Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: cbelva

I did some testing of the combat model this afternoon to check to see if there is any basic for the concern. I have been running tests for several years now on the combat model and so I just applied the same tests I have used over the years. Overall, I don't see a problem. I am checking for consistency when all things are relatively equal. I used the same map and position that MaxDamage used. In my test I used a company of T-80BV(m) and a plt of Chieftain Mk 11. That is really fairer for the Soviet than 3 plt of Chieftain against a lone Soviet company. In the test, with both sides having equal change of spotting and firing, the Chieftain would normally fire first and get the first kill--not unexpected. However, the Soviets would recover and take out the Chieftain plt after that. I noticed in MaxDamage scenario, besides the bad visibility for the Soviets, they were also walking into an ambush. They were moving up on a ridge where the Brits were waiting in defilade. The three British Chieftain plts were waiting on them and all three basically opened fired on the Soviets scoring hits before the Soviets could answer.

I also ran some independent tests on a different map checking for how the units faired at different distances. I also ran some test with Challengers for the Brits to compare with how well the Chieftains did. The distances I used were 3000, 2000, and 1000. At all ranges the T-80BV(m) bested the Chieftains. The Challengers had the upper hand distance. As they were moved closer together, the advantage fell to the T-80s. This is all in line with what I would expect and in line with the way our combat model has shown in the past.

Here the bottom line in all this. This was a war that was never fought and no one knows for sure use how these machines would have performed against each other. From day one we have had people who have disagreed with our model. That is ok, and we expect that and welcome it. Most of the complaint have been from those who believe that the Soviets were too powerful. We will never please everyone and thankfully we will never know since this war never fought.

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mm whats wrong with you people? You re saying that its fairer to do 3 chieftain vs 10 t80bv?? do you realise that IRL t80bv is a world ahead of a chieftain.

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This is a complete BS i cant really take this game seriously, rather count it for ideological comic book cheering for NATO.

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Tell me what magic allows 3 chieftains equal 10 t80bv? Democracy coating? Game stats seem to have no effect on outcome.

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ORIGINAL: battlerbritain

In Weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army by Isby he gives a table that the Soviets' used for indicating the likelihood of an attack succeeding.

It gives it in terms of Tank to AT weapons per km of front.

The lowest it goes is for 5 AT weapons against 15 tanks and it gives the chance of success for that as 50%.

For 10 AT weapons against 30 tanks it also gives a 50% chance of success.

This is regardless of crew quality, defensive preparations, weather, vehicle sights or any other conditions: just pure ratios.

Hope this helps, B

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ORIGINAL: Stimpak

I've had trouble in the past before with situations that would lead me to believe that there was a heavy NATO bias in the game.
The current combat model is, however, much more fair than it previously was. Versions up to 2.0.10 had the Soviets very strong. Early versions of 2.0.11 were actually fraught with bugs that could make some battles impossible for the Soviets. Most of these issues have been fixed and I am currently enjoying a relatively balanced game.

And as the devs themselves have commented, outside factors and situations make a huge difference. You're having trouble using T-80BVs to deal with Chieftain Mk.11s - I've had T-72M1s club them like baby seals. 75% of the battle is the conditions that existed before, or as Sun Tzu put it, the battle is decided before it is even fought. The game is heavily abstracted and getting 100% accurate results can be difficult.


And, as others have pointed out, if you disagree with the base attributes of units, then you always can adjust their values in the data folders. I know I have, plenty of times.

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ORIGINAL: MaxDamage

But t80bv would eat a chieftain for breakfast 24/7

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ORIGINAL: highlandcharge

Hi MaxDamage and co...

Let me say that Ive been playing the game for last few hours and its playing better than it ever has, I'm playing a time to dance and the M1A1(HA) which are holding in forest terrain taking as much punishment as they are dishing out to the attacking T-80Us...

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ORIGINAL: Capn Darwin

Most of the issue here is trying to say tank A is as good as (X) tank Bs. This logic does work in a general sense of fighting over a series of ranges and conditions. At 1500m or less it does not matter if your tank is 10 time better in apparent capability if both gun systems can hit and kill. Which in the OP case is what we are looking at. The fight at that point is going to fall to who is better in quality at that moment (Training, Readiness and Morale) and which platform has a better sighting/targeting system. Also RNGesus. Sometimes you lose the die roll and get hammered and other time you make it and manage to walk away. There is no secret NATO bias magic number in the game engine. For every player saying there is NATO bias we have one saying there is Soviet bias. It comes down to how people perceive the capabilities of the equipment involved. We can't fix that. One thing we can and will do from all of this discussion is make sure we take a deeper hard look at how the code looks at spotting and then the transition to shooting and see if things can be done better or in a different way to cover these quick-draw cases. We have already started design discussions on both sighting and combat and there will be changes with the Southern Storm engine to deal with things here and a number of other areas to make a better product with as realistic an outcome as we can get for the inputs known.

So try to enjoy the whole game for now and keep talking about these things in a civil manner and we will keep listening to the inputs and information as we go forward.

Thanks guys!

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ORIGINAL: Stimpak

A lot of people don't get how huge of a deal thermal imaging is... having used them and fought against them in commercial simulators, as well as reading and listening to testimonies of people who have worked with the actual equipment, the sighting advantage alone decides a battle easily 9 times out of 10.

A proud company of T-80s can roll through the terrain with their heavy armor and big gun, but if they can't see that buried Chieftain platoon maybe even 1500 meters away, then by virtue of not being able to see what's hitting them, they're easy targets for the British.

I myself ran a series of tests to see the balance:
In all 3 tests, both crews are Veteran with equal (85) Morale and readiness.

-1st Scenario, 3 Chieftains and 10 T-80BVs deliberately move onto an elevated field and shoot each other at 3000 meters. Chieftains get the first shot but don't claim any kills until the second volley. All 3 Chieftains go down, while also claiming 3 of the 10 T-80BVs.
-2nd Scenario, 9 Chieftains and 10 T-80BVs are ordered to assault in each other's general direction over the same territory, starting at 3000 meters. Again, first shot goes to the Chieftains. Light rain begins, giving the British another sighting advantage. Notoriously poor Soviet accuracy takes it's toll on the T-80s and they lose 4 tanks before closing into 1500 meters, at which point they suddenly take out 8 of the 9 Chieftains while losing the remainder of their number in the process. That's a pretty good trade for the Russians!
-3rd Scenario, 9 Chieftains ordered to assault a position where 10 T-80BVs deliberately move onto and Hold. This time the Russians get the first shot! The first volley is an ATGM shot that immediately erases one of the 3 British platoons. Return fire destroys a single T-80. The T-80's second shot - guns this time, destroys 2 more Chieftains. All further British return fire is ineffective and the last Chieftain goes down at 1500 meters.

In armored warfare, the dug in and hidden defending force almost always beats the exposed, attacking, and moving (Thus imposing a stabilizer penalty, Russian stabilizers are still noticeably poor even in newer T-72B models) force, even if the attackers are larger in number. Historical examples of this were witnessed multiple times in the middle east and were taught to US commanders (A good video on this is seen here).

How tanks perform on paper just does not have that much influence in actual combat.
Otherwise superior Iranian Chieftain Mk. 5s were beaten by better trained and lucky Iraqis in monkey-model T-62s.
Even back to WW2, experienced T-34 crews could easily knock Tigers out of play.
US Commanders in Desert storm have remarked that they could have swapped equipment with the Iraqis and still have won.
T-34s have confirmed kills on T-72s in Yugoslavia.
Young Chadian soldiers beat out the entire Libyan military with just Toyota trucks.

You could throw an M1A1 at, say, a BMP-2. If that BMP crew has more training, readiness, morale than that Abrams - then they will find a way to knock it out. With their autocannon.

I firmly believe there is no NATO bias, if any at all among the devs at OTS. They have tried their hardest to represent a realistic, albeit heavily abstracted battlefield, and FPRS is still by far my favorite wargame. Never mind the heap of changes planned for Southern Storm, which will be amazing to see when it drops.