not correct in all cases. In a current game, I just gained two brand-new "?" contacts in an area that I absolutely do not have any units with LOS to. I do, however, have a couple of infantry units within about 50m of the contact location. Only possible way I could have gained these "?" contacts is via some sort of sound contact mechanism.

[Statisoris]

Where the heck is BF, Steve could settle this sound contact thing so quickly. BF has been a little too absent from their community latley.

[womble]

It was woods, not a little patch near open ground.

I just had another thought about this earlier. Being 'in woods' doesn't actually necessarily have any concealment effect whatsoever. There's no guarantee that the map has any concealment on the ground under the trees, and if the tank is on a plane with the infantry, and the branches of the trees are higher than the sight line, the concealment offered by a 'woods' is pretty much determined by the gound type.

Doesn't matter how big the patch of woods is, if the map has 'grass' under the trees between the tank and the infantry, your infantry are as exposed as if they were on open grass, apart from the tree trunks. This lack of concealment is a feature of map designs and can sometimes be considered a weakness in those designs, if you're expecting 'a patch of trees' to hide your troops well. It's been discussed in lots of threads.