Problems with hit percentage calculation

[Veeman]

First of all, thanks to the dev team for an amazing game! I discovered this gem a while ago and have been completely hooked since. Also, the community seems very friendly and 'serious' in a good way, which is something I appreciate a lot. OK, now to my question:

I've had a few strange experiences related to the hit percentage calculation. This is what happened yesterday while playing a PBEM game of scenario #7 in the WinSPWW2 (standard download version 2.5) scenario list.

My Russian 122mm 31 howitzer (unit L0, located at 50,39) spotted several Ferdinands on top of a hill, moving at 6km/h, at a range of 1200-1300m. One of them seemed like a good target, as its side was exposed to the howitzer and the estimated hit percentage was 31%. I did not fire right away, but cycled through a couple of my other units first to see if they were in a good firing position also. However, when I returned to the howitzer and targeted the Ferdinand again, the hit percentage had dropped drastically to a mere 5%. This was not due to any gameplay events such as increased suppression after taking enemy fire etc., as I did not take any action except scan the units' chances of hitting their targets.

One more thing I should probably mention is that in the beginning of the turn the howitzer's suppression was at 2, which was lowered to 1 after a successful rally. This was done before the abovementioned occurred.

Now, as a newcomer to the game I can't tell which of the two hit percentages reflects the reality better, but I know it should not have changed just like that. Might this be a bug?

Attached to this message are saves from the beginning of the current turn and the previous one as zip files. I'm player two, and the password is "r87swe". I tried to replicate the error, but did not succeed as I got a hit percentage of 5% right away.

In an earlier PBEM game I had a similar experience while playing on the Russian side against the Germans; when I targeted an enemy tank with my T-34, the percentage was around 50%, but upon firing it suddenly dropped to 9% and obviously resulted in a miss. I wonder if I'm doing something wrong?

[Marek_Tucan]

AFAIK the hit percentage shown in "Taget" mode is just "rough", ie taking into account just weapon, movement etc. and just then upon actual firing the gun it gets altered with skill etc.

[Veeman]

Thanks for the quick answer! I guess that explains why the T-34 missed.

However, the situation was different with the howitzer. I did not explain it very well in my message above, here's another explanation of what happened:

1. I selected the howitzer, rallied it once, and targeted the Ferdinand but did not fire. Hit chance 31%.

2. I selected another unit, cycled through a few targets without firing and...

3. Re-selected the howitzer and targeted the same Ferdinand , yet again without firing. Estimated hit chance 5%.

[edit] I managed to get the same phenomenon a while ago, on the next turn. One thing I had failed to notice earlier was that the howitzer had already been assigned an indirect fire target by the HQ. This could perhaps be linked to the problem - here's what I did:

4. In the beginning of the next turn, I gave a new indirect target for the howitzer from the Bombard menu.

5. I selected the unit again and cycled through a few Ferdinands in the Target mode. Estimated hit percentage 28-31%.

6. I exited the Target mode, and immediately pressed T again. Cycling through the Ferdinands produced percentages between 3-5%.

In other words, no shots were fired but the percentage dropped nevertheless. When no indirect bombardment orders were pending, the percentage was 3-5% right from the beginning. I may be chasing ghosts here but, at least for me, this seems like a possible bug. Any comments?

[Mobhack]

You have the artillery piece plotted for indirect fire.

Then, you try to select targets for direct fire - with the indirect fire flag set. You then get the indirect fire accuracy, with HE ammo (base probability to land a HE shell in the target hex itself most likely). However, the gun will fire AP (Heat in this case?) should you fire direct fire, and that would be at the hit percent (first shot attempt) for hitting a point target, which is different from the hit a hex percentage. The act of firing direct will clear the indirect flag.

If you have a weapon plotted for HE indirect fires, then you should manually clear the fire mission, if you need to do what you were trying to do. (Having the game clear the indirect mission just to check direct hitting chance is not a good option, since you might then clear an indirect mission you plotted 3-4 turns back).

Having a unit plotted for indirect mission, it will not fire in direct-fire reaction fires, in any case. The indirect mission has priority.

Better to have your indirect fire arty back in the rear, hidden behind blocking terrain, and not sitting out in the front line !.

Cheers
Andy

[Veeman]

All right, now I understand. Many thanks for your excellent answer!