"1 casualty"d to death

Mark McIntosh · Post by **Mark McIntosh** » Sat May 12, 2001 4:13 pm

What has happened to the effects of artillery? No matter how many men are in a hex hit by artillery, there is never more than 1 casualty. That's all I see. 1 casualty, 1 casualty, 1 caualty...

I know the power of artillery has been curtailed but this is too much. It's so atypical. I know this feature was abused by some players, but now artillery is so impotent, it's onlt good for slowing the enemy down.

Assualting a position has become nearly impossible without heavy casualties. The enemy recovers from suppression too quickly, and lays in murderous small arms fire as soon as your troops get next to them. In fact, 90-95% of the losses are now from small arms/weapons platform hits and almost nothing from artillery.

Give us back artillery effects that model the real battlefield - please.

Mark

achappelle · Post by **achappelle** » Sat May 12, 2001 8:54 pm

I agree, arty should be the big casualty causer, i seem to remember reading somewhere that shrapnel caused a majority of casualties in modern war, ww2 included.

Voriax · Post by **Voriax** » Sat May 12, 2001 9:30 pm

Does this '1 casualty only' happen also when you have set the 'Arty vs soft' preference to maximum?

I keep fast arty always on so I haven't noticed how many casualties occur..except from vanished units

Voriax

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Sat May 12, 2001 9:59 pm

THis has been coverd in depth many times before. The big factors are:

1) The player has far more situational awareness tha a real commander, so "full warhead effect" would not result in "realistic" casualties.

2) A great many artillery casualties were "harrassment fire" day to day or massive operatioanl level bombardments and not part of "call for fire" employmnet in the game that tended to be more to deny areas and supressive in nature.

3) Casualties to artlliery were mostly while men were upright, once men go to ground they are much less susceptable - the "1 guy" that gets killed is typically the guy right near the shell and may be "shell shocked" and not injured, others, particularly if they have found a even a slight depression are suppressed but not easily killed.

BryanMelvin · Post by **BryanMelvin** » Sun May 13, 2001 12:57 am

Arty in the game does suppress and rout units.

Try this - hit a enemy unit with arty - then engage it with melee or an Overrun. Then you'll see what Arty can do

I have seen arty (105mm and above cal) decimate units in a game.

Arty comes in handy to break up units in a Building so that your units can get close and finish them off.

One of the problems that occured with the older arty FRT was that all you needed to win a pbem game was one tank platoon, one Inf platoon and 20 batteries of arty. Not much fun for the other player.

Boom - Boom - out goes the lights and the other player felt pretty well

Mark McIntosh · Post by **Mark McIntosh** » Sun May 13, 2001 8:02 am

Originally posted by BryanMelvin:
One of the problems that occured with the older arty FRT was that all you needed to win a pbem game was one tank platoon, one Inf platoon and 20 batteries of arty. Not much fun for the other player. :eek

All I need to win a defend game with visibility of 1, is about 1,000 points spent on mines and obstacles. Ranged weapons are of no use in this case. The attacker was slaughtered without me budging one inch. Apparently, when I did not buy artillery, neither did the AI. All I did was sit on my objectives and listened to the AFVs being 'sifted' from the leg units.

My point is any system can be abused. If they have removed the teeth from the artillery, then why not also the mines/obstacles. I say give artillery back it's teeth and let the players decide how they will agree to use it.

Mark

Stukadawg · Post by **Stukadawg** » Sun May 13, 2001 11:20 am

One of my memories from the countless games of SP2 I played was the excitement and the hassle of having to rally just-bombarded units (especially motorized infantry). SP:WaW has that same feeling but to a slightly lesser extent. I haven't gone over any numbers in the game or fiddled with it's parts (I spent weeks screwing around with Call to Power 2's directories before I noticed I wasn't playing or having fun) so I can't really say for sure. But for the most part it feels right.
Most of my artillery targets so far have been entrenched infantry but just a little while ago I pounded some British infantry in the open. Like you I killed them one at a time but with 5 or 6 hits, it adds up. My only arty kills have been from dispersement and never "unit destroyed" results.
Sometimes games still have to represent things somewhat abstractly, although SP (from the beginning) never relied too much on that. Consider how long a turn is supposed to represent.

In the mean time, I'm playing it old school until I get off my ass and get some ink cartridges for my printer. Reading the manual off the screen bothers my eyes. Just like Momma used to say:
"If you enjoy it that much, you'll probably go blind."

Happy Mother's Day,
Stuk de Hound

Pack Rat · Post by **Pack Rat** » Sun May 13, 2001 11:32 am

I've only got 5.01 loaded as of this evening, so I can't comment on the infantry kill ratio, yet. However if you recall past versions of SP the artillery vs armor kill ratio was much higher. It surprised me some that Allied opponents in my pbem games didn't request a higher artillery vs armor percent, but none did. Both options are there to be adjusted to our liking. It may be that when the leagues start again that much debate is given to this. It could get interesting.

jambo1 · Post by **jambo1** » Sun May 13, 2001 2:29 pm

I'm quite happy with the new arty, it seems that there is more fog'o' war with the new effects. Infantry no longer jump on my panzers if I've given them a good dose of 150mm arty fire before I overrun them. Of course arty missions this close also run the risk of hitting your own troops, however war is hell.

john g · Post by **john g** » Tue May 15, 2001 1:36 am

Originally posted by Mark McIntosh:
All I need to win a defend game with visibility of 1, is about 1,000 points spent on mines and obstacles. My point is any system can be abused. If they have removed the teeth from the artillery, then why not also the mines/obstacles. Mark

I just read Gen Robinett's book about his time with CCB in North Africa. Every time he mentions tanks getting into a minefield the tanks just seem to lose a track and the crew then put it back on and move back out.

The minefields in the game may be too strong against vehicles, having come from a game engine simulating the more lethal mines of the modern era.

Just how lethal were WWII era AT mines?
thanks, John.

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Tue May 15, 2001 4:24 am

From "Salt's Snippets"
http://www.britwar.co.uk/salts/

WO 291/1186 The comparative performance of German anti-tank weapons during WWII.
This report is dated 24 May 1950.

The percentage of tank losses, by cause, for different theatres is given as follows:
Theatre (tanks) Mines
NW Europe (1305) 22.1%
Italy (671) 30%
N Africa (1734) 19.5%
Mean values 22.3%
of which destroyed 20.3%
of which damaged 2%
Caution is advised over the "damaged" figures because of variability in reporting.
It is stated that tanks and SP guns should be considered together, as war diaries often show doubt over what exactly caused a tank loss.

SO approximately 1 in 5 British tanks were destroyed by mines in NW Europe by British reords.

kao16 · Post by **kao16** » Tue May 15, 2001 4:26 am

Originally posted by john g:
I just read Gen Robinett's book about his time with CCB in North Africa. Every time he mentions tanks getting into a minefield the tanks just seem to lose a track and the crew then put it back on and move back out.

The minefields in the game may be too strong against vehicles, having come from a game engine simulating the more lethal mines of the modern era.

Just how lethal were WWII era AT mines?
thanks, John.

Never having had to repair a track lost to a mine I can only guess that it is a relatively long and drawn out activity - with turns representing ~5 minutes how many "turns" would it take to recover mobility - given "ideal" circumstances?

(Note that the activity usually would not typically be undertaken whist there is a possibility that some small minded person will attempt to kill you.)

For game purposes, casualties due to mines represent the effective loss of a vehicle (mission kill) rather than always being a comprehensive rearrangement of structural and organic stuctures such that the vehicle (& crew) is rendered useless

Pack Rat · Post by **Pack Rat** » Tue May 15, 2001 5:53 am

Originally posted by kao16:
Never having had to repair a track lost to a mine I can only guess that it is a relatively long and drawn out activity - with turns representing ~5 minutes how many "turns" would it take to recover mobility - given "ideal" circumstances?

(Note that the activity usually would not typically be undertaken whist there is a possibility that some small minded person will attempt to kill you.)

Not only would you need be concerned about enemy fire, remember you're still in a mine field. Blowing off a shoe would be a an "ideal" fix, more than likly damage to the drive wheels or the like would be involved as well. I'm not sure how many extra shoes a tank carried and I'm sure it possible one wouldn't carry enough if the damage were bad enough. Getting a fellow tank to stop and lend the needed shoes might be a tough act in the heat of combat. A lot of "what ifs" involved.

I suppose we timed our shoe change, but I don't remember any more what it was. This also was for an APC type. The tanks sat next to us in the motor pool and I'm here to tell you those tracks were heavy looking, had to be back braking work. I figured out how to use a truck to speed up the process but even then it was easily over a half hour, but probably less than one hour and we were and remained green.

Stukadawg · Post by **Stukadawg** » Tue May 15, 2001 6:29 am

My friend's grandfather drove a 250 or 251 ambulance for a while in the Totemkopf division. He told me a story about throwing a track, propping up a wounded soldier behind the MG, and fixing the track either alone or with minimal help.
I'm going to call him (my friend, not his late grandfather) and get him to tell me about that again.
From speculation, I'd assume a country with such an affinity for anything mechanical would make it possible (by design or with special tools) for such a repair to be made quickly and with minimal manpower.
Like I said, I'll ask again either tomorrow or within a few days. But hell, you guys will know the answer before I even get to ask; and my answer will only apply to one variant of one halftrack (although I'm sure they were all the same), and all my friend knows about is German stuff anyway. I have to say though, he has my full attention when he talks about his grandfather.
I'd say, "What an incredibly brave man..."
My friend replies, "He was nuts."

God bless him either way.

Looks like we're gonna be making a lot of extra work for these good folk at Matrix, but they like that...
...don't they?

P.S.: My friend's grandmother is still alive but I don't have the heart to ask her about the War. She's a total sweetheart. I'd rather keep the smile on her face.

Brian_19K20 · Post by **Brian_19K20** » Tue May 15, 2001 3:49 pm

Changing a track on any armored vehicle is NOT easy work. Especially if you'd be in the situation of having had a mine BLOW the track off.

AFV track is HEAVY. If it were light enough to be fixed by one person then chances are the mine would have shredded the track (and probably other stuff) beyond repair.

Now, under "ideal" conditions (read: in the motor pool with a hard surface underneath)it takes a crew of 4 about 30 minutes to change the track of a M1A1 with the heavy track. Assume you have all the proper tools. I know, I know... A M1 is a totally differnt vehicle then any WW2 tank. My point is it takes a bunch of people to do it.

Finally, where it usually happens (read: in the mud, at night and the track ends up 25 meters from the tank)it takes MUCH longer to put it back on. The hardest part is getting the thing lined up to roll back on. I would say in the scope of this game once you immobilized, you stay that way.

My $.02

P.S. Anybody know how much track tension the Germans used? I have seen movies where it did not look like much at all.

murx · Post by **murx** » Tue May 15, 2001 10:25 pm

The track tension wasn't very wise in that old days as they were 'dead tracks' and not modern 'alife tracks'. Meaning the modern track would have an inherit tension - if you lay a modern track flat down its ends would point a bit up (like this \____/ ) wheras the old ones just lay flat ( ____ ). To have the tracks at high tension would result in a much higher material strain. Tracks must endure double the acceleration the tank is driving at ( if the tank drives at 30 mph the tracks move first in direction of the tank at 30 mph and then 'immediately' stop movement into that direction and move at reverse direction with again 30 mph !).

Also I guess that a mine rarely would destroy the track (meaning it's cut in half) but would result in 'throwing the track'. So a good driver can maneuver the track back on the wheels - something done like getting the chain on your bicycle back on. One would use a big crowbar to push the chain towards the tanks wheels and the driver would move slowly back on it. Now if the track tension would be high it would be too hard.
And AFAIK some tanks could even drive without tracks - at slow speed cross country. But that mechanism was dropped out of the 'normal' tank design.
murx

panda124c · Post by **panda124c** » Tue May 15, 2001 11:16 pm

Originally posted by john g:
I just read Gen Robinett's book about his time with CCB in North Africa. Every time he mentions tanks getting into a minefield the tanks just seem to lose a track and the crew then put it back on and move back out.

Not quite, a tank tread is very heavy and requires a block and tackle at the least to put it back on. Also the shoe has to be replaced, or at the very least the track pin. This can take several hours without proper heavy equipment. Also Antipersonel mine are mixed in with the AT mines to keep the mine clearing crews on their toes.

Larry Holt · Post by **Larry Holt** » Tue May 15, 2001 11:54 pm

Originally posted by pbear:
Not quite, a tank tread is very heavy and requires a block and tackle at the least to put it back on. ...

Hmmm, block and tackle? I've changed M113 & M1 track by hand. I don't see where WWII track was heavier so as to require equipment.

Stukadawg · Post by **Stukadawg** » Wed May 16, 2001 12:48 pm

I haven't the slightest idea how much the track of a halftrack weighs or what's available to a crew to repair it.

I have to ask my friend about that story again, when he told it, the focus was more on propping a wounded soldier up behind a machinegun.

The reply about repairing a "thrown track" as opposed to a a broken track raised a good point. My friend said the track was thrown but I don't think he really knew what it's condition was. A "thrown track" had a more general meaning.

This is a great forum, I've learned a lot just by reading through. My WW2 knowledge is a bit lacking but I'm picking up a great deal. I'll probably be more help when Modern Warfare come out.

Thanks, to Matrix and to the forum,
SD

john g · Post by **john g** » Thu May 17, 2001 3:49 am

Originally posted by kao16:
Never having had to repair a track lost to a mine I can only guess that it is a relatively long and drawn out activity - with turns representing ~5 minutes how many "turns" would it take to recover mobility - given "ideal" circumstances?

(Note that the activity usually would not typically be undertaken whist there is a possibility that some small minded person will attempt to kill you.)

For game purposes, casualties due to mines represent the effective loss of a vehicle (mission kill) rather than always being a comprehensive rearrangement of structural and organic stuctures such that the vehicle (& crew) is rendered useless

The mines in question were not under enemy fire and the point I was trying to get across was that tanks were not brewing up, with crew casualties, they were just having the track blown off which they were then able to remount.

I even recall reading about welding plate steel to the bottom of jeeps to allow the passengers survive a mine hit, surely the botom armor of a tank will provide better protection that that. Before the advent of shaped charge mines, it was just a block of he underground, no better than a large bore he shell hit.

After running SPW@W for more than a year I have decided that a twin row of 50 mines will stop the ai dead, it cannot advance vehicles past that sort of minefield. My usual answer to that sort of obsticle is horse cavalry, they take a couple of casualties crossing the mines but still maintain mobility after they get across.
thanks, John.