Infantry in same hex

A Hobbs · Post by **A Hobbs** » Mon Jul 30, 2001 9:36 pm

I've noticed a small bug ? When there are two squads in the same hex that have been fired on, especialy by MG's, the squad that is NOT the target receives more dammage than the one that is. Any one else noticed this ?

Tommy · Post by **Tommy** » Mon Jul 30, 2001 9:41 pm

A H,

How do you know this? I've always been at a loss to tell what casualty goes toward what squad. Do you have the headcount icons turned on? Which squad breaks & runs isn't directly connected to the # of casualties it received this "shot".

Tommy

Arralen · Post by **Arralen** » Mon Jul 30, 2001 10:39 pm

Originally posted by Tommy:
A H, How do you know this? I've always been at a loss to tell what casualty goes toward what squad. Do you have the headcount icons turned on? Which squad breaks & runs isn't directly connected to the # of casualties it received this "shot".
Tommy

But it's true .. you can easily confirm this if you turn on the unit numbers.
Or you target one of 3 squads using the 'T' shortcut, and fire at it .. and 2 squads take damage and retreat out of sight, and the 3rd still sits there .. still targeted, so it was all collateral damage again.
It's the old issue from v2.x again .. but in those days it was much worse... think it crept up again with the new inf. casualty 'rules' - maybe they accidently used some old code again ?!

A.

chief · Post by **chief** » Mon Jul 30, 2001 11:43 pm

Tommy: I heartily concur with AH and ARRALEN, I just thought I wasa bad shot until now. :rolleyes:

Warrior · Post by **Warrior** » Mon Jul 30, 2001 11:50 pm

If one of my squads is in the same hex as an enemy squad and I fire on that enemy squad from outside the hex, my squad will ALWAYS take hits, and maybe even be wiped out. In fact, my squad in the hex is usually hit first! It's made me real antsy about getting up close and personal with the enemy.

Fredde · Post by **Fredde** » Tue Jul 31, 2001 12:26 am

Actually, yes.. "side-effect" casualties often seem to be worse than the prime target casualtiess.. this is especially true when firing low percentage shots for some reasons.

Make the biggest possible chance to hit someone else in the same hex equal the hit percentage for the prime target? This would be a fix with terrible punishments for those who decide to stack entire platoons in a single hex

panda124c · Post by **panda124c** » Tue Jul 31, 2001 7:08 pm

Originally posted by Warrior:
If one of my squads is in the same hex as an enemy squad and I fire on that enemy squad from outside the hex, my squad will ALWAYS take hits, and maybe even be wiped out. In fact, my squad in the hex is usually hit first! It's made me real antsy about getting up close and personal with the enemy.

Be sneeky run your infantry into the same hex as an enemy and let them shoot at you they will kill their own troops. Say who gets the kill for this action, the unit in the hex?

TheZel66 · Post by **TheZel66** » Tue Jul 31, 2001 7:41 pm

I've seen this as well. Especially when my troops are in the same hex, as Warrior states.. Could the same hit calculations that were changed in last few versions not have been applied to secondary/friendly units?

Larry Holt · Post by **Larry Holt** » Tue Jul 31, 2001 7:46 pm

Originally posted by Fredde:
Actually, yes.. "side-effect" casualties often seem to be worse than the prime target casualtiess.. this is especially true when firing low percentage shots for some reasons.

If you are firing at a small unit and there is a unit with more men in the same hex, the randon distribution of shots will more likely hit the larger unit.

Hans · Post by **Hans** » Tue Jul 31, 2001 8:03 pm

Originally posted by Tommy:
A H,

How do you know this? I've always been at a loss to tell what casualty goes toward what squad. Do you have the headcount icons turned on?

Even with headcount icons turned off You can know how many men there are left in an enemy squad. Simply right-click on the unit. The window says "Men: XXX", but in the lower left corner of the screen You will find the unit's name e.g. "FR Rifle Sqd x 9".

Hans

Tommy · Post by **Tommy** » Tue Jul 31, 2001 9:36 pm

Originally posted by Hans:

Even with headcount icons turned off You can know how many men there are left in an enemy squad. Simply right-click on the unit. The window says "Men: XXX", but in the lower left corner of the screen You will find the unit's name e.g. "FR Rifle Sqd x 9".

Hans

Hans,

I tried it with ver 6.1 and it doesn't seem to work. What version are you using? Here's what I see:

Tommy

[ July 31, 2001: Message edited by: Tommy ]

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Tue Jul 31, 2001 10:33 pm

In the cases I have tried to recreate this "bug" what is happening is that you are moving when you enter so are 6 times more likely to be hit. The enemy is typically stationary, and so takes less casualties.

This is also the reason many times units not in teh target hex are killed in greater numbers than in the hex by colateral damage from artillery.

If both units in ahex are "in the dirt" then I have found no siginificant difference in casualties (though I did nothave time for a large test)

Fabs · Post by **Fabs** » Tue Jul 31, 2001 10:49 pm

Actually, if you think about it there is a lot of sense in this.

I remember when I did my army training we (grenadiers) practiced with the machinegunners the co-ordination of movement and covering fire.

There was a point beyond which the MGs had to stop firing to cover us as we approached the objective because they would have a greater chance of causing our assault party casualties than disrupting the entrenched enemy on the objective.

No matter what resources are available to help the closing infantry onto the objective, the last 100 yards dash depends on the covering fire having done its job, so that the assaulting troops can get in there and shoot, bomb, stab and clobber first.

In this respect, friendly fire killing one's own when the target is in the same hex is, I think, very realistic and not a bug.

ddearing · Post by **ddearing** » Wed Aug 01, 2001 12:37 am

Paul, try putting two personnel units in the same hex in good defensive terrain and/or dug in. The non-targetted unit will be hit more often and suffer a much higher loss rate than the the targetted unit.
The difference is much more pronounced when the units are in a good defensive position than when they are in the open, possibly the spillover fire effects are ignoring terrain/entrenchment?
I have seen this behavior consistently using 6.1.

TheZel66 · Post by **TheZel66** » Wed Aug 01, 2001 4:10 pm

If the enemy is entrenched, I can definately see friendlies in the same hex taking on more damage. Thanks to all for clearing this up..

Rover · Post by **Rover** » Wed Aug 01, 2001 6:59 pm

Paul's example makes good sense... I have noticed the same originally reported item when there are multiple enemy units in the same hex. What I mean is they are all entrenched, same status, etc... and when I aim at one I get many more hits on the other one or two first. Interestingly if I then change to one of the others then the original unit now starts to take many more hits and the new unit is very difficult to damage.

R

Arralen · Post by **Arralen** » Thu Aug 02, 2001 1:48 am

Originally posted by Rover:
Paul's example makes good sense... I have noticed the same originally reported item when there are multiple enemy units in the same hex. What I mean is they are all entrenched, same status, etc... and when I aim at one I get many more hits on the other one or two first. Interestingly if I then change to one of the others then the original unit now starts to take many more hits and the new unit is very difficult to damage.
R

Exactly my observation !

A.

Khan7 · Post by **Khan7** » Thu Aug 02, 2001 2:06 am

This is one thing which I must say I don't believe is a bug. It's simply going to be hard to distinguish your from theirs if you're firing from a distance and everyone is in real close. In combat soldiers don't get out their special "squad identifier" x-ray goggles and go for only men of one particular squad. They are going to focus on an area in which an enemy presence has been detected and shoot anything they can see in there. I would guess that the reason people started complaining about this is that the turn-based nature of this game sometimes makes it hard to picture what the actual combat would really be like on that small scale.

One thing that does kinda tick me off is when you're firing at infantry in the same hex as one of your vehicles and the vehicle gets conked.. only had this happen once with SPWAW, though it did happen all the time in SP3.. also would piss me off when in SP3 you would be fighting in like Vietnam against the VC and your planes would come in and take out your tanks because they were bigger targets.. I mean COME ON, HOW STUPID ARE YOU??!! the enemy HAS NO TANKS!!!!.. haven't been in a similar situation so far in SPWAW, but I would imagine it is still this way..

Anyway, my 2 cents.

chief · Post by **chief** » Thu Aug 02, 2001 3:06 am

Rover: I most heartily concur with your statement about two or more enemy units in a hex, in 6.1 it will kill more of the non-targeted squad then the target...neither are moving or have recently moved. As far as moving into a hex with friendlies and bad guys I have to concur with Paul V. My two bits worth.

Hans · Post by **Hans** » Thu Aug 02, 2001 6:30 pm

Originally posted by Tommy:

Hans,

I tried it with ver 6.1 and it doesn't seem to work. What version are you using?
Tommy

Hi, Tommy.

It's not in this popup-window but on the lower left corner of the screen below the battlemap. It seems to work just with inf teams, not with crewed weapons like guns or MMGs etc.

Hans

P.S.: It's Ver6.1

[ August 02, 2001: Message edited by: Hans ]