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accuracy/efficiency of machine gun fire


Killkess

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Vinnart makes a good point. If arms are as deadly and as accurate as in reality, then in order to maintain realistic gameplay, the infantry AI needs to be as good as in reality....

I'd love to see MGs being fixed and I expect I will. But there will always be abstractions. We will just nudge and tweak these abstractions so they portray reality more accurately.

I dont have any problem with abstracted calculations. The point is that we have to look at it from the outcome perspective and i realy dont believe anybody wants/tries to argue that the outcome is a feasible one. Seeing 4 guys running in the open for several minutes without beeing supressed or shot is way beyond what i excect from a HMG capabilites. Let alone a gunner which cant hit a non moving target from 200 meters with a 8x magnification.

And to remind: the test show the maximum capabilities! Now add some more cover/concealment, trees, bushes etc and the value of a mg gets next to nill.

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Killkess, I wasn't specifically referring to this situation. It's clearly wrong and I'd love to see it fixed. It was meant as food for thought for when this discussion enters the fuzzier areas of the game and AI.

I have fired several belts with a 1/5 tracer mix from PKMs and KvKK62s in a LMG/MMG configuration at targets and inspected the hits so I have a limited perspective on machineguns.

:)

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This issue with MG's is interesting as I find I am only deploying and using em when absolutely needed. They are mortar magnets and per the above, don't seem to have any sort of dramatically useful effect compared to a squad or even a team with an LMG. When I have armor, I'll use them and leave the MG's behind in safety. So, if there is a flaw that makes em less effective than they should be, it would be great to correct that.

The other related issue is that it would be great to enable crewed weapons to immediately run and hide when mortar shells start falling nearby. In these situations, ESPECIALLY with WEGO, there is no time to undeploy. The crew needs the ability (either auto or per orders) to FAST move a safe distance away and hit the dirt and HIDE. They should be able to return and recrew when safe.

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I not only noticed this issue with machine guns but also with mortars, at least when they have inexperienced crews. Now I don't even know how you aim a mortar so I can't really argue about details but I don't see how even the stupidest of any crew could aim a mortar about 50 degres to the side of the target! Note, I am not talking about absolute ranges I could believe it deviating a few metres to the side if at extreme ranges but I am talking about it hitting about 50 metres to the side when the range is only 200 metres! That also looks messed up because you see the mortar being perfectly aimed and then the shell exits the mortar tube at a totally different path than the tube is pointed at somewhere to the side of the target.

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I not only noticed this issue with machine guns but also with mortars, at least when they have inexperienced crews. Now I don't even know how you aim a mortar so I can't really argue about details but I don't see how even the stupidest of any crew could aim a mortar about 50 degres to the side of the target! Note, I am not talking about absolute ranges I could believe it deviating a few metres to the side if at extreme ranges but I am talking about it hitting about 50 metres to the side when the range is only 200 metres! That also looks messed up because you see the mortar being perfectly aimed and then the shell exits the mortar tube at a totally different path than the tube is pointed at somewhere to the side of the target.

Thankfully this isn't a personal embarassing story, but I've seen a mortar crew that accidentally setup somewhere that wasn't flat and didn't notice. It's hard to figure how they missed that, but it's happened IRL.

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While it is true that the zooming makes the effect a bit stronger its not the case that the shots misses by some inches.

First shot was made with 2x magnification to be able to see the shots at all from the german side:

mgtest2.jpg

This shows the situation without magnification from the american side:

mgtest3.jpg

mgtest4.jpg

I think the zoom effect is not that exagerating.

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Kilkess,

If you thought your MGs were defective before, recommend you take a look at this once Restricted doc. German MG coverage starts on 53. Note particularly the effective range figures (will make you cry; have tissues ready) and the overhead firing tables, another thing MGs could really do (watched Vickers HMG fired this way in the MilChan's The Deadly Duo in "Secret War").

http://www.thortrains.net/downloads/german-infantry-weapons.pdf

Regards,

John Kettler

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3,827+ yard effective range for a MG34? .... that must be for area fire. And even then it's a bit optimistic. I can't imagine you could even see anything at half that range. Any hit would certainly be luck.

The accuracy shown does look pretty bad, but in combat I can imagine missing by several meters to be pretty common (small arms hits at longer ranges should be fairly rare). I think it could be tightened up a bit, but you shouldn't get "on the firing range" accuracy either. The gun and tripod is only as accurate as the stressed out gunner. It just means he'll miss with tighter bursts.

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Missing while under fire is something completely different than what we see here. In game this should be/is represented via the supression bar. I cant imagine why a crew, which is not under fire at all, should shoot that bad.

Just to give a dead horse a kick, this time a crack fanatic crew trying to stopp the american armada!

Granted, they were finally were taken down at around 150 meters. (2 deads by MP40, 2 deads by MG42) BTW, the MP40 opened up at 258 Meters. Any news to this issue by BFC?

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Ryujin,

If you believe S.L.A. Marshall, in THE RIVER & THE GAUNTLET, effective range for infantry MGs is ~600 meters. His calculation, though, is for U.S. weapons lacking telescopic sights. Both the tripod mounted MG-34 and MG-42 have magnifying optical sights, greatly increasing effective engagement range. I seriously doubt we're talking point target engagements at such ranges, but think of such weapons deployed on the steppes, against hordes of Russian infantry!

Killkess,

I don't know whether and to what extent this is modeled, but MG fire is NOT laser like. Rather, it hits in an elliptical pattern called the beaten zone, whose dimensions vary as a function of range. The rounds are primarily dispersed in range, but also vary round to round in dispersion. The link discusses some key concepts, such as this, when it comes particularly to automatic weapons.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/3-22-68/c05.htm

Did you read the recent suppression study in the CW effectiveness thread? If not, you're missing out.

Regards,

John Kettler

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Missing while under fire is something completely different than what we see here. In game this should be/is represented via the supression bar. I cant imagine why a crew, which is not under fire at all, should shoot that bad.

AIUI, the game has no concept of being on a 'shooting range', no matter how much you make a map to look like one. Suppression is measured on the suppression bad, but every unit on the map works from the assumption that it is in combat, not peacetime training.

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I dont expect shooting range accuracy, but i expect some kind of usefullness.

I mean those 4 guys advanced 850 meters under "heavy" fire without even beeing supressed or taking cassualties. 4 minutes for 850 meters isnt bad under combat loads even for peacetime training and without dodging incoming fire.

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AIUI, the game has no concept of being on a 'shooting range', no matter how much you make a map to look like one. Suppression is measured on the suppression bad, but every unit on the map works from the assumption that it is in combat, not peacetime training.

nonetheless, this MG is completely unsuppressed; I guess a suppressed MG would fire 180 degrees in the wrong direction?

Frankly, It is difficult for me to understand how anyone could argue that these results are correct, or realistic, or whatever other term you would like to use--a small US unit being able to advance unscathed several hundred meters across an open field in front of an MG42? Really?

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IMO, the shooting in that video seems ok. The angular error is not that great, although it does look really bad because of the zoom and the range GT. Furthermore MGs are area weapons and are supposed to beat the area around a designated point.

What does look a bit off is the apparent lack of suppression.

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Someone, I think JK, posted up this little study a few days back.

http://www.rusi.org/downloads/assets/Real_Role_of_Small_Arms_RDS_Summer_09.pdf

In general, small arms fire has to pass within roughly a metre from the outline of the target to be effective. A small number of rounds passing through that area in a few seconds (perhaps 3 to 5 rounds in as many seconds) will suppress the target, or re-suppress him if required; whilst just one round every three seconds will keep him suppressed.
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Furthermore MGs are area weapons and are supposed to beat the area around a designated point.
I'm going to disagree with you. They are area weapons, but they are more deadly than any rifle (except perhaps a sniper rifle) when aimed carefully. Bi-pod mounted and with a good long range round they are very accurate. All my reading indicates that a MG gunner that has time to aim carefully is very deadly. I assume that the gunner in case, has time since he is not suppressed. I remember in Audie Murphy's book, "To Hell and Back" that his BAR gunner specialized in shooting Germans in the gut. That indicates to me that MG's are very accurate since he was able to pick even the body part to shoot.
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It's a light machinegun for all intents and purposes, but if you don't believe that have a look at the Marine qualifications for an M-60 or SAW.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/3-22-68/c04.htm

Looks to me like at 600 m at least one round per burst hits a man sized target. It's hard to decipher, but that's how I read it.

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Paragraph 4-38 to 4-40 discusses the Transition Fire serials. To pass the gunner must score at least one hit on 7 of 11 targets at ranges from 4-800m. When using the M-249 he has 154 rounds. That's a minimum required hit rate of 4.5%. At static targets. On a range.

From elsewhere we know that moving off the range will drop that to 0.45% hits, and moving to a combat situation will drop that again to 0.045% hits. In other words, in combat, a minimally qualified gunner will require over 2,000 rounds to acheive one (1) hit ... at ranges up to 800m. Semper fi indeed.

We aren't talking about laser death machines here.

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Dont mix up oranges and apples. U discuss about LMG fire fired with ironsight and bipod.

We can and should do another review of LMGs in another thread. This is about firing HMG in a tripod configuration with telescopic sights. While they are not laser death machines either its another story.

5,56mm doenst make long range shooting any better, thought.

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MG 34

Rate of fire

(cyclic): 900 rpm

(practical): 100 to 120 as LMG, 300 as HMG

Effective range:

600 to 800 yards as LMG

2000 to 2500 yards as HMG

MG 42

Rate of fire

(cyclic): 1200 to 1400 rpm

(practical): 250 as LMG, 500 as HMG

Effective range:

600 to 800 yards as LMG

2000 to 2500 yards as HMG

Link

Earlier testing done by FÅ«rinkazan shows in-game MG 42 rate of fire tops out at about 287 rpm at 100m. ROF at 200m is about 120 rpm.

Link

Link

It would be interesting to test if a tripod increases accuracy in-game, but I'm not sure how to test this in a way that separates the effect of accuracy from rate of fire.

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From elsewhere we know that....

From where do we know that exactly?

I am kinda certain that there is a reason why the official allied documents name numbers for the effective ranges between 600-800 meters for LMG and up to 2000 Meters for for HMG configuration.

Or they fell victim to propaganda?

Here the documents: http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/search/searchterm/german/field/all/mode/all/conn/and/

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