HarPlonkHQ

How come that while playing the Argies in the White Death scenario off Player's DB - I think this is one of the standalone scenarios or in the Atlantic database - I had some of their own vessels firing on each other resulting in the loss of a DDG and an FG , half the task force that is? One of the ships was apparently struck by one of the Exocets fired at a Chilean contact and the frigate was apparently engaged with a naval gunfire, an odd occurrence and at first I had thought that the Chileans were closer than I anticipated. Only the study of the after action report and debriefing confirmed that Argentinians engaged themselves and the other half of the task force was obliterated by Chileans later at their leisure since all of the 13 Exocet missiles had been fired whereas the Chileans had fired only 8 and had some spare ones for yet another long range engagement.

Is a friendly fire really modelled here?

burroughs wrote:How come that while playing the Argies in the White Death scenario off Player's DB - I think this is one of the standalone scenarios or in the Atlantic database - I had some of their own vessels firing on each other resulting in the loss of a DDG and an FG , half the task force that is? One of the ships was apparently struck by one of the Exocets fired at a Chilean contact and the frigate was apparently engaged with a naval gunfire, an odd occurrence and at first I had thought that the Chileans were closer than I anticipated. Only the study of the after action report and debriefing confirmed that Argentinians engaged themselves and the other half of the task force was obliterated by Chileans later at their leisure since all of the 13 Exocet missiles had been fired whereas the Chileans had fired only 8 and had some spare ones for yet another long range engagement.

Is a friendly fire really modelled here?

Friendly fire is indeed possible in both H3 and ANW game versions. However, they are slightly different. When a self-guided weapon such as Exocet is fired in ANW, the weapon has its own sensor and becomes 'live' at a certain distance from the target. (The developers once gave out the formula for this distance calc, but it has since been lost.) At the activation point, it selects a target from the field of view for its sensors. Often, the target is not the same as the one intended by the AI or player.

In H3, if you have solid contact with the target and fire an Exocet at it, the missile is guaranteed to chase the correct target. However, if you fire at a target that is within a Zone of Uncertainty (however small it might be), then the ANW behaviour takes over and the weapon goes active and selects its own target. (Personally, I do not like the ANW behaviour and prefer the H3 one. It is a small concession to game enjoyment.)

I do not believe that gunfire is subject to friendly fire rules. I am pretty certain it cannot fire on ships from the same side.