something weird

toundra · Post by **toundra** » Thu Dec 13, 2001 3:33 pm

Maybe just bad luck but some infantry units seem to be immortals!

ex:
3 French Veteran infantry squads (11/10/10 men) surrounding
one wounded/ex routed MG34 squad (1 maybe 2 man left) +1 man tank crew, pistol.

I have used all 3 squads grenades
all HE rifle grenades, firing TONS of bullets rifles/LMG(3 squads x 6 shots x 3 turns x 2 weapons = 104!!!)

The result 1 french squad destroyed, one with 4 men left and one with 8 men left + some deadly opportunity fire from the german MG to 3 more infantry squads not too far (before 10/10/11 after 8/9/4)...

And of course nothing done to that MG and crew...

another exemple (same battle)

1 man left from a french gun crew
was resisiting everything fired at him

Another battle
i was unable to destroy an US AT gun with TONS of artillery i was so sick i ordered all my artillery to wipe this AT gun (around 30)
75/105/150 mm artillery battery!!!! (more than half 150mm)
for 3 turns did nothing!!!
Maybe some supresion because that AT gun was not firing at my tanks or maybe just the smoke =/

Weird no?

V 7.0

[ December 13, 2001: Message edited by: toundra ]</p>

Warrior · Post by **Warrior** » Thu Dec 13, 2001 4:07 pm

Not weird - things like this happen, it's just the way it is. Those guys dug themselves in deep and don't want to cooperate and die!

toundra · Post by **toundra** » Thu Dec 13, 2001 4:22 pm

Hehe maybe but from inside a hole you can't fire at everything around you!
Remember those 2 units was routing 2 turns before, routing untis are moving so they can't dig =/

Anyway you should have the same problem soon...
or this is just bad luck.
hehe will see

[ December 13, 2001: Message edited by: toundra ]</p>

Warrior · Post by **Warrior** » Thu Dec 13, 2001 6:14 pm

I run into the same thing all the time. I get tired to shooting at them eventually and move on.

toundra · Post by **toundra** » Thu Dec 13, 2001 6:18 pm

That MG was killing me hehe
And as a berzerker i stay stuck until its dead =P

TheZel66 · Post by **TheZel66** » Thu Dec 13, 2001 6:33 pm

you see the same thing with a machine gun nest in a house. obviously it should only be able to shoot the enemy in one direction. But no matter what direction you attack the position, the MG always opens up to tear up the on-rushers- in multiple directions. I take it as an unfortunate limitation in the game. Too bad, so sad...

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Thu Dec 13, 2001 9:14 pm

When in "real life" do units wipe out an enemy??? And how do they even know that a single man is cowering somewhere in a 50m hex? The game assumes that that the "troops" DO NOT have the knowledge you have about everything everywhere.

Situations like that ae SUPPOSED to happen...Real world troops do not go around in squad sized quanty with a big sign saying how many of them are left...gamers tend to be "used to" jsut wiping everybody out...it just didn't happen that way.

We had a war where commanders belived the "weight of fire tables" and thought they could wipe out troops completely with enough "tons per acre" - WWI proved it didn't work...Artillery kills a lot fo folks, but it doesn't kill EVERYONE and its amazing how small a depression can save your life.

as to the MGs firing in differnet directions, history books are full of incredible stands by units agains enormous odds. but we are working on improvements in limiting arcs of fire in COmbat Leader...

Remember a Turn is "several minutes" and because of "time warping" in IGO-HUGO turn based games, you can't assume that things 'really' happen sequentially in the order you move them.

A "full move" is based on 1.5 minutes activity, so obvioulsy if you move every unit in sequence the turn would be 1.5x number of units long. Since this is obviously not the case, you can't assume that things "really happen" in the sequence you do them - some of them are happening simultaneaously or "out of order".

[ December 13, 2001: Message edited by: Paul Vebber ]</p>

davidmiller · Post by **davidmiller** » Thu Dec 13, 2001 10:24 pm

In the situation that you are describing, in which the enemy seems to be hanging on by a thread, you might want to consider going into melee with him to wipe him out. I sure don't like to leave any enemy in my backyard, no matter how suppressed he may be.

Larry Holt · Post by **Larry Holt** » Thu Dec 13, 2001 11:39 pm

As Paul said, its hard to find 1 man in a 50m area. Firing at one or two men is a difficult means to kill them as you know. Melee may work better but overrun is even better. Realistically an AFV should not be able to find that 1 man and squash him any better (probably should be worse) than an infantry squad can find him but in the game over run always finds the target. Sometimes the target may get to fire first and sometimes the AFV fails to over run and retreats but it never expends points to over run then fails to hit the target.[/LIST]

Tombstone · Post by **Tombstone** » Fri Dec 14, 2001 12:50 am

Melee and overruns take care of this without any difficulty. By firing repeatedly you're wasting your time. Walk in, alt-m, hex clear. (make sure they've taken some casualties and are heavily suppressed if you want 'mostly' predictable results.)

Tomo

plloyd · Post by **plloyd** » Fri Dec 14, 2001 2:15 am

This looks like the same problem from v5.2. AI infantry fire became very deadly, while my own rarely scored hits. I just tried an infantry scenario. I couldn't rush, creep, or go to ground. I just took severe casualties at all ranges. Perhaps the problem is back.

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Fri Dec 14, 2001 3:20 am

If you are moving and the enemy is not, then you will get the short end of the stick, play a dozen scenarios and see if you think their is a problem. IF you are shot at and moving and the enemy is not, the whammy s double. That is as it should be. Establish overwatch fire, supress teh daylights out of the enemy THEN advance. advancing under fire fire by unsuppressed enemy troops and thinking you are going to suppress the enemy while advancing is a tactic that will deservedly get your troops killed!

There is a distinct asymettry in fire effectiveness in different situations.

I have no problem with folks reporting well tested bugs, but please test, test, test and then test some more before declaring an "old bug to be back"...

toundra · Post by **toundra** » Fri Dec 14, 2001 2:07 pm

nm they are all dead =)
You are completely right Paul, my mistake...
I like to have no red dots on my radar view =P
And yes i should try Alt M more =/

Thanks for the advices!

plloyd · Post by **plloyd** » Fri Dec 14, 2001 9:20 pm

That was a bit of an overreaction! Thank you for stating the obvious too, I have only been playing tactical computer games since the days of Combat and Tanktics. I have also read the combat ops sections of the appropriate US army field manuals, www.adtdl.army.mil for those who may be interested. So I an not exactly a neophyte here.

To the point at hand and my earlier post. I am running two games in tandem of the Eagles on the Move scenario. I like infantry scenarios, and this one has a fair mix of pillboxes, MGs, autocannon and such. The game at home is with v7.0, at work is with v6.1 using the 7.0 OOBs. Several times in the v7.0 game a squad would move 1 hex, into view of a German something, at a range of 8-10 hexes, and take 3 or 4 casualties. It has not mattered much if the firer was a MG or infantry squad. Hit probabilities have been in the 40-70% range. In the v6.1 game this hasn't happened much in the range band. Casualty rate among stationary units seem to 1-3 per effective shot.

Casualties in 4-6 hex range seem to be about the same, a little higher in v7.0 when taking OP fire. There appears to be little difference in creeping or running as to the casualties a unit is likely to take from fire. In v6.1, if you ran in this range band, you died.

A queer thing which seemed to happen. The pillbox crews seemed to be sleeping until I shot at them. This has also happened a couple of times. I should have been pasted real good the second time, as I most of a platoon in the fire arc of the emplacement. I was moving rather fast in front of it too.

If anyone else would like to check these anomalies out, I will be watching. This is still one of my favorite games!

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Sat Dec 15, 2001 1:44 am

Unfortunately ones history is not transfered with a three line "An old bug is back" post.

Your follow up has detail that can be used to verify or not, though none of the playtesters has indicated any change between version 6 and ver 7.

If you think there is a problem, set up an experiment and demonstrate the problem. We appreciate the input, but its easy to see variations in the outcomes through random chance as a "bug".

I don't mean to "overreact" but of any 10 "combat results are wrong" posts, 9 are based on a handful of occurances and when a statistically relevant sample is done the "bug" fails to materialize. This casues us to take the time to look into it , pushing back our development projects or else beig accused of "not caring" about bug reports.

That is not to say something may not have "one retro" but we simply ask that you take the time to verify the "hunch" that something is amiss before suggesting a problem exists. A little investigation on your part saves us a lot of work casing ghosts and keeps the game from being perceived as hopeless mess of bugs, 90% of which don't really exist...

AbsntMndedProf · Post by **AbsntMndedProf** » Sat Dec 15, 2001 3:00 am

This reminds me of an anectode I read concerning Napoleon Bonaparte. He was observing his enemy from the front lines when cannon opened up on the position he was observing from. One of the junior officers present warned Napoleon to take cover, lest a cannon shell end his life. Napoleon reportedly replied, 'A cannon shell with my name on it has not been cast!'. <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Sat Dec 15, 2001 4:23 am

NOTE that this Install does not delete the steel.prf file...MAKE SURE YOU DO THAT or you might be playing with unknown pref settings (leading to "buggy" seeming behavior...)

GI Seve · Post by **GI Seve** » Sat Dec 15, 2001 8:43 am

Originally posted by toundra:
Maybe just bad luck but some infantry units seem to be immortals!

ex:
3 French Veteran infantry squads (11/10/10 men) surrounding
one wounded/ex routed MG34 squad (1 maybe 2 man left) +1 man tank crew, pistol.

I have used all 3 squads grenades
all HE rifle grenades, firing TONS of bullets rifles/LMG(3 squads x 6 shots x 3 turns x 2 weapons = 104!!!)

The result 1 french squad destroyed, one with 4 men left and one with 8 men left + some deadly opportunity fire from the german MG to 3 more infantry squads not too far (before 10/10/11 after 8/9/4)...

And of course nothing done to that MG and crew...

another exemple (same battle)

1 man left from a french gun crew
was resisiting everything fired at him

Another battle
i was unable to destroy an US AT gun with TONS of artillery i was so sick i ordered all my artillery to wipe this AT gun (around 30)
75/105/150 mm artillery battery!!!! (more than half 150mm)
for 3 turns did nothing!!!
Maybe some supresion because that AT gun was not firing at my tanks or maybe just the smoke =/

Weird no?

V 7.0

[ December 13, 2001: Message edited by: toundra ]

Well simple as it is French toorps lost to Germans in WW2 <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">

So it's really logic that even routed half dead german mg and 1 bailed out paniced crewman of some vehicle can kill 10 times their amount of frenchies without a scratch <img src="wink.gif" border="0"> And that single frech gun crewman was just damn lucky.

Oh and US gun troops are even supposed to be tough nuts to crack. But you must know the trick. Shoot them with rifles not with arty. That should do it <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">

P.S. Yes it's bad humour or should not even be called that but it's 5:35 am and Im dead tired.