A case for rec bonus for 5 man gren

so I did some test the new VSL Grenadiers and USF Riflemen.
Both are 5 men, Grens with 5th man cost 270 mp and rifle cost 280mp very similar.
Now the test were done in TestRange map, with cheat mod2 and WBPv5.

Testing was done using the vanilla USF Sherman no MG upgrade and no HE round used. the squads was faced towards the tank from a line in a formation with 3 of the forward models where on that line, the Sherman was (clicked/dragged and faced) towards the squad from a line 25 units further away(so that is 22 ish units) and there was no cover for the units.

10 iterations were done on both.
Here are some of the results:

vet 0 Grenadiers avg survival time: 32s (one anomaly 51s)
vet 3 Grenadiers avg survival time: 36s (2 anomalies of 50s, 53s) (No clue why why vet3 made so little difference maybe bug with balance mod or cheat mod idk, if someone can explain i'd appreciate it, or if this is as intended maybe using standard round rather than he vs grens could be new strat idk)

vet0 Riflemen avg survival time: 34s (one anomaly 49s)
vet3 Riflemen avg survival time: 54s (3 anomalies 67s, 62s, 48s)

As they cost similar I think there is a case to be made that their durability should be brought more closer to each other. I think some of that rec acc bonus should be returned maybe 5% for now. As you can see the huge discrepancy between their survivability for merely 10 mp.

You.. do realize that vet does absolutely nothing for any infantry against tanks main cannons?

Disparity you see stem from MGs, squad formation and RNG.

Vet0 osttruppen or vet3 shocks, all die equally fast to tanks main gun if hull and coax won't shoot.

So not exactly sure what is the point of this thread.

Also, you made a critical mistake.
You don't compare vsl grens to rifles, because ost can't build rifles.
You compare them to lmg grens, because that's the alternative to vsl.

You.. do realize that vet does absolutely nothing for any infantry against tanks main cannons?

Disparity you see stem from MGs, squad formation and RNG.

Vet0 osttruppen or vet3 shocks, all die equally fast to tanks main gun if hull and coax won't shoot.

So not exactly sure what is the point of this thread.

Also, you made a critical mistake.
You don't compare vsl grens to rifles, because ost can't build rifles.
You compare them to lmg grens, because that's the alternative to vsl.

Received accuracy bonuses from veterancy do benefit infantry VS tank cannons, if only minorly. It makes it less likely that the cannon is able to make a direct hit vs an infantry model.

This isnt a particularly huge benefit, but it does increase survivability somewhat.

Also: Zerozeroni: The reason that Gren veterancy only makes a minor difference vs tank fire is that the 20% DR doesnt stop the tank being able to oneshot infantry models. It doesnt even breach breakpoints for allowing a model to survive an extra mid-distance shot. It DOES mean models can survive an extra "far" damage AOE shot from some tank cannons, which do 8 damage at that range... but this assumes they're only being hit by "far" damage, and never close or midrange.

Have a look at the spreadsheet and you can see for yourself why 20% DR doesn't really matter vs a tank in most cases. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H5z6szCfhmAAnDprmgwLzc-viZg4HPhKZshNLErvnck/edit#gid=1619743570

Riflemen veterancy does absolutely nothing to increase their durability versus AOE. These test results are pure RNG.

Grens do get better resistance versus AOE with vet 3, but since tank shells deal 160 damage it won't help against the near AOE damage oneshotting models.


Received accuracy also practically does not matter against scatter weapons (tank main gun versus infantry). The chance to directly hit a model is 2-5% based on the distance, so that's negligible. Tanks use scatter to hit infantry, which is a random RNG calculation that totally ignores infantry target size.

Received accuracy bonuses from veterancy do benefit infantry VS tank cannons, if only minorly. It makes it less likely that the cannon is able to make a direct hit vs an infantry model.

This isnt a particularly huge benefit, but it does increase survivability somewhat.

Minorly is an understatement, you're talking about markin of 1-2%, 5% if you actually put infantry right in front of tank.
Main gun accuracy stems from scatter, not accuracy, therefore rec acc vet does absolutely nothing.
Grens vet3 rec dmg have larger impact, but since meds do 160dmg, that also is almost completely negated.

Your tests were nothing but scatter RNG.
Against non accuracy weapons that do more then 20 dmg, you aren't going to get any reliable results unless you repeat tests hundreds of times and once you do, you'll come to the conclusion that any 5 man inf is exactly as durable as any other 5 man inf against tanks main gun if MGs are not involved.

Riflemen veterancy does absolutely nothing to increase their durability versus AOE. These test results are pure RNG.

Grens do get better resistance versus AOE with vet 3, but since tank shells deal 160 damage it won't help against the near AOE damage oneshotting models.


Received accuracy also practically does not matter against scatter weapons (tank main gun versus infantry). The chance to directly hit a model is 2-5% based on the distance, so that's negligible. Tanks use scatter to hit infantry, which is a random RNG calculation that totally ignores infantry target size.

You know what i'll do some more test and get back to you.
I'm gonna do this,
Wanna give me any particular test you wanna suggest to me.

You know what i'll do some more test and get back to you.
I'm gonna do this,
Wanna give me any particular test you wanna suggest to me.

There aren't any rests you need to bother with, really. The spreadsheet i provided has all the information you need to do calculations as to how effective 20% DR is vs 160 damage tank cannons.

You.. do realize that vet does absolutely nothing for any infantry against tanks main cannons?

Disparity you see stem from MGs, squad formation and RNG.

Vet0 osttruppen or vet3 shocks, all die equally fast to tanks main gun if hull and coax won't shoot.

So not exactly sure what is the point of this thread.

Also, you made a critical mistake.
You don't compare vsl grens to rifles, because ost can't build rifles.
You compare them to lmg grens, because that's the alternative to vsl.

I can appreciate sarcasm.

There is no case for the RA bonus. At vet 3 vsl grens have absurd survivability against small arms

The extra man gives them better survivability against tanks already compared to "normal" grens. The RA bonus won't do anything to tank shells

I can be wrong but Allies 5-7 men infantry got ra/target size bonus at vet without commander needs...

At least give the ra/target bonus back to vsl gren.

As it stands the nerfs to ost AI plays is too harsh, vsl,ostt,brumbar all got rekt in this patch

interesting, i'll give this a shot, too.

just a quick question: are the formations of the new vsl grens and rifles the same? i.e., sth like this:

...×..×..×
.×..........×


EDIT nvm, went in-game and found it. both are the same.

I can be wrong but Allies 5-7 men infantry got ra/target size bonus at vet without commander needs...

At least give the ra/target bonus back to vsl gren.

As it stands the nerfs to ost AI plays is too harsh, vsl,ostt,brumbar all got rekt in this patch

You haven't even played a singular patch game.. how would you know?

You know what i'll do some more test and get back to you.
I'm gonna do this,
Wanna give me any particular test you wanna suggest to me.

for starters, record it.

There aren't any rests you need to bother with, really. The spreadsheet i provided has all the information you need to do calculations as to how effective 20% DR is vs 160 damage tank cannons.

Those tests are quite important. However I think what would matter more is the time until both squads are down to 2 models, because that's about the time when players would retreat them.
The effect of RA on direct hits that you mentioned accounts for realistically 2-3% of all shots. In total the effect of getting about 30% RA bonus (that's what most infantry gets) translates into less than 1% of all shots (and technically then again minus the chance of a shot OHKing anyway because it scattered into the model by pure chance). And to put that again into perspective: If you have a game with 15 engagements where a medium shoots 4 shots at infantry, you will see one incidence of RA bonus making a difference every second game. On the other hand, you will see the damage reduction make a difference on safe to say every game.

And regarding the DA:
It also means that the OHK radius of an AP-shell Sherman is reduced from 0,88m to 0,78 meters or about 11%.


A purely mathematical approach for the main gun could also be that the OHK radius of a P4 vs Riflemen covers 7,6% of the P4s scatter area per model. For Sherman- vet3 VSL Grens it is 4,5%. If all models stand apart and are fully in the scatter area, it gives a very rough estimation of how likely it is that a standing medium snipes a particular full health model (plus the chance of rolling a direct hit, which adds another ~2%).




EDIT:
Just dug out this old post of mine: https://www.coh2.org/topic/105637/preview-towards-quantifying-aoe-alpha-damage
This data basically shows (in a slightly too quirky way, could have done it better) how much damage the very first shot on a Rifle/Volks squad is probably going to do. It does neglect direct hits and damage on already pre-damaged squads.

Last spoiler is a small comparison of medium tanks. I should have some data lying around for Grens, but not for VSL grens.

Ok, so I did some testing today with an updated version of my simulator, now including a crude approximation of MG DPS. This allows the sample size with 2,000 iterations to be quite a bit bigger that what would be feasible in-game.

So far the numbers in the OP are in the same ballpark of what i got, just the relative order is different.

The short version:

Using the setup in the OP (same formation, no cover, 25 m distance to target, Sherman w/ AP rounds, combined base DPS for Hull and Coax MG of 9.47) and the respective defensive stats for each unit plugged from serealia's site I get the following T2K values:

Vet 0 VSL Grens	0.91 TS	0% DR	EHP: 439.6	TTK: 36.2 +/- 5.4 s
Vet 0 Riflemen	0.97 TS	0% DR	EHP: 412.4	TTK: 33.8 +/- 4.9 s
Vet 3 VSL Grens	0.91 TS	20% DR	EHP: 527.5	TTK: 41.9 +/- 7.0 s
Vet 3 Riflemen	0.63 TS	0% DR	EHP: 634.9	TTK: 47.7 +/- 7.9 s

Actual probability distribution in the spoiler Show Spoiler

Riflemen seem to die a tiny bit faster than VSL Grens, which they should considering their higher base RA. Vet obviously gives quite a bit more survivability but, in contrast to what I would have expected, the bonus RA of the Vet 3 Rifles seems to outperform the Gren's 20% DR. Quite surprising, as scatter and, hence, tank main gun damage is barely even affected by RA / target size.

And the reason for this leads us to...

The long version:

Looking at both the average damage dealt and models killed per shot over 2,000 repetitions, it's quite apparent that things are pretty even when the first shell lands - which it should, because at this point the damage output relies solely on the main gun and the differences in RA between the squads don't matter much (to illustrate, the chance of scoring a natural hit ranges between 3.3% (0.97 TSz) and 2.2% (0.63 TSz)). However, after that it gets interesting:



Now the average damage received increases inversely proportional to the EHP, suggesting the contribution of the Sherman's MGs becomes quite significant from now on. The extent of this contribution can be seen in the next two graphs, which summarize the percentages of the total damage and total kills, respectively, caused by the MG alone.



Obviously the MGs are responsible for the majority of the damage dealt and kills scored, with only about 20-30% coming from the Sherman's main gun. That as well should not be a big surprise, since the scatter profile of the AP shells isn't great to begin with. More importantly, due to the model spacing in the formation (average 5.9 m, minimum 3.6 m, maximum 10 m) it is literally impossible to catch more than two models in the AoE at the same time.
As a result, the superior RA of Vet 3 Rifles outweighs the 20% DR of Vet 3 VSL Grens by quite a margin, even though it does next to nothing against explosive damage at all.

To come back to the OPs conclusion: On paper I agree it looks like the survivability of VSL Grens is quite inferior to that of Vet 3 Riflemen, but I'd also say that you couldn't possibly have chosen a more favorable (or more deceptive?) example to prove your point:

The chosen squad formation to test this, together with the poor AI of the Sherman's AP shells means the result is dominated by the damage contribution of the MGs and, hence, the impact of RA on overall toughness (although I understand it is difficult to test other, more clumped formations in-game). For a more realistic test, I'd recommend to switch to a tank with better main gun AI, such as the PzIV or HE Sherman, where the added DR should have much greater effect. Also, choosing a more clumped formation, maybe even in light cover, should paint a more accurate picture of what to expect in a real game scenario where MGs are even less effective.

thanks for the test. i Always found 50cal more lethal than mg42, even the vickers is too. not surprising results

To come back to the OPs conclusion: On paper I agree it looks like the survivability of VSL Grens is quite inferior to that of Vet 3 Riflemen, but I'd also say that you couldn't possibly have chosen a more favorable (or more deceptive?) example to prove your point:

The chosen squad formation to test this, together with the poor AI of the Sherman's AP shells means the result is dominated by the damage contribution of the MGs and, hence, the impact of RA on overall toughness (although I understand it is difficult to test other, more clumped formations in-game). For a more realistic test, I'd recommend to switch to a tank with better main gun AI, such as the PzIV or HE Sherman, where the added DR should have much greater effect. Also, choosing a more clumped formation, maybe even in light cover, should paint a more accurate picture of what to expect in a real game scenario where MGs are even less effective.

Not to mention than in a real game, the dmg output of hull MGs is never constant. On top of that the main gun from tanks will create light cover which will benefit the units getting shot. Reducing the dmg output of MGs by half.


In your simulator, do you have a way to stop the testing at X amount of models remaining and/or certain threshold of HP remaining? Instead of waiting till a squad gets wiped.

Not to mention than in a real game, the dmg output of hull MGs is never constant. On top of that the main gun from tanks will create light cover which will benefit the units getting shot. Reducing the dmg output of MGs by half.


In your simulator, do you have a way to stop the testing at X amount of models remaining and/or certain threshold of HP remaining? Instead of waiting till a squad gets wiped.

Yeah I have to admit the way the sim handles MG damage is rather a crude approximation of what's going on in the real game. Using the average DPS at a given distance cannot reflect things like damage arriving in bursts and also discrete "packages", depending on the damage per bullet. Also stuff like the creation of light cover from impacts, as you mentioned already, and more importantly the variation in DPS due to hits and misses is quite difficult to implement. But I assume the average MG DPS has a lot less variability than that of the main gun, so over a large set of repetitions it should still be quite accurate.

The sim does indeed allow to limit the number of shots to anywhere between 1 and 500, but the same info (minus standard deviation or probability distribution) can in principle be extracted from the graphs as well (i.e. comparing the average HP drain or models killed after 2, 3, 4, etc. shots fired).

I plan to upload a new version of the spreadsheet soon(TM), so anyone who's interested can test it out for themselves.

thanks for the test. i Always found 50cal more lethal than mg42, even the vickers is too. not surprising results

Because they are for pure damage and 50ca for suppression + damage best mg in the game with it's faster than lightning resetup speed. MG42 only competes with incendiary bullets otherwise it's just wide arc suppression platform.