Improvement proposal I - OP fire draining

[c_of_red]

"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."

I will try one more time. If you leave a unit out by itself, you deserve to have it shoot off all its shots and be killed. GOOD tactics requires that you support that unit with another unit, so that there are several units that can opfire. Then Soak off tactics just create heaps of points for the defender as the burning hulks and bleeding bodies pile up in front of the defesive line. Fighting like you want to fight is what gave us trench warfare. Without the ability to swamp a target, there would be nothing but two lines shooting at each other. Instead of piling on code to fix a feature, why not learn tactics? In this case tactics being ways to isolate a unit from it's support and swamping it to create gaps in the defense that can be exploited. Can't do that when you have units with Majic weapons that can fire an infinite number of times and never run out of ammo.
I neither know nor care what scenario you are discussing. It sounds to me like a good reason to avoid scenarios, which I already do.

[Artur]

c_of_red said:

I will try one more time. If you leave a unit out by itself, you deserve to have it shoot off all its shots and be killed. GOOD tactics requires that you support that unit with another unit, so that there are several units that can opfire. Then Soak off tactics just create heaps of points for the defender as the burning hulks and bleeding bodies pile up in front of the defesive line.

My dear firend, where have you red that I wish to improve a single and isolated unit's chances? If had you red our constructive and based on facts debate with Narwan you could have red that this feature gives an edge to the players applying combined arms. That can't be done with one unit can it?

Cheap units can soak off OP fire. Let us play a little math.
I recenty played a game in 89 era West germany against East Germany against a pro. I was with the West Germans and had tons of Fuchs APC. It costs 30 or 40 points. The T72 has 3 shots even if it had not moved. Now I spend 120 points to drain the shots and then I go in with my LEO2 for the kill. I have heaps of burning hulks and yet I gained more than 200 points for 120 points or even less if the T72 missed one or more of the APCs.
If there are more tanks I use up more APCs but the loss/gain ratio stays the same.

If you have other weapons systems it lessens this phenomenon but it can still be exploited by engaging the APCs on long range from the defensive line. (in case of supporting RPGs RCLs ATGs or even T55s which have a much less penetrating guns.)

And I did not mention the infantry, which can drain many shots even without risking the total destruction of a squad. (it is more effective to soak OP fire with inf at a distance)

c_of_red said:
Fighting like you want to fight is what gave us trench warfare. Without the ability to swamp a target, there would be nothing but two lines shooting at each other.

You are right about the fact that defense will be more effective. As far as I know in the military they say you need 3:1 odds to perform a successful assault.

c_of_red said:
Instead of piling on code to fix a feature, why not learn tactics?

Thank you. Respect rulez...

c_of_red said:
In this case tactics being ways to isolate a unit from it's support and swamping it to create gaps in the defense that can be exploited.

It can be done and it still will be possible to do. It rather depends on whether you achieve it by gamey tactics or tactics that work in RL.

c_of_red said:
Can't do that when you have units with Majic weapons that can fire an infinite number of times and never run out of ammo.

I do not see why. What majic weapons? What unlimited ammo?
They only thing that would be changed is that the crew will fire at targets that are reasonable to fire at.

c_of_red said:
I neither know nor care what scenario you are discussing. It sounds to me like a good reason to avoid scenarios, which I already do.

Well this is up to you of course. If you wish to ommit the excellent work of Wild Bill, Wulfir, C.B. Blackard it's fine with me. I do not regard it as a good idea though.

Artur.

[Cameronius]

Artur,
Your efforts and persuasiveness are admirable, however I think that the kind of control over opfire you are advocating simply does not exsist in a real battlefeild situation. Even a tank platoon commander has a limited number of decisions that he can make in the span of two minutes. He most likely cannot use the company radio net freely because of radio discipline proceedures. If he can, he still has his tank to command and a different line of sight from the rest of the platoon. If a tank platoon commander has some chance of exercising this control, the company commander and the combat team commander have none. What about units that are out of contact? And MG teams and AT teams that don't even have a radio? How can they get orders to change target priority? How can the combat team commander know that the AT teams are smoke blind when all he is hearing on the net is contacts from tanks. From my experience a typical combat team only has two radio nets. One for the artillery and one for everyone else. In a Canadian combat team under contact the armour units dominate the net and other units can't get a word in edgewise. I assume other countries are the same. Modern burst transmitters can send more messages across the same net in less time but must still be received and understood. Two minutes is not enough time for the CO to make all of these decisions. In reality any commander trains his troops as best he can, lays down standard operating proceedures and goes into battle relying on his troops training and common sense, making only crucial decisions at key times hoping that they filter down in time to make a difference.
Another interesting aspect of this topic is how training and experience will effect a units opfiring. An inexperienced unit can be likely to fire at anything that moves or not fire at anything at all. A more experienced unit will be more selective about their targets but may opt to ignore an order from over the radio bc they know their CO does not have eyes on target and they believe the order to be wrong. I'd rather be alive and court marshalled than buried with the VC.
I for one think that only a small change is required or even none at all.

[Artur]

Cameronius,

Well, I cant's argue with someone who has real military experience can I? I accept that such control is not present in RL as it is in most of the wargames.

But seriously, this god-like control exists even with or without this debated feature isn't it? If it was not you could not turn weapons on and off. You would not be able to shoot with your units at the desired sequence to use at your best advantage etc. In SPWaW there is a command and control system which uses command points to set new waypoints to a platoon and to limit the maneuvre possibilities and there are command points used up for even changing attack and defense stances! I would be happy to have such in WinSPMBT but the required work is several magnitudes more than the implementation of this feature.

Put your hand on your heart and tell is it really this feature that makes such a huge difference in the level of control? IMO it does not.

However, if the designers of the game cannot make it possible for the players to make the decision about the target type a unit would fire at, I would suggest to leave the OP-fire routine as it is now.

Artur.

[Artur]

Gents,

What I really would like to know is that is there anywhrere on Earth an army which trains the following tactics:

1. Moving the ingfantry in the open and follow by tanks in order to make the enemy armor to fire at the infantry?
2. Exercising the armored scout car and APC crews to speed up to maximum and make short dashes in the open to draw the fire of the enemy armor or other guns?

Artur.

[Artur]

OK Gentlemen,

It looks like we have debated this feature from a lot of aspects. I posted on other forums in order to have as much opinions as possible on this.

Of course Don and Andy will decide if they ever wish to implement such a feature.

But it would be very good to have the opiniuon of the over-all community to see if this feature is needed or not.
I ask everyone who reads this thread but does not wish to add more reasons into this debate to say a simple yes or no.
(Some more supporters are welcome )

I promise I will not argue on this any more I think I said what I wished to say. I thank those who debated on this feature with logical reasons disregarding whether they support this idea or not. Narwan has pointed out some weaknesses which made me think about it and refine my proposal a little more.

Artur.

[narwan]

Isn't nr 2 just another way of describing recon by contact? And isn't that an age old tactic? It's like taking turns taking point on a patrol. Except you don't let the guy with the only radio take point. He's not expendable (wel, his radio isn't). If there is risk of taking fire when moving out, it's not uncommon to move more expendable assets first.

And as to the level of control, it's because of the detailed, god-like, control you have during your own turn that is is such a great addition to have only limited control during the opponents turn. It offsets the very unrealistic amount of control to some degree and introduces some randomness, uncertainty and murphyism that any game which strives to be a realistic simulation of combat needs. That's my view at least.

Narwan

Edit: Artur, I typed this before I saw your last post. It's been a good debate, made me think about the game and it's features some more.

[junk2drive]

I like the game the way it is.
In SPWAW I leave op fire confirm off.

[Bulletmagnet]

Cameronius,

SO what your saying there trooper is that its a good thing the Iraqies didnt have a lot of Bmp's and jeeps at 73East or we would have had alot of dead M1A1's ? Hardly.

Why cant a experience check be added to the firing routine for a unit to check to use the proper mg vs soft or cannon vs hrd targets? At least this the best of both worlds and not too much coding.

[Thexder]

I have to say that I'm with Artur on this one. It's annoying to play against a player that drains the OP-fire with jeeps or cheap APC's. Although most players wont do this (well, maybe they regard it unchivalry) and this can be countered by, for example, reducing the amount of jeeps etc. But the fact that these kind of rules must be made in order to achieve the best possible gaming experience is telling that there's something wrong.

If its achievable within the code, I would gladly accept that one could have the option of setting units to fire only some unit classes ignoring others. This could be combined by some kind of distance option within which the unit would fire anything that moves. These options would greatly improve the use of especially tanks and ATGM's. It would also be nice to use it with infantry that has AT-weapons.

As for being "unrealistic", this is not true. It's only realistic that wellhidden tank doesn't waste the element of surprise to a worthless jeep. Of course, if it's possible in code, some randomness can be added to simulate cracking nerves etc. But all in all the "Commander God" -element of the game is in itself so unrealistic that it's useless to even try to make the game one to one to real life. And the arguments that suggests that current situation is only realistic are, IMHO, pretty weird.

WinSPMBT is a great game and with honest (chivalrous) opponents this problem is much smaller than it is against the opponents whose only goal is to win without any style. But even so the suggestion that Artur made has my support.

Cheers,
Jukka