Improvement proposal I - OP fire draining

[Mustang]

We're not talking about swamping a unit with more units than it can kill. We're talking about sending in two jeeps ahead of your heavy tanks to draw all the enemy fire. Realistically, the movement would happen simultaneously, and your guns would spot the tanks early on and open fire on them.

I have an idea that might work. How about a unit only op-fires once per every enemy unit, except if it fires back? That way, the jeeps, trucks or whatever will only take one hit, and so will the expensive units. Won't solve the problem completely, but its an idea.

[Artur]

Mustang said:
We're not talking about swamping a unit with more units than it can kill. We're talking about sending in two jeeps ahead of your heavy tanks to draw all the enemy fire. Realistically, the movement would happen simultaneously, and your guns would spot the tanks early on and open fire on them.

...

Exactly.

In a real world defense the different squads/teams fire on different type of attackers like MGs on infantry, ATGs on armor light ATGs on armoured cars etc. A heavy tank or ATG will not waste it's shot on the folowing armoured car or halftrack when there is a smaller calibre to do the job. They shoot at the heavy tanks instead.
This cannot be done in SP yet unless Don and Andy find the means to implement this improvement... (hint hint )

Artur.

[DRG]

The game already has built in selective op-fire. I let this debate go on hoping SOMEONE experienced would make this point while I work in WinSPWW2 but I see that is not to be. Tanks will not open fire on jeeps and trucks unless they are right on top of the tank. The game allows secondary units the "privilege" of dealing with things like trucks

Let's examine the assertion that all you need to do is send in two jeeps ahead of your heavy tanks to draw all the enemy fire.

Really? I don't think so.

Please run the attached scenario "Test 275"

You are the Israelis. Your job is to stay quiet until the Syrian T-72's arrive. You will be faced initially by not two but six trucks and jeeps attempting to draw your fire and force you to reveal your position

As this is a test of the games Opfire routine for tanks vs. jeeps and or other tanks all you, as the Israeli player need to do is press end turn and observe how the game behaves. The T-72's will not arrive until turn four and will be destroyed .After turn one the jeeps and trucks will wander around in the Israeli LOS trying unsuccessfully to draw the Merkavas fire.

Now load scenario "Test 276"

Same scenario but with HMG's to take care of the trucks. Just keep pressing end turn .Watch and observe what happens.

In both scenarios the Merkavas have ample opportunity to fire but don't.


Don

[RVPERTVS]

So, why then in my regular games enemy AI infantry and light vehicles often drain my tank´s opfire?

[Artur]

DRG said:
The game already has built in selective op-fire. I let this debate go on hoping SOMEONE experienced would make this point while I work in WinSPWW2 but I see that is not to be.

DRG said:
Tanks will not open fire on jeeps and trucks unless they are right on top of the tank. The game allows secondary units the "privilege" of dealing with things like trucks

Let's examine the assertion that all you need to do is send in two jeeps ahead of your heavy tanks to draw all the enemy fire.

Really? I don't think so.

Yes they will not open fire on trucks and jeeps. If I ever told jeeps is because of my SPWaW past and some old instincts syill work. I tested a hell lot my African campaign I got to know the engine to a certain extent, and yes jeeps don't draim. BUT.

I also modified your 2 excellent scenarios. (OFF the maps are beautiful ON)
In the first scen I changed the trucks and jeeps to APCS and other light armored carriers which can do no harm to the Israeli tanks. I also added an infantry company.

In the second scenario I made all the changes above and I also changed most-but not all- Israely MGs to M136 a light man portable AT weapon. This is a combined arms defense with the tanks dealing with tanks, MGs dealing with infantry and the M136 dealing with the light armoured vehicled in orser not to harass the other units. Now this cannot be done in WinSPMBT.

Look Don, I really appreciate your and Andy's work very much. This is a very good game this is why I am still playing SP -I abandoned SPWaW for good- and not Combat Mission which has a more advanced engine, but this game has the OOB's the modern stuff and the good designer tools. And it looks very cool IMHO of course I like 2D stuff .
You have corrected many irrealistic phenomenons which made the SP engine much better like the reverse moving, the load/unload cost, reentering rebvetments, realistic artillery delay etc.

This op fire draining is the worst disease of the SP engine
and it can be cured as mentioned above. I also know doing this in the C code spaghetti is not simple. But it is very much worth doing it IMHO. (together with the spotting events. Cannot you make them visible only to one side?)

If these phenomenons wuld be solved WinSPMBT would have almost every feature a gamer would like to have. (Some bridge layers on the streams are missing). With these correction I can imagine that I would spend playing with it another 10 years.

Everyone, please try the attached scenarios to see what I am talking about.

Wish you all the best,
Artur.

[narwan]

Artur, I'm sorry I'll have to disagree with you. The OP fire draining is not a 'disease' of the game engine. As c_of_red already pointed out, OP fire draining simulates an age old tactic.
You're also wrong on assuming an APC can't harm a tank, at least your reasoning is faulty. APC's carry infantry. Infantry carry weapons that can kill tanks. So tanks kill APC's whenever and whereever they can. Cause they don't know if the APC in question actually carries infantry or not. The tanker has to assume it does.
Same for light armor, it may not threaten the front of your MBT but if it can work around your line, most 'light' units carry enough punch to penetrate the side or rear armor. You're also assuming the tank (crew) think only of themselves. They will probably figure that that light unit will be a threat to some of their colleagues and try to take it out since they often have the best chance of doing so (and in relative safety).

[Artur]

Well I am sorry but disagree as well. Have you tried the scenario? I see 0-zero downloads. Now if you download the scenario you would have seen that those APCs will not come close because there is a wall of M136s to deal with light armor. If it unloads infantry there are the machine guns a bit backward. I accept different views but criticizing without even taking an effort to look at the scenarios looks odd to me.

With op fir draining you simply send in infantry at 2000m distance and the armor will shoot at it while infantry cannot put a dent in the armor. It will also shoot at the APCs at 2000m even though APCs cannot hurt them from there as well. Now I can imagine you say to set the range lower BUT I want to engage the tanks on 2000 m because I have an edge on arnmor and aiming and gun power.
Nowdays seasoned players do not rely on OP fire at all because of the OP fire draining. I have been there have done that. I enter a spot with infantry and make the armor shoot at my infantry from where I cannot hurt it very much. after it has run out of shots I go in with the armor. If I have scout armored cars to sacrifice I drain OP fire with them.

With a combined arms defense it is useful to set who to shoot at what type of target. It is implemented in several games I believe not without a reason.

Even if I have a tank only force I may want to save 1-2 tanks from 5 tanks to shoot only at heavy/medium tanks.
This way even if the opponent sends in tons of OP fire drainer units which are dangerous at close range I want to have one gun left for the big boys. Or I may want to do the opposite, and keep one tank for general shooting and leave 4 for the heavies. It all depends on the recon information gained in the battle.

Please take a look at the scenarios.

Artur.

[Artur]

One more thing to add:

If the op fire drainer units will not make the armor fire the opponet will not even know there are tanks nearby since they are not spotted, and will not reveal themselves. You cannot drive your APCs with infantry to the armor you have not spotted. If you come up with MBTs it is too late. If the APCs are wonderinfg too far they will be taken out by the M136s.

Once again jut take a look at the scenario I posted.

Artur.

[narwan]

No I haven't looked at the senario and I won't. Not that I don't appreciate the sincere effort you make here, but anyone can make a specific scenario to suit the exact point they try to make so it seems like a bit of waste of time. I'll take your word the scenario show what you say it does.

You make the same mistake in your posts above that I pointed out above. For one, tanks will want to take care of APC's BEFORE they unload their infantry. The statement of 'machine guns will take care of unloading infantry' is gaming the system (or trying to) not to mention the fact that mg's will often fail to do any damage to unloading infantry. Once infantry units (squads, teams, etc) are out of the APC the tanks have lost their opportunity to deal relatively easily with a potentialy deadly threat. Secondly your assumption that infantry can't hurt tanks at 2000m range is also 'gaming the system'. In the game you can see the difference between a squad and an atgm team. In real life the tankers would just see soldiers in the woods line. They can't know, or at least can't be sure, that they don't carry atgm's. If they're wrong that could be a very costly mistake. Suppressing them with (gun)fire untill the arty arrives would be the prudent thing, which the game mimics. And there are of course squads who actually do have atgm's with a 2000m range as part of their weapons load. How will you differentiate between those and others (code wise)? Or between a dragon team (range 1000m) and a TOW team (range over 3000m)? Will tanks use OP fire against only the second at 2000m range? Or neither? Or both?
How about a TOW II team in overwatch and a Ferret approaches. Using the TOW will be a huge overkill, but if the Ferret is allowed to close, it could be deadly to the TOW team. How will you deal with that (code wise)?

You suggest a certain ideal situation in which your suggestions would work and seem like an improvement. But turn it around, make it much less suitable and see if it still works. Delete the mg's or M136's. How will your suggestions effect the outcome then? What additional work would it entail to get an optimal solution then? Now delete both, what would be needed then. Now delete the tanks and replace them with heavy SP-ATGM's. How would it work then, etc, etc.

So between the assumption of unrealistic knowledge on the part of the units in overwatch and the complications your suggestions bring along (with all the possibilities of players finding ways to exploit those) I don't see them being a significant improvement, at least not yet. And since I don't consider the OP fire draining issue broken I'd prefer it as is.

[Artur]

narwan said:
You make the same mistake in your posts above that I pointed out above. For one, tanks will want to take care of APC's BEFORE they unload their infantry. The statement of 'machine guns will take care of unloading infantry' is gaming the system (or trying to) not to mention the fact that mg's will often fail to do any damage to unloading infantry.

Yes, that is true. You have to try to destroy the infantry while they are in APCs. Now if they get close they are destroyed by the M136s. If they uload the infantry they are pinned by the MGs to an extrent that they will not move.
Setting to fire on a specific unit always depends on the situation. You have to have good recon anyway. If the majority of the force is APCs with infantry then you allow your tanks to fire at everything while you give your ATGMs to fire at the tanks if you have a few. If the big majority is tanks you set them to attack tanks etc.

narwan said:
Secondly your assumption that infantry can't hurt tanks at 2000m range is also 'gaming the system'. In the game you can see the difference between a squad and an atgm team. In real life the tankers would just see soldiers in the woods line. They can't know, or at least can't be sure, that they don't carry atgm's. If they're wrong that could be a very costly mistake. Suppressing them with (gun)fire untill the arty arrives would be the prudent thing, which the game mimics. And there are of course squads who actually do have atgm's with a 2000m range as part of their weapons load.

Well you have a point here, the game works like this you know who is on the other side. Of course the commandes have some effective googles . You have a point here if we stick to realism .

narwan said:
How will you differentiate between those and others (code wise)? Or between a dragon team (range 1000m) and a TOW team (range over 3000m)? Will tanks use OP fire against only the second at 2000m range? Or neither? Or both?
How about a TOW II team in overwatch and a Ferret approaches. Using the TOW will be a huge overkill, but if the Ferret is allowed to close, it could be deadly to the TOW team. How will you deal with that (code wise)?

Very good question.
They can use the unit classes grouped into a few groups like: Heavy/medium armor, Light armor&APCs and armoured cars, infantry like normal infantyr squads + AT squads, light vehicles, guns, air, AND all types is still an option. Maybe AT inf would be a different group.

Regarding the ferret it is advised tio have an inf squad near the ATGM, or an RPG squad. They have some short range AT weapons to deal with the Ferret. And if only the Ferret approaches the ATGM squad will not give away it's position for a cheap armoured car .

narwan said:

You suggest a certain ideal situation in which your suggestions would work and seem like an improvement. But turn it around, make it much less suitable and see if it still works. Delete the mg's or M136's. How will your suggestions effect the outcome then? What additional work would it entail to get an optimal solution then? Now delete both, what would be needed then. Now delete the tanks and replace them with heavy SP-ATGM's. How would it work then, etc, etc.

You get the point here. This improvement will help those who apply combined arms. If one a capability of a force is gone (like you proposed delete the MGs or the M386s ) then of course you have to shoot with the remaining forces at everything. This feature is not to be used in every situation of course. But it really gives an edge to a player who applies combined arms and his force has every different capability needed for the mission. That is what it is all about!!! Of course there are many cases when the current way of operating is the best solution. But IMO there are also a lot of cases where this improvement could help a LOT and could disable a lot of gamey tactics.

narwan said:
So between the assumption of unrealistic knowledge on the part of the units in overwatch and the complications your suggestions bring along (with all the possibilities of players finding ways to exploit those) I don't see them being a significant improvement, at least not yet. And since I don't consider the OP fire draining issue broken I'd prefer it as is.

I accept your opinion, it looks like we can't convince each other. Such is life .

For the rest I suggest to try the scenarios above. I'm just like that .

Artur.