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Post by 1javasjonnie on Dec 8, 2011 6:52:46 GMT -5
Thanks for explaining Hawk_5.
I understand what you say. There is one thing that I need to understand (because I don't know how that translates); if the units were at their final destination after the previous mission, how does that relate into red having recon on those units? If the units were in among the defences, shouldn't we have seen at least some blue question marks? Is there a delay in those appearing?
If the DCS does indeed take intended final position into account and ignores the physical in-mission final position, after a normally plotted mission, we would not have units going to locations that they aren't destined for.
From what I see this doesn't work that way. As an example, at Valenciennes, we had a task force intended to counterattack your units but the plotted mission was not evident in the final positions of the equipment, with half a task force driving north, and the other half driving south.
After the mission results had been processed, the task force had been split in two parts, none in their intended position.
If I follow your explanation, that should not have mattered and all equipment should have ended up at the intended final position. But the MP showed them 20 Km apart.
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Post by II/JG77Hawk_5 on Dec 8, 2011 7:45:12 GMT -5
Ah but the assumption there is that the DCS plotted them to go together, neatly, the right way as you intended.
That is the one thing that ahh..hmm..sometimes... doesn't happen.
As I look into my tea leaves and roll the bones on the floor, here is my understanding of how it works.
When we plot we are in effect making a request for unit x to go to location y via point A, B, C and so on. The DCS interprets your request and tries to accommodate your plans. This is where things can go astray. It may conclude that unit x is closer to this road rather than that road and will try to go via that route instead of where you and I clearly see is the obvious and intended way to go.
Coming up with a method of planning ground movement that always achieves the desired result is an SEOW skill set I am still trying to master. The fun (and frustration) is planning, flying and seeing how it went.
As for the point on moving units and maintain the recon value I am not sure after these events. I have seen units move on the MP map hours before build and launch where we have 100% recon and assumed they had been manually repositioned. In the last mission a 37mm flak gunned popped up right next our artillery only a short time before we launched. It was not in that position when we were planning and we had 100% recon on that unit also. I assumed it had been manually repositioned a considerable distance and as such we had to respond in mission and divert from our intended flight plan. Changing recon levels on a unit cannot happen unless a mission is analyzed or the DB is edited directly and that is just not happening.
I think a repositioned unit would remain visible and maintain recon level and when a unit moves in mission from a planned movement the recon then gets recalculated after the mission is analyzed. Knowing how close the tanks got to the Allied positions I would have thought that you would of had at least a blue question mark as they were in close proximity to Allied positions.
I am not sure of the recon levels that ground forces currently get from units close by. 4Shades should be able to give some more info on that and hopefully clarify any vague and poor explanations of mine.
Cheers,
5
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Post by LW/JG10_Luny on Dec 8, 2011 9:53:40 GMT -5
The behaviour of ground unit's task forces is still a sort of dice throwing. Of a three medium size task forces sent from point A to point B in the same area, only the third arrives where ordered, beeing the first two ones ending far from the final destination point and one curiously splitted.
Several times, the task force is composed by units with a different ground movement behaviour (some relaxed and some normal) causing the split of the task force when moving if the waypoints are plotted off road. This is of course not printed in stone as, very often, a task force made of ground units with the same ground movement finished with the leader far behind the remaining tf members. I've noticed it sometimes happens when the leader has a slower advancing speed (tanks as leader and halftracks as partners).
Unfortunately I haven't found any way to fix this but to cross fingers once the tf is plotted and pray.... Burning a candle to Oleg Maddox usually works...
If you want your units to go left instead of right in a road junction, plot one way point on the left road so you make the unit know where you want to go and do not let it to decide what route to take to go from point A to B.
I agree 5's suggestion to limit the relocation range to 100 m. I believe this can be fixed.
Despite it goes against blue army security, there hasn't been any PzIIF in sector J, none of the blue units in this sector has been moved through a worm hole, and of course none sent to Rotterdam sector through a worm hole. Please, try to explain these "previous experience" you are talking about.
MP doesn't allow you to relocate any unit next to the enemies. When you do this, you get a warning message on your screen and do not let you move there. Even disembarking troops close to the enemies is not allowed by the software.
The only way to move close and very close to the enemy units is plotting.
Rotterdam is a very hot area with a lot of units in a relatively small soil. The MP shows a lot of units and you can see only the one on the top of the heap of icons, and do not see the ones below. As you can not filter enemy type of units but only friendly, you can miss the presence of other type of units, thinking there are only ambulances but they are hiding Tigers... wich is also part of the strategy.
Regarding the tf counterattacking Valenciennes, I believe it was the best they could do and probably saved them of beeing captured or a worse destination. ;D.
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Post by 1javasjonnie on Dec 8, 2011 14:50:23 GMT -5
First of all, thanks for the intel. ;D
Second, I meant that I had some mind- boggling experiences with our equipment that reminded me of a wormhole.
The first experience was a staff car that had been stationed in Amiens; I moved it and after the mission, I was unable to locate it. A couple of missions later I found it back in a river east of Rotterdam.
In reverse, a horse team which I had tasked to move from east to west of Rotterdam turned up between Lille and Arras. I saw wher eyour armoured cars and tanks had showed up 7 seconds into the mission and was reminded of that, assuming you would be astonished to find them somewhere you had not expected them.
Your clarification about the task forces explains a lot. Thanks for that. I had multiple mishaps with a number of them (most notably near Hirson) but I think I may be able to do better next time.
I am glad you see where my question came from.
I think we all have just about the same understanding of these themes. I would like to support your idea to limit the repositioning; however, if I send a gun from the Rotterdam supply point to the airfield 2 Kms away, it shows up in Dordrecht where they get killed, being soft targets during transport. I was under the impression that the same had happened to your Puma's and tanks in the last mission.
This means that none of our equipment can be taken out of resupply & be successfully deployed. The weight of a single gun exceeds what our transport units are able to carry so those can't be used for deployment. For this reason I am not ready to do away with the repositioning but I am all for limiting it somehow.
I'll say it again; the roads around Rotterdam don't work at all. Simple movement from A to B is bound to see units up to 20 - 30 Kms out of place. I once belly- landed next to the runway but my a/c was declared lost and the loss icon was 12 kms away from where I had landed.
Another weird thing is that in the first attack by tanks on Rotterdam, the tanks did not use the bridges east of the town but drove straight west through the river. I witnessed this from my plane at about 500m alt.
Movement across the bridge to the north part of town or vice versa likewise will not work properly for any type of unit.
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Post by II/JG77Hawk_5 on Dec 8, 2011 20:37:47 GMT -5
Yes I think the unusual and outdated road capture has impacted ground movement enough to be easily visible in mission. I too have seen troops driving up a river and bypassing a bridge altogether. I don't see this as a usual SEOW issue but a combination of bad data on a bad map.
Once this campaign is completed I highly doubt this map will ever be used again for campaigning as it is incomplete. As we discussed on TS I believe it is now redundant and replaced by Westfront 40.
That being so we must press on as best we can in a less than ideal campaign ground as far we all wish to continue.
As you require the reposition feature to be flexible shall we agree to a single movement only per mission? This is open to further ideas and discussion.
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Post by LW/JG10_Luny on Dec 9, 2011 3:29:04 GMT -5
Anyway, the good or not so good road data capture on this particular map and the impact in ground movement can simulate the missunderstanding of orders and units getting lost when traveling along unknown roads (case of the blue army) and the very populated roads with troops moving (both directions) and refugees leaving the combat zones, for the red army.
The fact a bridge is down is not an assurance of units not to cross the river. On the road traveling units, will stop at the demolished bridge if its demolition has been recorded properly. In this map, frequently broken bridges in the mission planner show as brand new when flying over it. I believe this is due a missunderstood between the bridges database and it's real location in the map. Anyway, this hasn't been a big deal cos both armies didn't cross any broken bridge (shown as broken in the MP) with any type of vehicle so far.
About the relocation, I don't know if the 3 km standard meassure for disembarking, Command and Control, refueling and loading radius is applied to the relocation distance, or maybe it can be divided by 30 to get the desired 100 meteres without affecting the others distances (disembarking, refueling, etc).
If this can be done, then I do not see a reason to force just one single relocation as very often we input the wrong coordinate into the relocation input window, placing the unit in a wrong location. Or simply you need to reposition your disembarked troops around a specific place.
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Post by 4shades on Dec 9, 2011 7:36:25 GMT -5
Just came to this conversation late. A few comments:
1) This France map has poor quality of road network and bridge mapping. That causes problems for SEOW in choosing meaningful routes.
2) We have had good results in maps with solid road/bridge data.
3) Plotting ground movements in SEOW is a skill. Luny is right about "helping" your platoon choose the correct route out of a junction.
4) It is difficult to limit the number of consecutive relocations of a unit, but it is easy to reduce the relocation distance programmatically.
Cheers,
4S
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Post by LW/JG10_Luny on Dec 9, 2011 8:52:48 GMT -5
2) We have had good results in maps with solid road/bridge data. Agree. All the units will stop at a broken bridge. In the France map, the main problem is the large number of doglegs in a single road. Despite the MP allows you to plot for two hours and theoretically move 35 kms, the 40 or 50 waypoint limits, in certain roads, will let you move just 15 km. This is not a SEOW bug but the accurate map, wich is also very good under my point of view. 4) It is difficult to limit the number of consecutive relocations of a unit, but it is easy to reduce the relocation distance programmatically. Perhaps we can try. The 3.000 meters relocation range allows you to move 30 km in ten steps in about 5 minutes. With just a 100 meters relocation radius, you need 300 steps to do that. Of course you can still jump 30 kms but I'm sure nobody will waist about three hours doing this for just a single unit. In short, the limitation doesn't need to be programmed, the limit is your patience and free time. And with this range, you can "jump" some road junctions, roundabouts and weird intersections that keep your units stucked for no reason even after plotting the correct way out of them. |
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Post by 4shades on Dec 10, 2011 8:41:23 GMT -5
Changed to 100 m. Try it out, to see if it works as intended.
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Post by LW/JG10_Luny on Dec 10, 2011 12:02:23 GMT -5
Excellent. Thanks
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