Direct Fire/Assault Questions

[Aetius]

A few comments on your math:

-> Regarding the direct fire calculations, the fire modifiers are indeed cumulative. There are some important modifiers missing from your math, though: unit quality, unit fatigue and hexside modifiers. It is in fact quite frequent that the mathematical chance of some units causing casualties by fire is zero. A couple of examples out of my head:
- In Normandy, a 90th infantry division infantry battalion (D quality, -20%) firing against an entrenched unit (-40%) in a bocage hex (-50%). Fatigue would be low (0%) and the unit would be firing in the same elevation as the target. The cumulative effect is -110%, which means that for as hard as you may try, you wont cause a single enemy casualty - and trust me, I've played this campaign (VM's mod) three times and never seen it.
- In Salerno the elevation modifier is 25%. For some reason there is only one hex, (29,32), with 300 elevation. All the other elevation changes in the map are from 200m to 600m. That's a double hexside modifier (-50%). So, if the pretty standard allied infantry battalion (C quality) fires from 200m to a german unit entrenched (-40%) at 600m (-50% hexside modifier) in brush (-10%) or broken (-20%) terrain (which are very much the norm) you get a total modifier of -100% or -110%, depending on the terrain. There is no chance of causing casualties on the germans by direct fire.

-> What you can do in the above cases, though, is to assault. Casualties are guaranteed as the terrain modifiers does not matter, nor does the entrenchment level. In the Normandy example above the assaulting infantry battalion would only get a -20% modifier, and in the Salerno one, the -50% modifier from hexside elevation. That would give you the chance to get some kills. Firing would only be a waste of time.

I would recomend you to play a few games with the On Map Results option ticked off if you want to understand how the system does the math, as all the modifiers are listed on the pop-up box - the ones above and still others like infantry fire effectiveness, combined arms penalty, combined organization penalty, etc.

Rui