Flammpanzer II weird stats

[JeremyB]

Flammpanzer III has: 100 vs soft, 100 vs armor (why vs armor?)
Flammpanzer 38(t) has : 100 vs soft, 100 vs armor
Flammpanzer II has: ... 3 vs soft, 0 vs armor

that's the same as a puny Pz I

that might be just a little mistake, but I was wondering if it actually impacted the combat resolution when the Flammpanzer II were involved...

[jaw]

You are looking at the stats for the Flammpanzer II's machine gun. The flamethowers (it has two of them so actually twice the firepower of the Flammpanzer III or Flammpanzer 38(t)) are listed below the machine gun.

As for the 100 versus armor rating, the assumption is if can actually get close enough to a tank to spray it with a flamethrower you will knock it out. Given the armor rating of the Flammpanzer II that won't be easy.

[PMCN]

Actually I don't think I've ever seen german flamethrowers (neither tanks nor engineers) actually get used in combat. Same goes with sachel charges on either side, nor have I seen Finn troops hurling moletov cotails. I have seen russian flamethrowers at work. At least several patches back they were the only thing that killed german tanks since then things have improved (or gotten worse depending on your view). Gernades are also not used by either side. Oddly enough SMGs are used during middle range engagements where you would expect them not to be used, makes highly experienced russian SMG squads considerably more dangerous then you might think.

Anyone actually seen gernades, molotov cotails or sachel charges used by units?

[randallw]

I ran a battle at fairly high detail ( level 5 or 6 for much of it ); the combat closed down to 50 yards a few times then the Axis division retreated. The short range stuff ( satchels, grenades, etc ) didn't get to be used.

[PMCN]

I've never seen the sachel charges/gernades get used in hundreds of battles at high detail, but I've also never seen german flamethrowers fire, while it is routine for the russian ones to do so. For a while they were the only thing that was destroying german tanks.

[randallw]

Sounds like a bug.

I checked the equipment database and flamethrowers are treated as a generic model, with Soviet stats being the same as the German ones, with a range of 50 ( so they should be firing? ).

[PMCN]

I would think so as well...but I've yet to see them fire ever. Every pioneer squad has them so I should have seen them from time to time but never. Not when playing the soviets or the germans. I have never seen an axis side flamethrower in operation while the soviet ones show up in any halfway decently organized defence.

The same is true for all sides with respect to handgernades (though I see rifle gernades regularily), sachel charges or molitov cotails.

[JeremyB]

Same for me

checked it a number of times in highest detail combat report mode, but never saw them in action

[jaw]

I spoke to Gary and all weapons are supposed to fire if within range. One other thing that might be accounting for not seeing them fire is their low ROF. Have you ever seen Panzerfausts and Panzerschrecks being used? These weapons also have very low ROFs.

[PMCN]

None of my games are advanced enough to see if PzF of PzSch have been used. One thing I find very odd is that SMGs fire at what I would consider the middle range band in combats. This seems very odd to me, but as soviet units get more experienced you start seeing the SMGs firing at two distinct points in the combat. It seems odd to see SMGs with shorter range firing rather than the longer ranged rifles. I'm pretty sure I see the same behavior from German SMGs as well. I don't know the absolute range, and I do know it is a reflection of higher morale/experience but it seems very odd that the russian SMGs are firing when they do.

Also please understand I watch all battles at high resolution (5 I think) and so I have seen several hundred battles and this includes battles where the defenders held and the whole kit and kabodle gets thrown at them and even so no gernades, no sachel charges. I see rifle gernades routinely but no hand gernades.

[jaw]

Your observations seem to be supporting an ROF issue. SMGs naturally have a much higher ROF than rifles so that may be the reason you're seeing them fire and not rifles.

[PMCN]

Ok happy to help out. It is just that the SMGs range is short so I would not have expected to see them firing when I do. It is one of the things that probably accounts for increased axis losses starting in 42. Highter numbers of SMG armed squads plus also higher experience results in more units damaged/destroyed by the SMG squads that are firing twice in the combat.

But this seems distinct from the axis flamethrowers never firing at all. The soviet ones aren't all that common but they do show up in the better organized defences.

Just to add something to this. When my friend and were playing with the latest non-beta release (...19) we observed one other thing. Armoured cars appear to have like magnets in them because when artillary fires in the opening stage of a battle it always hits ACs. We were commenting that the Heer must have an award for the most BA10, BA20 and BA64s destroyed by artillary...and it turns out the Commies have a simmilar thing. It is astounding to see 150 mm Guns shooting at BA10s...or 152 Gun/howitzers bombarding Sdkfz 221s. This seems to be a highly skewed targeting priority I'd say. If nothing else it generates good jokes.

"New secret weapon for your BA10 comrade...you must turn on this switch before going to battle to use it." "All right comrade! What does this weapon do?" "Is secret comrade, you will find out when you use it...expect big surprise!"

[jaw]

Do you know the time frame when you see the Soviet flamethrowers? I ask this because the Soviets receive Flamethrower Battalions in the later half of the War consisting of flamethower squads equipped entirely with flamethowers (i.e. 10 flamethowers in a single squad, 240 in a battalion). If the only thing you have to shoot is a flamethrower and you have 10 of them it's likely they are going to show up in combat.

As for the armored cars suffering excessive casualties, despite attempts to mitigate this problem in the code the general tendency in the game system is for the lightest armor to die first which means armored cars take it on the chin in every combat.

[PMCN]

The time frame is early war (1941-42) where there are no flame thrower battalions. Basically the russian flamethrowers show up most often in a higher entrenchment level defence or in a fortified region defence. They show up I would say about every 3rd or 4th normal battle as well...but against a higher fortification level or the fortified zone they are nearly guarenteed to show up.

When I was starting playing (way back when the game came out) the russian flamethrowers caused essentially 100% of the german tank kills. So the russian's have always been using flamethrowers. From what I can tell they are functioning normally (especially since I only see the hits rather than all the attempts).

[gamer78]

SMG has 3 times range value vs rifle squad. I wonder if SMG fire in mid range combat as well as short range ?

[jaw]

Don't you have that backwards? All SMGs have a range of 150 yards versus 500 yards for rifles. In game terms a rifle has 5 times the accuracy of a SMG and (assuming you're using the lastest files) 3 times the killing effect per round fired.

I believe the problem lies in the combination of higher ROF for SMGs and the sheer number of them in Soviet units.

[gamer78]

My mistake. I was talking about 7.92 mg34 equipment. I think it has higher ROF and range than kar rifle. But for SMG squads yes it has lower range. Has also high ROF and very populated in Soviet corps,divisions in ex 1944 setup if we are in same "latest files". Germany produce them in 1943 and Soviet start from 1941. Anyway whatever solution is I hope it can be done within few tweaks,if that's the main problem for late combat calculation.[:)]

[PMCN]

One other thing that may be worth looking into is the rockets (such as Katashukas or Nebelwerfers). I'm rather amazed how ineffective they are at inflicting casualties (it may well be they are inflicting significant disruption of sub-units and I don't see that). They fire astoundingly rarely and you don't see much in the way of casualties. Bombs are also strangly in-effective killers when you consider a 50 kg bomb dropped by a night bomber seems to be about as effective as 1000 kg bomb dropped by a level bomber or a stuka. Again they may have disrupted many more sub-units but in terms of casualties the bigger weapons don't seem to deliever the umm-pah-pah you would expect.

This may well be related to ROF issues.

[randallw]

On the few occasions I produced rocket units the weapons often have a low accuracy rating.

[jaw]

We're looking at the issue of improving artillery effectiveness in WitW but I can't say if any changes would migrate over to WitE before we've moved on to WitE 2.0. As it currently stands artillery primarily causes disruption rather than direct casualties.