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"Red Hordes"-results and impressions to the game(play)


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Played as Germans against Russian AI in "iron"-mode.

Won with 1100 points; Computer 88

Enemy lost:

38 tanks ( 2 of these were abandomed)

163 killed

94 wounded

15 missed

He still has:

1 useable T-34

2 immobile T-34

63 soldiers

I lost:

2 Stugs

3 Anti-tank guns

53 killed

41 wounded

10 missed

I still have the Rest ;):

128 soldiers

18 Minutes were left. He surrendered?!

The game could have ended far far worse....this was my first real play to the end of the game (i tried 3-5 times to play it and stopped after 10-20 rounds because the casualties where to high...needed that start-up practice to get a better concept for this map).

Some impressions i got while playing this map and CMRT in general:

Iam scared of the spotting abilities of tanks(T-34) even then the hatch is closed and especially of their ability to hit targets while they are moving forward(not only exceptions).

One of my AT-guns was not shooting, not even moving and were hidden in a foxhole between some trees/wood and about 4-5 enemy tanks were magically able to spot it and shoot it like snipers. The gun may be was changing his orientation but that should not be enough to spot it so easy on several hundred meters.

I had the idea that may be the foxholes are somehow more easy to spot than just setting the gun into the trees/wood without the additional foxhole.

Someone similar experiences like me?

Back to the movement problem:

Seems like the T-34 turret and the crew does not even recognized their own movement. A Panther tank is able to produce easily up to 60-70 kills with his turret machine gun. he is spotting, shooting and hitting like an aimbotter....yes, it seems that the tank/turret is doing his work even more effective while he is driving just forward. Standing still does not bring advantages neither in spotting nor in killing-effectiveness (may be because he has problems with compensating chassis orientation changing which works against turret movement)

About the chassis orientation velocity i am very sceptic....i saw a lot of footage where tanks had no problems changing their main orientation with a short movement impulse (1-3 seconds). Here it takes easily 10 times longer to change orientation.

Fast search example, take a look at minute 6:59 -7:12 :

I am supprised about the firepower of bailing (russian) tank crews ( not only luck ...i tested it a lot) .They are able even on 50-100 meters to kill 1-2 men with some shots of their pistole, while other soldiers have to fire burst after burst to produce a similar result.

If i could i would equipp every german soldier with a russian pistol. ;)

The best german weapon is in my opinion the MP40 submachinegun.

And do not tell me something about the distance problem.

Yes, light/heavy Machine guns are able to shoot on higher distance but they do not hit anything. Mainly they produce noise.

The MG34/42 no matter if light or heavy mounted are only good for suppression.

Someone recognized that the last 2 shots of a 5 shot burst (because of the recoil interpretation of the developer) fly in a angle of 10-20° higher (it should be more like 1-5°. (i shot the weapon in the army myself (the MG3 derivate) and remember the target goals)

No matter which distance or situation i never were able to produce more than 18-20 kills (maximum) with a heavy Machine gun 42 unit in a standard game (30-60 min)

For instance:

Once i tried stopping russian infantry spam over a bridge and a heavy machine gun unit of me in 150 meters distance was not able to kill more people than an infantry group of 1xMP40 and 4x K98 in 75 meter distance, despite hammering directly into enemy running direction on the small bridge path without any blocking elements.

It always looks like some star wars storm troppers fire a laser and nobody get hit.

The trenches are ok for moving inside and provide a good cover when using the hide order.

The big size of the trench nevertheless increases hit propabilty of artillery.

The most unrealistic point is that the infantry inside the trench (when not hidden) not only shows his head like in real life...it exposed half the body ....i guess that is the cause why they get killed so easily....

In a firefight the trench does not provide protection/advantages (at least far not in the way it is supposed to)

Watch the following video and try to compare the infantry exposure in a trench and this specific trench itself....

In general i have the feeling that all explosives have very flat (parallel to the soil) shrapnell trajectories. This fact and the extreme exposure even in a trench lead to so many unrealistic casualties for units in trenches.

post-33036-141867625453_thumb.jpg

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In general i have the feeling that all explosives have very flat (parallel to the soil) shrapnell trajectories. This fact and the extreme exposure even in a trench lead to so many unrealistic casualties for units in trenches.

Oh, is this still not fixed ?

Trenches & Buildings always provided far lesser cover then you would expect.

You always had the feeling the troops inside are only slightly better protected that the ones standing in the open...

Are the supression effect finally correct ?

I mean in CMBN MG fire and huge HE explosions resultet only in a few sec. of supression, that and the unrealistic cover provided by terrain and buildings resulted in the well known huge KIA numbers !

Also the Aimbot tanks are still there ?

I never understood how all the WW2 tanks in CM could that easily acquire targets, everyone who operated inside a tank or IFV (real life) knows what i mean.

Its just unrealistic how aware the tank crews are about anything that happens around them...

Are the super-suicide assault vehicle crews that keep attacking with their pistols against dug in enemy infantry although they already bailed out of their vehicle still there ?

Thats all not fixed/tweaked ?

Sorry, not buying then...

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Iam scared of the spotting abilities of tanks(T-34) even then the hatch is closed and especially of their ability to hit targets while they are moving forward(not only exceptions).

One of my AT-guns was not shooting, not even moving and were hidden in a foxhole between some trees/wood and about 4-5 enemy tanks were magically able to spot it and shoot it like snipers. The gun may be was changing his orientation but that should not be enough to spot it so easy on several hundred meters.

I had the idea that may be the foxholes are somehow more easy to spot than just setting the gun into the trees/wood without the additional foxhole.

Someone similar experiences like me?

Did the gun actually move or just rotate?

I did a couple of tests last weekend with a single 7,5cm Pak vs 3x T-34/85 at 500 and 1000m, and the Pak massacred the T-34s when in light woods and foxholes. At 1000m the T-34s didn't stand a chance at all and at 500m the gun still got all tanks 8/10 times.

...light/heavy Machine guns are able to shoot on higher distance but they do not hit anything. Mainly they produce noise.

The MG34/42 no matter if light or heavy mounted are only good for suppression.

I did a few tests here, too. ;)

And was a bit surprised by the results, actually. Test was a soviet infantry company assaulting a HMG 42 in a trench from 400m distance.

I've ran the scenario a couple of times and average casualties for the soviet force was ~ 16.

16 casualties for assaulting an entrenched HMG across 400m of open ground.

That doesn't sound right to me.

From my army days I remember that when using the MG3 we were instructed to fire short bursts (3-5 rounds) when using the "light" bipod variant and longer (20-50!) bursts when using the "heavy" tripod variant.

During one exercise I was gunner on a tripod MG3 and was engaging targets at 300-400m. The target was a "Schützengruppe", 10 targets in a lose formation. When I had fired off 2-3 short bursts the sergeant yelled at me WTF I was doing and told me to fire off a longer burst. Which I did. A 3-second burst later all targets were down.

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Oh, is this still not fixed ?

Trenches & Buildings always provided far lesser cover then you would expect.

You always had the feeling the troops inside are only slightly better protected that the ones standing in the open...

Are the supression effect finally correct ?

I mean in CMBN MG fire and huge HE explosions resultet only in a few sec. of supression, that and the unrealistic cover provided by terrain and buildings resulted in the well known huge KIA numbers !

Also the Aimbot tanks are still there ?

I never understood how all the WW2 tanks in CM could that easily acquire targets, everyone who operated inside a tank or IFV (real life) knows what i mean.

Its just unrealistic how aware the tank crews are about anything that happens around them...

Are the super-suicide assault vehicle crews that keep attacking with their pistols against dug in enemy infantry although they already bailed out of their vehicle still there ?

Thats all not fixed/tweaked ?

Sorry, not buying then...

Nearly to all your questions ...yes...

Improvements may be that the heavy machine guns may fire a little bit more/often than in the demo of CM:Normandy title and they are able to suppress a little more the enemy movement. But they still do not kill anything like i told.

Because it is hard to spot ( distance does not really matter) the infantry especially after the first suppressing-fire you have to set the MG fire immediatly on area fire to the position you guess he might actually be...

Like you can imagine that does not increase the effectiveness either, but it delays his movement.

Setting fire arcs/areas in hope your machine gun is concentrating his spotting ability on this area does not help either.

The fire arcs seem only to prevent that he fires enemies outside this area.

The most kills you produce on distances where your submachine guns work pretty well (they are the real winner of the devs interpretation).

So it does not matter if you buy a normal infantry/rifle squad or heavy machine gun unit.

The heavy machine gun unit only has more ammo and is able to delay enemy movement on higher distance.

Like i said the firepower of machine guns in this game is loooooooowww.

No matter the situation or the distance...:

In a normal game (30-60 Minutes) you won´t produce more than 18-20 kills with a heavy machine gun 42 team.

It does not help either if masses of infantry moves over a bridge or through water-ford....it does not change the statistic....or at least not in a way that it would be noticeable.

And i do not want to know how many kills of these were done by the MP40 and the K98 of this heavy MG unit. :D

Light machine guns are even more useless (in terms of firepower).

Funny to see again in CMRT what i saw in a video and personally in a game of Normandy:

Very often you can watch the light Machine gun 42 firing a burst and the half of it is going "straight" into the air like he is fighting airplanes. But i repeat myself ^^....sry just to dissapointing.

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Did the gun actually move or just rotate?

....

It was rotating.

The gun i talked about is in the center of the map on "red hordes" which fires traditionally to the left flank (from german point of view).

Normally the gun fires without need to rotate on the first unit and can kills a lot of T-34 appearing one after another.

In my case i improved the position with foxsholes...and because the T-34´s on left flank did not appear for a loooong time i rotated it in direction "center".

But it never shot.

Then the enemy appears on left flank too....and my gun started rotating to open fire ...while it was doing so a lot of T-34 already were in sight and spotted the rotating AT-gun.....then the horror started.

...

And was a bit surprised by the results, actually. Test was a soviet infantry company assaulting a HMG 42 in a trench from 400m distance.

I've ran the scenario a couple of times and average casualties for the soviet force was ~ 16.

15 casualties for assaulting an entrenched HMG across 400m of open ground.

That doesn't sound right to me.

.....

During one exercise I was gunner on a tripod MG3 and was engaging targets at 300-400m. The target was a "Schützengruppe", 10 targets in a lose formation. When I had fired off 2-3 short bursts the sergeant yelled at me WTF I was doing and told me to fire off a longer burst. Which I did. A 3-second burst later all targets were down.

Only can support your impressions. :)

...like i said...no matter the situation or distance you won´t achieve more than 18-20 kills (you did in this case 16).... :rolleyes:

The MG42 was capable of 1500 rpm theoretically and about 460 rpm practically in real life on a heavy mount (in a statiscally way, because of reloading, barrel change...).

To the accurracy of a light machine gun:

Every soldier in the "Bundeswehr" has minimum to achieve Schützenschnur "Bronze"with MG3:

Laying on the earth with a bipod MG3 (light machine gun) your goal is to fire totally 15 bullets on totally 3 targets on a distance of 25 meters.

So normaly you will fire 3 bursts (as very nooby green horn who does not listen to the advisors you may shoot at your first burst up to 7 rounds (with 1200 rpm). If you concentrate then you will be easily able to fire 2-5 round bursts. Cool guys may be able to trigger a single shot, but that is not the way a machine is to bring in proper effective use.

Back to ACCURACY:

Every target has 2 rings/circles. The inner circle has a radius of 3,5 centimeter and the outer circle has a radius if 7,5 centimeter.

Your minimum to achieve is "bronze"-conditon, no matter if you later will be the chosen machine gunner or not.

Bronze-condition is:

On every target must be minimum 1 hit in the inner circle. And 5 hits in total in the outer circles.

Under "gold" condition you have to achieve:

Minimum 2 hits in the inner circle of one target and additionaly minimum 1 hit in the inner circle of every other target. And additionally 8 hits in the outer circle.

There is a second test you have to achieve too.

You have to do the whole thing with a 20 seconds limit.

In this case the gold condition changes to following:

Minimum 1 hit in every inner circle and 9 hits in the outer circles.

Remember everybody -and we all saw the weapon first time- (no matter if he is strong and talented or not) has to achieve bronze in minimum.

ON a distance of 250 meters the inner circle becomes 35cm radius and the outer circle 75cm radius.

On 500 meters the inner circle becomes 70cm radius and the outer circle 150cm radius.

Conclusion:

Even in case of being a Rookie a german light machine gun is able to fire on 3 targets within 20 seconds and produce with totaly only 15 rounds on 500 meters 3 hits within a 70cm radius and additionally 5 hits within 150cm.

And now you understand why the effective range of light machine guns is often mentioned with 600 meters....because it is very likely to hit an enemy with a 5 shot burst on this distance with at least 1 hit- no matter if you aimed right or he tried to move-. And in case you do not hit him you may hit his comrade :-) ....Especially "russian zerg rushs " may stopped with extreme high casualties because of their high density.

German lost 2,7 million soldiers in combat on eastern front; russian lost 8,9 million soldiers in combat. Would be interessting to know how many of these got raped by light and heavy MG34/42 while one of these inhuman high-body-density zergling rushs.

On a tripod the machine guns are far more accurate ...so accurate that the german establisch the "Tiefenfeuerautomat":

"Another unique feature of German World War II machine guns (and which continued to be used by the German Bundeswehr after the war) was the Tiefenfeuerautomat. If selected, this feature walked the fire in wave-like motions up and down the range in a predefined area. E.g., being unsure whether the real distance was 2000 meters or 2300 meters, the gunner could make the mount do an automatic sweep between the elevations for 1900 to 2400 meters and back. This sweeping of a given range (Tiefenfeuer) continued as long as the gun fired."

The MG34 and MG42 were not only accurate they had a high rate of fire.

This high rate of fire just increases the hit propabilty.

The tiefenfeuerautomat which produces an oscillatory motion in vertical way may be not so much used in later war...but the MG just could be used with swinging motion in a horizontal way.

Now to get an idea of the accuracy of an heavy MG34 in generally i found the impressing video (link above).

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"Setting fire arcs/areas in hope your machine gun is concentrating his spotting ability on this area does not help either.

The fire arcs seem only to prevent that he fires enemies outside this area"

As a beta, I would just like to chime in to say that target arcs have never, themselves, improved the spotting of a unit. The spotting benefit you get is that your unit is facing the center of the arc and has its best detection to the front.

Some of the other points I do agree with (those bailed out killers with pistols!) and I have seen this simulation get better and better over time. It may not be instant but we are improving this title bit by bit. Enjoy it and look forward to future updates! Thanks for the feedback as well.

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...

As a beta, I would just like to chime in to say that target arcs have never, themselves, improved the spotting of a unit. ....

I would have expected that someone who has a specific arc and ao is not allowed to fire somewhere else would focus his attetion on the ordered area....

In case you are right and it is not like i hoped then there is a big tactical issue/advantage of the arcs totally gone.

... and I have seen this simulation get better and better over time. It may not be instant but we are improving this title bit by bit. ....

May be you are right, but Combat mission Normandy is already released since 3 years and three of the most irritating problems are still not solved.

-The low firepower of light/heavy machine guns

-The obsolete trenches which exposure half the infantrie bodies and so do not provide protection

-The high spotting and hitting ability of tanks especially of closed hatch MOVING tanks whose turrets spot and kills like skynet aimbots.

In case of machine guns it seems to me that the developers won´t admit such a realistic/high firepower. For some players it would be a moral problem to suffer casualties and learn to suppress or kill these things first before advancing. So the developer for sure established it as balancing issue.

But the germans relied on that firepower to handle the russian overwhelming numbres.

The russians can spam around with huge ammount of efficient PPSH spray companies while germans got deprived of their only real advantage in ways of infantry armament ...their light and heavy machine guns.

I only can hope you are right...and the devs have an understanding.

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From my army days I remember that when using the MG3 we were instructed to fire short bursts (3-5 rounds) when using the "light" bipod variant and longer (20-50!) bursts when using the "heavy" tripod variant.

During one exercise I was gunner on a tripod MG3 and was engaging targets at 300-400m. The target was a "Schützengruppe", 10 targets in a lose formation. When I had fired off 2-3 short bursts the sergeant yelled at me WTF I was doing and told me to fire off a longer burst. Which I did. A 3-second burst later all targets were down.

In the game you have a limited supply of ammunition and in CMx2 once you are out of ammunition you are done. There is no 'low ammo' state in CMx2. So you can't have your troops blow off all their ammo in five minutes as the default. Now then, for the M60 machine gun the field manual approved rates of fire are Sustained at 100 rounds per minute and Rapid at 200 rounds per minute. The M60 Machinegun will typically be fired in 3 to 5 round bursts and also has a tripod mounting. If you assume a 5 round burst then if the MG is using the field manual approved rates of fire you should be putting out twenty bursts per minute for sustained and about forty bursts per minute for rapid. If you make the bursts 10 rounds then you could have twenty ten round bursts per minute for rapid fire. Either way you are simply counting bursts, so if you want to discuss whether or not an MG is firing often enough then you need to count the bursts. The number of bursts changes depending upon how close the enemy is IIRC. I think they start out with sustained and then when the enemy gets close enough it switches to rapid.

About that tripod mounting. As you must know, the tripod mounting is not particularly suited for picking off individual infantrymen in sniper fashion. It is mostly suited for aiming at an area of ground for the purposes of point fire or for the establishment of a sector for grazing fire because you change the aim point through the use of a traversing and elevating mechanism. In fact, the automatic micro adjustments that the tripod has allows for some effective grazing fire where the stream of fire automatically adjusts ever so slightly between bursts. So the MG on a tripod is not necessarily a 'killing' machine but more of a 'suppressing' machine. As such many thousands of rounds could be fired for very few casualties because, once again, the MG on a tripod isn't trying to pick off individual infantrymen. Actually, if the gunner did decide to engage an individual infantryman or a squad by targeting them directly it could compromise any area assigned for grazing fire by leaving parts of the assigned sector uncovered by fire. In other words, you are using the tripod MG to cover an area not to kill individual infantrymen. Casualties caused is not necessarily a good measure of effectiveness.

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... In other words, you are using the tripod MG to cover an area not to kill individual infantrymen. Casualties caused is not necessarily a good measure of effectiveness.

nope ^^

How do you think the enemy feels suppressed?...*thinking*... Exactly!!!.... in case he is in fear of his life.

If he runs or put his head up he is dead....and how does he knows that?:

Watching his comrade(s) getting hit and fall, by watching the impact of bullets into soil or other materials (tree), by passing tracer bullets.

A gun which causes no effects/casualties does not have supressing power ! :rolleyes:

In case it had germans would just use blank cartridges or a grammophone.

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Using kill counts is a terrible way to judge machine gun effectiveness. In reality, and usually in the game as well, the first burst or two is the only good chance at killing/wounding. After the enemy soldiers plant their faces in the dirt the chances of hitting them are small. The main purpose of machine guns is to suppress, and they do that very well.

Vehicles probably are too good at spotting while moving. In fact, I would say that is true for all unit types.

There is no problem with tank accuracy, however.

Explosions do produce too little suppression and too much damage on men lying prone.

Buildings generally provide pretty good cover.

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I would have expected that someone who has a specific arc and ao is not allowed to fire somewhere else would focus his attetion on the ordered area....

In case you are right and it is not like i hoped then there is a big tactical issue/advantage of the arcs totally gone.

He is correct. Target arcs are you ordering your unit "you must only fire inside this arc". There is no spotting consideration other than contributing to which way a units men are facing but you can get that with the face command.

I am not sure what you mean about advantages of arcs being gone mind you. I just don't use them - other than for restricting fire. They lead too often to missing enemy units that are just out side them. For MGs don't set arcs just let them go.

May be you are right, but Combat mission Normandy is already released since 3 years and three of the most irritating problems are still not solved.

Not sure if I agree with you there - more below. Some of this is our perception of how game limitations are handled some of this is just our expectations don't mesh with reality. I have been playing CMBN since the beginning and I have seen lots of things fixed. BFC are very good a fixing things. However they are not good at making changes that one person says they should :D Which is a good thing IMHO.

-The low firepower of light/heavy machine guns

If you think the fire power of MGs are too low you will need to do some work to convince more people. Not trying to disrespect you but you need to know that they already made significant changes to make MGs much more deadly. To make that change lots of people did tests, pointed to documentation and field reports. To put this in perspective I did a test with the 1.x version of CMBN where I rushed an MG42 team with a platoon of infantry across 600m of open terrain. In every case my platoon of infantry were able to cross the ground and kill or capture the MG team.

That seemed odd to me. Other people did more and better testing and research and BFC made a change.

I repeated my test in 2.x version of CMBN and my running infantry platoons were cut to pieces. A very few times they did manage to take out the MG team but even on those rare occasions they did it with broken squads and lots less soldiers. In all cases my infantry platoons were totally combat ineffective and most were totally broken and unable to even close the distance to the MGs.

Seemed pretty reasonable to me. Most people seem happy with MG performance now. Now you have the back story you can dedicate some time to convincing us all that more needs to be done.

-The obsolete trenches which exposure half the infantrie bodies and so do not provide protection

Not sure what you mean by obsolete but perhaps you mean that trenches do not go deep into the terrain mesh. This is a game limitation. In order to create FOW with the current engine they cannot distort the terrain mesh. Therefore the trenches need to be above ground.

BFC have stated in the past that they have abstracted protection for those in trenches to compensate. Perhaps you are not pleased with those compromises but given past conversations I really would not expect to see changes around trenches any time soon.

-The high spotting and hitting ability of tanks especially of closed hatch MOVING tanks whose turrets spot and kills like skynet aimbots.

Tank spotting is another thing that has been tuned down and down again since the beginning. I know that tanks spotting and spotting in general is always going to be a bone of contention but I think it is soooo much better now than it was. At least you can sneak infantry up on a tank in the current game. There was a time when you could not sneak infantry up on a tank from behind. Now you can.

Again BFC have said that shooting while moving (which is not historically possible in WWII) is an engine compromise. As you no doubt know normally tanks would move, stop, aim, shoot then move again to "shoot on the move". BFC have said on a number of occasions that the Tac AI is not going to get this skill any time soon so to compensate moving tanks are less accurate than stationary tanks. Bugs have been fixed and the capabilities tweaked. I suspect that the way it is now is pretty much as good as it is going to get unless someone finds some corner case defect that needs fixing.

I only can hope you are right...and the devs have an understanding.

I do not have any strong opinions about what reality was so I, mostly, accept the game as it is and enjoy it. I have found a few things that seemed odd to me and occasionally I was right. I have found that BFC is very responsive to making changes that are well founded. But they only do this with good evidence and within the limitations of the game.

If you want to move BFC towards making additional changes create some tests, compare them to documented historical results. Rinse and repeat. I am sure the game will be all the better for your efforts. Just like it is better now than it was at the beginning due to the efforts of many others.

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Using kill counts is a terrible way to judge machine gun effectiveness. In reality, and usually in the game as well, the first burst or two is the only good chance at killing/wounding. After the enemy soldiers plant their faces in the dirt the chances of hitting them are small. The main purpose of machine guns is to suppress, and they do that very well.

Sure ...the people search cover because they need it....and then the machine gunner simply switch target to an unit which is not supressed and kill some of them...after a time the first supressed enemy unit may feels encouraged to get up again and continue the advance and then the MG may switch back to them and kill again some of them till the formation search covers again......and so on and so on....that way you produce casualties and supression!

.....

Explosions do produce too little suppression and too much damage on men lying prone.

....

Yes....In my opinion the damage of HE on laying infantry men or the extreme exposed trenched guys is much to heavy.

But the artillery supression work pretty well i think.

You should not forget that you most time use 81mm mortars. Try to imagine the moral effect if a 105-150mm howitzer is working.

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So the MG on a tripod is not necessarily a 'killing' machine but more of a 'suppressing' machine.

Sorry, but against 120 men running towards you in a rather dense mass across open ground it certainly is. Or better, should be.

The problem is IMO the burst length.

A quick calculation in my test scenario shows average rounds/burst is ~ 6.5. Which is FAR to few for an MG42 on tripod. I just checked in my Reibert (German Infantryman's handboook) and it clearly states 20-50 round bursts for the MG3 on tripod. I'm pretty sure similar numbers are correct for the MG 42.

Funnily enough the latest test had the soviets lose just 12 (!) men when assaulting an entrenched HMG across 400+ m of completely open space.

No matter how you look at it this is just wrong.

If you'd simply triple the rounds fired per burst you'd already see a much more realistic outcome.

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Such discussions come up here on a regular basis. It usually contains a mix of strong accusations and weak supporting evidence. Especially about how we don't care, change stuff, know what we're doing, etc. Posts full of hyperbole, inaccurate portrayal of CM's development history (i.e. improvements), flawed understanding of real world combat, flawed understanding of what the game does/doesn't do, and general mountains made out of molehills is something that never goes out of style. And it usually winds up going down the same road, which is mostly not very productive of useful to anybody.

But with that, the obligatory response to some of the key accusations...

The discussion of MG behavior is probably one of the most talked about aspects of CM and it is the one that shows the biggest gap between player perceptions and actual real life behaviors. For sure the MG behavior in CM has been, at times (including CMBO), in need of improvement. We have been steadily improving MG behavior since CMSF, mostly because people have discovered what we call "corner cases". These are specific situations where the MG fire doesn't behave as effectively or as consistently as it should. At this point I'd say we've got most of the corner cases fixed and that MG behavior is generally viewed positively by people who know (from real life) what MGs are and are not capable of.

Spotting is another big issue. What many gamers don't understand is the strength of a complex simulation comes from the internal balance amongst all of it's elements. We have been working hard since CMSF to make the balance better and better. Spotting is an element that has been improved, dramatically at times, with each and every major release. Sometimes even minor releases! It's an incredibly difficult thing to do and do well, which is why most games do it so poorly. The spotting model in CM is the most complicated and most realistic of any tactical wargame out there, so I'm not going to get too upset if it's not perfect.

We are always interested in tests against fortifications that appear to show weaknesses in the modeling. It's an incredibly difficult thing to balance correctly since fortifications change the behavior of all sorts of things (spotting, cover, firing positions, pathfinding, etc.). We have steadily improved fortifications from CMBN v1.00 and at this point I'm pretty confident that there are no major flaws in the system. Some areas that could be improved? Sure, but that can be said about pretty much anything in the game. We'll never get to 100% perfection in anything before we die of old age.

Steve

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Sorry, but against 120 men running towards you in a rather dense mass across open ground it certainly is. Or better, should be.

The problem is IMO the burst length.

A quick calculation in my test scenario shows average rounds/burst is ~ 6.5. Which is FAR to few for an MG42 on tripod. I just checked in my Reibert (German Infantryman's handboook) and it clearly states 20-50 round bursts for the MG3 on tripod. I'm pretty sure similar numbers are correct for the MG 42.

Funnily enough the latest test had the soviets lose just 12 (!) men when assaulting an entrenched HMG across 400+ m of completely open space.

No matter how you look at it this is just wrong.

If you'd simply triple the rounds fired per burst you'd already see a much more realistic outcome.

This is what we call a "vacuum" test. Meaning, it's the sort of thing that didn't happen in real life and yet you are trying to compare it to real life. There's a problem with that because when you compare A to B you need to account for any differences between the two. If you have a wealth of case studies of a single HMG facing off against 120 charging Soviets, you have to make some allowances for the expected results.

The primary issue here is that a HMG is assumed to be used in concert with other units. That is how they were used in real life and so taking away the interconnection with other units inherently changes the equation. It does, no doubt, make the HMG's performance weaker. For example, put a couple of German squads or an overlapping field of fire from a second HMG and test what the results are.

Then there are the test conditions. Are you charging the Soviets straight at the HMG? That is the weakest position a HMG can find itself in. HMGs are strongest when raking the advancing enemy from the flank or at least an oblique angle. This is because it's harder to get effective fire on a target that is decreasing range than it is one that is advancing laterally. Check out any military manual that shows how to deploy in defense and you'll likely find HMGs positioned to the left and right of the expected area of advance with overlapping fields of fire.

So on and so forth.

The point here is that if you make a test that doesn't conform to reality, then don't be surprised with the results don't conform to reality either.

On top of this, we have to program the TacAI to make firing decisions based on what it should be doing. The TacAI is not smart enough to know "hey, I'm the ONLY unit defending this sector, so I should blow through all my ammo right now or all is lost". No, instead the TacAI is programmed to behave realistically as it should be by saying "I am but one part of this defense and if I blow through all my ammo now, then the defense will be weaker the next time it is attacked. So I am going to rely upon the combined defense capabilities of my side to stop the enemy, not try to solve the whole problem all on my own".

Steve

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Kauz - and on a firing range, I can put 20 out of 20 shots inside the "9" ring on a standard SR-1 target at 100 meters, with a bolt action rifle, consistently. (On a good day they are all in the "10"). So nobody should ever miss in combat with any weapon. Enemy casualties and bullets fired should track each other nearly 1-1, or at worst 1 to a handful.

No wait...

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He is correct. Target arcs are you ordering your unit "you must only fire inside this arc". There is no spotting consideration other than contributing to which way a units men are facing but you can get that with the face command..

In case you missed the thread, it's recently become apparent to me that TAs do affect spotting behaviour in one aspect: when you're Hunting, TAs reduce the reaction to spotting units outside the TA's parameters. The Hunting unit doesn't stop as a matter of course if it spots something that's not within its TA (or is infantry popping up in an ATA). At least in the fairly cursory testing I did: soft factors didn't seem to matter; there was no firing from either side. This was a surprise to me. I think I had been confused because there had always been some shooting going on in other tests/observations I'd made.

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Steve I must point out that the foxholes could use some love regarding the tac ai behaviour because them pixeltruppen often prefer to not stay inside the foxholes wich tends to make them useless unless they are in perfectly flat terrain. Other than that i'm pretty happy with the game but the foxholes.. I think I will put up a proper thread at somepoint where we can focus on this alone and see if I have misunderstood soomething about them.

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Parabellum - hundreds of men didn't pack into crowds and bum-rush firing heavy machineguns. Wanting the game to get that relationship right is silly, because men simply wouldn't do it. What we want, instead, is for the game to get right the actual fire effect of an HMG against men doing what they actually do under heavy machinegun fire, which is at best make short rushes and at worse scatter to the four winds and pin to the ground. At which point, the neat target you posit having vanished, so does the average effect per fired burst plummet.

We have been over this N times. It is the suppression effect of MG fire that is arguably low in CM, not their achieved lethality.

If you doubt it, count the MG-42s behind Omaha beach. Count the Americans hit there in a fight lasting for hours, with plenty of them hit by mortars and artillery fragments and rifles, which you can ignore. Do the math, we will wait. Then come back here and tell us that one HMG taking out around 15-20 people over its expended ammo load is unrealistic - if you can.

Hints - 2 battalions of the 352nd with 63 MGs each, 1 battalion of the 716 with 48 MGs, and one Ost battalion with 41 MGs, were deployed on Omaha. There were 85 separate MG positions outside the strongpoints, and multiple MGs as well as multiple light cannon in each of the strongpoints. There were in total about 60 light guns of all types covering the beach, plus mortars and div arty howitzers.

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Sorry, but against 120 men running towards you in a rather dense mass across open ground it certainly is. Or better, should be.

The problem is IMO the burst length.

A quick calculation in my test scenario shows average rounds/burst is ~ 6.5. Which is FAR to few for an MG42 on tripod. I just checked in my Reibert (German Infantryman's handboook) and it clearly states 20-50 round bursts for the MG3 on tripod. I'm pretty sure similar numbers are correct for the MG 42.

Funnily enough the latest test had the soviets lose just 12 (!) men when assaulting an entrenched HMG across 400+ m of completely open space.

No matter how you look at it this is just wrong.

If you'd simply triple the rounds fired per burst you'd already see a much more realistic outcome.

Hopefully you noted the word 'necessarily' that I placed in my initial paragraph. If you make an assumption that nobody goes to ground and they continue to run forward in an upright position yelling 'Urraahhhh' without moving right or left then perhaps you might have a point. If they go to ground though then you wouldn't have a point. I also don't 'necessarily' disagree with the burst size needing adjustment either. For a 500 cyclic RPM standard heavy machine gun an average burst size of around 6 rounds is probably appropriate. For an MG 42 I could see 20 round bursts on a tripod as being a reasonable expectation since you have it in the FM, but it's also possible that the code can't distinguish between different models of MG in terms of assigning a round per burst count. If the code can't distinguish then you are stuck until that can be altered - assuming it can be altered. You also need to realize that the HMGs in the game typically only come with somewhere between 1500 and 2000 rounds so you will be burning through your ammunition pretty quickly my friend. Maybe that doesn't bother you but I just wanted to toss it out there for consideration.

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nope ^^

How do you think the enemy feels suppressed?...*thinking*... Exactly!!!.... in case he is in fear of his life.

If he runs or put his head up he is dead....and how does he knows that?:

Watching his comrade(s) getting hit and fall, by watching the impact of bullets into soil or other materials (tree), by passing tracer bullets.

A gun which causes no effects/casualties does not have supressing power ! :rolleyes:

In case it had germans would just use blank cartridges or a grammophone.

Kauz, I would like to recommend that you have a look at an MG 42 tripod and see how it actually works. Perhaps you could also study up on the terms 'Grazing Fire' and 'Beaten Zone'. Once you have done this, then perhaps you can contribute to this discussion in a meaningful way. Hyperbole isn't going to move the discussion forward.

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Such discussions come up here on a regular basis. It usually contains a mix of strong accusations and weak supporting evidence. Especially about how we don't care, change stuff, know what we're doing, etc. Posts full of hyperbole, inaccurate portrayal of CM's development history (i.e. improvements), flawed understanding of real world combat, flawed understanding of what the game does/doesn't do, and general mountains made out of molehills is something that never goes out of style. And it usually winds up going down the same road, which is mostly not very productive of useful to anybody.

Hello Steve,

first i want to thank for your reaction. :)

The point of "weak supporting evidence" i can not accept because of two simple issues.

1. in this thread i tried to argue with some numbres (for example accuracy of light machine guns: "Schützenschnur Bronze for MG3").

What is a base of a good argumentation if not something like this? Or the experience of a MG3 gunner or our order how to use it (~5 shot burst LMG, ~25 shot burst HMG). A plausible video of a HMG 34 with shows the accuracy of a tripod mounting....The option of just swinging especially the HMGs in a horizontal way to spread the 25 rounds of a burst into the dense enemy lines

2. It is not done by just saying someone has a weak argumentation and just pretend on being the master and hide your own arguments and numbres and thoughts.

Sure....handling it like this always brings you in a better position than others.

Nobody knows your arguments ...

If arguments are weak or not most time only is possible to decide if you see them in relation.

So....please let us participate on your knowledge, arguments, conclusions and decisions.

Before you do not share it is not "fair"/correct to discount/reject the points/arguments of others.

But back to the specific MG problem.

Like i said ....till now i did a lot of testing ...and never were able to produce more than 18-20 kills with HMG.

Try it yourself. Let the enemy attack a small bridge and put an HMG in a position 150meters in front of it and let them rush over it.

I would expect that an heavy MG42 with 1500 rpm theoretically and 460 rpm practically and a 250 round belt for start is easily able to kill everybody running over the bridge trying to reach the other side.

Just take the map "Town-Water Assault 079" ....try it...... you will see.

And after that please make always a screenshot in case you can achieve more than 20 kills with a HMG within 30-60 minute standard map. Till now all my trials to increase the effectiveness of (H)MG were useless.

on the other side a panther turret machine gun is a real killer....easy to achieve 60-70 kills in 10-20 rounds

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I agree that "vacuum" tests are always problematic in such a complex environment as Combat Mission. I recently faced a few MG42s in a PBEM and I swear they were totally overmodelled while firing at my troops! :D

But sometimes such tests can help to point out problems that aren't as easy to see in a "real" fight. The short-ish bursts of the HMG 42 are IMO just not correct. Another test (ghaaa! ;)) showed that the MG42 on bipod fired just a bit more than 1 round less per burst than the tripod version. 5.something compared to 6.something).

I'd love to run a few t... scenarios ;) with a HMG 42 with ~20 round bursts.

@ASL Veteran:

Hope you didn't get me wrong, I appreciate your comments.

:)

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Kauz, I would like to recommend that you have a look at an MG 42 tripod and see how it actually works. Perhaps you could also study up on the terms 'Grazing Fire' and 'Beaten Zone'. Once you have done this, then perhaps you can contribute to this discussion in a meaningful way. Hyperbole isn't going to move the discussion forward.

"studied" the way it works ....study "grazing fire" ...."beaten zone"....so?

does all not change any of my arguments....

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In case you missed the thread, it's recently become apparent to me that TAs do affect spotting behaviour in one aspect: when you're Hunting, TAs reduce the reaction to spotting units outside the TA's parameters.

I remember that thread - thanks for the reminder. Testing that is on my list of stuff to try out. It would be really useful to know how this behaves.

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