Firing Effectiveness and Distance

[GerryM]

Hello All:

Don't know the exact formula; just want to get an idea of how effectiveness/results change as the distance increases to the target.

Thanks,

Gerry

[ComradeP]

The formula and the explanation from the manual:

At ranges greater than 1 is modified by the Range Effect Parameter Data Value.  If the range is N and the Range Effect is R, then the fire value is divided by 1 + (N-1) * (R-1).

For example, if the Range Effect value is 1.5, then the fire value of direct fire at a range of 2 hexes is divided by 1.5.  At 3 hexes, it is divided by 2, and so on.

In practice, you can still get decent results at longer ranges with larger units (companies/~10 vehicle units) but not with smaller ones. Due to rounding, you might still get 1-2 Men results at longer ranges even with platoon-sized units.

For A and B quality vehicle units with decent to good guns (75mm and up), you can knock out enemy medium tanks at ranges up to about 4 hexes with some reliability, but after that the effectiveness drops sharply for smaller units and it becomes a true "roll of the dice" kind of affair whether you knock out a vehicle or not.

Infantry units are capable of disruptive fire at ranges 3 and 4, but will only really hurt enemy units at ranges 1 and 2. German infantry units tend to have (slightly) superior soft attack values compared to their opponents due to having good squad level MG's and are usually also capable of firing at range 4 due to that. The majority of the Allied (and Soviet) infantry units can only hit targets up to 3 hexes away. US mechanized infantry can fire at range 4 as well.

Allied infantry soft attack values are generally not so hot, so pour artillery fire into the hex you want to attack close in if you want to kill something.

[GerryM]

Thanks v. much. Just what I needed.

[ComradeP]

The system can give very variable results, particularly for combat involving vehicles, guns or planes.

At some point in the future, I'm sure the system will be improved, but it's still difficult to deal with superior numbers with high quality units and units that should be strong can still suffer odd losses.

I lost 3 Shermans in a row to artillery support fire earlier today, and I just lost 2 Tigers in Caumont to a stack of a 3 vehicle isolated Cromwell/Firefly unit and 1 disrupted and isolated Cromwell, firing uphill.

The system is currently incapable of representing engagements where lots of vehicles were knocked out in a short amount of time by a small force or situations where strong vehicles resisted superior numbers, which in terms of direct fire results is the main flaw of the series, imported from PzC.

[wiggum]

What i, as a "Panzer Battles" Noob think is kind of odd compared to squad battles:

While in "Squad Battles" your attacks could easily bog down when you troops got pined and disrupted in "Panzer Battles" i can push even low quality units really hard. They may become DISRUPTED but even then i can still push them towards the enemy. Only if they are BROKEN they refuse to attack.
But i rarely see any unit become BROKEN at all. I can play through a 25 turn scenario and see only one unit become BROKEN.

I had Platoons reduced to only 3 men who did not even become DISRUPTED and i still could assault with them !
You would normaly expect that a platoon that has taken over 50% casualties to become pretty much ineffective.

Maybe i have not fully understand the "Panzer Battles" scale and system. Can you help me ?

[ComradeP]

3 men units are ineffective, that they're still on the map or that you can assault with them doesn't mean they're going to put a dent in the enemy line.

As casualties in wargames tend to be (much) higher than in the actual war due to units having no sense of self-preservation and the player giving priority to objectives over the safety of his men, units that would be combat ineffective in the real world can still fight in a wargame. With high losses, units also need to be capable of sustaining them whilst remaining somewhat effective.

A unit that has suffered 50% losses is probably fatigued and won't be able to do much damage even if it's not disrupted.

I feel the game handles this fairly well aside from how weak units perform against vehicles, guns or aircraft.

[wiggum]

@ ComradeP

I still feel that such small units, especially when they saw countless of their comrades fade away should get a BROKEN status so they will remain stationery or retreat.

Maybe a special straggler rule would be nice to have such formations fade a way, count a random number as casualties and include the rest in nearby friendly units.

[ComradeP]

It's beginning to look like something was changed in the combat engine at the last minute which is causing issues, as numerous results involving vehicles in my PBEM's thus far are even more bizarre than the ones I've seen in Kursk.

[wiggum]

Maybe you should PM Strela about that so he can take a look.

[ComradeP]

Thinking about it, it might look like there are more odd results because there's more armour around than in Kursk scenarios.

The tank vs. tank model is decent, it's the low probability kills due to how a loss is determined (die roll based on losses in men equivalent) that undermine the consistency of the system, like losing a Churchill to a single disrupted 75mm infantry gun firing uphill from several hexes away. There's no hard cap on whether or not something to knock out a vehicle or gun unit. As long as it's possible to get a 1 man equivalent loss, you can knock out a tank.