Sherman Tank Mission

[Daiwilletti]

Tootling through the missions here at SOH I came across the Sherman tank missions utilising Bill Sponge's driveable Sherman. Hadn't tried it for ages. I had forgotten how much fun it is to blast away at ground targets.

However, I went through the mission with minimal opposition. To fix up the German armor so that they shoot at you, you have to remove the Targetcategory setting in their guns' xdp files. (Don't remember if that is standard or not)

After removing the targetcategory from the 88mm L56 gun and the 128mm Pak gun (for Tiger, King Tiger and Jagd Tiger respectively), I added the Skill=3 parameter for the German armor formations in the mission (which they may originally have had).

Got shot at. Not nearly so easy when they shoot back!

But still a whole lot of fun!

 

[Daiwilletti]

OK I've already had a request for the location of the mission file. http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/local_links.php?catid=70&sort=d&page=24&pp=20

Its well buried on page 24 of CFS3 - Other - Missions, by the looks of the URL. Another tip - when driving the tank in cockpit view, F8 gives you the main gunner's station. Un fortunately the AI pilot who takes over when you are shooting is not very confident so you find the tank coming to a halt which is unnerving when Tigers, King Tigers and Jagdtigers are shooting at you with their modified gun xdps allowing them to shoot at aircraft (which is what you are driving - er, flying).

 

[HouseHobbit]

I remember these from back in the day..

I have several "tank" missions for my Eastern front part III mini expansion, just haven't the time to finish all of this and bring it up to more modern standards, that have been developed since I first built this Mini expansion III for MAW.
Need to "adjust" so many XDP files so everything would shoot correctly, it would be a major undertaking..To say the least.

 

[Daiwilletti]

I remember these from back in the day..

Need to "adjust" so many XDP files so everything would shoot correctly, it would be a major undertaking..To say the least.

Hi HH, in ETO or another addon I suspect you are right there would be a fair bit of modification. However this is just being run in my baseline experimental CFS3 platform. I didn't have much to do, I just wanted to tweak a few of the guns to make it a bit more of a challenge

One thing I'm not so sure about with Targetcategory and how it works. On deleting the Targetcategory entry the German tanks are shooting at both the land based US vehicles (shermans) and the land based driveable aircraft (s_sherman). If I instead added "aircraft" into the Targetcategory mix, would that be a better or worse solution? For example, tweaking the gun xdps affects gameplay throughout all missions and campaigns. It becomes a bit of a pain if all German armor with 88mmL56 guns start to shoot at passing aircraft. But offhand I would say that either adding "aircraft" or deleting Targetcategory altogether would have the same result wrt the guns now engaging enemy aircraft. But I would love to hear other views.

Not that tank commanders were entirley averse to that idea (shooting at planes) in real life.... Ages ago I read a book (I think it was called "Gunner Inglorious") where the author was a young British tank commander in Greece (IIRC in a Valentine). When crossing a mountain pass (no doubt in retreat), his crew heard an aircraft approaching. As it flew overhead, our commander had the gunner loose off a 2-pdr round. It was a tracer round, which was seen to enter the rear fuselage of the He-111. They never found out what happened as the bomber flew over the ridge and could not be seen/heard from.

Talk about a lucky shot!

 

[Daiwilletti]

A day in the life of a Sherman tank commander......

 

[gosd]

One thing I'm not so sure about with Targetcategory and how it works. On deleting the Targetcategory entry the German tanks are shooting at both the land based US vehicles (shermans) and the land based driveable aircraft (s_sherman). If I instead added "aircraft" into the Targetcategory mix, would that be a better or worse solution? For example, tweaking the gun xdps affects gameplay throughout all missions and campaigns. It becomes a bit of a pain if all German armor with 88mmL56 guns start to shoot at passing aircraft. But offhand I would say that either adding "aircraft" or deleting Targetcategory altogether would have the same result wrt the guns now engaging enemy aircraft. But I would love to hear other views.[/QUOTE]

Looking into this I have noticed that only the original 128mmpack has a TargetCategory and it does not state aircraft, so I am also wondering if deleting or modifying this item would change anything?
My s_sherman come with a 50mmBK5_gun not a 75mm gun, neither of these gun file have a TargetCategory.

 

[Daiwilletti]

To Delete TargetCategory or to add "Aircraft"?

Looking into this I have noticed that only the original 128mmpack has a TargetCategory and it does not state aircraft, so I am also wondering if deleting or modifying this item would change anything?
My s_sherman come with a 50mmBK5_gun not a 75mm gun, neither of these gun file have a TargetCategory.

Hi gosd,
My CFS3 Testbed is highly modified and I cannot remember what stock looks like. If most of your gun xdps do not have a targetcategory that is good.
If the 128mmPAK has a Targetcategory, my suggestion is to delete that category. The alternative is to add "aircraft" however I find that for vehicles with guns that do not have a targetcategory, they shoot at any enemy within range. The 128mmPAK gun is used on the JagdTiger.

The reason to add a targetcategory is that it is silly to see a big gun shooting at personnel_staff, for example, or a bicycle (think WOFF). For example, it is useful to add "tracked" or similar as a targetcategory when guns are almost exclusively used to shot at armored vehicles. When a category selection like "tracked" is made, if I understand correctly the gun will exclusively shoot at the target category.

On a recent run of the Sherman mission, one of my AI team in a Sherman vehicle shot at a passing aircraft (!) - that is because presumably I had deleted the targetcategory in the 75mmm3_gun xdp. I should fix that as there is no need for the 75mmm3 gun to shoot at aircraft.

However one of the hassles of driveable vehicles in a mission is that only enemy equipped to shoot at aircraft will shoot at the driveable vehicle.
That can be tricky in a maritime mission with driveable MTBs for example. You zoom up toward a cruiser, and only the 40mm Flak opens up on you . That is when a specific vessel is needed as the target in your driveable mission. In that way you can create a unique gun xdp so that mods do not affect general gameplay. Just thinking aloud.

So in a perfect world the enemy targets in a driveable vehicle/ship mission would be unique with unique guns that targetted aircraft, so as to avoid having 8in_55 guns opening up on passing aircraft in general gameplay. I've actually had something similar happen a while ago after tweaking gun xdps for some reason and it is a nasty surprise in a campaign when you are shot at through cloud from miles away, when you can't even see the ships concerned.