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Weapon tests for Combat Mission

jobu88 said:
There were at least 15 times the buttoned Sherman spotted the un-buttoned Panther first which adds to the mystery of the game engine's spotting logic. In one case the Sherman bounced 5 rounds off the Panther before the Panther spotted the Sherman. My all-time least favorite experience was a game in which my stationary, un-buttoned Pz IV behind a hedgerow was spotted first by a Sherman that was moving across the open field the Pz IV was covering. Sherman stopped, aimed, fired and knocked out the Pz IV without being spotted. I nearly renounced the game once and for all over that one.
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I'm actually halfway thinking the German tanks have spotting problems. I've seen similar things so many times with PZIVs and Panthers.

Wondering what the results would be if we tested only the spotting times. Two tanks facing each other, both buttoned. And then see how many times each of them spots the other first.
 
eniced73 said:
would like to see someone do a test on how many times an unbuttoned tank or HT gunner gets picked off. I swear every time i unbutton I lose a guy within 10 seconds. Then another after his place is taken.......and so one.
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They still get hit way too fast. But at least the tank commanders now duck down much faster than they used to, so that's something.
 
Bulletpoint said:
They still get hit way too fast. But at least the tank commanders now duck down much faster than they used to, so that's something.
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eniced73 said:
would like to see someone do a test on how many times an unbuttoned tank or HT gunner gets picked off. I swear every time i unbutton I lose a guy within 10 seconds. Then another after his place is taken.......and so one.
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It depends upon how much of the commander is exposed.

I fought a battle with @Butterblümchen where I shot small arms at a German halftrack commander behind a gun shield for 30 minutes or so with no hits. So a gun shield facing in the right direction is a huge plus. If the gun shield is square to the shooter, it is very effective. Even being a few degrees off from being square.....effectiveness goes way down.

I fought another battle with @Paleolithic Monk where he had M3 Halftracks that expose half of the gunner's body. Those guys seemed to last just a few seconds before being picked off.

Some tanks/halftracks have half of the commander's body exposed, others only have his head exposed, and still others are in between. So the specific vehicle makes a huge difference.
 
Bulletpoint said:
I'm actually halfway thinking the German tanks have spotting problems. I've seen similar things so many times with PZIVs and Panthers.

Wondering what the results would be if we tested only the spotting times. Two tanks facing each other, both buttoned. And then see how many times each of them spots the other first.
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I don't know if this is intentionally modelled by WG but the gunners in Panther tanks apparently didn't have particularly great vision, here's what Chieftain has to say about it in his overview:
 
Nemesis said:
It depends upon how much of the commander is exposed.

I fought a battle with @Butterblümchen where I shot small arms at a German halftrack commander behind a gun shield for 30 minutes or so with no hits. So a gun shield facing in the right direction is a huge plus. If the gun shield is square to the shooter, it is very effective. Even being a few degrees off from being square.....effectiveness goes way down.

I fought another battle with @Paleolithic Monk where he had M3 Halftracks that expose half of the gunner's body. Those guys seemed to last just a few seconds before being picked off.

Some tanks/halftracks have half of the commander's body exposed, others only have his head exposed, and still others are in between. So the specific vehicle makes a huge difference.
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I think the problem with the CM modelling is that the German halftrack gunner doesn't duck down so that his eye is level with the sights. But yes, German halftracks offer better protection than the US ones.
 
A few interesting results from MG tests (mainly to show that the work is going forward):
  • No difference between a gunner and a soldier when firing a LMG. The same number of kills, the same rate of fire. Tested with B.A.R. (Gunner vs Soldier), Bren (Gunner vs Team Leader), MG42 (Gunner vs Soldier - weapon picked up from casualty from a different unit)
  • The M1919A6 of the US Airborne is in the same league with MG34 and MG42 but still lags a bit behind. It's big advantage is that it is fed with a 250-round belt and is reloaded as quickly as most other weapons (8.3 seconds with regular troops), so it can churn out more rounds per minute than the German MGs - but it achieves fewer hits. Bren and B.A.R. are much less powerful.
  • Semi-deployed MG42 achieves about 50% kills of a deployed MG42, increasing to 60-70% at 120 m and less. Slightly lower rate of fire when semi-deployed, but mainly lower accuracy.
  • A MG42 squad LMG achieves about 40% kills of a deployed MG42 HMG. Quite consistent at all ranges out to 600 m. Both because of lower rate of fire and lower accuracy.
 
Drifter Man said:
No difference between a gunner and a soldier when firing a LMG. The same number of kills, the same rate of fire. Tested with B.A.R. (Gunner vs Soldier), Bren (Gunner vs Team Leader), MG42 (Gunner vs Soldier - weapon picked up from casualty from a different unit)
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Highly surprising - and somewhat disappointing. I thought the entire point of having some truppen designated as gunners would be that they would be better gunners than the average squaddie.
 
Drifter Man said:
  • Semi-deployed MG42 achieves about 50% kills of a deployed MG42, increasing to 60-70% at 120 m and less. Slightly lower rate of fire when semi-deployed, but mainly lower accuracy.
  • A MG42 squad LMG achieves about 40% kills of a deployed MG42 HMG. Quite consistent at all ranges out to 600 m. Both because of lower rate of fire and lower accuracy.
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Also surprising. I thought the MG42 would be the same for squads and for HMG squds, as long as they were both in the semi-deployed mode. But I guess it's due to the better optics on the HMGs meant to be deployed?
 
My thoughts exactly (on both points). I also expected the semi-deployed HMG to be basically an LMG, but it is clearly better than that - whatever the reason may be.
 
A bit more on semi-deployed HMG vs LMG (a closer look at the data): They are actually very close together in terms of rounds fired per kill. But the semi-deployed HMG can fire 250-round belts while the LMG has 50-round magazines.
And, for some reason, reloading a new belt takes only about 7-8 seconds on a semi-deployed HMG, similar to loading a new magazine in a LMG, while on a deployed HMG it takes over 30 seconds.
So it's again down to the rate of fire.
 
Drifter Man said:
A bit more on semi-deployed HMG vs LMG (a closer look at the data): They are actually very close together in terms of rounds fired per kill. But the semi-deployed HMG can fire 250-round belts while the LMG has 50-round magazines.
And, for some reason, reloading a new belt takes only about 7-8 seconds on a semi-deployed HMG, similar to loading a new magazine in a LMG, while on a deployed HMG it takes over 30 seconds.
So it's again down to the rate of fire.
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Interesting!
Just a thought that crossed my mind: are barrel changes also modeled/abstracted in the reloads? Higher rate of fire requires more barrel swaps, at least in theory.
 
Lethaface said:
Interesting!
Just a thought that crossed my mind: are barrel changes also modeled/abstracted in the reloads? Higher rate of fire requires more barrel swaps, at least in theory.
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I've read on the forum that barrel swaps are included in the reload times, making them longer than they would normally be. Would be fun if they separated it out though, complete with a barrel swap animation.

Oh well, another point on the list of things I'd like to see change or improve in this game :)
 
Interesting - I've heard that German LMG's were fed with 250-round belts too but didn't know that the 50-round was only a stopgap thing. In CMBN it is the standard.

When the HMG is deployed, there is always one solider assisting the gunner with the weapon. When reloading, they both show a "reloading" state for a long time (> 20 seconds). For the rest of the reload time only the gunner is reloading. I thought the soldier helps the gunner with the belt but maybe it is the barrel swap.

When the HMG is semi-deployed, the gunner is on his own and the reload only takes around 7 seconds as I mentioned.

I've also noticed that the other HMG team members only fire their weapons at close range (they do fire at 40 meters but they don't at 80 m). So their role seems to be only for close defense + spotting and to carry ammo. They do not add to the firepower of the team. The soldier assisting the gunner never fires when the main weapon is deployed - he keeps his rifle on his back.

I should add that @Ibex recently blew up my Sherman with a HMG team assault so don't underestimate their power :) Poor Sherman parked right on top of them while they were hiding.
 
Latest test, this time testing the Panther and Sherman just to determine spotting time. I ran the test 50 times. Both tanks Regular crew, +2 commander, unbuttoned, and facing each other at 625 meters..


Average time for generic "Tank?" / Average time for correct ID / % of time correct ID was achieved on the initial spot:

Panther 8.98 seconds / 14.12 seconds / 42%
Sherman 6.74 seconds / 10.12 seconds / 52%


So the Sherman averaged a 4-second advantage in spotting and correctly identifying the enemy, combined with a 10% advantage in getting correct ID on the initial spot, which is required for the tank to fire at the enemy. Small but definitely not trival advantage to the Sherman. There were 3 outliers for the Panther in which it failed to spot the Sherman in the entire 60 seconds. I recorded those three as 60 seconds even though the actual time obviously would have been longer. Remove those 3 outliers and the longest it took for the Panther to get at least an initial "Tank?" spot was 21 seconds. The longest time for the Sherman to get at least a "Tank?" was 23 seconds.


Another interesting data point was a 7-second interval between an initial "Tank?" and the correct ID, I saw it enough for both tanks that it has to be part of the game engine.

26% of the time the Panther got a correct ID 7 seconds after an initial "Tank?" ID
46% of the time the Sherman got a correct ID 7 seconds after an initial "Tank?" ID

Average time for Panther between initial "Tank?" and correct ID: 10.2 seconds. Remove the 3 outliers and it would be 8.37 seconds.
Average time for Sherman between initial "Tank?" and correct ID: 7.1 seconds.


So, bottom line, the Sherman seems to spot quicker and get accurate ID on the target quicker than the Panther, including taking less time between an initial "tank?" ID and the correct ID.
 
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jobu88 said:
So, bottom line, the Sherman seems to spot quicker and get accurate ID on the target quicker than the Panther, including taking less time between an initial "tank?" ID and the correct ID.
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Well, this confirms my hunch then. Thanks for taking the time to test this.

jobu88 said:
Another interesting data point was a 7-second interval between an initial "Tank?" and the correct ID, I saw it enough for both tanks that it has to be part of the game engine.
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It's the 7-second spotting cycle.
 
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jobu88 said:
I suppose I should run the same test with both tanks buttoned. Need to fire up another pot of coffee before I have a go at that.
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I wondered why you tested with +2 commanders by the way? Maybe to get the best possible result so that any difference would be down to the mechanics of the tank?

When I do tests, I prefer to always do them with regular +0 crew to get a feel for the average performance level.

In any case, I think the leader's rating only applies to his leadership functions - sharing intel, boosting the morale of the crew - rather than to spotting performance.
 
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