Friendlies in the way??

[Bertram]

This might be a feature, or even addressed in the patch, but I ran into the following.

Giving a 120 mm mortar (German) a bombard mission, it refused to fire, citing as reason "friendlies in the way". Now there were friendlies between the mortar and the target, but the distance between the firing unit and the target was almost 2 km, and the friendlies were just a 200 or 300 mtrs away from the mortar unit.

As a mortar unit can't fire direct, even if they wanted to, these friendlies should not pose a problem, unless to close to the target area (but how would the mortar crew know that??).



Bertram

[Arjuna]

Bertram,

All indirect fire units will cease bombardment as soon as any friendly units get within the min safety zone of the bombardment objective. Now a friendly units is deemed to be within the safety range as soon as any part of its occupied area ( ie the area defined by its white rectangle - not its icon ) is within range of any part of the bombardment zone ( BZ - this is displayed as the yellow rectangle over the objective ). Now a 120mm Mor has a big radius per tube. A German Hvy Mor Coy of 18 x 120mm tubes will have a large BZ. Another factor to consider was the formation of the friendly unit. If it were in road column, then its occupied area will be long and narrow and it can sometimes stretch out ahead of the unit icon quite a way. To be sure if there was a bug or not ( which I doubt as this code has been well tested ) I would need to see a saved game. Do you have one?

[Bertram]

No, no save game.

I'll give it a look when I encounter it again, and see if it fits the parameters.

BUT shifting the fire 100 meters to the left made the fire mission possible. This was strange, only difference was that there was no friendly under the traject of the fire,but the distances involved were the same. Maybe, the formation fell just inside/outside the footprint of the barrage.....

I'll make a snapshot next time I see it.

Bertram

[Arjuna]

OK that would be good. [:)]