From my Position

[TopKick]

From my Position!

This essential feature of tank gunnery has been missing all these years. I never mentioned it before now because I thought it would be dismissed as not important or placed on THE LIST.

We have always complained about the AI TC, especially when he pulls us away from a target we see and puts on one we don’t see, or when he puts us on troops when there is a tank staring us in the face. Announcing that you see the target will let you fire on it, but then the TC will drag you back to the unseen target again. Sometimes firing blindly at the unseen target, usually hidden in trees, will kill that unseen tank or troops. When you are the gunner and can’t see the target, the TC, at some point is supposed to grab the override, and make a final precise lay of the gun for the gunner. If the gunner still fails to see the target, the TC should fire at the target himself. He announces “FROM MY POSITION . . . ON THE WAY" . . . and fires. The TC should never wait long before he fires the gun from his position.

Will this ever be implemented? Are we ready for a trigger-happy Tank Commander? Is it not a issue to be concerned with at all?

One problem I see with it is that since the TC uses the GPSE, when he takes over, will he also be unable to see the target? On the M1A1 I assume that he originally identified the target from the open TC hatch. He could have been spotting from the GPSE. If he was then why can’t the Gunner also see the target he points out?

On the Leo, I don’t have a clue when the TC is supposed to fire the gun himself. I don’t know if failure to ID the same targets is a problem between the TC and Gunner on the Leo.

Top

[TopKick]

However, I must admit that the AI gunner never fails to spot the target I put him on from the open TC hatch or GPSE. He has better eyes than I do and usually spots the target first. I’ve never had to override the AI Gunner. I fire from the TC position often just for fun and practice. Maybe I just answered my question.

[3Star]

Interesting question, and frankly, I never considered it. I consider FMP to be pretty much what you do when you're fed up/exasperated with your gunner not seeing the target: The AI is eternally patient and has complete faith in your abilities! (I should add, I've had more than one gunner semi-jokingly tell me that if I ever touched the TC's override, he'd disconnect it!)

I do use the override on rare occasions in the M1 in SB, mind. Especially, for some reason, in SBP, I am sometimes finding it a lot easier to acquire targets from the TC's hole and swing the gun around. Probably due to the elevation difference and decrease in TIS effectiveness making the 'naked eye'/wide angle of vision more viable.

NTM

[12Alfa]

When any gunner reports trg not seen, the commander has 2 ways to deal with the situation.
1.He commands the gunner to fire (assuming he the comdr has moved him in line with the trg) and then the gunners should then see the trg, and if not the comdr does a adj on to it.

2. the comdr fires onto the trg, after all he has layed the tube in line to the trg, and can see it.he may have lased also, so he can see, knows the range, and has the ability to engage, tell the crew he is firing and lets the round go.

I never liked the gunner to report "not seen", i told all my gunners on start up breif that if the don't see the trg, report " not seen" and then fire, I will adjust and we would carry on. This gets a round down range and hopefully get the traget under cover and lets the crew see where the round went in via the target.

Giving a description of where the target is when the gunner can't see it can take a bit of time, myself I find it faster just to fire the round and do a adjustment on to it.

So the short answer is, a "no seen" will put me into spin dry, the gunner usually never makes this mistake again while in my turret, but hey, thats just me...
The Ai tc should do the same I would think.

It may be different in other armys.

[Volcano]

Topkick,

Good point and I know what you mean. However, I don't think that "From my position" is said anymore (as the standard proceedure, I mean) rather the TC just says "OTW" and fires. In any case, I am sure it could still be worked in there with just the TC saying OTW and taking the shot himself.

[Ssnake]

I think we made a deliberate design decision in ... 1998? ... that we would NOT have the computer TC fire the gun if a human was in the gunner's position. Ultimately the computer only serves a supporting role to the human player.

[PS-SCUD]

Thank you Ssnake.

Based on my impressions of the AI TC, I can only imagine what crap he would choose to shoot at (and at the worste possible times).

It's bad enough I have to tell him to $%^ off every time he tries to lay me on some troops. I shudder to think of him taking the gun away from me and making shots himself.

A human TC on the other hand works quite nicely for this.

[TopKick]

Now that I think about it, Scud, you are probably right. The AI TC seems to do fairly well in an unmaned crew, but goes into stupid mode when there's a human in the Gunners seat. :D