Z Fire
 

Can anyone please explain how exactly Z fire works.
I know you can fire into some hexes which you have no line of sight in an attempt to suppress any useen enemy there.
Sometimes though you cannot fire into an hex and I imagine this is because there is some obstruction in the way which you cannot fire through.
How far can you fire into the unknown and how does this effect ammo supply in large scenario's.
I ask this as those I play by email, Z fire always causes some controversy, some even think it gamey and I can never explain it properly.
The AI never seems to use Z fire when I play solo so I assume Z fire is only for human play.
If this has been brought up before I am sorry to bring it up again but I think a refresher course would not go amiss for some of us.:)
Thanks in anticipation of your replies

Re: Z Fire
 

Area fire is, as you rightly say, not used by the AI.

AFAIK it uses the same ammo as firing the weapon in direct fire. ANY weapon may fire at a hex they can see. Some weapons (tripod HMGs, MMGs, etc) can create a beaten zone and fire to area outside their line of site but reachable by a bullet - ie to the range of the weapon through smoke or light cover but not through hills, buildings, etc.

Area fire is a valid real world tactic, but can become overused and "gamey" in PBEM so is often limited by "house" rules.

Re: Z Fire
 

"Z" fire seems to be only HE. This makes sense as just blazing away with AP into a 50 metre area and expecting a useful result is really beyond it. I find Z fire to be most useful when one of my armoured units has been assaulted (hopefully unsuccessfully!) yet the enemy infantry remains unseen. I simply blast away at a few likely spots and hope for the best. I don't find Z fire to be especially more effective than ordinary unobserved fire in this scenario.

Re: Z Fire
 

If I'm not mistaken you can z-fire through one hex of smoke or a building into the hex beyond. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks.

Re: Z Fire
 

In the original game, you had to have LOS to a hex to do direct area fire (Z fire). It included actual visibility in that computation, which of course is nonsensical. If you can brass up a particular corner of the field in front of you with your machine gun in daylight, then in night time it is simply a case of dialling in the appropriate elevation and azimuth off your range card and pulling the trigger.

We changed that so that the LOS is the absolute one, as if any smoke, night or other obstructions to vision weren't present. As it should be. Thus its the weapons arc that is used, with a little bit of scatter added allowing penetration of cover.

Direct area fires are a standard military tactic, with the Americans in WW2 having been noted for the vast amount of ammo they used up in blazing away at anything that might give cover (Reconnaissance firing I think they called it?)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconnaissance_by_fire. But the British soon were using as liberal an amount of such fires when advancing down bocaged hedgerow roads. The Russians would do this with unlimbered field guns firing over open sights, or SP guns. Firing direct HE like that removed the delays of indirect fire calculations. I too like to use my SU-152 firing direct area HE at points my main force is advancing against, on the attack, as speculative fire.

And it also serves for the usual laying of machine guns on fixed lines in the defence - another standard tactic. When you thought you were under attack (usually at night) then you would hose down known avenues of advance. So in the defence in low visibility, I often fire tripod MG in out front of my defence line just beyond the vision level to break up potential attacks once I suspect he is close.

It uses up ammo somewhat, and has less than half the effect of an aimed shot at a detected unit, but is valuable in certain circumstances. Also if you do not have sight to the target hex, there is more chance of scatter for firing blind.

Against a human opponent though another reason not to do it is that the firers ID and location will be given away, so tagging those for retaliatory arty barrages. Or simply telling me that a whole company is at that point that I had not known about - thank you very much for the free intel, mate!.

The AI also treats Z-fire as an "item of interest", just as with manual smoke popping or regular aimed fire events and thus it will tag the launching hexes for arty stonks on occasion.

However some players take it too far - hence the house rules found in some PBEM games limiting its use.

Re: Z Fire
 

Thank you all for replies and explanations, it all makes perfect sense now to me:)
Especially the bit about some players can easily over use it in PBEM games.
As an example of this I am playing 2 games at the moment both in heavily wooded terrain. One player or other starts using Z fire without sighting the enemy, thereby giving away his positon and the other player responds knowing roughly where the enemy is now.

It is laughable but we have ended up in both these games with what I can only decribe as a Z feast of a game and it is like we are both firing at ghosts, each trying to suppress one another before we advance.:doh:

OK then I have seen some house rules on Z fire, but is there anyone here who uses them and swears by them so much so that they will improve situations like this.

Thank you

Re: Z Fire
 

With that situation I would have most likely just pulled out & left him to it, let him shoot at ghosts.
Look for a good place to take him on or especially if you have mobility while those units are advancing slowly & out of the the battle for a while go attack something else with your superior numbers.

If the situation permitted I might have tried flanking round behind him & plotting all spare artillery on his position. I would then just shoot the runners.

Generally I z fire with support equipment MGs etc rather than squads as it gives away so much info.
Squads may do the odd z fire in woods as back up to artillery but not much its pretty inaccurate in this situation.
Only other time I tend to z fire squads is to suppress a hex if I know the fire came from there but I cant see the unit.

Re: Z Fire
 

Using Z-fire is often a way to reveal an unspotted opponent.

Regards, Warwick

Re: Z Fire
 

Z-fire for squads is very useful when you're playing with an army filled with lots and lots of low-quality infantry (Russia, China), especially if your enemy is significantly better than you (Finland, Japan; who themselves like Z-fire as a means of breaking up the oncoming hordes). You probably won't have much mobility in a situation like that, if fact your units will be "pinned" even before their first casualties and will stay that way until the shooting's over, and the geography often makes flanking difficult, so the only option left is to bury your enemy under volley after volley of bullets.

Re: Z Fire
 

Not the only option the better option is to use artillery, then your MGs to cover any holes, maybe if needs be the odd squad.
As arty & MGs cover multiple hexes you get more bang for your points & a higher chance of killing something to.
Use 50-81mm mortars as they have a high rate of fire if suppression is what your after.
Now your squads can actually take aimed shots & kill something

Re: Z Fire
 

I actually am a fan of creeping barrages when I have enough tubes on hand to do them. Problem there, though, is that if you do close-range fights in really thick stuff (jungle, forest) you can usually expect to suppress or kill your own men about as badly as you do the enemy. Which is realistic; something like 10% of artillery shells fired in WWI ended up hitting friendly units, so you can't expect much better in the 1930's.

Re: Z Fire
 

...'cause the troops knew if they "leaned into the barrage" and took a few casualties it was a cheaper price than giving the other side 10 minutes to get their MG's set up and operative again

Re: Z Fire
 

Which is one of the reasons why you use small calibre arty in woods jungles.

Small arty has a high ROF so still causes reasonable suppression when adjusted.
Causes higher suppression & fewer kills than the big stuff so you just pin your own men.
Doesn't leave craters in what is slow going terrain already.<!-- / message --><!-- edit note -->

Re: Z Fire
 

There was a mention in an earlier post of 'house rules' for 'Z' fire. Does anyone have a list of preferred rules? In my games against the AI, my own rule is no 'Z'fire -too much of an advantage for the human (me) player.

Re: Z Fire
 

I use the same rule against the AI, for the same reason.

Re: Z Fire
 

It seems from the discussion that area fire is unrealistic and so efficient that it upsets the game balance. Area fire from artillery must have an effect identical with that of a regular bombardment from the same unit. Area fire from non-artillery guns should be calculated using the same rules and algorithms as that from artillery, but MGs and rifles can be processed otherwise.

How easy it is for a HMG team to inflict casualties to an unseen 10-men rifle section in three minutes if all they know is that the enemy is hiding within a hexagonal area of 2165 square meters, compared to the same situation when the enemy is visible?

In reality, I believe, HMG's were considerably less efficient than artillery as area weapon, for two reasons:

1. HE shells have a higher chance of getting through or around cover
2. A gun firing HE shells covers a wider surface than an HMG. For example, the casualty radius of a ZIS-3 HE shell is 15 meters, which is quarter of a hex area.

These factors are amplified when the enemy is unseen. When the enemy is in cover the fire is more focused but its effect is alleviated. Imagine an unexposed¹ soldier lying on the bottom of a trench or behind a building wall without a direct-fire line by which a bullet could find its prey except by a lucky ricochet or secondary splinters.

It seems, therefore, that balance and realism can be improved by decreasing the area-fire efficiency of HMG and rifles, the latter by a higher factor than the former, while keeping the effects of HE the same, e.g.:

These numbers are only for illustration, because these factors require careful balancing and testing.
¹How to model the unexposed/exposed states of a unit in cover is stand-alone question worthy of a separate discussion.

Re: Z Fire
 

Artillery barrage in my experience have always done more damage than Z fire from the same unit and somehow i think it should be like that.

It is quite easy to supress normal morale infantry with small arms fire and it can definetely be used from some strange angles. I personally restrict sometimes from firing Z fire if it seems too unrealistic.

Re: Z Fire
 

And I see no reason for that.
Well, if the majority of experienced players limit the use of this feature, or agree totally to avoid it, there must be something wrong with it. It is literally a game changer, so I propose simply to make it less efficient. A dedicated setting like Arty effectiveness might do the trick.

Re: Z Fire
 

Its probably the angle of the shot. For infantry thats lying low or behind a cover there is more to hit when the shell drops on them from above and for vehicles its more likely to hit top armor.

I think its always good to give room for customization as those who do not want it may leave them as they are. Editing the preference choises might be a lot of work though. Probably could create some other problems too. Maybe some advanced off game tool that gives acces to extra preferences such as that.

What other kind of house rules have you encountered ?

Re: Z Fire
 

Excluding an unlikely direct hit, an HE shell typically lands on the ground within its blast radius of the target, so the splinters hit its side.
Yes, for it encourages the modding community.
Area-fire efficiency is not much different from Artillery efficiency, so I see no reason to set them via different programs.Prohibit all area fire, allow area fire only for definding/delaying HMGs.

Re: Z Fire
 

The layout of the preference screen might be holy to some ppl.

Re: Z Fire
 

Is Z fire this much of an issue? I was under the impression that Z fire had been fixed with the latest patch, eliminating a "cheat" that was in there. Since the computer player NEVER uses Z fire then any fault would lay with human players and their use of Z fire. I don't think this issue can ever be resolved with the use of yet ANOTHER slider or button to somehow adjust the effectiveness of Z fire, there are ALREADY sliders and buttons to adjust how direct gunfire affects other units. There will simply be NO magic combination of slider adjustments and button settings that will give EVERY player the game experience that is most satisfactory to them.

There seems to be two sides of the Z fire issue involved, those who feel it is TOO effective, and those who feel that it isn't effective ENOUGH. For those who feel it's too effective, it seems to me that they would be on the receiving end of Z fire during their games against another human who uses Z fire, perhaps excessively (whatever that means to another player). In my definition of excessive use of Z fire it means a player who uses it to "plow the road" as it were in front of their troops, simply firing ahead with their units at locations to their front indiscriminately, hoping that they will be able to suppress anything that MIGHT be there. Of course, this uses up ammo at a HUGE rate meaning you will either be out of ammo in a short time and unable to fight, or you bring ammo vehicles right along with your front line units which is the act of the Dalai Lama of idiotic tacticians. On the other hand, you COULD be fighting against another player who uses it effectively, only firing at units who have fired at them but have not been fully spotted and this may subsequently break up what you thought would be the perfect ambush. I can see how this would definitely piss you off but this is how it works in real life, deal with it.

Now, for those players who feel it isn't effective enough, you may hate that Z fire was modified in the last patch to eliminate the cheat. You may use Z fire to "plow the road" as I mentioned above. This may be because you either don't quite understand the use of dedicated indirect fire units, or you aren't patient enough to wait for them to fire. My advice is to either learn how to use your indirect fire effectively, or develop some patience (it's a virtue as you may have heard). If you can't do any of the above then I don't know what to say to you, perhaps this just isn't your game and maybe you should play something that is more to your liking. For my part, I feel that Z fire is fine as it is and is even better since the latest patch.

Re: Z Fire
 

Yes, I also agree that the current iteration is somewhat better. As the restriction on Z-fire has made it more challenging for me. It's fairer to the AI since they don't use it. And it also equalises 2 human players gaming skill, since the less experienced player may not be as adept at z-fire.

Re: Z Fire
 

I suspect the ones saying it is not effective enough mean units rarely take casualties from z fire and the ones saying its too effective have their groups routed before other units move in contact with them.

If this happens every single time it gets rather dull.

One house rule i have encountered is that players should stop firing z fire after the recieving unit gets pinned.

The most unsatisfying result is when a tank is surrounded by militia who shoots it retreating with rifles and the tank crew decides to abandon their tank and get slaughtered instead.

An advanced preference program would only benefit the game as those who do not want to use it would not even need to download it. This is probably something that would be inofficial and fan made.

The extra preferences could at least include the z fire effectiveness and enabling a warning for other terrain than rough or buildings. (Enable / disable warning on snowdrifts, mud, swamp etc)

One other thing would be an ability to choose what ammo type is used by clicking them on / off in the same way as weapon slots but this would be an in game element.

Re: Z Fire
 

And as already stated, Z-Fire was returned to what we had intended in the last patch and we are satisfied now it does what we wanted to to do so any talk about "house rules" or past experience would be based on the previous version which had strayed from our original intent for it's use and effectiveness and is not applicable to the current version.

Re: Z Fire
 

DRG, what have you changed in the Z-fire mechanics in the last version?

Re: Z Fire
 

From the manual:

Re: Z Fire
 

Zovs post 27 gives the reason we looked into this but when we did we found it was doing things we had not intended

You can only Z-fire into Hexes you could see if they were in your LOS and you had the visibility to do so but it will no longer allow you to fire over obstacles and hit the hex behind the obstacle.

For example, if you have a MG with 40 range but the visibility is 10 and you are dug in on more or less flat ground then you could Z fire out to 40 hexes BUT if there are obstacles that even if you did have 40 visibility you could not shoot through then you will not be able to Z fire through or over them as they block LOS and all firing is done LOS.

Previously all kinds of things that would normally block LOS and normal firing had been "allowed" with Z-fire... the code drifted on us a bit over time because neither Andy nor I use Z-fire and if we did it was very conservatively but it's back to that we want now so all those old " house rules" about it's use should be tossed out the window

I am considering allowing the AI to Z-Fire if it takes Z-fire from a hex where the enemy is not yet seen but that is still at the " what-if" stage

Re: Z Fire
 

Had my beef about this in a separate thread and you'll never convince me that Z fire in v12 is completely correct. My beleif is it should be the cumulative density of the terrain that stops it and that existing scenarios need adjusting to include more indirect fire elements. I was never against building etc blocking it. However it is what it is.

This post is about how you may somewhat allieviate the problem of suppressing unseen but known units with Z fire by using the MMG and HMG ability to spray their fire. As the online guide says 'This gives weapons like MMG's and HMG's the ability to create a "beaten zone" of area fire out of their own LOS to harass enemy troop movements'. Do it be finding a hex next to or even two or three hex away.

Of cause this won't work well in woods, you'll still have to banzai when you have little or no mortars.

Re: Z Fire
 

It does.

The game comes with the tools to do this already.

C'est la guerre.

Re: Z Fire
 

Not in woods it doesn't and in orchards etc you can fire a long way. Yeh i know they are usually in straight lines but 9 or 10 hexes at 30 density is a lot and it only works if friring with the lines.

I don't want to edit stuff, just play.

Re: Z Fire
 

As far as I know the only way you can do that is from a higher elevation so you would be firing down into the hexes. Looking at two hexes with 30 density each you would not be able to see past the second hex because the cumulative density would then be 60 (any cumulative density greater than 30 and you can't see past to the next hex beyond, that is clearly stated in the manual, I've seen it for myself in the game, and it doesn't matter whether it's woods, orchards, or a gaggle of old Volkswagons piled on top of each other). As for not wanting to edit, if you don't want to use the tools to make a quick edit (in your case from what I gather it's to simply add some more supporting units like mortars, artillery, etc.) then that's on you.

Re: Z Fire
 

Attached is a save game built on flat terrain with both types of trees and orchard.

Show me how, using V12 that you can Z fire " 9 or 10 hexes at 30 density"

Test this and tell me which unit can do that and what the coordinates of the hex they can fire that distance into...again using the latest version of the game

As Felix says the only way you can do what you are claiming can be done "is from a higher elevation"

Re: Z Fire
 

[quote=DRG;845418]Your correct it can't in yours. So why can I in this? It's in deploy mode taken from an existing campaign that i was playing when the patch came out.

Re: Z Fire
 

Do you want to tell me which units can do what you claim they can do and which hexes they can Z fire into that they should not because they all seem fine when I run them in my game and I'm really not interested in guessing any longer.

This is SOP testing procedure.. you tell me which firing unit you are referring to and what hex they can fire into that you don't think they should and I try to recreate the same event.

The furthest I can fire with any of those units is B1 that is in hex 38,137 and it can fire into 37,133 but that hex is 15 height units lower than it's firing position

Unit B2 is LOS on some hexes almost to the 4.1 marker but B2 is 40 height units HIGHER than that hex

If anyone else wants to test this as well be my guest

Re: Z Fire
 

Thanks for the close attention to suspected errors in the game. Is this situation symmetrical, i.e. can the unit from a lower position fire at the higher one? If not, how can you justify the asymmetry? If A can see B, should not B see A as well?

Re: Z Fire
 

What’s your guess and why did you not test it yourself?
If the unit cannot return fire it’s because dust from the incoming fire has now obscured the LOS for both.

Re: Z Fire
 

Assuming both units had been spotted by the other then yes both the higher and the lower units would be able to spot and fire ( regular or Z-Fire ) to each hex they are in ( assuming the range of both units weapons are equal ) but if one unit..could be the high unit or could be low unit, is stationary and the other unit has moved then naturally the stationary unit has the spotting advantage and if I am not mistaken a higher placed unit would have a spotting advantage in the game over one on a lower elevation. Units prone on a hill are harder to spot from a lower elevation than would be units in a valley below the hill when observed from the units on the hill.

As well, unit suppression levels and experience play a role in spotting so that is another variable to consider

Re: Z Fire
 

I sorry for not giving you the unit number, it's B2. The pic shows what I cab see looking east and all the terrain is 50 units ground height, and the density of each of the 'trees' is 30, clear hex is 10. So firing to the last visible tree hex would mean 120 total density with no height difference.

If your not getting what I am then is it possible I've got a corrupt game somehow, but then everthing else works OK.

Re: Z Fire
 

I think I can explain it but I am busy with RL ATM. Remember that density is blocked >30 and troops can see over obstacles that are 3 high or less and none of those orchard trees are >30 and even though some of them as you progress down what is a slope are >3 the cumulative height is still lower than the height unit B2 is on which means B2 can see beyond them

Re: Z Fire
 

So your saying it's the cumulative height that matters as to what so can see and and anything over 3 difference blocks LOS. As I said the ground height is 50 for all hex and the overall height is 53 in B" hex and doen't go over that until the first blocked at 54. Got it.

One last question. If i tell or the unit to take cover is that the same as hitting the deck? Should this then not result in reduced LOS as you can no longer see over but are looking through?

Re: Z Fire
 

Take cover is the same as "hitting the deck" - it may break existing LOS from the enemy if you roll the right dice - you only find out if they can still see you if they still continue to fire on you.

There is no concept of the unit being "prone" for LOS - all are at the same height whatever the stance (e.g. dug in). So taking cover does not make your unit "shorter" as that is not relevant to the game. Note in Mobhack - there is a size field, but no height data or length etc. In game LOS and spotting calculations use unit size and unit type, not length or height.

Re: Z Fire
 

Any game unit can see over an obstacle that is 3 high and in that case the density of any obstacle <4 is irrelevant. There is one orchard hex that is 4 when viewed from "north - east" of B2 but it is at a lower elevation on a slope than B2 so B2 can see over it. Most Orchard is 1/3 - 1/4 the height of a "normal" treed hex and are generally 3 high though there are 4's as well.