PanzerGrenadier & Armoured Cards Combat element performance?

[AlbertN]

Hello,

I was noticing that in Combat reports that the Panzergrenadier (Pioneer or Squad) seem to severely underperform compared to their counterparts in the same division. (Regular Pioneer and Motorized Rifle Squads)
Just to be sure I started a test game from scratch, picked the 1st Panzer Division at turn 1 and went to fight around with it. (I litterally deleted all Air Directives pre-existing, skipped air phase and started to move that division.)
Armoured Cards seem as well to pretty much be totally useless, for what I see. They perpetually hit nothing.

I believe numbers can speak for themselves and the business is easily repeatable; as most maps / scenarios have a similar situation where some optimal tests can be made. Unless it is intended for these ground elements to be useless except eating supplies and ammos and providing some CV.



Some examples:

PzG1.png (1.28 MiB) Viewed 781 times

PzG2.png (689.39 KiB) Viewed 781 times

PzG3.png (1.35 MiB) Viewed 781 times

PzG4.png (1.14 MiB) Viewed 781 times

[Joel Billings]

I think the value of the armored cars is that it boosts the recon detection value of the unit when it is in contact with enemy units. That helps in combat. I know they were getting destroyed too easily, so Gary eased them out of ground combat. I didn't think they had been removed entirely. As for the Panzer Grenadiers, etc., I can't explain why they are performing so poorly. I tried some Kursk attacks and the PG squads particularly were bad. If I were to guess it may have something to do with their having armor 1 getting them put in with halftracks and somehow this is altering their combat results. I'll ask Gary to look into it, but I know it's not going to be easy for him to figure out. Thanks for the report.

[AlbertN]

If both things get to work it will be ace - both the recon also hitting (prolly they're the first ones that make enemy contact) and the PanzerGrenadier / Pioner / whatever will get proper performance.

Thanks for keep looking into things and trying to fix them!

[Joel Billings]

I did some additional tests, and the armor isn't the cause of the problem. When I changed their class from Mech-Inf to Rifle Squad (or engineer for the Panzer Pioneers), they hit more as expected. So there must be code in their relating to their class that is holding them back. Hopefully this clue will help Gary figure out the issue.

[Joel Billings]

BTW, my first attacks with armored cars in 1943 and Op Typhoon and had them get hits, so it is possible for them to hit. Not a lot of hits, but some.

[dgrimes]

We have the same problem with the probability of hits with the cavalry squads. Their shots miss much more often than infantry. I think in a different thread I read that they were in the same class as mechanized infantry. Also the soft target value of AT-rifles (3 I believe) seem to make it almost impossible for them to hit soft targets. They shoot at soft targets, but almost never succeed.

[dgrimes]

Here are the % of shots that are hits for three battles in turn 1 of road to Leningrad although the same pattern holds in other scenarios and other turns.

battle 1 battle 2 battle 3
rifle squad 4.6% 8.3% 8.6%
pioneer squad 2.4% 2.2% 3.1%
bicycle recon squad 1.8% 2.5% 2.7%
cavalry squad 0.3% 0.6% 0.8%
7.92 machine gun 1.5% 4.9% 3.7%
7.92 AT rifle 0% 0% 0%

Total number of shots fired by AT rifle: 1,438 in these 3 battles.

The cavalry squad has the same weapons as the rifle squad, except it also has two more rifles. The cavalry squad fires more shots per element, but they seem to disproportionately miss. This is true of German, Soviet, and Romanian cavalry squads.

[Joel Billings]

Yes, it has something to do with the fact that all these ground elements are class Mech-Infantry. Gary did a quick look into the combat system and couldn't see how the class was impacting combat. He looked around and doesn't think there will be an issue if we change them to class Infantry instead. We'll discuss it with Pavel to see if he has any additional info on this or can figure out why it's reducing the hits. Most likely we will just be changing the class in the next update to Infantry for all these ground elements including cavalry.

[Denniss]

this will also affect mech recon (88), mech cav (117, not in active use), Carrier-Inf Squad (41), Recon Jeep (48), Motorcycle Squad (49)
May this be some kind of hardcoded penalty for having to dismount to fight?

[Joel Billings]

Thanks, I didn't catch some of those other elements. The only one I missed that is in use is the motorcycle squad, so I'll pick that up in a future update. Yes, I'm speculating it is a dismount (holding the horse) kind of modifier, but Gary couldn't find it, and it clearly was never intended to reduce their ability to hit by as much as it's doing.

[Grenadier33]

I look forward to this change. Any estimates on when the next update may be released or what it may look like? I expect it could be some time given the recent OB 2.0 update that I am very excited to try. (I have yet to start a campaign post OB 2.0's official release).

[Joel Billings]

I expect the next beta update will go out to the public sometime in January.

[Wiedrock]

+Push.

Wanting to mod in new Squads and Ground elements this issue comes up.

What I can say with almost certainty from lots of testing is that all "Mech" tagged units are having their normal Accuracy of the individual guns reduced (I'd assme 50%), so with e.g. Panzergrenadiers in Urban fighting you will mostly get Grenade kills (due to the AoE). Giving the Ground elements additional Accuracy (in the ACC collumn of the Ground elements weapons) fixes the issue.
Additionally there may also be a slight decrease in RoF, but that one isn't as obvious as the ACC.
But to mod it correctly it'd be nice to have the accurate number on how many % of accuracy/RoF are being stripped off Mech/Cav units when designated as "Mech".

Not sure if this reduced ACC should have been countered by the speed of the Ground Elements (since Mech should be quicker than normal elements) - maybe this was different in WITE/WITW? But in WITE2 they are all the same speed "6", maybe there's a hidden multiplier to speed as well which has no effect since speed of ground elements do not affect a lot (at least not easily observable)?