Artillery

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Arimus
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Artillery

Post by Arimus »

I'm a big fan of BftB and I really like the combat system. To me, hex based games and the UGIG format are just too abstract. The command delay and unit AI is excellent.
But there are two aspects of the game system that I feel could be improved on. One is the retreat/routing mechanics and the other is artillery.
In my opinion, the artillery is just too accurate and responsive. I will present an example...

I had a German infantry company resting in an open field at dusk, foggy conditions. The unit started receiving artillery fire from at least two medium artillery battalions and there was only 1 visible enemy unit about 2km away. I paused the game and surrendered to see what unit was calling the fire.
The only enemy unit with LOS was a recon company, on the move, just under 2km away. One armored artillery battalion and one battalion of 8" howitzers were firing. So, let's go thru all that would have to take place for that fire mission to be succesfully executed and all that could go wrong...

First, the artillery battalions had to be deployed and available. Artillery battalions available to fire is not always a given. Many factors can cause a battalion to be unavailable for a fire mission. The battalion displacing, crews fatigued... Granted, for the most part, they would be available but there should be a small chance they are not. In BtfB, once deployed, they are available.

2nd is communication. The recon unit had to have radio communications to the FDC and the FDC to the batteries. This is not always a given but the game assumes this communication is always 100%.

3rd is priority of fire. The commander had to grant priority of fire to the recon unit to expend ammunition on this infantry company. The human player sets his own priority of fire and I assume there are routines in the AI that does something similar?

4th is target location. The recon unit FO had to see the infantry company and deduce its location to within a 100 meters? That was a good bit of map reading by the FO. A stationary infantry unit, no land features, foggy, dusk, FO on the move, no height elevation... As someone who has called in fire missions, I can tell you that determining the enemy location can be much more difficult that it seems. Especially in heavily wooded, flat terrain. There are just not enough landmarks to get a good bearing and spotting and adjusting fire can be extremely difficult.

Target reference points help speed up the process. Wether in the attack or defense, TRP's would be given to the most likely enemy positions. Which units would fire and target location would be decided upon ahead of time. Then the only remaining variable to success would be communication and timing of the call.

So in my above example of the recon company and the infantry company, yes, the call for fire could have been successful, no doubt. What I call in to question is that fact that in BtfB, it is a successful fire mission 100% of the time.

In my opinion, there are just too many factors that can cause a fire mission to fail for it not to be addressed in the game.
I hope this does not come across as over-critical.
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RE: Artillery

Post by Phoenix100 »

But what's the effect of the mission? It seems to me - at least I've always assumed this, since we can't actually see the detail - that all the registration and adjustment etc is built into the actual effectiveness of the fire. In BFTB a fire mission doesn't always do very much, I think. You catch infantry out in the open, reorganising and it can be devastating, but often, when they're dug in, nothing much happens at all as a consequence. And I've often had arty unavailable - for reasons such as 'reloading' for example, which I've never understood at all.

Amd I've seen arty calls miss, I think. That is, land other than where I've placed them. I think. Anyone back me up on that?

Communications. Surely when we're dealing with minimal units at company strength they would have radios? True, WW2 radios weren't modern, and I assume you're right - that 'radio failure' or the inability to get a connect is not modelled at all.

The response time for player called arty always seems pretty snappy to me, I admit.

You didn't elborate on routing behaviour, but there have been many complaints about that (from me too, very recently). As to that, I think we're going to be stuck with it, because I think I'm right in saying that Dave has said that patch 3 (shortly out) is to be a 'final patch'. Could be worng, but I thought he'd said that (guess they would want to move on to the Eastern Front game instead of tweaking this one all the time.)
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RE: Artillery

Post by Arjuna »

ORIGINAL: Arimus
First, the artillery battalions had to be deployed and available. Artillery battalions available to fire is not always a given. Many factors can cause a battalion to be unavailable for a fire mission. The battalion displacing, crews fatigued... Granted, for the most part, they would be available but there should be a small chance they are not. In BtfB, once deployed, they are available.
Fatigue and cohesion are taken into account and do limit the crew availability.
2nd is communication. The recon unit had to have radio communications to the FDC and the FDC to the batteries. This is not always a given but the game assumes this communication is always 100%.
This is not the case. Originally we were going to provide a detailed radio comms model but in the end we ran out of time and so abstracted this. Each unit does have a comms reliability factor that is taken into account. There is probably room to tweak these and make it less reliable.
3rd is priority of fire. The commander had to grant priority of fire to the recon unit to expend ammunition on this infantry company. The human player sets his own priority of fire and I assume there are routines in the AI that does something similar?
Yep and I did tone down the probability of allocation quite a bit for the patch. Previously it was too easy to allocate multiple arty units to a single fire mission. That's less likely now.
4th is target location. The recon unit FO had to see the infantry company and deduce its location to within a 100 meters? That was a good bit of map reading by the FO. A stationary infantry unit, no land features, foggy, dusk, FO on the move, no height elevation... As someone who has called in fire missions, I can tell you that determining the enemy location can be much more difficult that it seems. Especially in heavily wooded, flat terrain. There are just not enough landmarks to get a good bearing and spotting and adjusting fire can be extremely difficult.
Granted that that occurs in RL. We do not explicitly model forward observers (FOs). Rather it is assumed that these are allocated to units. We do model a fairly sophisticated line of sight and detection process that takes into account weather visibility, terrain, elevation, deployment status etc. So if this detects a unit then I am happy that a suitably qualified FO would also detect it.
So in my above example of the recon company and the infantry company, yes, the call for fire could have been successful, no doubt. What I call in to question is that fact that in BtfB, it is a successful fire mission 100% of the time.
That may appear that way but you are not privvy to the many other occassions when tyhe AI has abandoned a call for fire request. I am not going to bombard users with a plethora of failed arty request messages. So you are going to have to take this on faith.
In my opinion, there are just too many factors that can cause a fire mission to fail for it not to be addressed in the game.
I hope this does not come across as over-critical.
I agree there are many factors and we have endeavoured to take these into account. I am sure we could fine tune the arty model further and I appreciate your feedback.
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RE: Artillery

Post by decaro »

ORIGINAL: Arimus

I'm a big fan of BftB and I really like the combat system. To me, hex based games and the UGIG format are just too abstract. The command delay and unit AI is excellent.
But there are two aspects of the game system that I feel could be improved on. One is the retreat/routing mechanics and the other is artillery ...

I can't understand why the unit being bombarded would move as troops usually hunker-down during a barrage.
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RE: Artillery

Post by wodin »

JoeD, there was a thread on here not long ago about routing, as it does raise some eyebrows that units rout when dug in or entrenched. When I image they'd stay put in cover unless there is a total moral breakdown.

I think due to the way routing is coded it probably clashes with the behaviour of how a defending unit should react i.e cohesion levels\intensity of incoming\fatigue etc it's probabaly the cohesion level that is whats causing the retreat and I feel cohesion shouldn't really drop whilst the unit is defending\not moving. I think it should be a very rare event a unit retreating\routing when dug in unless they where totally cut off form all friendlies and they'd have to be cut off for a reasonable amount of time as the situation of possibly being surrounded sinks in to the troops. Only then would I imagine a unit that hadn't suffered loads of casualties would leave their dug in\entrenched positions and make a dash for it.
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RE: Artillery

Post by JeffroK »

It equally possible that for every "worst case" you put in above, there is a "best case" example.
 
First, the artillery battalions had to be deployed and available.  
This front could be stable, counterattack expected, arty on call. 

2nd is communication. The recon unit had to have radio communications to the FDC and the FDC to the batteries.
Being a Recon unit, this is more likely than if an Inf Coy .  This is one of their jobs.

3rd is priority of fire. The commander had to grant priority of fire to the recon unit to expend ammunition on this infantry company. The human player sets his own priority of fire and I assume there are routines in the AI that does something similar?
As "god" in this game, I get to set the priority

4th is target location. The recon unit FO had to see the infantry company and deduce its location to within a 100 meters? That was a good bit of map reading by the FO. A stationary infantry unit, no land features, foggy, dusk, FO on the move, no height elevation... As someone who has called in fire missions, I can tell you that determining the enemy location can be much more difficult that it seems. Especially in heavily wooded, flat terrain. There are just not enough landmarks to get a good bearing and spotting and adjusting fire can be extremely difficult.
This could have been on terrain previously reconned and fire plans made up. This German unit may have come through an expected line of attack and appeared exactly where expected.
 
Any situation between your worst case and my best case is possible, but an Inf Coy resting in an open field is asking for trouble, lucky a flight of P47 did not spot them as well.
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RE: Artillery

Post by decaro »

ORIGINAL: wodin

JoeD, there was a thread on here not long ago about routing, as it does raise some eyebrows that units rout when dug in or entrenched. When I image they'd stay put in cover unless there is a total moral breakdown ...

Entrenched, or not, no one can out-run an arty barrage, so why are these units alloed to move out of harm's way?
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RE: Artillery

Post by Arimus »

Thanks for all the feedback and Dave, thanks for the explanation.
I do notice that the AI fire is less responsive than what I can do by manually firing my batteries and for realism sake I leave fire missions to the AI.

It seems you have taken into account everything I discussed and I did notice a difference in Artillery fire in patch 2.

I think the "worst case" needs to happen more often, but I guess that is subject to opinion or personal experience.
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RE: Artillery

Post by Arimus »

We were trained to close the hatches and get out if the overall mission allowed.
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RE: Artillery

Post by wodin »

ORIGINAL: Joe D.
ORIGINAL: wodin

JoeD, there was a thread on here not long ago about routing, as it does raise some eyebrows that units rout when dug in or entrenched. When I image they'd stay put in cover unless there is a total moral breakdown ...

Entrenched, or not, no one can out-run an arty barrage, so why are these units alloed to move out of harm's way?

True thats why I'm saying only in a total panic would troops get out of cover and run. I'm sure it happened but then look at the barrages in WW1 on entrenched units and they stuck it out for a weeks or more at times.
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RE: Artillery

Post by Arimus »

Two other things I forgot to mention.

Does artillery miss? (A FO with a bad LOS could "think" he is hitting the target and not be)

Was there any thought given to breaking out artillery ammo vs other ammo?
Not that I would use it, but couldn't a player conceivable put artillery on High ammo supply and other units on Low ammo supply giving him an artificial boost to artillery ammo supply?

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RE: Artillery

Post by Arimus »

ORIGINAL: Joe D.
ORIGINAL: wodin

JoeD, there was a thread on here not long ago about routing, as it does raise some eyebrows that units rout when dug in or entrenched. When I image they'd stay put in cover unless there is a total moral breakdown ...

Entrenched, or not, no one can out-run an arty barrage, so why are these units alloed to move out of harm's way?


From what I have seen in the game, that is exactly what they do, run out of harm's way, when they hit route status.

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Major SNAFU_M
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RE: Artillery

Post by Major SNAFU_M »

ORIGINAL: Joe D.
ORIGINAL: Arimus

I'm a big fan of BftB and I really like the combat system. To me, hex based games and the UGIG format are just too abstract. The command delay and unit AI is excellent.
But there are two aspects of the game system that I feel could be improved on. One is the retreat/routing mechanics and the other is artillery ...

I can't understand why the unit being bombarded would move as troops usually hunker-down during a barrage.


That very much depends on where you are when the shells start falling.

I just read an account of a Company of the 504st (82 Airbone) in Italy. They were in a valley when arty starting dropping. Unit went to ground on hard stone with nothing but rocks (which produced even more shrapnel). Company Sargent realized what was happening and had everyone drop their packs and run until they passed behind the next hill and out of sight. The Sergent's opinion was that it they had remained prone the entire company would have been lost.

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Major SNAFU_M
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RE: Artillery

Post by Major SNAFU_M »

ORIGINAL: Joe D.
ORIGINAL: wodin

JoeD, there was a thread on here not long ago about routing, as it does raise some eyebrows that units rout when dug in or entrenched. When I image they'd stay put in cover unless there is a total moral breakdown ...

Entrenched, or not, no one can out-run an arty barrage, so why are these units alloed to move out of harm's way?

Hi Joe,

Oddly enough in my previous post I referenced a unit that did outrun an arty barrage in Italy.

just food for thought.

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RE: Artillery

Post by Arjuna »

ORIGINAL: Arimus

Two other things I forgot to mention.

Does artillery miss? (A FO with a bad LOS could "think" he is hitting the target and not be)
Yes it sure does, more often than you would think, especially against a moving target. Often the bombardment zone will only catch a portion of the units occippied area.
Was there any thought given to breaking out artillery ammo vs other ammo?
Not that I would use it, but couldn't a player conceivable put artillery on High ammo supply and other units on Low ammo supply giving him an artificial boost to artillery ammo supply?
Good suggestion. Noted.
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RE: Artillery

Post by decaro »

ORIGINAL: Major SNAFU

I just read an account of a Company of the 504st (82 Airbone) in Italy. They were in a valley when arty starting dropping. Unit went to ground on hard stone with nothing but rocks (which produced even more shrapnel). Company Sargent realized what was happening and had everyone drop their packs and run until they passed behind the next hill and out of sight ...

In BftB, how does all the men and materiel of an entire company just pick-up and traverse an entire grid square or more under arty fire to avoid the barrage?
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RE: Artillery

Post by Arjuna »

It's usually called "running" and believe you me you would be surprised at just how fast you can move with a mortar base plate when under pressure. [:)]
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RE: Artillery

Post by JeffroK »

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

It's usually called "running" and believe you me you would be surprised at just how fast you can move with a mortar base plate when under pressure. [:)]

I have seen guys who complained about marching so far, carrying so much, all of a sudden leap a barb wire fence carrying an M60 and full pack when a training bombardment was set off. He would have jumped a building if it was real.

As for running from a bombardment, happened lots of times. Also many units just hit the dirt and stayed there.

IMVHO it should be relative to unit morale, fatigue & leadership as to whether they bug out and maybe get minimal losses or hit the dirt with the possibility of increased losses.
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RE: Artillery

Post by wodin »

I don't have aprobelm if there not dug in etc, it's when their dug in or entrenched I feel they shouldn't bug out unless they are very poorly trained troops with no moral. Otherwise they should stay and take it.
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RE: Artillery

Post by Phoenix100 »

Like I said, Arimus, I'm sure I've seen barrages miss where I planted them, and not just on moving targets.
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