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Heavy caliber direct fire, such as ISU-152 causes an amazing amount of damage in adjacent hexes. I believe it causes more damage in adjacent hexes than to the intended target. Stuff is dying all over the place, including any friendly infantry in the hex with the firing unit, if it is firing at a adjacent hex. I haven't tried it with the GMC 155, but I bet that's really a slaughter. I am now firing at the hex next to my target (if there is a target there). Anyone else notice this?

Paul

Yep, war is hell all over.

Originally posted by Paul Goodman:
Heavy caliber direct fire, such as ISU-152 causes an amazing amount of damage in adjacent hexes. I believe it causes more damage in adjacent hexes than to the intended target. Stuff is dying all over the place, including any friendly infantry in the hex with the firing unit, if it is firing at a adjacent hex. I haven't tried it with the GMC 155, but I bet that's really a slaughter. I am now firing at the hex next to my target (if there is a target there). Anyone else notice this?

Paul

Must agree here, the colateral damage thing is taken too far! Can´t be right that shots near the target hex are more lethal than the shots into the intended target hex itself!? It´s more the rule than the exception. Same with indirect fire (heavy)artillery and bombs.

But I fear we have to live with this til CL.

_________
Harry

This it's easy. If u have 6 adjacent hexes and one target hex and u reduce the damage at adjacent hexes by 50% u still will have 3 times more damage at adjacent hexes as a whole.

Saludos a todos,
Cona.

I think they're saying that if you have two infantry squads in adjacent hexes then the one getting hit tends to take less damage than the one in the adjacent hex. I haven't seen anything conclusive throughout my playing to substantiate this, but it sometimes feels like this is true.

Tomo

I think they got it right this time...he he (it's a joke, OK?)

The "splash damage" system is great, the poor Russian infantry under fire from my 150mm artillery don't agree though!

Think about it this way: if there is enough shrapnel and hell coming out of an explosive charge to rip people apart 50 -75 yards away, just think what it would to to the poor bastard who's sitting on ground zero. Anyone who knows anything about blast radii knows that damage decreases exponentially as you travel out from ground zero. Goodman makes a very good point.

I just had this happen. Night battle, two hex visibility. Really cool, until a SturmTiger shows up. I have a T-34/85 surrounded by cavalry and infantry. This SturmTiger (310mm howitzer) shoots the T-34 which takes about 4 levels of suppresion but blows up everything else in the county! What a mess?

Paul

I'm no expert... I have seen real arty go off, and as I see it, with medium and heavy arty
The hexes adjecent aren't under fire so the inf don't hunker down as the ones that are in the target zone that hit the ground once arty comes in. Some realy HV rounds effects two hexes out. Also, the pressure waves going out can rupture ear drums which could be counted as acassualty, or suck the air out of lungs up closer while catching some shrapnel, and the ones in ground zero.. if they have a shadow, they're dead or want to be. Arty is suppose to be murder to inf. I think it's finally gotten close to what my idea of how it would be sort of is.

Lynx

You're still missing the point that if it kills lots of people in adjacent hexes then there really should be absolutely no one left alive in the hex the shell hit. And making vague and important sounding statements like "artillery is hell to infantry" doesn't really mean anything at all..

Originally posted by Khan7:


[Snip]

And making vague and important sounding statements like "artillery is hell to infantry" doesn't really mean anything at all..

Hello,

We have quite a friendly forum here and I think everyone wants to keep it that way. Calling someones statemen 'vague and important sounding' is not the way to go. If you know something interesting, please share it with the rest of us. Most people here always like to learn a bit more.

Nevertheless I agree that splash damage is sometimes a bit too much. I would like a warhead that damages the adjectant hexes to do damage like

...D D
.N T N
...N N

Instead of

...D D
.D T D
...D D

Where T=Target hex, D=Splash damage in hex and N=no splash damage in hex.

That way we would have a better simulation of a heavy shell landing close to some hexes and further from others.

Regards,

Lars

[ July 29, 2001: Message edited by: Lars Remmen ]

[ July 29, 2001: Message edited by: Lars Remmen ]

Lars, that sounds like a good idea. Would allow for some gambling when designating target hexes for arty.

Is it possible with the current SPWAW engine?

Let's consider another thing...your average WW2 artillery shell is contact fused, either with a fast or a slow fuse. In any case the round must hit something, usually ground, before it will explode.

And as it takes some time after the impact to the fuse to work the round will dig in to some degree...afaik rather deeply in case of slow fuses.

Now won't this direct a large portion of shrapnel and pressure wave upwards? So unless you are within the are the round will crater you'd get a lot of suppression (ears ring..shock..) but not that much of shrapnel?

Just a thought...

Voriax

Usually, at just about this point in a post, Paul Vebber will come in with the results of a test battle he set up to generate lots of data to describe what is happening.

Maybe someone could beat him to it this time.



[ July 29, 2001: Message edited by: 11Bravo ]

LOL,No worries posters,

I don't get offended by inflamatory comments. The damage from splash is only there with large rounds in almost 90% of the missions I've observed. Don't forget arty going off in trees is murder, IE Hurtgen Forest (not sure of spelling) The splash modeling with most of it shooting forward of the shell hit hex would be accurate from most of the sources I know, but that varies on the range. Mortars have a 360% splash and they are not doing quite well in SPWAW. An 81mm is equiv to a 105How and a 120mm is equiv to a 150How in shell power, but the 120's don't do 150 equiv damage, and the 81's just force coffee breaks. I remember reading mortars caused most of the inf cassualties in the post DDay west. Now I don't get that effect from the SPWAW mortars, but I do get it from some arty, therefore the battle is still possible with the effect of indirect fire being what I would expect, just that the kit doing the pointy work isn't spelled how I'd preffer isn't going to take any of the pleasure oway from playing, at least in my case. This has also been said alot, if you're not happy with the effects, change the settings to suit your desires.

Lynx

I set up a little battle with two VH's guarded by GE infantry squads. The first squad sits ajacent to its hex. The second squad sits on its hex. The two VH's are widely separated from each other.

The soviets park some Su-152's about 10 hexes away and plaster the VH's with indirect fire ("Z-key"). Each VH gets clobbered by 10 shots. This gets repeated five times.

Let's see what kind of casualties the GE squads take.

adjacent: 3,1,4,2,1
on top: 3,5,3,4,2

Usually the unit taking the pounding suffered more casualties. But the results are pretty close, clearly splash damage is quite strong.

If more than 1 unit was adjacent to the VH, the total casualties caused by splash damage would exceed those caused by units at ground zero. This could cause the perception that splash damage is more powerful.

This test could be improved and expanded in several ways...Compare Z-key fire to F-key (direct) fire on a spotted unit. Also, look for effect on suppression for each unit.

[ July 29, 2001: Message edited by: 11Bravo ]

Originally posted by Voriax:
Let's consider another thing...your average WW2 artillery shell is contact fused, either with a fast or a slow fuse. In any case the round must hit something, usually ground, before it will explode.

--snip---

Err I might be totally off here, but time fused arty was not that uncommon...

OK, so it doesn't have much to do with the issue of damage in adjacent hexes...nor do I have hard facts to back it up with at the moment. :rolleyes:

Another thing: At least the Gerries used shells with an extra warhead in the nose, causing the shell to leap back up in the air and explode at 10-20 m. That would certainly be devastating to infantry caught in the open, no matter if they're in the target hex or adjacent?

First of all-- if what I said is considered inflammatory, then perhaps I have come to the wrong forum. Where I come from that kind of talk is considered genial, lol. Don't be such wusses!

But anyway-- what someone really needs to do is go do some research and find actual blast radius data for various types of shells, only then can we really talk about all of this.

I still stand by my assertion that the intensity of a blast and the damage it does decreases precipitously and exponentially as you travel out from ground zero, therefore if a unit 50yards away is taking 3 casualties, as Bravo's tests suggest, then the squad in the target hex should in truth be totally wiped out. Here's some more analysis of Bravo's results:

Av. Damage to Target Unit: 3.4 men
Av. Damage to Adjacent Unit: 2.2 men
Target Dam./Adj. Dam.: 1.55 (about half again as much)

Expected Casualties with 1 target unit and 2 adjacent units: 3.4 in target, 4.4 from adjacent.

Expected Casualties with 1 target unit and 6 adjacent units: 3.4 in target, 13.2 from adjacent.

We can further look at it in this way: Damage factor on ground zero-- 3.4; Damage factor at 50 yards-- 2.2; the damage factor is reduced, but not nearly by any exponential factor as you would expect to see. So you're left with two choices-- Adjust it to something like Targ.: 9, Adj.:2.2; or, to something like Targ.: 3.4, Adj.: 0.6. I don't have enough information to tell which would be better, but both would be consistent with what you would expect for a blast radius. The current model is ridiculous, and I personally think that it is likely to have a significant detrimental effect on gameplay (though this is always debatable).

Anyway, it would be helpful if anyone was able to come by any real world data on blast radii for these shells, but you can already clearly see that the model in SPWAW is screwed up in one way or another.

Khan, just cause force falls off exponentially doesn't mean kills fall off exponentially. Guys who hit the dirt as a result of knowing a round is incoming nearby have a GIGANTIC increase in the percent chance of survival... the shrapnel that flies around is the primary killer, so if we were to base the calculation on chance of getting hit by shrapnel we can easily calculate in prone or standing as a significant factor determining kills. Under that model we can assume that some number of guys in any squad are going to hit the ground early (modified upward based on experience) and that they are more likely to survive than anyone who's standing. The radius of the actual force of the blast that is deadly is quite small, and although your assertion is absolutely correct it's just not the primary factor in determining kills. The way it's modeled currently is just fine I think, certainly not WAY outta range... and definitely the best it's been in the series.

Tomo

ok, heres one for you. as a newer player of w@w i had my 1st missing involving fuel/ammo dumps. when they blew up, only the units in the hex were effected. i would think THIS event above a 155mm round would cause damage/suppression to adjacent hexes. can anyone explain that one?