what if.... triangulation

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what if.... triangulation - 3/13/2004 4:51:26 AM

mine_field

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This is a purely theoretical post, regarding triangulation of the enemy's artillery.

I am not 100% up on this, but from what I gather it should be possible to know where their artillery is located after a barrage or two, with some limitations.

At least in 8.0/8.01/8.1 or whatever the latest official version is, when a barrage lands you are given the range. With just one barrage you should be able to start with the target hex (which is obtained quite accurately by where the window is located, since the center of the window is the exact target hex), and take a string of X length (where X is the distance of the barrage given in your text window) and trace it out to their edge of the board (assuming he or she hasn't repositioned into your backfield). This will give you a line of where that possible arty piece is. With two barrages from the same piece at two different targets, you should be able to calculate the exact hex it is coming from.

Now for the limitations:
This process would be extremely tedious. You would want high delays when you replay / view the artillery barrage. You would need to take notes of the target hex (take a screenshot or mentally note of the borders of the window) along with the distance to target. You would need to note when in the artillery phase that bombardment occurs. Because arty always fires lowest letter first, the first strike could be the last arty unit (if only one strike) but the last strike could never be the first unit.

The information is time sensitive. Movement of the enemy artillery gives you less accuracy to pinpoint the arty.

The process becomes complex if not impractical in large games. This is especially true in some of those huge games you PBEM'ers love to play where you can hardly fit your units into the map. Of course in this situation you can probably bomb anywhere and hit something (more of a joking comment). I am coming mainly from a solitaire point of view, against the AI where this approach begins to become worthwhile.

And lastly, the 'string' I mention isn't a hex string. Distance in hex based games are based on hexes rather than distances 'as the bird flies'. I haven't thought this one through, but I have noticed when trying to see if a range 5 bazooka can hit an enemy, I have to 'hop scotch' my way to the enemy to see the range. However, range is consistent so this is the lesser of the evils in this case.

************
Anyone ever tried this? Any success? Any headaches? I think if I were to experiment, I would get a cardboard hex map (maybe scale 1:2) and try it out. Plot the target hexes, range, and order it occurred in that barrage.
I don't expect this ever to give 100% accurate results (unless the enemy has only one piece and never moves it), but it could help a great deal. With the given variable of smoke in their backfield your work becomes even easier.

Forgive me if this post is stupid, newb'ish, rehashed, or gamey. I know we all use this to some degree mentally when we play but was wondering if anyone ever tried it systematically.

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RE: what if.... triangulation - 3/13/2004 5:06:17 AM

stevemk1a

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I usually just look for the "smoke signature" of the enemy's arty. When onboard arty fires, it leaves a smoke residue ... vs the AI this means you can easily figure out where his tubes are! Vs. the human all sorts of trickery ensues ...

you can lay false smoke, scoot and shoot, etc ...

As a side note IIRC, in real life along with mathematical counterbattery measures, some nations used special microphone units to calculate the position of enemy arty emplacements

!

Perhaps some of our resident artillerists can elaborate?

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RE: what if.... triangulation - 3/13/2004 5:38:38 AM

mine_field

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I'm glad that post made it. As I hit submit, kernel32 went down. Windows and I are not on good terms currently.

Yes; I am aware of the smoke and it certainly is easier to look for. However, and the details of this are not clear to me, the fog of war means you don't always see the smoke. This may be false, and all large caliber guns do leave smoke, but I remember looking for Wasps (German Wespes) one time and not seeing any smoke.

Then again I have spotted smoke during my last battle after the first turn. It might have something to do with visibility, the map, or the artillery that is firing. I don't know. In a PBEM, it seems easy enough just to fly a cheap plane over (as some stated in reply to Pixel's wonderful arty sticky post). Note that I usually play the computer, although soon I will want to try a human. I think Viking has first dibs on teaching me lessons...

It would be interesting to hear about the real life measures taken. I would think that with sound, one could make a long tube and sound proof the sides. In this way the magnitude of the sound would be greatest in the direction from the artillery. With two of these, you get both direction and range. This is, of course, the same technique as the wonderful WWII German bino-telescopic sights (not the right word but close) which give their tanks such nice range finders. I see more problems with sound since its longer wavelength causes it to spread more and bounce off the clouds and hills. Then again, smoke probably remains a good way to spot enemy artillery even in modern battles. I remember seeing contemporary footage of a US / coalition rocket strike during the Gulf War. You couldn't even see to the next truck due to the smoke from all those rockets. Of course this shows the importance of smokeless gunpowder. Before rockets, people were looking for enemy muskets by the smoke.

If I were forced to repost this, I would've titled it "too much time on my hands," which is the current case as you can see.

p.s. Just wanted to add that my idea of how the microphones work is purely novice. I can see a microphone system working though. If you watch a football game, you see how those parabolic microphone dishes are able to pick up a single person in the field. And there are some really cool buildings that allow you to whisper to your friend from 100 feet and your voice is right in their ear. Parabola's can be cool, if not a high school'ers nightmare.

< Message edited by mine_field -- 3/12/2004 10:44:14 PM >

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RE: what if.... triangulation - 3/14/2004 7:01:11 AM

Hades Strikes Back

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i think in game when arty hits it tells you how many hexs it is shooting you could count and get a general idea
in RL little radars are used to track the shells and plot the positions

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RE: what if.... triangulation - 3/14/2004 7:48:46 AM

VikingNo2

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Hades ! Long time no see good buddy, Welcome back

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RE: what if.... triangulation - 3/14/2004 7:08:43 PM

Hades Strikes Back

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heh Nice to see you V2 too.

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RE: what if.... triangulation - 3/15/2004 2:52:14 AM

Svennemir

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I think smoke is the best way to go when counterring enemy artillery.

Now I don't have time to do complicated mathematical observations, but whereas (in the general case) knowing the distance from TARGET to A (R1) and from TARGET to B (R2) would yield exactly two possible locations of TARGET in the real world, this might not be so simple in a hex-based game.

The possible locations of TARGET are the (normally two) intersections of the circles centered in A and B, with radii R1 and R2. In a hex-based game, however, we make the approximation hex~circle. In our Euclidean space, the shortest possible path you can travel is a straight line.

In our "hex-space", however, you can rarely draw a straight line between two points. Actually there will often (except in very special cases) be a multitude of different ways to travel between two points, all of them of equal length. Therefore the intersections of the "hex-circles", meaning the number of points which have the same distance to A and B, are not necessarily limited to any specific value (there could be a large number of intersecting points).

I think (without much further thought) that "hex-triangulation" will determine the location of enemy artillery positions to exactly two line segments placed symmetrically on each side of an axis through A and B.

But then I may have missed a couple of things.

< Message edited by Svennemir -- 3/15/2004 1:57:48 AM >

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RE: what if.... triangulation - 3/15/2004 7:32:16 AM

mine_field

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You can eliminate the second arc intersection that is in your backfield.
That leaves one place.

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RE: what if.... triangulation - 3/15/2004 8:16:56 AM

stevemk1a

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You guyz got too much spare time

Calculate this ...

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more too much spare time - 3/16/2004 2:17:35 AM

mine_field

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This method is, of course, intended when you don't have additional information. It is obvious that it is easier to look for smoke, or even better than that, just have a LOS so that you can see the unit.

quote:

Hades Strikes Back said:
i think in game when arty hits it tells you how many hexs it is shooting you could count and get a general idea

quote:

mine_field said:
I know we all use this to some degree mentally when we play but was wondering if anyone ever tried it systematically.

quote:

Svennemir said:
In our "hex-space", however, you can rarely draw a straight line between two points.

quote:

mine_field said:
And lastly, the 'string' I mention isn't a hex string. Distance in hex based games are based on hexes rather than distances 'as the bird flies'. I haven't thought this one through, but I have noticed when trying to see if a range 5 bazooka can hit an enemy, I have to 'hop scotch' my way to the enemy to see the range. However, range is consistent so this is the lesser of the evils in this case.

Svennemir,
Without the ability to take screenshots in game, you'll have to take my word on this. While hex based space does stretch our minds a bit, it is a precise space and those radii should intersect in exactly one hex space.
To see the proof of this, try to move away from the exact hex and you'll see you can't keep one or both of the radii the same length.
As I mentioned, there is only one valid hex, since the second hex will be behind you rather than in front of you.

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RE: more too much spare time - 3/16/2004 3:46:34 AM

Svennemir

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quote:

As I mentioned, there is only one valid hex, since the second hex will be behind you rather than in front of you.

Sorry, but with all due respect I will have to correct you here. I have just constructed a counter-example with pencil and paper, disproving the statement. You can draw a couple of hexes on a paper and see for yourself (shouldn't take many minutes), or if necessary I could create and upload a picture.

However there does exist situations in which the target will be unambiguously determined (of course except for the symmetri which we can ignored as you mentioned).

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RE: more too much spare time - 3/16/2004 3:47:04 AM

Svennemir

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Hmm, I think I quoted the wrong line.

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RE: more too much spare time - 3/16/2004 8:00:33 AM

Hades Strikes Back

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you could always buy a few batteries of the kataushas with 48 rockets and splatter the whole map

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You sunk my M4.
565 post with Hades.

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RE: more too much spare time - 3/17/2004 6:53:17 PM

mine_field

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I'll concede the point for now. I'm not going to go through the process to determine if the result is a single hex or multiple hexes.

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RE: more too much spare time - 3/24/2004 7:23:01 PM

Svennemir

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If the distance between the impact points is _greater_ than the distances between each of them and the target, I think the solution is a single (technically two) hex(es). For example, if they are on each side of the artillery.

If the distance between them is _smaller_ than the distances between each of them and the target, multiple solutions exist.

(NB! This does not cover all possible setups)

Of course I should ideally back up these statements with something.

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