Slitherine

Hi.... I love this game.... its so quick - most battles can be fought in less than an hour, as compared to some campaigns that take days, weeks, or even months to finish.

as I have been playing this, I have come to see that the Bishop seems to be able to defeat almost any item I toss its way. I have used single Bishops to destroy king tiger tanks even, and they do an awesome job of going after and taking out virtualy any fixed location within range.

I wonder is the effectiveness of this unit based upon reality? Has anyone else noticed, that using 2 or 3 of these in defense can prove the equivalent of a smart bomb - as far as kill ratio its almost a guaranteed kill.

I have created a scenario that pits a few Bishops, Priests, and flamethrowers, against a much larger German force of mixed tanks and engineers and infantry.

the link to my scenario is below - but it is for testing and commenting purposes only. It is not official, just something i created to explore and highlight just how the Bishop seems to be too good to be true

here is the link

please comment

http://www.4shared.com/file/FOs8_lK0/a ... avor.html

Thanks

Well, lets see what the official call is ... but ....

Yeah ... I think the data is a bit high for the BISHOP regarding the APeffectiveness values (direct fire) ...

In the squads file, it's showing the BISHOP's APeffectiveness as 100 across the board, compared to the 25pdr unit at 95/90/85/80.
Both seem rather high for AP vs Armor (IMO).

Granted, it's caliber is slightly below an 88mm, but it's not an 88L/71 !!!

Even the AP data for the KingTiger shows .... 81/64/51/39 ...

I'm wondering if it should be using an HE attack instead but somehow it ran amuck !

I don't think it's a "Smart Weapon" ... I think the British are using this type of round ;

H.E.A.T .... High Explosive And Tea ... (earl grey variaty)

Thanks for replying Merr...

lol - love the heat round - too bad its not using a squash round - those are in season now - lol

Yeah, I don't know of many world war 2 weapons that had a 100 across the board. Seems like its over weighted...

I mean, if I can spend any points at all, this is the weapon I'd put on the field - not only is it a guaranteed hit almost every time, but its mobile too, self propelled... I think it should probably be reduced. So too the Wespe and the Priest.... they have a 100 for the attack ratings.

Anyway, thanks for writing and for responding on this.... Wonder what else anyone thinks about this?

The effectiveness includes a number of factors so its not as simple as reading the numbers off. You'd need to see how it performed. It is possible its over powered. It is only in teh early war scenarios where the tanks are all made of paper so we probably didn't notice if they blew up a lot as it was expected!

I think the APeffectiveness is only the range part of the penetration calculation. It multiplies with APattack to get the penetration at the range. So it's quite correct to give HEAT 100 at all ranges. The value represents how much "APattack" energy is retained at each range.

Then, for the bishop the APattack is 55 to 154. The Tiger have 170 in front armor so it shouldn't be possible to penetrate in the front. Side/Rear it's possible. If that's realistic I don't know.

Thanks for replying Ian. You said this is only in the early scenarios when the tanks were made of paper.

When I create my own scenarios using the editor, I can stack bishops up against panther, tigers, and king tigers, and still blow them all away using the bombardment attack factors - not the AP attack. It might take a few turns lobbing shells at the tanks, but i think this is a way over powered weapon systems - to take on king tigers and be able to blow them all up.

collegeprof86 wrote: When I create my own scenarios using the editor, I can stack bishops up against panther, tigers, and king tigers, and still blow them all away using the bombardment attack factors - not the AP attack. It might take a few turns lobbing shells at the tanks, but i think this is a way over powered weapon systems - to take on king tigers and be able to blow them all up.

In the Bombardment case, it's different .... (as I'm reading the script)

It uses the APBombardAttack value range ... the Bishop is 1-80.
Then, it rolls a random facing for the target (0,1,2,3) ... The KingTiger is (170,120,90,40) ... (40=top armor) ...
... so 25% to hit top ... 50% to roll > 40 ... total 12.5% chance to kill.

Now that seems OK for me ....
The Direct Fire still seems a wee-bit deadly though

We may need to reduce the chance of combardment hitting at all. Maybe 50% chance ot miss and then use the %. What I meant was it had not been tested vs late war tanks so I couldn't say how it would perfrom against them.

Second this, I would also wager that rockets (calliope, panzerwerfer) should have a much lower ability to hit.

It can be fun using them, but especially in terms of multiplayer, mobile artillery always provides a ridiculously unfair advantage.

My proposed changes:

- Increase mobile artillery strike epicentre by 1 (less accurate, and can be used more strategically)

- induce a probability for each shot for the epicentre to switch between 3 and 1. Increase the ratio for when the unit is further away (less accurate bombardment when at the back of the field compared to the front)

- Reduce the max power by 30-40%

- Reduce HE effectiveness with range (for direct fire)

Other than this, the balance for the game is fantastic! If artillery was made less effective and more available, I think we could make MP maps more fun )

I'll have a look at the bombardment. What I'll probably do is make it more likely they inflict low damage which wont hurt anyone with decent armour.

iainmcneil wrote:I'll have a look at the bombardment. What I'll probably do is make it more likely they inflict low damage which wont hurt anyone with decent armour.

A late "chime in" here---I find that the Calliope is absolutely deadly in the "Race for the Town" MP scenario, which I have now played several times from both sides. Once the Tiger and its Panther buddies reveal themselves, the Calliope is almost guaranteed to take them out.

Reading the commentary on this thread made me curious as to the real-world capabilities of the weapon. Relying upon a few different sources, it seems that a fair conclusion would be that the Calliope was quite deadly. But the game might be modelling it a bit incorrectly.

The Calliope used 4.5 inch rockets, upgraded to 7.2 inch late in the war. They could be fired in salvoes of a few, or all of them at once. The range for indirect fire was only about 150 meters, but the plunging rockets were very damaging to infantry and soft vehicles, and potentially hazardous to armour, especially if they were not "buttoned up". But the Calliope could be, and was utilized in direct fire mode as well. Although it carried its standard gun of 75mm, there were occasions where the Calliope unleashed its rockets in direct fire mode at ranges of 30 to 40 meters. These would be deadly, as often as not, against PzIV and less, and could even bag a Panther or Tiger from that distance, even head-on.

So perhaps it might be best to give it two ratings in the game---one for indirect fire, and another for direct close range fire. Is that possible to do from a programming perspective?

Other mobile artillery should not be as deadly against armour, but the Calliope might merit the distinction of being a tank buster. The down-side for the Allied player is that he needs to get really close and personal with a panzer in order to use the direct fire rating.

there were occasions where the Calliope unleashed its rockets in direct fire mode at ranges of 30 to 40 meters.

This is the bit that concerns me. I don't have any real knowledge of this subject, but if it was only used on occasion, in desperate situations (?) then might it be a mistake to consider making it a strength of the weapon? However close the range needed to be I would be worried about giving players the opportunity to use the Calliope, or any other weapon, in an unrealistic manner.

There is currently a discussion, as I am sure you know, about how to stop demoralized trucks and the like being used as scouts. Now I could argue that my truck simply took a wrong turn, very much like an old friend of mines fathers 25pdr tow did in Italy during WW2, he managed to find some German infantry that he didn't know were there previously , but that doesn't necessarily mean it should be a part of the game.

One of the things I love about games like Battle(field) Academy is the way that they punish you for doing the kind of things that our darling children would do to beat us in RTS games like Company of Heroes, and so are themselves an education.

However, if the Calliope crews used this tactic as a matter of course then bring it on!

Amaz_Ed wrote:

there were occasions However, if the Calliope crews used this tactic as a matter of course then bring it on!

I have not read many accounts of it happening, and most of the few I did see were somewhat anecdotal in nature. Undoubtedly it occurred, because many odd things occur during war, as witness your friend's father in Italy. My own best friend's dad was a captain with the Canadian Army in Italy during the war, and wrote an account of it called a "Narrative of War" in which several odd things are recounted.

As you suggest, because a thing occurred did not make it the norm. And of course we recognize that 30-40 meters is exceptionally short range. Even the bazooka, and to a lesser extent the panzerschreck had better effective range (80-140 meters, depending upon variant).

Overall, your comments find me in agreement with you. It would probably not be a good thing to factor in this tactic.

I am, as you mentioned, aware of the discussion about trucks, and think it would be great to see their use as "sacrificial scouts" somehow taken out of the game. It is very gamey to use a truck to draw fire or find a hidden enemy. As well, Iain's suggestion of just lowering the overall effectiveness of artillery on armour would be a good thing to try.

Happycat wrote:The range for indirect fire was only about 150 meters

150 meters? Maybe it would be good to reduce the range a decent amount (I think this is about 4 squares!) Else those calliopes are hidden away from enemy armour and never put at risk.

As for other artillery, can we make it less accurate at long range? It seems that they can pound a small target from miles off!

djddalton wrote:

Happycat wrote:The range for indirect fire was only about 150 meters

150 meters? Maybe it would be good to reduce the range a decent amount (I think this is about 4 squares!) Else those calliopes are hidden away from enemy armour and never put at risk.

As for other artillery, can we make it less accurate at long range? It seems that they can pound a small target from miles off!

I think that is a misprint in the source material---1500 meters sounds more like it. 150 meters you might just as well throw rocks

So far the only sources I've found on the calliope are scarce and unreliable...however, the gist I'm getting is that rockets were generally used to blanket an area, as they were largely inaccurate (unlike how they are used in race for the town, where you can almost guarantee destroying a tank within about 10km!)

So maybe the area of bombardment should cover 3-5 squares rather than 2?

djddalton wrote:So far the only sources I've found on the calliope are scarce and unreliable...however, the gist I'm getting is that rockets were generally used to blanket an area, as they were largely inaccurate (unlike how they are used in race for the town, where you can almost guarantee destroying a tank within about 10km!)

So maybe the area of bombardment should cover 3-5 squares rather than 2?

That sounds like a reasonable approach. From his earlier comment, it sounds like Iain is going to take a look at it anyway.

djddalton wrote:So far the only sources I've found on the calliope are scarce and unreliable...however, the gist I'm getting is that rockets were generally used to blanket an area, as they were largely inaccurate (unlike how they are used in race for the town, where you can almost guarantee destroying a tank within about 10km!)

So maybe the area of bombardment should cover 3-5 squares rather than 2?

djddalton,

I think you were onto something earlier regarding the "epicenter".

Currently, the HESpread value for the calliope is 0 ... So, yeah, it's about 1 tile spread at max range. Now, to go back to your epicenter, the problem (IMO) is that indirect onboard bombardment doesn't have any "scatter" ... meaning, the epicenter will always be the tile you click and the "spread" will take care of any slop. Frankly, it's the epicenter that needs to scatter a few tiles (if unit has no LOS to tile), then, like you said, apply a large dispersion "spread" ... I tested this and changed the HESpread value to a 3, which spread it to 3 tiles at max range. There is code in place for the spread/range relationship, ie ... farther range, bigger spread.

Since the calliope (in BA) fires 6 shots in 1 salvo, this equates to 10 rockets/shot ... a pretty aweful punch if it hits you. One of the manuals (shown below, #2) states that, "The effect of the high-explosive rocket is similar to the effect of a 105mm HE Shell M1". So, ten of these concentrated in a BA tile (roughly 100 meter square) might get ugly .

Ok ... there's one source I found ... two manuals ;

(1) 4.5 Multiple Rocket Launchers T66 and T66E2.
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref ... M9-392.pdf

(2) 4.5 Rocket Material For Ground Use.
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref ... M9-394.pdf

Manual (#1) is a specific rocket launcher ... (pdf page #53)... reads ;
- Max Range ... 5200 yrds.
- Dispersion ... 9 Mils.

Manual #2 has a range of 4600 yards but no value for dispersion ... (pdf page #107).

Remember .... 1 Mil = 1 meter @ 1000 meters ... So, roughly a 45 meter dispersion? Roughly half a football field.
If I got the Mil correct, then BA got it right (regarding spread) ... but, they just need to scatter the epicenter.

I hope all that makes some sense ...

Merr

hi Merr.... wow, what a resource of info you have obtained ! Great job of research! I think I agree, unguided rockets should perhaps have a higher error probability ellipse - in other words, they might have a tight hit pattern, but when you are indirectly firing 1/3rd of the way across the map on a single tank or 88 mm gun, then the error probability of actually hitting the bullseye with the pattern, maybe have some sort of matrix where there is say a 35 % chance of hitting an exact target at max range, and as range decreases that tightens up... should range of any such artillery and rocket fire be range dependent as to the epicenter being hit or not?? I think scatter is spot on.. but epicenter chance to hit should get worse the farther away you target, especially when it is using indirect non line of sight long range attacks... otherwise, if i ever run into a bad weapon facing me, like an 88, or a tiger, i simply unload bishops turn after turn, or a 25 pounder on it turn after turn til it is suppressed, and then i send in my combined arms to take it out...