churchill tank dance

[STIENER]

play the MEU map, with the allied 8 RS BG. from the deploy VL, move along the very top of the map going right, to the 1st hedge. us 2 churchills and try and go over the hedge. I got 1 churchill tracked right away in the middle of the hedge and it took 10 mins to get the other to go over.

all the tanks...allied or german do weird stuff....ALL THE TIME. I just had a firefly in the orchard in the la Guale orchard map, fire 1 shot and miss a mk 4. the mk 4 popped smoke and disappeared from LOS. the FF then turned side ways for no reason. the mk 4 re appeared and blew him up. on that map the german mk 4's knocked out 3 shermans with 1 shot kills. the shermans all missed there 1st shots and some there second and were destroyed.
seeing this anomaly ALLOT in the all my latest battles. the allied tanks cant hit shit.

at cheux my Sherman turned around and backed over a wall when given the MOVE order of 25 M. WTH?? its painfull. the german tanks are no better.

I don't no...maybe you guys at matrix should sit down and PLAY A GC for an afternoon and see how the game actually plays? I think u will be surprised at how bad the mechanics are. the tank to tank fighting is scary. the allied 17 pdr is useless against the Cats. it never hits and hardly ever kills in a dual. the 6 pdr appears to be the gun of choice...but not always... but only in the a/t gun not in the Churchill tank. same gun but the performance is different. tank = useless.

real disappointed in this game.
if you play line vs line with 2 players of equal ability. the germans will stop the allied advance at cheux and hill 100 EVERY TIME. its the bottle neck. the german tiger Bg and the II/12/12SS mk 4 bg are enough to stop the allies cold. not very historical id say..........

[SteveMcClaire]

MEU? Do you mean St. Mauvieu? I played on it using the first battle in the battle list, with a variety of Churchills. Moving along the top of the map gave me the results in the screenshot below -- both using MOVE and MOVE FAST, the tanks took a fairly direct route and crashed over the hedgerows. Some did get stuck but the path taken was consistent and there was no 'dancing' involved.

Is this the correct map / location?

Steve

[STIENER]

no...wrong map...Meu....beside cassino. look at the GC strat map.

try putting one Churchill up to the middle of the hedge row as if giving covering fire and then move the other tank across.

but use the Mue map. using a " battle" map instead of the opening GC, Mue map, maybe theres no mud and its sunny? instead of raining heavily and mud.

[SteveMcClaire]

Ah - I don't know why I didn't see Meu in the map list the first time. I tried running two churchills across the northern-most field and through the first hedgerow, with expected results. There was a little bit of zig-zagging across the field, which is caused by the terrain coding -- it is a mix of crops, grass field, light muddy field, and muddy high grass. The vehicles are turning slightly to avoid the higher movement cost terrain types. Both of them crossed the field and the hedgerow beyond, however.

Are you moving the vehicles in column, or side by side? If they're close together and side by side, they may be obstructing each other, which will cause them to detour and try and get back on path.

Steve

[SchnelleMeyer]

Comparing vehicle data from different CC-games the two factors that have been notably changed from WAR/TLD/CCMT and older versions to LSA/PITF/GtC are Acceleration and Max speed.
 
Playing around with the values I found that with a higher acceleration and speed than stock-GtC will give more straight line approach of tanks - and they are less problematic when bocage hedgerows are encountered.
 
I had good results going from standard: Acc/Speed:  5/75 to  Acc/Speed:  35/200.  
 
 
 

[STIENER]

interesting schnellemeyer.... steve?

in the above scenario / map steve, my tanks were side by side. the 1st tank as I said got tracked on the hedge....in the middle of the said hedge. often one will use 1 tank as covering fire while the other goes over the hedge...thus they would be side by side per say. if the hedge is only a few 100 m wide...as above...then they will be close.

as I said...perhaps spend the afternoon playing the multiplayer GC and see how the game plays for you.

[SteveMcClaire]

If you have two vehicles, moving together and close side by side, they will probably bump into each other and start doing avoidance as soon as they encounter any sort of major terrain feature, as both vehicles may try to use the same path through/over it. One will eventually go through first and the second will follow, but this can be avoided by keeping the vehicles separated by 50m or so, or by moving them one at a time. Giving one vehicle a movement order a few seconds before the other. I assume this is what you're seeing.

This is because of the way CC handles pathing and vehicle movement, and this hasn't changed in any version, as far as I know. The high level path finder will find the route a vehicle intends to take, but the driver AI avoids obstacles that come up along the way (like other vehicles.) The driver AI is very simple -- it will stop if the obstacle it encounters is a moving vehicle, and then it will try to detour around the obstacle to the left or right.

Faster speed and acceleration shouldn't effect this directly, but it can reduce the amount of times vehicles moving over slow terrain will bump into each other, as the lead vehicle will get clear more quickly.

Steve

[STIENER]

STEVE
go to u tube and watch Agrippa maxentius's vid's of his battles.
I believe Agrippa is one of the matrix sanctioned people here??
watch the battle called multiplayer battle - steel graveyard and Bocages of death....and any others you might like.

THERE CHALK FULL OF THE ISSUES ME AND OTHERS HAVE BEEN COMPLAINING ABOUT!!! its all there on Agrippa's vids. why he doesn't really go...OMG whats going on with these tanks is beyond me!! ????

theres also the issue of the 17 pdr VS panthers in these vid's. the 17 pdr if it survives the 1st shot of a cat...which is damn rare...consistantly bounces off the cat armour!!!! seriously??? that's the whole reason the allies HAVE the 17 pdr! at this stage in the war the 17 pdr had the ability to penetrate the cats armour at range.
the allied tanks are highly inaccurate compared to the german cats.

watch the vids and see what were talking about.

[SteveMcClaire]

Hi Stiener,

Just watched the whole video, and I did not see anything that we haven't discussed already.

Early on he has a Sherman and an M-10 run into each other while he's trying to set up a shot on the first Tiger. This causes some pivoting.

Later he is trying to flank an M-10 to the west and uses Move Fast to tell it to move away from the approaching Tiger. Move Fast will not use reverse unless it is a very short distance, so the M-10 ends up turning around and facing the wrong way when the Tiger catches up. Sneak would have been the correct movement order to use here.

There's a point where the Sherman doesn't go down the road past a wreck and instead turns around and starts moving back the way it came -- this is because the wreck is blocking the road and there isn't room for the tank to get through.

There were several times where using Defend and giving a tank a facing arc could have helped a lot -- this will keep the tank's gun pointing in the direction of the arc, which is important for getting the first shot when you can see an enemy tank coming from that direction, but your tank team cannot.

Can you point out specific times in the video where you see something you wanted me to comment on?

Steve

[STIENER]

well u only watched the 1 video. the other vid has a bunch of panthers milling around.
well u have answers for some of the stuff I have to say...but we can point out that the allied tanks are always going back to the roads when given broad move orders. if we want them to take the long way on the roads, we would direct them there.its a pain in the butt to micro manage every tank.

the m10 and firefly duel with the panther is something we see a lot. the cat is trapped on the road between 2 buildings and has an m10 shooting at the front armour and a firefly shooting at it from the back. the m10 hits the cat FOUR times and the fire fly who has a green circle on the back of the cat for 4 secs? doesnt even get a shot off as the cat rotates it turret to its back and takes 1 shot after no aiming time and destroys the FF. unbelievable but ive seen this behavior in many tank duels. the germans get more 1 shot kills by far. the allies usually miss 1 to 2 shots before they hit.

but whats with the m10 vs the panther??? 4 hits plus 1 more to get the kill??? ive also seen this many many times. WHY???

[STIENER]

I cant find the second vid I was looking for with the panthers milling around. I gave you the wrong name...its NOT bocages of death. oh well ive just about given up on tying to convince you of the bizarre stuff tanks do in this game. it does wreck the game in a big way tho IMO and the others I play. too bad........

id like your opinion on the 17 pdrs lack of effectiveness tho.

[schreckenovski]

You gotta remember

pathfinding was not fixed

it was just changed... better/ worse ... you be the judge

[STIENER]

worse...way worse. with introduction of mud? to this game its WAY worse. can you say micro micro manage tanks....no that wasn't a stutter.

steve.. the 17 pdr issue? and allied accuracy vs german?
and id like to add that the 6pdr a/t gun is a far better german tank killer in this game then the tank 6 pdr.....why?

[SteveMcClaire]

Hi Stiener,

Sorry, I had a 12 day internet hiatus thanks to a cut line and a slow repair by my ISP.

I do believe you when you say the way tanks move in the game is frustrating to you. Nothing you've shown me so far is a bug, and I've tried my best to explain why things happen, and how you might get behavior more like what you want from the AI driver.

There's no hard coding of any sort of advantage or disadvantage for any given gun mounting (AT vs. vehicle) or for any nationality. First-shot hits are primarily influenced by the team's experience and current stress level. High experience teams will do better than low, and teams under fire / threat will do worse than those that are not.

Difference between weapons would come down to the values in the data files. You may be getting better results with the 6pdr vs. the 17pdr because the 6pdr (just from scanning the weapon data) has about double the rate of fire, with good AP penetration and about 4 rounds of APDS per gun (which has penetration roughly equal to 17pdr AP, though the kill chance will be lower due to smaller projectile.) The 17pdr does not have APDS.

Getting a penetration is going to depend on the angle -- a 17pdr should be able to pen a Panther from the front if the tank is more or less square-on (less than 30 degree facing angle) and the gun is not firing 'upwards' at the tank (i.e. the Panther is not tipped back relative the gun.) The only thing that would modify this would be the accuracy of the shot (low quality to-hit rolls do cause reduced penetration) and/or the tank being behind some sort of cover, like a tree, hedgerow, or stone wall, which will add protection rating to the armor except in cases of a 'good' or better to-hit roll.

Steve

Steve

[STIENER]

thanks steve...

so does the tank 6 pdr in the Churchill have APDS also??

so the 6 pdr had APDS before the 17 pdr.
im sure we beat this to death some where else but your saying that the 17 pdr in the tank and the towed gun didn't have APDS yet?? sources seem to differ on this. some sources say that the APDS was available to the 17 pdr at the end of june beginning of july.

speaking of rate of fire...I thought the Sherman had a higher rate of fire than the mk 4 and panther. it does not appear so in the game. any thoughts on this?

thanks

[Cathartes]

ORIGINAL: STIENER

thanks steve...

so does the tank 6 pdr in the Churchill have APDS also??

so the 6 pdr had APDS before the 17 pdr.
im sure we beat this to death some where else but your saying that the 17 pdr in the tank and the towed gun didn't have APDS yet?? sources seem to differ on this. some sources say that the APDS was available to the 17 pdr at the end of june beginning of july.

speaking of rate of fire...I thought the Sherman had a higher rate of fire than the mk 4 and panther. it does not appear so in the game. any thoughts on this?

thanks

All 6 pdrs have a about 4 rounds of APDS, even those in Churchill tanks. In late June/early July 1944, no 17 pdr APDS available in time for Operation Epsom and none in the game.

Best,
Cathartes

[STIENER]

thanks cathartes

ill pay more attention to the Churchill 6 pdr and see if I can see it using sp rounds.

rate of fire...I thought the Sherman had a higher rate of fire than the mk 4 and panther. it does not appear so in the game. any thoughts on this?

[SteveMcClaire]

Stiener,

Cathartes is the expert on the GtC data and scenario design, and he has spoken. As for the Sherman rate of fire, it's in the data files too -- reload and fire times are identical for all the 75-76mm big guns. Historically I can't think of anything that would make this hugely different.

Steve

[STIENER]

well...turret size and gun size in the turret. the amount of room in the turret etc.
its been my information and I believe its been a factor in all the CC games....pretty sure this has been brought up before and talked about by you guys and us...that the Sherman had a faster turret rotation and rate of fire than the german main battle tanks.

me and my current opponents aren't seeing this.

[Cathartes]

that the Sherman had a faster turret rotation and rate of fire than the german main battle tanks.

Sherman turret rotation rate is faster than MkIV. Panther is more difficult to peg since rotation is a function of what engine gear the tank is in when the rotation is engaged, and this further varies with model (not a detail of the current CC engine) so avg rotation was estimated for Panther. As for rate of fire, sure there were some differences however testing was never standardized b/n countries, and results always dubious in non-combat situations. Most measurable differences are between AT guns and turret guns. Crew training, experience, doctrine, confidence, suppression, injuries, and where crew favored storing rounds outside of norm, etc. These factors often override any real differences in rate of fire with similar-sized weapons.