Apocal

Generally speaking, yes. If anyone is having a different experience, I'd like to hear about it, there is always the possibility I'm doing something wrong.

Traverse and elevation knobs. http://sadefensejournal.com/wp/?p=358&page=2 --- The M1917, picture located in the middle, description in caption. I can't find a picture showing the T&E mechanism on the MG42's Lafette tripod, but a bunch of references describing such a thing. 1) I never actually tested only a single squad. If I wrote that, I misspoke and I'll go back and edit my post. 2) That's the jist, but the HMG also needs a foxhole. 3) Yes. Whoops! Just shoot me an email if you want it. Just a warning though, it's exactly what it says on the tin. A platoon of infantry and 1km of open ground before you reach a HMG in a foxhole.

I'm not arguing for evisceration and I don't see anyone else as well. Or rather, I'm not arguing for evisceration except in circumstances that would realistically lead to it. Attacking a HMG in an all-up skirmish line without supporting fire should be a painful, bloody affair. I agree on the morale/suppression issue, infantry just aren't intimidated enough by machine guns at range. Part of it is the accuracy issue, with shots wildly off the mark even after previous bursts, so the hits never get a chance to "add up." Another part of it is troops rallying too fast. A side issue is the split squads getting "free rallies" and effectively creating two or three times as many units that need to be individually serviced to keep the whole pinned. Of course, any sort of machine gun change should be concurrent with a mortar bugfix and some other artillery changes, but if not, the narrative of "machine guns pinning, mortars and arty killing" would be more reasonable what we have now.

They actually don't; in my testing with an American 50cal, somewhere between a third and half the casualties were caused by rifles of the ammo bearer team. If you keep that team out of the fight, the HMG loses the baseline scenario often as not. You'd have a point if I only tested using German HMGs. But I did test the other side of the equation; American HMGs filled the combined arms role IRL and they also fail to do so in-game, for much the same reason. Intimidated infantry don't stay down long enough, unless you're actively killing them. This is also the "gameplay vs. realism" argument. Honestly, with combined arms available and accurately protrayed, there is a balance already. It's not the razor-sharp balance of something like League of Legends or Starcraft, but it's there. We all know the German MGs were nasty, nasty things and with one or two in every rifle squad, plus a pair of heavies at the company level, they were a buzzsaw of belt-fed firepower. So how did the Allies beat them? Well, they had counters, and the Allies employed them appropriately and skillfully. Right now, you don't need to employ them skillfully or even have them at all. That has knock-on effects when it comes to other combined arms relationships, with the cliff notes version of things being something like Player A is trying to defend against a tank and infantry assault from Player B, so he places HMGs in position to repulse infantry and force tanks forward into the keyhole LoS of his ATGs, in a place of his choosing. But his HMGs can't actually hold off an infantry assault, so the tanks never come forward. If infantry were more intimidated by machine guns, the majority of the issues would resolve themselves.

Anyway, I got somewhat bored adjusting different variables and testing stuff, so I threw together a small (two platoons) scenario quick-ish to see if the relationship between HMGs and pure infantry holds up when expanded to the typical situations you'd see in-game, interlocking fields of fire, normal motivation and experience, cover and concealment available, etc. I've only made a few other scenarios, published only one for CM:SF as an aborted campaign attempt, so any criticism and feedback is welcome. EDIT: Once it goes live at least. Whoops.

Yes, they are still in command, albeit without a radio.

I'd like if HMGs could reliably chop up a platoon of infantry that isn't able to wiggle close enough OR provide enough firepower (HE or belt-fed) of their own. This would present a reasonable combined arms dilemma in which you have to use indirect or direct fire HE to clear well-positioned HMGs. In one case, you're using up mortar and arty ammo, which doesn't come back. In the other case, you're (potentially) exposing your armor to unspotted ATGs. For the basic combined arms relationships to function, given some advantage, defending HMGs should reliably win against infantry. They only do so now if given virtually advantage I can think of short of making the attacking pixeltroops outright incompetent (Conscript or Green infantry, Vet or better HMG). And even then, I'm starting to win as the attacker, since I've learned to split further back in the assault. I realize now I forgot one very important variable to control for: Axis vs. Allied equipment. mea culpa Anyway, I've now run another five tests featuring an Axis dismounted Panzergrenadier platoon. This is a pretty powerful beast and having 2x MGs per squad makes it trivial to overwhelm even 2x foxholed American HMGs (either 30cal or 50cal variety). Against my baseline setup (single foxholed 50cal MG* with 3 TRPs, slightly elevated to maintain full LoS, regular/normal motivation for the MG, regular/poor motivation for the infantry platoon) any losses you take are purely the result of luck as AI troops will open fire at 700 meters with a MG rather than 500 meters for Garands and 600 meters for a BAR. The suppression they get is more hit or miss, as fewer men shooting means that there is more opportunity for gaps in the fire, a bad string of shots to give the HMG time to collect it's wits, etc. But you apply it from further out and once it 'holds' you don't lose men to lucky hits nearly as often as with the Allied setup using Garands. The end result is that it takes longer as the 50cal has more effective range than the tripod-mounted MG34/42 so you spend more assaulting in split elements, but you still win. There is basically one fairly clear-cut method to win as the defender: push your TRPs out a bit further than you'd normally fire, something around 600-800 meters. TARGET big enemy squads as soon as possible around these "long" TRP(s) in hopes of causing a casualty, any you cause here are going to be useful later as morale state "hits" accumulate. Preferably, TARGET *one* unit and don't just break a unit, *shatter* it. Once that squad is *shattered* the TacAI's normal spread of fire should suffice to force poorly motivated troops to ground now that they are closer, as well as diminishing the quantity of incoming. You honestly aren't making too many decisions in this case, just emplacing TRPs and hoping for one or two early hits to work down morale. Obviously, this does not work against anything but poorly motivated troops. If you have not ground their morale down by around 300 meters for Garands (400 against a human player) or 500 meters against MG34/42, their incoming fire will degrade your own and it will slide downhill from there. If you try to ambush them from close (300 meters or less) in hopes of shattering the whole platoon via 5-6 quick casualties, it won't work due to the lack of suppression to anything outside the specific unit being hit and any global morale state takes time to propagate. They will simply return effective fire, potentially with HE as well and they effectively recover faster, due to same lack of effective cross-unit suppression and simply having more weapons. Assaulting this setup is standard drill. QUICK your whole platoon to around 600-800 meters, depending on threat. Break off assault teams and FAST them in short 30-60m, *diagonal* movements. Diagonal is important, rounds flying over the team's head shouldn't have the opportunity to take out multiple men in one burst (which can happen if you're running across the TRPs) and they shouldn't be potentially impacting anyone behind or in front of them either. As the assault teams reach the 500 meter mark, have them TARGET the HMG and begin FAST moving one base of fire team up to around the 500m mark as well. Move the rest in sequence, never have more than one moving at once or your effective suppression will drop and you'll possibly take losses. Once the base of fire teams have wiggled a bit closer, the fight is basically over; the HMG should be solid pinned or near enough to it and you simply have to advance your assault teams forward (possibly base of fire teams as well). The HMG team normally evacuates before you reach the 200m mark. * I chose a 50cal rather than water-cooled 30cal because the 50cal offers a very tangible range advantage over the MG34/42 which the 30cal does not. EDIT: Are you asking this in game terms or RL? In-game: Spotting targets is accomplished via the team leader's binoculars. They *can* get spots out to around 1km that I've seen, but will only reliably spot moving infantry at around 800m or so. I don't know what it's like when they lose the glass, but given that infantry reliably fire MGs at 700 w/o binos, it's a reasonable guess. The range at which you can reasonably drop rounds amidst a squad is approximately 600 meters w/ TRP for the MG34/42. It won't be super reliable, but enough to make them think twice about getting up and probably bag one or two men out of squad if they hang around for two minutes. As for RL stuff, I'm not really the dude to ask about in-depth WW2 minutia. But in broad terms, it shouldn't be difficult for a gunner to be "talked onto" a target at 900 meters with something like the MG34/42.

I'm not using anything but rifles and MGs/BARs to get the HMG pinned. By time they get close enough to use bazookas, shreks, rifle grenades, etc. the issue is decided. You're asking for a citation that HMGs were used to counter infantry on the attack? Don't worry about it, it happens. Because it rewards splitting units arbitrarily. A big chunk of the reason the HMGs work currently is that men taking hits (injured or WIA/KIA) cause bucketloads of suppression, even if the fire is otherwise ineffective. Hitting one man will generally pin a squad down for a solid minute, with change to spare. Unless you've split that squad into 3 elements, in which case the other two elements will continue to advance and not immediately shy away from the enemy. This is true, and could be helped with something like a greater suppression radius for casualties inflicted, similar to HE, rather than a truly global suppression.

It's a single arm overcoming what should be it's direct counter. Are you sure you aren't mixing up morale state with suppression? OK, this one I just came off testing five times (real easy, around two minute per test), half company of conscript, poor motivation troops placed in the open in front of 6x dug-in elite HMGs, minus three half-squads placed out of HMG line-of-sight. HMGs obviously tear the company a new *******, all survivors at max suppression states or close enough, the three half-squads never get any more than 1 bar of suppression. Morale state obviously break, but it's pretty clear that suppression is only carried on a per-unit basis, not globally.

The thing is, I don't need combined arms with this. I just need an infantry platoon, they can be -2 motivation, with some cover and concealment up to rifle range and I'll win, reliably. Even with the HMG having foxholes and TRPs. The thing about the suppression effects cuts both ways, but it's an advantage to the infantry platoon since there is no discernible global suppression. I can have one assault element get shot to **** not 20 meters away from another assault element and they won't bat an eye as long as the tracers aren't going over their heads at that moment.

If I use anything but -2 motivation troops (with a -2 platoon leader), the attacking infantry platoon wins. If I give them any appreciable cover or concealment, the attacking infantry platoon wins. If I take away the HMG's foxholes, the attacking infantry platoon wins. If I take away the TRPs, the attacking infantry platoon wins. If I start them off at 600 meters instead of 1km, the attacking infantry platoon wins. Do you see what I'm getting at now? EDIT: If I take any two of these and put them together, I can not only reliably win as the attacking infantry platoon, but do so at a minimal (in CM terms) cost.

Just double-posting to say that I finally got the combined arms relationship to 'work': HMG, slight elevation advantage (10m), foxhole cover and 2 TRPs vs infantry platoon crossing open terrain, furthest advance was 300m from the HMG position, took 20-25 minutes to break the infantry. Both sets of troops -2 motivation. Defenders never took more than 3 casualties, attackers averaged 13. I've only run it 4 times so far, but the infantry finally are consistently breaking the way they should. Obviously this isn't a illustration for scenario design or balancing, just an indication of how far things are skewed. Should I bother running it another six times?

That is easy to explain: the rock-paper-scissors relationship worked as it did in RL in CMBB. In CMx2, it does not. The RL combined arms counter to HMGs wasn't to flood more infantry, that would just make piles of dead infantry while your opponent laughed at you. It was HE in the form of tank guns, artillery or mortars. Unfortunately in CMFI, using nothing but -2 motivation infantry, I'm still able to overwhelm a HMG using only a platoon, taking hilariously low losses (less than 5 total) attacking up a full kilometer of open terrain. That's not realistic.

It's not happening on a timespan of hours like a typical dismount patrol; they get tired after only minutes of HUNT. I don't equate "tired" with something like "my arms hurt", I imagine it's wheezing for breathe from exertion. I've never been wheezing for breathe just holding my personal weapon at the ready, while crouched in an uncomfortable position. I was in decent, if average, shape. Or rather, was, when I was actually active duty. I never stood out for my physical prowess, but I never fell out on humps either. It sucks, but it's nothing like running around, climbing over walls, etc. in all that ****.

Yet a former insurance salesman turned writer managed to find enough information to put a plausible and somewhat accurate account of them into a fictional NATO vs. Warsaw Pact conflict in the same year it achieved operational status. Either Clancy is a top-notch spy, Bond was leaking classified information he wouldn't have had access to or nobody can keep a secret that well. I wonder which of these is true? In regards to the OP, interesting documentary, inaccurate in some degree with the benefit of hindsight, but still interesting.

Basically, to aim a mortar, you first emplace it on *level ground* (with some minor tolerance involved) then set out an aiming post (a red- and white-striped stick) some distance away. When you get a call for fire, you use a little cheatsheet or whiz-wheel to calculate the firing data, making sure to add or subtract from the range if you're firing from a different elevation than the target. Once you'd set the quadrant and elevation on the mortar and check the level-bubble (which tells you that the mortar is level), you spin it around and fine-tune until you're aimed at the red and white post. Finally, you hang the round and drop it. The only time I've seen someone who's nominally trained screw up that bad was when an inexperienced (still trained) mortar crew forgot to check the level bubble after they'd set up.

I'm wondering if this is ever going to implemented officially in game, especially for real time players.

Yeah, it's certainly more effort, but I'm not going get tired doing it.

I don't understand why HUNT makes them tired.

Be careful, modern mortars have become much more effective since they received variable time (airburst) and superquick (round "digs" less before exploding) fuzes. They also have greater range, moderately better accuracy and precision, etc. I can definitely say that is not the splash of a "light" mortar, unless you think 81/82mm is light. I'm not totally sure it's actually indirect fire at all, it could easily be a tank round, RPG, etc.

By those receiving fire (the suppressed), certainly. After all it has to present a credible threat to force men to ground. If HMGs weren't capable of causing casualties at that range, there would be no reason to use them rather than lighter machine guns.

Didn't the Germans have any counter to Soviet recon tactics? Or would they be too spread-out, disorganized, exhausted, etc. in breakthrough areas to counter?

My only opinion was that they should have put reasonably intelligent pathfinding into the game at the same time they did 1:1 representation and before tracking individual small arms' rounds. Some of the situations that arise currently are comical.

Yeah, infantry in this game move like retards. If you give them a waypoint across any long stretch of ground, they literally go single-file. I have decent-ish APM from playing RTS, but actively moving a platoon of infantry (tactically) wastes way too many brain cycles. It's distracting. I don't know why anyone would defend a craptastic movement system when we have 1:1 and tracking of every round fired. Off the top, do you know some of the better ones? The only account looking at tank riders in detail was "Tank Rider: Into the Reich with the Red Army" by Evgeni Bessonov and it was probably biased, along with much lost in translation.

Are illumination rounds going into the game any time soon? As I understand it, they were a key part of night-fighting for this era. Correct me if I'm wrong.