View Full Version : Artillery Spotters in CMBB & CMAK
Hi people,
I've been a long time player of CMBO and have
finally got around to getting the other two
in the series.
One thing I've noticed playing CMBB& CMAK
is that my artillery called in from off map
by a spotter is highly inaccurate compared
to CMBO.
I'm talking about a veteran arty spotter
with a clear view to the target, putting
the rounds about 200-300 meters away from
where I specified sometimes hitting my own
men! :mad: :cry:
Is this some new level of realism they brought
into the latter games or is it some bug??
Anyone else have this problem?
Doctor Sinister
18 Jan 05, 17:31
You are not the first person I have heard this from - I don't have enough CMBO experience to say if it is true of not, but there are others who say that the accuracy did decrease from CMBB onwards.
Dr. S.
Wolfleader
18 Jan 05, 17:45
Hi people,
I've been a long time player of CMBO and have
finally got around to getting the other two
in the series.
One thing I've noticed playing CMBB& CMAK
is that my artillery called in from off map
by a spotter is highly inaccurate compared
to CMBO.
I'm talking about a veteran arty spotter
with a clear view to the target, putting
the rounds about 200-300 meters away from
where I specified sometimes hitting my own
men! :mad: :cry:
Is this some new level of realism they brought
into the latter games or is it some bug??
Anyone else have this problem?
Having a veteran or a crack arty spotter with a clear view to the target decreases the inherent innacuracy of indirect fire weapons but the accuracy of a bombardment still depends heavily on the calibre and type of the arty round being fired. The bigger the round the less accurate it is, so a 75mm or 81mm mortar would be much more accurate than a 150mm howitzer. Rockets meanwhile are the most devastating due to their volley of fire but also the most innacurate of the indirect fire weapons.
If you want to launch an arty close to your troops it would be prudent to use smaller calibre (75mm or 81mm mortars), medium distance from your troops use 105's and 150's and use the heavy nebelwerfers and katyushas only if your troops are very far away.
Thanks for the replies, I was using 75mm.
Maybe it's because I'm so used to the arty
landing reasonably close to the target in CMBO
I need to get used to the new inaccuracy?
On another note.
Why can't I re attach 88mm guns to their
transports. In some missions I'm trying
to get my 88's into good firing position
and while being transported the crew gets
raked by a bit of small arms fire, so then
decide they'll set up there for some reason. :(
Your then stuck with your best t-34 buster
where you can't use it.
Wolfleader
18 Jan 05, 18:48
Thanks for the replies, I was using 75mm.
Maybe it's because I'm so used to the arty
landing reasonably close to the target in CMBO
I need to get used to the new inaccuracy?
On another note.
Why can't I re attach 88mm guns to their
transports. In some missions I'm trying
to get my 88's into good firing position
and while being transported the crew gets
raked by a bit of small arms fire, so then
decide they'll set up there for some reason. :(
Your then stuck with your best t-34 buster
where you can't use it.
Hmmm that's odd then, I would think that a 75mm would be fairly accurate.
88mm flaks are immobile units (they have a transport level 9), this means that while you can attach them to gun tractors during the setup stage and move them around during the battle you can only deploy them once, after which their stuck in that location for the rest of the battle. My recomendation would be to attach them to a gun tractor at the setup stage, then hunt for a good hill where they can have as good a dominating view of the battlemap as possible and deploy them there.
Deployment of any towed gun in this game is tough. Trucks and halftracks are so vulnerable to fire that it is hard to find a spot the enemy can't yet see. At least on the smaller maps or scenarios in good weather.
I think that this seems to be realistic enough as you probably would not be hauling guns around during a fire fight. The prep work would likely have been done before hand at night. I think it would be rare for a convoy that just "bumped" into the enemy...(as we so often see in CM) to be able to get a limbered gun into a cherry position. The best you could hope for is to unlimber (while praying you don't get shot up) and then if you do get set up hope something comes your way!
By the way...welcome to the club!
Cheers Norad,
I can't remember when I first bought CMBO seems
like ages ago, I sometimes drift off into other
games but always come back to CM as it's the only
game that provides enjoyment after the novelty
factor of other games has worn off.
re the gun issue,
Maybe use the old 'balls of steel' tactic
and just charge your transport flat out
at a sweet position,knowing that if your
gun crew decides to unlimber halfway you
may get a half decent posi. :nuts:
Wolfleader
18 Jan 05, 19:31
Deployment of any towed gun in this game is tough. Trucks and halftracks are so vulnerable to fire that it is hard to find a spot the enemy can't yet see. At least on the smaller maps or scenarios in good weather.
I think that this seems to be realistic enough as you probably would not be hauling guns around during a fire fight. The prep work would likely have been done before hand at night. I think it would be rare for a convoy that just "bumped" into the enemy...(as we so often see in CM) to be able to get a limbered gun into a cherry position. The best you could hope for is to unlimber (while praying you don't get shot up) and then if you do get set up hope something comes your way!
By the way...welcome to the club!
I usually just order my FO's to lay a cover of smoke shortly before sending the tractor and gun to a location. That helps protect them from direct fire but is akin to waving at your opponent while yelling "HEY LOOK AT ME!! I'M DEPLOYING MY GUNS IN THIS LOCATION!!! I DARE YOU TO DROP SOME ARTY ON MY HEAD!! NYAH!! NYAH!! NYAH!!!"
On arty accuracy: BB/AK accuracy is much more random than in cmbo. The way I hear it is if your spotting round lands out of LOS then your FO will most likely be inaccurate, regardless of the experience level. If that happens then cancel the order and start again until the SR is in sight.
Does the SR land before the timer finishes counting down? I've never noticed.
It could be a long time before you can get effective arty
in the game if you have to wait then reissue the order then
see how the SR goes then start again. However I'm willing
to play like that as long as the accuracy is meant to be
that difficult to get right.
The SR should occur before the FO timer runs down. In cmbo one could order FOs even without LOS to the target area and still be very accurate. That's no longer possible in BB/AK. If you don't have any LOS to the target area then you may not get a spotting round. At least that's happened with me and rightly so. No point expending a spotting round if the spotter can't spot it anyway. :) And if you don't have LOS to the target then your bombardment area may be off by 500 mtrs or more.
AFAIK in RL WWII, calling in FOs wasn't anywhere near as easy and accurate as in CM. Not every company had arty at their disposal.
One last question, if you found your SR landed say 200m
to the left, would you start again but make you target
area 200m to the right of desired impact zone?
But I think I get it now, a clear LOS to the target is important,
aswell as calibre and your own judgement.
There's actually a lengthy writeup about this somewhere on the BFC forum. The timing had something to do IIRC. For instance, I think you need to have a clear LOS to the target area a full minute before the FO fires. If you start the countdown out of LOS but plan on moving into LOS in time for the barrage then you need to be in LOS a full minute before (or something like that). So if you get to LOS < 60 seconds, then it would count as having been completely out of LOS and thus way off target most likely. Don't take that as gospel though; it may also depend on whether the FO is based on mtr, howitzer or arty. Your best bet is to spend the time to look it up on BFC. And if you do then perhaps you could post it here (or a link to it) for us lazy buggers. :)
As to your question, I think if the SR lands 200 mtrs away but IN LOS, then you may be ok and need not stop and reset. But if it's 200 mtrs away and out of LOS then stop and reset.
In addition to all of the above, I believe an underlying difference in the modeling of arty between CMBO and CMBB, is that US artillery used extensive mapping and survey techniques to "lay in" gun positions, whereas the Germans and Russians typically had to rely on ranging shots, etc. This resulted in a general decrease in accuracy. The Sovs made up for it with volume of fire, parking artillery pieces "hubcap to hubcap"(hyperbole, I think, but it paints the picture). The Germans were pretty well screwed in the grand scheme of things.
Also, US radios were better and more numerous than any on the Eastern front.
OK, that's my 2 cents worth, but I think that is the overall concept behind the decrease in accuracy from CMBO top CMBB.
Hmmm that's odd then, I would think that a 75mm would be fairly accurate.
All off-map tube artillery has the same accuracy in CM.
The off-target mechanism is a feature, but unfortyunately there are some crazy bugs around it and it should have left out. Among other things, once it is off-target you cannot adjust it to the target, you have to cancel and start from scratch. Very relaistic. Also, apparently blocking the LOS of the spotter at a short time during the targetting ruins makes it off-target even if LOS was not obscured when the rounds fell.
Certainly one of the worst implmented features in CM and a real fun-breaker if you know enough about war to know how much of a big deal fire support is in real life.
I could never understand why they had to make the bad model in CMBO worse for CMBB and CMAK and never do a peep about it in patches.
Why no fixes... Inertia and a bastardisation of papal infallability, that's why.
As you well know Redwolf many of the bugs and mistakes which detract from realism but aren't going to be noted by guys who buy CM off the shelf of their local mega-store have not been addressed. The reason, well you've been around long enough to figure it out but suffice it to say the reason isn't impressive to grogs like you and I. :devil:
Well, I dunno.
What I find sad is that CMBO was truly ground-breaking and about every feature and command that they put in worked pretty well.
There were some obmissions of required commands and features (e.g. cover arcs, trenches etc.) and some combat values/mechanics were broken (running against machine guns).
But in CMBB and CMAK they didn't just correct these mistakes, they invented a gazillion of things of which none works as well as the original CMBO features all did. With the exception of cover arcs which work great I think every other CMBB-new feature has some minor or major brokenness in it.
I like what BB/AK did with inf movement and small arms fire and support (light mtrs, MGs, etc) but I hate what they did to the German armor. In cmbo inf could not only charge MGs, but also enemy rifle positions (that's rifle - not AB or SMG types) with massed 2 or 3 to 1 human wave assaults and often suffer only minimal casualties. At least now such a tactic will be duly punished. But I agree overall. There are many flaws in need of correcting.
but I hate what they did to the German armor.
What did they do to german armour?
I'm having a debate with a guy at another forum at the
moment who says human v computer armoured conflict in CM is
'laughably' in favour of the computer I always thought
it was the other way around. Any thoughts?
Concerning the German armor:
To-hit:
according to a BFC post the actual to-hit differential between German and Russian armor comes down to only 1 to 2 %. There's an abundance of anecdotal info out there that claims a much higher % in favor of the German.
ASL gave the German armor a 17% advantage at over 900 (?) mtrs and if the gun is an LL (88L71 or 75L70) that advantage is something like 25%+. The 88L71 had a very high % of first shot kills due to it's extremely high velocity with flat trajectory and excellent optics. The 75L70 (Panther and PZIV70) wasn't far behind.
In CM I've found that neither gun has any real to-hit advantage over the others and both will miss about as often an any other tank. All German tanks have their optics modeled but it seems it's mostly window dressing as they don't factor in to any real benefit in the puny 1 to 2% advantage.
In fact, their optics will often be a detriment if you can believe that. A Panther requires a vet or above to to fire without a to-hit penalty and the others require at least a regular. The Nashorn and any with 'narrow' optics will incur a penalty if it engages too close to the enemy because of it's telescopic lenses. Funny, but these lenses don't seem to help all that much at over 1,000 mtrs. I wonder what the designers consider 'too close'? Also, weather conditions play a role in to-hits. Very hot weather is a disadvantage while very cold is supposed to help.
I read that the Russian tanks not only had a sizeable to-hit disadvantage but their ROF was slower then the German armor, and throughout much of the war the AP projectile was of an inferior quality, often shattering upon impact. None of this is adequately reflected in CM.
Armor slope:
the JPIV and V - wonderful TDs and my favorites - had their front armor watered down by having their superstructure or upper hull changed to 'curved' rather then the 50 or 55 degree listing they had in cmbo. From what I've read, a curved front is roughly equal to 30 degrees. Depending on the angle of hit, it might be 0 degrees or as much as 60 but the average is 30. This means the front of these TDs is now effectively easier to penetrate.
While the StugIII late and IV late have 80 curved, this is proper considering the haphazard front armor of the stug with it's many sharp angles and flat surfaces. But what of the upper hull of the JPV with 83 curved - does this mean it's upper hull is approximately as easy to penetrate as the stug's 80 curved? Not likely in RL. Same goes for the jpIV. If you look at RL pictures of the front surfaces of the JPV and su85 you'll see they're almost identical, yet the su85 isn't curved, but 75/50 and 50/53 while the German armor is now curved.
Tank rotation:
in BB/AK tanks are painfully slow to rotate the hull. This comes about because certain tanks had to make a series of forward and backward moves in order to turn. However, the Tiger, panther and JPV (and I believe JPIV) could pivot on the spot by moving one tread forward and the other backward. This was critical for the TDs because with a front covered arc of only 13 degrees right or left of center (for a total CA of 26 degrees), the driver and gunner had to be in close coordination in order to quickly pivot once the target moved out of the CA. Not modeling this is absurd IMO. This again makes the German tanks easy prey from quick flanking moves by the much faster Russian tanks.
Maybe this is just artificial manipulation for play balance. Personally I'd rather have the realism and force the different nations to use tactics similar to what was really required of them.
German armor in CM...
Quality of steel is always assumed to be lowest that tank model has seen. They should have a random factor per tank up from the lowest quality assumed for that model up to 100%.
If the turret speed is variable in reality (e.g. the Panther's turret which is main engine RPM dependent) then the game gives them a slow turret. As if a Panther crew would figure out to step on the gas pedal if the turret needs to be swung, especially if it takes 10-15 seconds even for moderate swings.
The benefit given for good optics is absolutely minimal.
In CMBB and CMAK the sloped faces of Jagdpanzers and Hetzers have been changed to "rounded" which appears to make them very weak. I have never seen such a non-rounded plate as one on the Hetzer...
Hit probabilities in CM are super-low. Not really first-****, but what happens on zeroing in - or not in CM. Limiting this this way evens out the differences between precise and inprecise shooters a lot.
The still wrong modeling of moving target getting into LOS of standing shooter further bites off good gun's fire superiority. There is no such thing as dominating terrain in CM if you establish full coverage with high-end guns, but there certainly was in WW2.
Just for starters...
Sheik Yerbouti
21 Jan 05, 07:37
Maybe this is just artificial manipulation for play balance.
I think so.
Since the Germans actually lost the war, why should their equipment have any advantages over the Allies? :rolleyes:
KGPanzerschrecK
21 Jan 05, 08:38
Having a veteran or a crack arty spotter with a clear view to the target decreases the inherent innacuracy of indirect fire weapons but the accuracy of a bombardment still depends heavily on the calibre and type of the arty round being fired. The bigger the round the less accurate it is, so a 75mm or 81mm mortar would be much more accurate than a 150mm howitzer. Rockets meanwhile are the most devastating due to their volley of fire but also the most innacurate of the indirect fire weapons.
If you want to launch an arty close to your troops it would be prudent to use smaller calibre (75mm or 81mm mortars), medium distance from your troops use 105's and 150's and use the heavy nebelwerfers and katyushas only if your troops are very far away.
i wholeheartedly agree with this. i have come to this conclusion as well.
here is some arty info to help you out as well -
ARTY SPREAD INFO {found on BTS board}
REGULAR SPREAD PATTERN
LOS & TRP: 100M X 50M ORIENTED EAST/WEST
LOS & NO TRP: SAME
BLIND & TRP: SAME
BLIND & NO TRP: 200M X 100M ORIENTED EAST/WEST
"TARGET WIDE" PATTERN
LOS & TRP: 200M DIAMETER CIRCLE
LOS & NO TRP: 250M-300M DIAMETER CIRCLE
BLIND & TRP: 200M DIAMETER CIRCLE
BLIND & NO TRP: 350M-400M DIAMETER CIRCLE
ROCKETS:
ROCKETS WILL FALL WITHIN A 650M-700M CIRCLE{350M RADIUS OF THE AIM POINT}
i have found the above figures to be fairly accurate. :salute:
vBulletin® v3.7.0, Copyright ©2000-2008, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.