What effect did the stabilized MG have on rifles?

[undead reindeer cavalry]

It only affects the unit being targeted, nothing in between. I also believe area fire works in a circle around the centre of target rather than along the line of fire.

it affects all units within certain radius (25m?) of the target point.

sometimes i could swear that there is slight simulation on friendly units in the LOF (slight suppression). i have gotten the impression when the fire has gone thru or just above very low quality friendly infantry. but i guess it has been just a conincidence and the infantry got spooked by something else. i haven't had time to run any tests.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

What causes the morale effect specifically?

i don't know about other nations but there were some Finnish (psychological) studies on the morale breakdowns in some Finnish units during the Soviet summer 1944 offensives.

IIRC the primary cause of the morale effect was threefold.

first of all there is the basic fear of being surrounded -- being unable to withdraw to safety if circumstances come to require it, and thus face all kinds of nasty stuff.

this can be either negated or reinforced depending on the unit's knowledge about the existence and availability of friendly supporting units. is there a local reserve that could counterattack the enemy? is there enough friendly artillery in the rear? what is the general situation in the area (e.g. is the front moving so fast that an encircled unit will fall too far back)? how are the units on left & right doing? what are the general odds between defender and attacker on the sector? are things going as expected? in general, does the unit feel it has means to defend succesfully (not now but later).

then there is the general fatigue level (both mental and physical) of the unit. if low, the unit is likely to fail in forming an accurate estimation of the situation (meaning a very pessimistic estimation -- stuff like becoming instantly routed when seeing tanks that are in fact friendly).

some Finnish units suffered from most of the above stuff. the front was moving fast, so that becoming encircled ment certain fate. there was very little information about supporting arms. enemy displayed huge odds. fatigue levels were dire.

thus Soviets found out that often the most effective tactic to overcome local Finnish resistance was to threaten it with encirclement. the defending unit would soon withdraw with little losses to the attacker. in contrast it was very hard to rout Finns by actually attacking them.

a good case of classical maneuverism from Soviets there.

[jtcm]

Why do the French hold such strong belief in the offense, pre-1914 and indeed (I think ?) into 1915 ? Cultural reasons, I suppose (neo-Bonapartism ?); is it belief that the Mle 1893 75mm field gun will help them blast through rifle held defenses ? (If so, why does that not happen ?) I also remember reading something by M. van Creveld--(perhaps in Transformation of War ?) arguing that there was some logic to the cult of the offence (namely that rapid infantry assault in the face of aimed rifle fire and even Maxim fire had succeeded during the Russo-Japanese war, and had been observed to do so by Western observers).

[costard]

Why do the French hold such strong belief in the offense, pre-1914 and indeed (I think ?) into 1915 ? Cultural reasons, I suppose (neo-Bonapartism ?); is it belief that the Mle 1893 75mm field gun will help them blast through rifle held defenses ? (If so, why does that not happen ?) I also remember reading something by M. van Creveld--(perhaps in Transformation of War ?) arguing that there was some logic to the cult of the offence (namely that rapid infantry assault in the face of aimed rifle fire and even Maxim fire had succeeded during the Russo-Japanese war, and had been observed to do so by Western observers).

Possibly it is to do with holding the initiative - by attacking you attempt to dictate the course of the action. It could also be to do with the idea that if you promulgate the idea that defense is the best option, you'll never attack anyone: a fine culture for a defense force, not so useful to a nation intent on gaining territory and resources. And at a tactical level, you remove half your options. The French suffered for the adoption of the defensive doctrine in 1940 when they sat in the Maginot Line and the Germans went through, over and around them.

[JasonC]

As this thread has degenerated into hopeless banality and cliche, I refrain from further comment. Suffice it to say, you mostly sound like fools at this point.

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[costard]

Adam

I don't know about Mausers, but the projectile from a Lee Enfield .303 is tumbling at 900 yards, often requiring two patches to cover the hole on a range target. No doubt superior ballistics for the projectile are achievable, but in 1899? With the optics available? - not likely to be an aimed shot. As far as I know the projectile back then had a square back end (the modern one has a "boat" shape). Kipling wrote about soldiers on the North-West frontier sniping at 700 yards with the Lee Metford (in "Debts and Credits" I think) but he was a reporter writing for the British press at the time. Come to think of it, he was doing the same job in the Boer War. I wonder....

[costard]

The above comments notwithstanding -

six or seven years ago I watched a Mr Smith lie down at 600m and put three bullets from his 7.62mm bolt action rifle through the ten ring on a "F" class target. He was well into his sixties then, wearing glasses and shooting over open sights.

[JasonC]

In Black Week, the Brits took 7500 casualties in a half dozen engagements against Boer riflemen, in every case losing badly despite typically have 2 or 3 to 1 infantry odds, and superior artillery on the field. The Boers had only a handful of 75mm field guns and a few "pom poms" (basically 37mm AA guns before there was air to anti), and the overwhelming bulk of the losses were inflicted by Mauser rifles firing at range with iron sights. The Boers lost only about a tenth as much in these engagements, and fully half of

their own losses occurred in one fight (Spion Kop), which featured both a reverse slope fight with short initial LOS and night fighting, which reduced the exchange ratio to 4 to 1 in their favor. In the remaining fights they averaged better than a 15 to 1 exchange ratio.

While they had a variety of rifles, the most common and effective was the Mauser 7.92mm bolt action, essentially the same rifle used by the Germans as their main infantry rifle in both world wars. It had about 25% more initial muzzle velocity than the standard British rifles of the day (roughly 750 m/sec vs. 600 m/sec), and it had smokeless powder, which the Brits were not used to in the hands of colonial opponents. Brit sources endlessly complain that they could not see the Boers, or at most saw an occasional rifle barrel or the glint off of one. The terrain was open veldt, in CM terms mostly open or occasionally steppe, with patches of rocky or rough on hilltops, which were the preferred Boer positions. They also made rock

or sandbag wall sangers and dug shallow trenches to fight from, but nothing as elaborate as a WW I trench.

The standards of Boer marksmenship were high. While many were townsmen and most were farmers by trade, nearly all had experience hunting for game. Weekend sport included shooting birds eggs off a fence post at 100 yards. There are documented cases of Brit officers on horseback being dropped at the very start of an engagement at ranges of 900 yards, at the first shot. The Mausers had range sites for fire out to 2000 yards, though that range was impractical in reality. 500 to 800 yards definitely were not, and every British infantry attack on a Boer rifle position floundered in that range window. There are important cases of British units engaged at significantly longer range, either when taking in rear or when presenting a massed

target. For example, a full brigade in the loop of a river they were trying to cross, or for the taken in rear point, a Boer flanking party reaching a hill overlooking the rear of British line along a rock sanger, able to hit them from the rear at 1000 yards - which was sufficient to force the Brits to move, and in the process expose themselves momentarily to fire from other directions, and to lose heavily as a result. But the main issue throughout was not marksmenship standards or weapon differences, but tactical stance and cover differential.

When they had a choice, the Boers preferred to let the Brits get to 400 yards before opening fire. The Brits were then pinned in a wide deadly zone, their foremost elements cut to pieces rapidly, and the rest unable to get away. Their own reply fire at 500 yards against men in trenches or behind rocks on higher ground was completely ineffective.

One must also understand the point made about the extension of engagements in time. A typical fight in Black week featured a Boer defensive force of up to 8000 riflemen and lasted 6 to 9 hours. In the case of Spion Kop, it lasted overnight as well. The Brits were pinned and butchered by losses on the order of 1000 men over those time periods and against that size force - occasionally 1500. Understand that the Brits often had 20,000 men, but it was the foremost units that were most heavily hit etc. And they only kept

the losses as low as they were by going to ground at those ranges and giving up all attempts at upright movement.

Well, do the math. With a little for the Boer field guns, this means the standard of accuracy required of the Boer riflemen to achieve completely tactical ascendency was for one in five to one in ten of the Boers present to hit a single man each over the course of 6 to 9 hours of available firing time. They had hundreds of cartridges apiece. 1% accuracy would be more than sufficient. This is the reality that trainers and planners apparently were unable to "grok" beforehand. It is simply not required that each shooter hit half the time for the range to be an effective one, typical firing range training

standards to the contrary notwithstanding. If the best 10th of the shooters hit a 10th of the time, they will slaughter their opponents fast enough to render the remainder hopelessly unwilling to risk any further movement. And rightly so, since coming close enough to raise the number hitting and their achieved accuracy each likewise, would let the defenders shoot the attackers down to the last man in a matter of minutes.

Why is this not observed as the tactical reality in all future wars? There is more cover in Europe, that is part of it. But above all, there was more artillery fire, and as a result tactical deployments were thinner (and wide enough to make un-turnable lines) and each shooter far more likely to be suppressed at any given moment, whether he was observable by any of the attackers or not. In WW I, the same relations nevertheless forced nearly everyone below ground level most of the time, even on deliberately thinned fronts. In WW II, much heavier weapons (planes, artillery and mortar indirect, tanks guns and MGs on observed targets) did most of the killing, and rifles mattered mostly for pinning sniper fire on the one hand, or close defense endurance on the other. (In Korea, many vets remarked that in night long infiltration fights, everything but the rifles was ammo "dry" long before dawn).

In the Boer war itself, once the Brits realized they could not fight this like earlier colonial wars and replaced incompetent commanders, they pinned frontally with artillery fire and turned each line of hills with mounted riflemen. If the Boers attempted to stand in an entrenchment, the right thing to do was first get rifle fire to cover all

ways out of that entrenchment, and then bring up 18 pdrs to 2 miles away and shell it indefinitely. Usually the Boers decamped when they saw they were going to lose their last line of retreat to rifle fire coverage.

What is the role of the SAW in this context? Suppression as much as ranged fire, and the WW I style LMG ability to set up a crossed MG network defense of any ground taken. In modern tactics, a few scoped rifles and the MGs (not even the SAWs really) can be counted on to cover the 400-800 meter range window, and fire can be called in from much heavier weapons with a reactiveness and precision nobody could dream of in earlier wars. Infantry are FOs first and foremost, their personal weapons are secondary. Infantry weapons are really only needed inside the danger close distance of heavy ordnance, and for clearing terrain where observation to call it in is impossible. For both of which, carbine accuracy and grenades are sufficient. Their superiority over full rifle calibers then comes from the larger ammo loads that can be carried. But note that recently, body armor is pulling in the opposite direction - it is much harder to fully protect against a full rifle caliber round at 200-400 yards than against carbine ammo.

[jtcm]

is there any "lessons learned" primary document for the post Boer years, that produce the "Old Contemptibles" of the BEF in 1914 ? (Is the practice of *rapid* aimed volley fire at long range [e.g. five rounds rapid fire by whole units at 600 yards on single targets] a British specialty to increase range of engagement vs. Boer-style sharpshooting at extreme long range ?) Small arms manuals, tactical manuals ?

Russo-turkish war of 1877 might also be relevant to all this.

[costard]

is there any "lessons learned" primary document for the post Boer years, that produce the "Old Contemptibles" of the BEF in 1914 ? (Is the practice of *rapid* aimed volley fire at long range [e.g. five rounds rapid fire by whole units at 600 yards on single targets] a British specialty to increase range of engagement vs. Boer-style sharpshooting at extreme long range ?) Small arms manuals, tactical manuals ?

Russo-turkish war of 1877 might also be relevant to all this.

I've read about the rapid volley fire being used against entrenched machine guns (Sassoon and Graves in separate books) - I think the idea there was that the MG could only reply to part of the attacking group, if at all.

JasonC - yet another fine piece of writing, thanks. Makes for a pleasant Sunday morning read.

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[jtcm]

Thanks Adam. Will write to you-- but why not post them here ?

(good thread, btw).

A well known classic:

http://regimentalrogue.com/duffersdrift/Duffers_Drift.htm

Aimed rifle fire, field guns; ranges: 100 m during night infilftration; aimed rifle fire at 1500m (!) by the British (!!), on mass target (supply column)-- and effective, too; long range accurate fire by Boers; 800 m open fields of fire considered good; use of trenches and field fortifications. Also "mad minutes" during ambushes.

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[jtcm]

Have a look at the "Defence of Duffer's drift"— by Swinton, "inventor" of the tank

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[JasonC]

Setting - May 1942, south, warm, clear midday. Germans on a slight rise, continuous belt of rocky, in foxholes. Russians have another belt of rocky opposite at a distance of about 800 meters, that they must leave to attack. 3 small flags on the German side of the field. The map is quite narrow, only about 320 meters wide, to get the proper force to space for a "pipe" through such an attack. Understand that in reality, the same would be occurring to left and right and a local success would still face flanking fire from any sector where the attack fails. The ground is lower between the two opposing ridgelines, but not by much, and it uniform open ground, devoid of a single shellhole or rocky patch, not even a patch of steppe.

The German defenders have a full rifle company, 10 man grenadier squad variety, without mortars or HMGs. They also get 2 veteran sharpshooters with maxed out ammo (15 each). 4 of the German squads are veterans, the rest regulars, and the HQs are mediocre, single bonuses only. The Germans are deployed in a single line of squads at 27 meter intervals, with the HQs behind each platoon, the company HQ forming a 4th platoon out of the 4th squads of each, in the left center of the line. The sharpshooters are slightly forward, 30 meters or so, and also in rocky foxholes.

The Russians get 2 companies of green infantry, 4 11 man squad varieties with the 4th squad in each platoon the 1941L pattern without LMG. The company HQs are regulars. The first company starts on the map and the second enters behind it on a broad front (3 reinforcement markers) on turn 5. It thus forms a second wave approximately 350 meters behind the first. All told the Russians have 296 men, the Germans have 140 men, so the infantry odds are 2.12 to 1, while the point odds are a typical 1.5 to 1. The Russians are in "blob" formation by platoons, each with 2 squads leading, 1 trailing beside its HQ, with the company HQ forming a 4th platoon in line with the others, made up of all the 41L squads.

The Russians group select and "move" straight for the German held ridge, all traveling together and upright. No staggered use of "advance" to simulate packet movement, and there is no cover to exploit in short hops with periods of rally between, anyway. This is meant to simulate both the absence of cover the Brits experienced in Black Week and their unawareness of packet movement tactics. Note that the Russian rifles are rated for only 250 meter range, and this should effectively simulate the completely unsurpressed nature of the Boer defense. The German squads get only 500 meter range and the sharpshooters 600 meters, which is low. But they also have an LMG in each squad to increase their firepower. The Germans initially set 400 meter covered arcs (the sharpshooters 375 so as not to fire significantly sooner), and lift them to 500 meter arcs after first contact. The HQs are on short 80 meter arcs for final protective fire only, and not expected to participate.

My prior assumption is that there is no way in heck this attack can succeed in CM, even with the cover differential only being that between foxholes in rocky and 75% exposed open ground. Cover panic will do more than enough, along with greens, "move", 250 meters Russian rifle ranges, a complete lack of cover, and no heavy weapons support of any kind. The density of the German firing line is the dominant issue. A continuous line of squads at 27 meter intervals simply can't be penetrated by infantry only, attacking over open ground.

The first trigger pull occurs at 400 meters range and pins half the leading Russian squads (4 of 8) with the remainder at cautious (one shaken). 6 men are hit, 2, 2, 1, 1 across 4 squads. The following portions of the blobs continue to move and pile up on the pinned men, forming an excellent target for the following minute. The Germans lift their covered arcs to 500 meters at this point, but continue to use arcs to encourage the men to fire despite the range. But no direct targeting orders are given to any of the units. The Russians for their part are to attempt to continue to close using "move" wherever possible. They are only to attempt to return fire if they can make it to 250 meters distance. Note that in the first minute of fire, the Russians see nothing.

By the end of the second minute, 16 Russians have been hit (a max of 2 per squad) and another 9 have routed and are headed for a map edge. HQs are strung out ahead of their pinned men, some units are sneaking right on top of others and intervals have been lost. Most of the front company are in a pinned morale state. They have sound contacts for a dozen German infantry units at this point, but have no full IDs with exact locations and cannot do anything about the incoming fire. The only adaptation of their movements is for the leading HQs to halt, waiting for their men to catch up with them. The trailing company is now about 225 meters behind the stalling first wave.

By the end of the 3rd minute of contact, 50 Russians are in red morale states, one squad of which ran off the map, more men have been hit, and the movement delays of the green pinned squads left behind by their HQs are running 2-3 minutes. The German squads have used 10 ammo apiece to achieve this, and the first company is hopelessly stalled at this point. The second is 150 meters behind it and as yet unmolested. But that changes as soon as it reaches the fire area where the first is stalled.

After 10 minutes completed, the state of the first company is as follows. 1st platoon has one squad and its HQ remaining, the rest having routed off the map. Of the 14 men remaining, the squad is in shaken morale and on a full minute of command delay before moving out. It is in command range of the second company HQ; 1st platoon HQ is 150 meters ahead with nobody to command. 2nd platoon is entirely in red morale states, with 8 men hit. The best squad is a rattled panic with 10 men. The HQ is stranded without followers 100 meters ahead of the squads. In 3rd platoon, 1 squad routed off the map and 10 men have been hit. The HQ is down to a single rifleman, with a squad of 7 men up with it at "alerted". 10 others are rattled but only "shaken" and in command of the second company HQ, the remaining squad is pinned and on a long command delay. Counting the company HQ, there are 20 effectives up front and another 20 men are effectively added to the 2nd company wave, with a minute or two of delay to move with them. Another 40 have already run for it and 40 are broken in place. In 2nd company, 1 squad and 1 HQ are panicked, 4 squads are pinned, and the remainder are on command delays from 48 to 90 seconds in states from alerted to cautious. The Germans have used essentially half of their ammo.

Continuing to 17 minutes, the Germans expend 3/4 of their ammo, with 13-14 shots per squad remaining. Realistically they must shorten their arcs at that point. The Russians lose 53 men in that period of time, or 18% of those engaged. (The two snipers got 4 of those incidentally, and the German HQs - and SMGs - were not used). 20 men in Russian HQs have made it to the 300 meter distance, every squad has pinned or broken at more like 400 yards and refuses to move closer, either due to outright breaks (red morale), repeated pins voiding movement orders, or long 2-3 minute command delays still in effect. The Germans have remained sound contacts throughout, the Russians never got a single full ID.

Attempting to simply close on "move" with an intact rifle line fails completely in CM, just as it should. The only unrealistic aspect of the affair is the relatively high ammo expenditure needed to accomplish this, and the resulting low state of the German ammo remaining. If the Russians use sneak and advance and 2-3 times as much time, and if they had minor patches of rocky or shellholes to rally in, they could close to rifle range by exploiting the German's need to conserve ammo by shortening up their arcs. Above all, in a WW II situation like this, the Russians would be able to call down artillery and heavy weapons fire on the fully manned German position, and at 27 meters per squad they could hardly miss all the defenders using HE weapons, even area firing at sound contacts. If the Russians had armor, they might push it close enough to get full IDs for infantry support weapons.

My overall verdict is therefore, "not proven", that there is any great problem with open ground and rifles in CM. Cover panic and the brittleness of "move" make up for any defects in the width of the cover differential, and the spotting issues are done correctly. In the past I suggested that ammo usage should be made probabilistic and drop as the square root of the target exposure, and the protective effects of being prone (already pinned or sneaking). This might still have the ammo running dry too soon, and the exponent should perhaps by 1 rather than 1/2. Or half of the FP reduction for range should also be included in reduced ammo consumption chances. Snipers should also have high ammo, not 10 shots, and arguably should have significantly higher accuracy for outright hits, and longer range than 600 meters. But that is the only serious modeling issue - ammo consumption for long ranged fire is too high, and ammo endurance therefore too short. But the existing relationships are already enough to make any Black Week style advance in the open turn into the bloody failure it actually was.

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[JasonC]

The losses happen mostly in the moments when the targets are up and moving, while most of the shots are taken at men who have already pinned and gone prone. The ammo expenditure per unit time vs. the latter is too high, but the lethality level is fine. The Brits lost less than one man per rifle opposite over the course of *hours*, not minutes, once they pinned and went prone. Yes rifles would give less FP per unit time, but they also can throw it for longer. The time scale required hardly matters since the first company pins in minutes.

It isn't fishy at all, the required tactical reality is present. An infantry force asked to walk up to a continuous line of good order infantry will refuse and pin at whatever range the infantry line chooses to open fire, even to the limits of their range, with loss of 15-20% of those participating if left exposed to the enemy's fire, etc.

The danger level per unit time is not controlling. Nor is the cover level. Nor is the weapon mix. The men are unwilling to persist in hazardous movement into fire without cover, when the loss to themselves threatens to be a round of Russian roulette every quarter hour, or worse. They refuse, they protect themselves, that refusal and protection will drive their loss rate lower but render them militarily ineffective.

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[JasonC]

Adam, you appear to be trapped in a common technological delusion, as many before you have been. One imagines that by changing the weapons in the average soldier's hands, one can allow him to routinely account for several of his foes opposite, in a single engagement. It is an illusion, it is mathematically impossible.

It violates the first law of operations, "the average weapon system never accounts for its own number over its entire service life". Changing the weapon will change the conditions under which it is used, the tactics employed, it can drive up dispersion, lower force to space, extend fighting in time, alter the relations of attack and defense, etc. It cannot make one average soldier sufficient to shoot down several average soldiers on the other side. It is a misunderstanding of "average" to expect it, and above all a misunderstanding of soldiers.

Soldiers fight with their mutual willingness to undergo the dangers they can afflict each other with. Those dangers being reciprocal, anything that drives them upward drives soldiers farther apart or deeper into cover or into more dispersed deployments, and extends engagements in time. But cannot drive the average effectiveness of a single armed man above the level of danger men are willing to undergo before packing it in, or seeking self protection, above continuation of their mission. War is a contest of wills and not of weapons. Weapons only tweak the methods, and force tactics to change to accomodate the level of danger they can create.

That is why any system that gets that morale stuff basically correct will get the tactical relationships basically correct, even if a very wide range for the weapon effects. The latter simply are not the rate determining step, to begin with. In CM, only the ammo burn rate is high for the effects it shows. The effects are basically accurate and the paper scissors rock relations they set up are likewise basically accurate.

Here is what you don't see - Black Week results of 20,000 attacking infantry shot down to a man in half an hour. Nor do you see US losses on Omaha appreciably exceed the number of defenders behind the beach. Even against 100 MG42s, for hours, plus mortars and artillery fire, etc. Danger high enough to threaten it inflicts a fraction of the potential losses and that fraction is enough to breaks wills, but once that breakage occurs the target disappears.

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request