Vehicle Damage

[svhrg]

This is probably a stupid question but it's been bugging me for a few days now so here goes:

When a vehicle gets damaged and it is assigned a damage number in the unit description how do you know what system/sytems have been damaged? I know that the event text indicates what was hit as the battle is in progress, however, in a large battle I tend to loose track of what happens to which unit since the screen automatically jumps to the next engagement and I am no longer sure which was the unit that was hit. This is especially true with op fire since you are so busy determining if you shoul take advantage of it or not

Also, with op fire, is there any way to scroll the screen to see which of your units has the ability to op fire? Typically, my screen is focused on the enemy unit and I am not able to see my unit with the op fire ability (I guess one way around this is to zoom out but I was wondering if another method was possible).

Thank you in adavnce to anyone that can enlighten me on these minor points. Just discovered this game a few weeks ago and I am really enjoying it.

R

[Capt. Pixel]

Welcome Svhrg -

The only way I could figure out what kind of damage occurred was to review the message log file. Other than that, I know of no way to determine which specific system was damaged.

I find this particular aspect annoying, especially when I'm deciding whether to re-crew a damaged vehicle. Does that 1 pt of damage mean no main weapon, half or no movement, gun optics shot off?

Perhaps someone more sage than I has an answer.

But I'd like to add a rider your thread and add this question -

When a unit is hit and the message reads "vulnerable area hit" - what does this mean?

There doesn't seem to be any obvious external effect (things don't fall of the vehicle, etc.) Does this cause an increase in the targets suppression or some other affect that can't be directly observed. And ... If the message basically means nothing - why have it?

[Charles2222]

Let me see if I recall. Vulnerable location hits are plates which are inferior, to the tune of the armor being only 50% of it's normal value. From what I've observed, the vast majority of these hits are from small-arms fire, and if the target is a tank there's never any damage from it (the bottom area hits 'may' be the only exception) and when I say that, I'm not referring to armor-piercing MMGs, etc.

I don't know if one can expect vulnerable hits 20-50% of the time up close with AP fire, but if so that would make the tank with a gun penetration of only 30 a pretty consistent threat in the early war years, because it could possibly damage AFVs with normal 59 armor.

[Paul Vebber]

There is just no data space to keep track of the damage, sorry. CL will fix that, though it may not be in the first module...

Vulnerable location hits occur very rarely beyond 6 hexes (like 0.5% for AP, 0.67 for Heat and 0.75 for HE. At 6 hexes and in, baasesd on the experience of the unit firing, the probability increases to 12%, 15%, and 18% at range 1 (assuming 70 exp - it will be proportionally higher or lower based on experience)

This represents aiming for known vulnerable areas that can be done up close, like hatches, the area behind the road wheels, etc. At long range its just hitting an area wekened by previous hits, or hitting one of those vulnerable spots accidentally.

[Bernie]

Originally posted by svhrg
This is probably a stupid question but it's been bugging me for a few days now so here goes:


Also, with op fire, is there any way to scroll the screen to see which of your units has the ability to op fire? Typically, my screen is focused on the enemy unit and I am not able to see my unit with the op fire ability (I guess one way around this is to zoom out but I was wondering if another method was possible).

Thank you in adavnce to anyone that can enlighten me on these minor points. Just discovered this game a few weeks ago and I am really enjoying it.

R

The unit doing the op firing will be displayed on the bottom of the screen, complete with info on how many shots remain for each weapon. (Makes it easier to pass up an op fire if you only have one main gun round showing and you're targeting a pair of crewmen, but have a Tiger loose too that you'll probably get a shot at)

[bchapman]

Does that 1 pt of damage mean no main weapon, half or no movement, gun optics shot off?

If you have a unit that took damage and you think one of the weapons is affected, look at the weapons slots. If one is blanked out, then it is damaged and unable to fire. For instance, you are firing you HMG at an enemy unit, and a message appears that your weapon malfunctioned. You will no longer be able to fire the weapon, and it will show no weapons available (or only small arms).
Hope this helps,

[Bernie]

Originally posted by bchapman


If you have a unit that took damage and you think one of the weapons is affected, look at the weapons slots. If one is blanked out, then it is damaged and unable to fire. For instance, you are firing you HMG at an enemy unit, and a message appears that your weapon malfunctioned. You will no longer be able to fire the weapon, and it will show no weapons available (or only small arms).
Hope this helps,

I think the discussion was about abandoned vehicles, which you can't check out until they are reclaimed. The question is, is it worth it to reclaim the vehicle? What damage does it have? Yes, I'd reclaim a tank that still has its main gun but no MG's, maybe even one that was imobilized if it were in a position to be used as a bunker (or I thought it might regain mobility), but how to tell?

[panda124c]

If a crew bails and they have NO weapons then the main gun on the vehical was destroyed, so there is no purpose in recrewing the vehical.

[herr1]

Pbear,

It can be very useful to re crew a non-immobilised tank and use the MG's v's infantry e.g. the three 30 cal MGs on the Stuart

Otherwise you have an immobile wreck and a useless crew with no weapons.

You can also re-crew the tank and drive to a safe rear area thus saving one of your prime crews in a campaign!

[panda124c]

Originally posted by herr1
Pbear,

It can be very useful to re crew a non-immobilised tank and use the MG's v's infantry e.g. the three 30 cal MGs on the Stuart

Otherwise you have an immobile wreck and a useless crew with no weapons.

You can also re-crew the tank and drive to a safe rear area thus saving one of your prime crews in a campaign!

This is true but if there are enemy tanks around the vehical is dead meat and usually the crew, I usually set the range of the crew to zero and sneak off.

[Arralen]

damage locations:

you can get some info about that from the unit info screen - as already mentioned, damaged guns are removed from the weapon list on the top left.
But there's more info to be found:

- susp. damage .. the listed movement points go down; if the vehicle is immobilized, it will display "0" instantly, while the main screen will show "immobilized" on the next turn only

- optics destroyed .. list as rangefinder & fire control "0"

- radio m. destroyed .. radio value "0"

- crew casualties .. number of remaining men is shown (you'll have to know by hard how much the vehicle originally had, though)


vulnerable loacation hit

maybe there's some issue with this .. it occures far more often than the numbers Paul gave would imply.
I noticed, though, that while the log in the "unit bar" (lower screen) says "vulnerable location hit" ten times in a row, the pop-up message window says "no effect" only.
Than again I've seen VLHs (which had effect) that displayed as "VLH" in the message popup too ... so I wouldn't care too much about that as it's seemingly only "cosmetic".

A.

[Capt. Pixel]

Good points Arralen.

But most items you listed can only be determined by re-crewing the vehicle.

All you can determine externally, of the status of one of your abandoned vehicles, is the movement and whether or not the main weapon has been destroyed ('0' ammo). Check these first.

You might still want to re-crew a tank if it might have functioning MG armament.

How does one determine the loss of the Toobox? :p