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Defense? - 5/31/2000 8:33:00 PM   
tow-2

 

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This is a repost from another board, but I never got an answer there: Looking for clarification on the use of "dug in" and "entrenchments" status for units. I've noticed in several scenarios that my dug-in/entrenched infantry will frequently. when fired on, take casualties very quickly in the opening salvo from an enemy, and continue to take casualties thereafter. I usually have the upper hand as defender because the enemy is advancing and I get the opening shots on him, but, if he survives intact enough to return fire it seems that from that point the defensive advantage is not very tangible - I seem to take casualties very quickly in spite of being dug in. Note, this is not a case where one of my squads is facing off against an entire company of enemy troops - just one to one squad action! I would think in these kinds of cases where even strengths met up, the defender would almost invariably be able to hold out. But this doesn't seem to be the case. I remember this being an issue in SP2, and there was the usual answer of "turn infantry toughness up". Can this be looked into otherwise? Is there a distinct advantage to entrenchments/dug-in in the code - what is it? Still a great game - still learning all the new stuff you've built into this latest release! Thanks again guys! Regards, Marc

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Regards, Marc
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- 5/31/2000 8:47:00 PM   
Larry Holt

 

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In another thread, Paul V. mentioned that entrenched is more like "settled in". It may or may not involve actual digging and clearly vehicles don't dig true entrenchments in the course of a game. Units that are entrenched and dug in get defensive advantages. Vehicles that are dug in are hull down. What nationality and time frame are your two forces? Go into the preferences menu and turn national training off and see what the real comparitive levels of your forces are. It may be that the attacker just out classes your defenders even when they are entrenched. ------------------ An old soldier but not yet a faded one.

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Never take counsel of your fears.

(in reply to tow-2)
Post #: 2
- 5/31/2000 8:53:00 PM   
Larry Holt

 

Posts: 1969
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From: Atlanta, GA 30068
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Since we are talking AT guns here, let me say how happy I am that they are modeled as good as they are, primarily that they are hard for tanks to spot and hit. The Germans regularly counted on AT guns to defeat enemy tanks that their tanks could not. Even in the attack, they would deploy a screen of AT guns. If the tanks ran up against heavy opposition, they could withdraw behind the screen, wait until the enemy was depleated by the guns then continue the attack. ------------------ An old soldier but not yet a faded one.

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Never take counsel of your fears.

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Post #: 3
- 5/31/2000 9:05:00 PM   
Desert Fox

 

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Joined: 5/9/2000
From: Ohio, that is all I can say.
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Well, I for one think it is a real problem. I posted my opinions on this earlier, and I have recently got a chance to do some testing on Japanese troops. I used a bunch of US army engineers in early 1942, so they were all green, with the odd average unit thrown in here or there. I set up about 8 engineer units against a bunch of dug in Japanese infantry units. I walked my engineers so that the Japs were in range of my Garands. From there I just sat back and picked them off one by one. I found that with 8 engineer units firing all their shots, I could consistantly kill about half (7 or 8 men) of a Jap infantry squad in one turn at a range of 10-12 hexes. Now if we figure each squad had 6 shots, thats 48 shots taken at the enemy. For 7 or 8 casualties per 48 shots, that is 14-16 percent hit chance. Now I don't know how experience and dug in status is filled in, but from that range, with green troops shooting at veteran or elite troops, there should have been possibly 2 casualties in 3 or 4 turns, not wiped out squads. I should also mention that these Japs were on a level 1 hill. Anyways, I am going to do more testing to make sure this kind of thing is not a fluke. I do think that there is a problem with the way defenders are picked off whether they are entrenched or dug in, no matter what their experience.

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- 5/31/2000 9:11:00 PM   
Paul Vebber


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ITs an issue we are taking a second look at. Though it seems the attacker always thinks dug-in is too tough, while the defender thinks its not tough enough, eh Redleg :-) (who is having a tough go from dug-in AT guns and MGs, but able to take then out eventually with a coupple platoons worth of fire and a generous helping of KV baombardment!) The key to AT gun fire is to expend 3 or maybe 4 shots per turn, after that your chances of getting spotting start to go up. INfantry won't see them until they are a few hundred yards away. If they get spotted to soon it they can be neutralized by the concentrated fire of 2 or 3 MGs. The counter is to protect them with 2 or 3 MGs of your own! A good combination of a platoon or two of troops, plt of MGs and Plt of AT guns, all in mutually supporting positions and dug - in is a royal pain to take out :-) A Pak front of 6 or 8 AT guns supported by a Company of troops and a plt or two of machine guns can ruin your whole day!

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- 5/31/2000 11:45:00 PM   
Seth

 

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From: San Antonio, TX USA
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The dug-in bonus certainly has worked for me. Last night I beat the Germas 3931 to 27 in "The Real Thing". Only 2 of my squads were displaced, and one was destroyed in one turn because I accidentally moved him, and undo move doesn't restore dug-in status. (BTW, that needs to be fixed.) Mortars only caused 5-6 casualties, mostly to the two ATG crews.

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- 6/1/2000 12:00:00 AM   
Drake666

 

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I agree with Seth in this. I found that dug-in units worked just right. Not to hard to destroy but also not to easy.

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Post #: 7
- 6/1/2000 5:20:00 AM   
victorhauser

 

Posts: 318
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From: austin, texas
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The Real Problem... Evidently, some units get significantly higher "to-hit" percentages during combat. For instance, I recently fought a skirmish during a campaign battle (US vs. Japan) where a Japanese Type A Rifle squad was listed as retreating on a hilltop rough-terrain hex. I had about a dozen US rifle squads within a hex or two of the Japanese squad. When I cycled through the to-hit percentages of these squads (I always do that to shoot first with my highest chance of success) the chances to hit were listed in the 2% to 4% range. So far so good, that's the kind of numbers I'd expect. However, as soon as I took my first shot, the Japanese squad was then listed as pinned. And here's where things started to go badly abnormal. The percentages to hit when pinned were about double of what they were when the squad was retreating (in the 5% to 8% range). This seemed backwards to me. But then things got worse. The Japanese squad returned fire on one of my squads. That was a big mistake because all of a sudden the to-hit percentages went up again into the 12% to 16% hit range. If that weren't bad enough for the unfortunate Japanese unit, those percentages not only remained that high until the Japanese squad was eliminated (which didn't take long), another very weird thing occurred (it has occurred several times in different battles but it took a while for me to notice something wrong). Some of my firing units seemed to hit with every shot they fired, regardless of the to-hit percentages. And this doesn't seem to be related to experience or morale at all. For example, at times a unit with experience in the 70s, for instance, just seems to get all hits (every single shot fired causes casualties, whether from rifles or grenades or whatever), while a unit with experience in the 90s in the same hex seems to be hitting at the listed percentages. This phenomenon seems totally independent of range, terrain, enemy unit status, experience, etc. I've never seen anything like it in my previous 4 years of playing SP games. I notice it most often when I'm trying to root out the Japanese from rough terrain hexes. So I always bring about a dozen squads--and sure enough, almost always one of those squads will "go berserk" and hit with all shots fired, eliminating the target squad no matter what.

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VAH

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Post #: 8
- 6/1/2000 5:35:00 AM   
Desert Fox

 

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Joined: 5/9/2000
From: Ohio, that is all I can say.
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I once had a pretty odd experience, not unlike the every-shot-hits thing. I was playing a campaign as the germans vs. the british. It was the British turn and they were assaulting me. For some reason, every opfire I got on british infantry that turn caused exactly 2 casualties. No exceptions. Panzer 38ts shoot, 2 casualties. 88 shoots, 2 casualties. MG34 shoots, 2 casualties. This was complicated by the fact that the british were still about 10 hexes away at the minimum, and my hit percentages were almost all under 15%. Unfortunately, I have never been able to reproduce that 'happy time'. I think the problem with everything here is that for some reason, the random number generator must get stuck or not be random in some situations. If it is not reset for every shot taken, then it is not functioning correctly.

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Post #: 9
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