Hints/Tips & Steel Panthers Documents

Weasel · (This post was last modified: 02-19-2009, 08:21 AM by Weasel.)

Ok, after many emails to me, and frustration on my part too, I asked the designing powers at Shrapnel how exactly the AAA routine works in winspww2. The reply from Mobhack was educating, and instead of replying to each person whom asked individually I am posting here.

First off: IGNORE the max range on AAA for engaging a/c, it means basically nothing. AAA will normally only engage out to about a range of 20 hexes max; now you may get the odd long shot, but all in all the a/c must fly closer then 20 hexes to the AAA unit to be engaged and have a chance of being hit. Consider the 20 hexes the maximum range. What does this mean? AAA must be deployed close to the units you want to protect. The days of setting your guns on a hill top and hoping they might engage a/c attacking your artillery 22 hexes away is over. My suggestion and as mentioned by Mobhack: set your guns into a U shape near the vital target with about 4-6 hexes between tubes.

Second: SPAA - this AAA is basically only good for very close in a/c attacks, within 8-10 hexes of the target maximum. In my experience it only engages a/c within 5 hexes. So ensure one unit is always stationary near the target (best not to have moved the turn before also) while the other is moving up to the next position; think over watch.

Thanks to Mobhack (Andy) for providing detail on the AAA routines.

Imp at Shrapnel offered the following in regards to SPAA. It makes sense in some regards, anyone have anything different to add?

"From experience I think this is wrong perhaps another explanation
1) AA needs a LOS to fire & like other guns may well not fire if its hit chance is to low saving shots for a better target.
2) If the gun already has a better target i.e. fired at ground unit & has a "lock" it is even less likely to fire.
3) If it moves to hit chance goes down
4) Mobile & static guns both use same rules so if had identical stats both would react to a given situation the same.

So what should you look for in AA gun for it to engage.
To engage initially experience helps plus a good range finder, range & gun accuracy.
To continue engaging good fire control & ROF help as additional shots at same target have a chance to climb to a higher to hit chance.

Range has an effect I think as the shorter the range the quicker the accuracy & damage fall off.
An AA gun would need a reasonably good RF (think post WW2) to fire at max range."

I posted some test results out at the Shrapnel site after running some tests, using one type of AA gun (US 40mm AA gun) and altering targets and experience of the gun. At no point would the guns engage beyond 20 hexes. This was out of 320 opportunities to do so. The only times the guns engaged at 20 hexes was when the AA unit had an experience of 120, on average. If the experience was 70, the maximum range was 15 and this happened only one time out of 160 engagement opportunities.

The target engaged also is a factor. Average engagement range of a Ju88 is about 11 hexes by an experience 70 gun crew. Average engagement range of a Fw190 is about 5 hexes by an experience 70 gun crew. With the Fw190, the guns failed to engage the target before it dropped it's payload 50% of the time. From what I understand, this is basically what you have been seeing. IMO, this shouldn't happen that often. It may be reality, but given my test conditions (clear, flat ground w/visibility=80), I think failing to engage 50% of the time doesn't make sense.

I hope this information helps.

Cheers,

Ray

One qualification I want to add with the tests I ran was four guns were set up. When any one of the four fired, that was the range I used. It's too difficult to mark down the range of every engagement and which gun fired. This being the case, the range averages I listed were for when at least one gun out of the group engaged. The crews from the other guns could very well have been sitting there playing cards, for all I could tell.

I am running some other tests, for no other reason really than being bored at the moment. This time I'm using a Russian 37mm AA gun with an experience of 120. It has a better range and accuracy than US 40mm. Rate of fire is the same(8). The maximum engagement range is still turning out to be 20 hexes. I'm going to test Imp's theory that rate of fire could also be a factor. Warhead size could also be a factor.

Additional testing and modifications could not get an AA gun to engage targets beyond 20 hexes. The Russian 37mm gun, unmodified, would engage at a maximum of 20 hexes. In this case, six Russian 37mm AA guns were used and at least one of them engaged at a range of 19 or 20 hexes, but since more guns were used someone was bound to be awake.

With the same gun, I doubled the rate of fire from 8 to 16 and it made no difference in the maximum engagement range. Again, with the same gun, I doubled the warhead size, after returning the rate of fire back to 8, and the maximum engagement range was still 20 hexes. All of this happened on a clear map with visibility 80. At this point, there seems to be some sort of limit to how far out a gun can engage a plane and that limit seems to be 20. The experience for the gun tested was 120.

Tis the range finder RF not ROF that helps with engagement range.

At any rate keep your AAA close to what its protecting, if nothing else it might become a target instead.

Seriously in real life unless these things were the target of the attack or near it chance of a take down is slim.
A plane flying left to right at speed is a hard thing to hit as need to lead the shot, one coming right at you is a whole lot easier hence the effectiveness of aircraft carrier AA though they still missed. Also hedge hopping & the like not possible over water

This was posted on another forum; it speaks a thousand words:

Here are some cold, hard numbers related to the US 40mm AA gun in some tests I ran in the game.

To begin with, the terrain was completely clear ground. Testing took place on a 100x100 map with visibility set to 80. The variables controlled were the experience of the AA unit and the target. Test conditions had four US 40mm AA guns set up to to engage the target coming in on a straight east-west approach. There were four test scenarios with 20 passes in each condition:

1. US experience 70, target Ju88P-2(size 5, speed 5).

Average engagement range: 10.9
Maximum engagement range: 15
Minimum engagement range: 7

2. US experience 70, target Fw190A-8(size 3, speed 8).

Average engagement range: 4.9
Maximum engagement range: 11
Minimum engagement range: 0

3. US experience 120, target Ju88P-2(size 5, speed 5).

Average engagement range: 17.7
Maximum engagement range: 20
Minimum engagement range: 8

4. US experience 120, target Fw190A-8(size 3, speed 8).

Average engagement range: 15.0
Maximum engagement range: 20
Minimum engagement range: 0

The most siginificant factors that come into play for AAA are fire control and range finder, both of which are much improved in MBT era weapon systems. They may have modified the engine to accommodate SAMs, but the most likely reason AAA in MBT works is just improved technology