Andrew H.

This is all very interesting -- I haven't fired (or held) any of these weapons, but as I read various historical accounts, I was struck by how the reasons that some people gave for the weapon's unpopularity seemed to be the same reasons that the assault rifle was adopted. I've done a little more research and found out some interesting details for various WWII weapons concerning their ammunition and muzzle velocity. M1 Garand Cal: 7.62 x 63 Vel: 2805 fps M1 Carbine Cal: 7.62 x 33 Vel: 1969 fps MP 44 Cal: 7.92 x 33 Vel: 2297 fps MP 40 Cal: 9 x 19 Vel: 1250 fps Thompson SMG Cal: 11.45 x 23 Vel: 925 fps PPSh-41 Cal: 7.62 x 25 Vel: 1600 fps I wish I could have (easily) found the weight of the bullets. WRT the MP-44 vs. the carbine, the MP-44 has only a slightly larger bullet, but has a much larger muzzle velocity (more than 300 fps faster). The Garand, of course, has a muzzle velocity of 2805, way more than the MP44. It's also interesting to look at the SMGs, especially with an eye on CM2. In particular, the PPSh has a higher muzzle velocity than the MP40 (1600 vs. 1250). Anyway, it appears based on this that a squad armed with automatic carbines would be superior to a German SMG squad. Any reason why this wouldn't be true?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Brian: Which makes me wonder about all the German tanks as they were almost universally petrol engined machines. Was their petrol any less flammable than Allied petrol?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> No. The problem with the Sherman, in particular, was that the ammunition tended to catch fire. This was fixed by wet storage of the ammunition.

Although the M1 carbine was pretty popular among certain front line troops, esp. in the Pacific, whenever I read about it, there is always the same (contemporary) report about the weapons "failings." Specifically, the complaint is that the carbine used an underpowered round and was not as accurate as the Garand. Both of these complaint might be true, but it seems that they are the same factors that made the MP44 (and the assault rifle today) the dominant weapon on the battlefield. Like the MP44, the carbine uses an intermediate round between a pistol and a rifle round. Like the MP44, the carbine is effective out to about 300 meters. Both weapons had a 30 round clip, and both were capable of auto or semi-auto fire (although earlier versions of the carbine were not). So I guess my question is: were the complaints about the M1 really valid complaints, or were they simply complaint by people who believed that the measure of a rifle was the full-sized Garand/K98/Enfield style rifle, and any other weapon is inferior to the extent it does not match these weapons? Or was there some actual inferiority to the carbine that would have prevented it from being used as an assault rifle even if the US had that doctrine.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Stalin's Organ: But it is not a semi-auto rifle, and so you might as well compare teh brown bess musket to the Garand for all teh good it does. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The Brown Bess musket was great! It was the standard British infantry firearm for 150 years. You have to admire that.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael emrys: I would be happy to see firing with impunity through friendly units eliminated. Indeed, make it a part of an overall change to fire effecting all units it passes through whether enemy or friendly. Michael<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This is not a bad idea, but it needs to be implemented in such a way that there are not an unrealistically high number of friendly casualties. Mostly I'm concerned at a possible lack of realism relating to close in units getting hit. AFAIK, almost all incidents of friendly fire are related to mistaken identity, with a couple of incidents having to do with the fact that there were friendly units near an enemy unit that the firing unit was shooting at. I don't know of any incidents (although it probably happened a couple of times) where a friendly, non-panicking tank shot another friendly tank in the back while trying to aim at a distant enemy tank, or where a friendly MG crew shot up a nearby friendly platoon while aiming at a more distant enemy unit. However, I'm sure that it was very common for units to hold their fire until they could be sure that they wouldn't hit friendlies. Basically, I think that the AI should take care of this by not firing when it recognizes the possibility of friendly units getting hit. With a couple of exceptions when the target and the friendly unit are close together...perhaps this should depend on the experience level of the firing unit and on whether the player gave the targetting order. This would mean that there would be deployment problems if there were a lot of tanks too close together (which appears to have been of some concern; cf. the tanker radio conversations posted by WBW in that other thread). I recently played a scenario (which will remain nameless for spoiler problems) in which there were 10 or so tanks coming down a road in column. I had a unit in a house where the road made a bend, which meant that all ten tanks were pointing at my unit (soon to be ex-unit). Realistically, only the first tank should have had a shot at the unit in the house, at least until the others deployed to the side of the road. What really happened, of course -- vehicles being invisible -- is that all 10 tanks opened up on my unit, with main guns *and* MGs. This is not realistic. Of course, if my unit had been, say, an AT gun, it would also have been able to open fire on any of the 10 tanks in the column. But this is not entirely realistic either, as the gun should only have a clear shot at the first tank. Indeed, IIRC, the reason that the Jumbo was developed was with the idea that it would lead columns like this.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael emrys: Huh? :confused: How's that again? Michael<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Sorry, I left out the . It's a reference to an old Hundminen thread.

Nice! But what kind of uniforms are those -- the soldier on the left looks like he's dressed to go to the opera. Or is that to show that he is a recently called up reservist? :confused:

Also, keep in mind that the KV wasn't -- as far as I can tell from this thread -- penetrated. Allied tankers didn't abandon their tank at the first non-penetrating hit, nor necessarily when the tank was immobilized. What they did was abandon the tank at the first penetrating hit, knowing that they would only have a couple of seconds to get out (or oot, if they were Canadian) before the tank blew up. The KV tankers eventually abandoning their immobilized but otherwise intact tank was more a failure of morale than anything.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael emrys: I would expect that their primary targets for fire on the move would not be AT guns, but infantry, especially infantry with satchel charges or AT grenades and later on Panzerfausts. At those ranges, their fire would be very effective, at least for suppression. Michael [ 08-12-2001: Message edited by: Michael emrys ]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Agree. They would also be more useful for spotting a concealed guy with a Pf than the tank alone. But I think that close defense vs. shrecks, etc., plus infantry overrun, would be the only real reason to model firing while mounted. This could probably be abstracted, somewhat, too. In normal battle conditions, I don't think that the couple of infantrymen who would have LOS to a target from the side or rear of the tank would be able to put much effective fire on it by firing one-handed with an SMG.

I think it was too much of a processor hit given that the game was in 3D. The same reason that mine dogs were unfeasable due to the difficulty of keeping track of smells on the 3D battlefield.

WRT purchase costs, it makes sense to me that the Nashorn would be cheaper than the towed gun, simply because thin-skinned vehicles like the Nashorn can be knocked out by all kinds of weapons more easily than their towed counterparts. Daimlers and Greyhounds can easily knock out Nashoerner ( ), at decent ranges, much more easily than they could knock out an AT gun. Especially if the AT gun were dug in. .50 cals are also effective vs. Nashorns at common CM ranges. They are much more effective against thin-skinned vehicles than they are vs. AT guns. The same is true of small mortars. But even regular tanks seem to be more effective against the Nashorn than against AT guns (at least dug in AT guns). At least in my experience, a regular tank will hit and knock out a big target like the Nashorn more quickly than it can put an AT gun out of commission using HE. And it is much more likely that a Nashorn will be spotted before it shoots than an AT gun. It is true that the Nashorn provides protection vs. infantry small arms...but I almost never have AT guns taken out by infantry small arms, as AT guns tend to be deployed far enough back that infantry can't bring effective fire to bear. I think that if CM were such that a common engagement range was 1500 meters or so, the Nashorn would be a more useful weapon. But when it commonly runs into the enemy at ranges from 500 to 800 meters, it is more vulnerable than a regular AT gun, which can at least stay hidden.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Blackhorse: No need for that. A tank with just one track cannot turn. It's modeled the right way already.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Unless it's immobilized on ice. :cool:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Username: Very few nations bothered with new ATG developments post WWII. They, and the flawed policies, like the US TD program, became scrap. Tanks were to fight tanks and missiles were the new way to go. Lewis [ 08-10-2001: Message edited by: Username ]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Before missiles and after AT guns, a lot of countries concentrated on recoilless rifles with HEAT in the AT role. I agree with your other point about AT guns reaching the height of their potential with the <50mm guns. Some of these guns -- in particular, the German 37mm AT gun, the German 28mm taper bore, and the british 2-pounder -- were wonderfully designed for the world of 1939-40.

I think the HMG is better for most purposes, too. I experimented for a while with using LMGs to boost the firepower of rifle platoons (essentially, I made a "shock" platoon by adding two LMGs to a platoon). In practice, this didn't work as well as I had hoped -- the additional firepower was not overwhelming, the LMGs died pretty quickly in the "shock troop" role, and the whole platoon was slowed down due to the LMG's medium speed. I've experimented with using LMGs in other ways -- to accompany shreck squads, or as security for guns -- but the jury's still out. I don't think that they are useful substitutes for HMGs, though.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Germanboy: In desperate situations, 88s fired while limbered up. The problem is how to model these situations in the game, because you can bet your right hand that somehow the desperate situation would end up being the standard in all the games. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Making the unusual the rule is, I think, often a problem in wargames because it's the unusual that tends to get written about. I.e., the PIAT man who took out three tanks in 15 seconds firing his PIAT from the hip, or tankers who hit moving enemy tanks at an ungodly distance...or this gunner firing his 6lber in a non-standard way. I think that the situation is a little different for limbered 88s because they were designed so that they could be fired while limbered. I think SL/ASL gave the limbered 88 some sort of penalty for firing while limbered, but I've forgotten what the penalty was, or exactly what kind of penalty it was, even.

One reason that the US had to go through the bocage in the first place is because the Germans were able to pretty effectively interdict large scale US movements on roads in German controlled territory. That is, with a StuG or AT gun and a handful of infantry, the Germans would be able to halt largish US columns from advancing on the roads. Sometimes a single StuG would delay a large column for an entire day (in large part because of inexperienced US commanders who couldn't quickly devise alternate plans). To avoid these kinds of delays, and to be able to make use of their numerical superiority, the US troops had to get off the roads, spread out, and advance through the bocage. Even with hedgerow cutters, tanks weren't great things to have in the bocage, as it usually put them in shreck range, if not Pf range. Also, given the thin German defense and the few number of tanks, it would make sense to keep the tanks on the roads so that they could be quickly rushed to whatever part of the front seemed to need them.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lorak: I think AFV's should be able to target units and fire using "move", with penalties. I think AFV's using the "fast move" shouldn't be able to target units at all. Best they should be able to get is an area target. Lorak<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The problem with this is that it would *never* allow a hit while fast moving. I haven't seen anything on this thread that suggests that this should be the case; there should be at least a chance of hitting even at a fast move. Especially at, say, 50m. One problem -- that was discussed some in the other incarnation of this thread -- is that the game doesn't allow you to simulate driving fast, but stopping (or slowing) to take shots, then accelerating up to speed again. If the game allowed moving fast with pauses to shoot, I suppose it would be okay to permit only area fire on fast moves with no pauses -- as a sort of "blind fire" option. But as it is, the only way to simulate moving fast and firing, even with pauses, is to use the fast move command.

Don't forget this: http://history.vif2.ru/ Or -- for entertainment purposes only -- www.wwiionline.com

One strategy for taking out a tiger (assuming a combination of upgunned and non-upgunned Allied tanks): 1. Have at least two tanks out of line of sight of the Tiger; say a stuart and a 76mm Sherm (or any non-upgunned plus upgunned tank). The non-upgunned tank should be in a location where the Tiger will have to rotate its turret to engage it. 2. Use MGs or light mortars to get the Tiger to button up. This will make it react to new threats more slowly. 3. Send the non-upgunned tank forward (Fast)on the Tiger's flank so that it will begin to rotate its turret to engage the non-upgunned tank. 4. At the same time, send the upgunned tank forward (Hunt), but time its move so that it will come into LOS of the Tiger when the Tiger has already rotated its turret to engage the Stuart or whatever the other tank is. (Obviously, it's easier to write this than to do it correctly. The Pause command helps. If the upgunned tank breaks cover to early, it will drive right into the Tiger's gun. If the upgunned tank is too slow, the Tiger may have already taken out the non-upgunned tank and rotated its turret back to face the upgunned tank when it breaks cover. Although the upgunned tank *may* be able to get off (one) first shot if the Tiger is buttoned and the upgunned tank is unbuttoned). 5. You need to hope that the Tiger doesn't have concealed AT assets or other flank protection when you try this. Otherwise, the stuart charges forward and is immediately taken out by an AT gun (or Schrek, or whatever), at which point the upgunned tank wanders into the Tiger's gunsights.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tero: Ever tried changing a C-casette/CD in a car moving at 50mph in a bad road turning sharply left and right and going up and down and you can not look out the window to get a heads up on the bumps and turns ? No...but I'm not sure that's an accurate analogy. For one thing, I was driving; for another, I'm not a trained CD changer. Also (3) the gun might already be loaded as the tank commences its fast move, which would eliminate reloading difficulties as a reason for a slow ROF, but would not mean that there wasn't a slower ROF due to the difficulty of laying the gun. It would also mean that the gunner gets only one shot. ROF does entail firing multiple shots. No, the point is that you can have a slow ROF even when the gun is loaded because you are unable to line up the gunsight with the potential target. [/qb]One thing that must be remembered is the fact that the early British tanks with 2prd and 6prd relied on the gunner to act as the stabilizer. The gun mount was a "free swing" type mount that gave the gunner more direct control over the guns (he used his shoulder to help stabilize and lay the gun) than the latter gun mounts for both the 6prd and the 75mm guns allowed. To draw any conclusions about the operational viability of stabilizers from a study that does not name the vehicle being tested is dubious. This is because to infer any superior performance of the mechanical stabilizer from a test made with a totally different lay out is plain flawed. Ceterum censeo the ROF and accuracy for tanks firing on the move should be dramatically reduced. Stabilizer or no stabilizer. [/qb] I don't think that the presence or absence of stabilizers has much to do with my argument, although of course the amount of time it takes a gunner to lay the gun on a target might be affected by the presence of a stabilizer, or by the fact that the gunner can use his shoulder as a stabilizer. In either case, the ROF would still be lower than for a stationary tank. Why run out shooting if you already have a clear or semi-clear shot at the target standing still ? Why indeed. As the commander who gave the order to charge across the field. :c So perhaps a 50% accuracy rate for a moving tank is not unrealistic *if* the game recognizes that the tank will only fire when the gunner has a good shot lined up...an event that might occur only once a turn. And perhaps less frequently for green tankers. This 50% accuracy brings out an interesting point: what about the (first shot) accuracy of tanks (AT guns, IF guns) that have not moved an inch ? The hit chance INCREASES when you fire on the move ? Sorry, I do not buy that. Where do you get from that that the hit chance increases when you fire on the move? The 50% number I got from the post upthread on british accuracy while shooting on the move; the number should be whatever is historically accurate and could be much lower. The accuracy of shooting from a stationary tank at a range of 300 m is almost 100%, even for a first shot. So the main reason not to fire on the move wouldn't be that the shots you fired were inaccurate; the real problem would be having the opportunity to fire in the first place. If this was true wouldn't the armies have started training their tank gunners to fire on the move, even on mounts that were not stabilized ? Umm, they did train tank gunners to do this. Then they later told them not to fire on the move. My theory why this was a bad idea is that it was due not just to (1) reduced accuracy, but also due to slower ROF due to the difficulty of reloading *and* laying the gun. Also, if British doctrine in '42 called for firing without pausing, that's how a fast move should work. How many tanks did they actually lose and was their doctrine revised subsequently ? CM is about fighting in '44. Did the truths that were selfevident in '42 survive intact until '44 ? I mean this doctrine should apply for british tankers in '42, of course; not that it should apply in CMBO because british tankers did it in '42. CM is built around the premise of the universal soldier/tanker/gunner. You are indicating that the British training, tactics and doctrine were dissimilar to the rest of the forces present in the CM now. Yet all of them are harnessed to act according to the British doctrine and the unsubstantiated use of built in mechanical stabilizer in this particular instance. The Allies get benefits, the Germans get penalized.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Down, boy! Down!

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by The_Capt: I think that 2xHMGs firing from enfilade at 300m should be able to stop a coy from getting across open ground, Point A to B of 200ms. They should be able to "Pin" the coy. I think Jason (though wordy and often rambling as usual ) is on to a point. It isn't the casualties which are important, it is the "stopping power" of the MGs on the coy. That stopping power is the psychological shock the entire organization feels when it sees tracers whipping about from both sides. Nobody wants to die so they hit the dirt. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think that this is generally right, and there are a couple of things that keep this from happening in CM. The first, as Jason noted, is overuse of veteran troops. Veteran troops are Gavin's paratroopers crossing the Meuse under fire in flimsy boats, unloading, and the boats returning to the other side, still under fire, to pick up more men to cross the river. Most troops weren't like this, and green troops, in particular, are especially sensitive to MG fire. HMG fire at 500-600 meters vs. a green squad in the open will -- about 50% of the time -- cause the squad to go to ground and seek cover, even though there are usually no casualties. This is very realistic behavior that is modeled in CM. What's not modeled very well in CM is MG target switching. This would make MGs more historically effective against green troops especially: if a short burst can cause a squad to go to ground, and an MG can fire 4 or 5 short bursts in a turn, this would give the MG the potential to stop 4 or 5 squads in a turn, rather than one. (Although a short burst won't always stop a green squad at 500 meters). Having a larger beaten zone would also make MGs more effective vs. green squads at range, too. But this plan (which essentially permits the MG to spread its fire more thinly among more squads) depends on the use of less experienced troops to obtain results that are consistent with most historical accounts. This issue doesn't directly relate to the Capt's mad minute experiment, but it is complementary in that it points out that, at longer ranges, the lack of realism is not a function of MGs not having enough firepower, but of the MGs not being permitted to spread the firepower out thinly enough. Thus, a fix to the MGs close-in weaknesses should be narrowly tailored to not make the MG overpowerful at longer ranges.

It seems like to use canister correctly, you would need to (1) lead with your tanks (so that you don't hit any of your own infantry with the rounds; and (2) approach closer than 200 m to the enemy infantry. Both of these sound like bad tactics in Europe in 1944. :mad:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Juardis: And finally, people seem to be confusing gamey with ahistorical. Gamey is taking advantage of a limitation in the game's coding or engine, ahistorical is buying forces that were never together or did not represent the right mixture. I am not enough of a grog to know what's historical or ahistorical, so until BTS codes an historical option in the game, I'm guess I'm always in danger of being labelled ahistorical. Just don't confuse it with being gamey. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Juardis's definition of gamey the the original definition, and, IMO, the correct definition. It comes from the pre-patch(es) days where the game did a lot more unrealistic stuff -- like the jeeps that could move at high speed, were difficult to kill, and had great spotting ability, even when moving at high speed. The only real gamey thing now, I think, is the flak truck crewed by an army of undead. David's untransported gun rule isn't a bad rule, and makes a certain amount of sense, but not following it isn't "gamey." It's sort of unfair to suggest that people are being gamey if they don't follow the untransported gun rule, though -- this is the first time I've heard of it as well, and it doesn't appear to be spectacularly unrealistic. As, say, purchasing 10 guns and one platoon of infantry would be.

I have a couple of additional thoughts. I think the point that pretty much everyone made about the difficulty of actually aiming the gun while on the move (due to the scope moving up and down) is important, not so much as it relates to accuracy, but as it relates to ROF. That is, in many situations the gun will be loaded and ready to fire but the gunner can't fire simply because he hasn't lined up the telescope on the target yet. I really think that this would slow down rate of fire more than reloading in a moving tank would because (1) aiming requires more precision than loading; and (2) the loader can load regardless of whether the gunner is lined up on the target; the gunner can't fire until the gun is loaded. Also (3) the gun might already be loaded as the tank commences its fast move, which would eliminate reloading difficulties as a reason for a slow ROF, but would not mean that there wasn't a slower ROF due to the difficulty of laying the gun. So for both of these reasons I think that ROF should be (at least potentially) slowed down for tanks on the move. The gunner-induced slower ROF might also explain why the firing-on-the-move accuracy statistics are higher than one would expect -- perhaps a trained gunner could obtain surprising accuracy on the move when he had a semi-clear shot lined up. The difficulty would be in getting the semi-clear shot in the first place. So perhaps a 50% accuracy rate for a moving tank is not unrealistic *if* the game recognizes that the tank will only fire when the gunner has a good shot lined up...an event that might occur only once a turn. And perhaps less frequently for green tankers. So maybe it would work like this: Tank A (reg) has a ROF of 4 and an initial 70% chance of hitting an enemy tank 300 meters away if Tank A remains stationary. Fast-moving Tank B (reg) would have a maximum ROF of 3 due to the difficulty of reloading on the move. But this ROF would, most of the time, be reduced even more due to the difficulty of accurately laying the gun. Perhaps the most common ROF would be 1. So the main reason not to fire on the move wouldn't be that the shots you fired were inaccurate; the real problem would be having the opportunity to fire in the first place. There is something to be said for the point that several people have made about having different orders for Fast Move depending on whether the tank pauses when it fires or not. I do think that the game should distinguish between between these two types of firing on the move, but I'm a little concerned that this would be too much micromanagement. Also, if British doctrine in '42 called for firing without pausing, that's how a fast move should work.

I think the fact that firing on the move was used in training up until '43 is indirect evidence that it was at least possible to fire on the move and hit something. If tankers were unable to hit *anything* on the move in training, the doctrine would have been dropped more quickly. I suspect the real reason that the doctrine was dropped is because it is much more effective to move, stop for 3 seconds and fire, then continue moving. This takes care of all of the accuracy problems discussed in this thread, and only slows the tank down a tiny bit. This brings up the question of what CM models. I had always sort of assumed that a tank that is moving and firing is actually stopping briefly to fire, and the fact that it appeared to be constantly moving is just a graphics thing, or else the brief pauses are abstracted. If they are not abstracted, they should be, as doctrine and (most) common practice by '44 appeared to be brief halts. I guess there are a couple of ways CM could deal with this. One would be to have separate commands for Move(and don't stop when you fire) and Move(stopping for 3 seconds to fire). This would be cumbersome and possibly ahistorical. Another way would be to decide that, say, Move meant brief pauses to fire, but Fast Move means go hell-for-leather and don't stop to fire at all. The third way, and maybe the best way, would be to abstract the tanks' behavior based on the time period and the applicable doctrine. So if '42-style Sov. doctrine called for tanks to fire on the move, and '44-style soviet doctrine called for brief pauses, the '42 tanks should be less accurate on the move than the '44 tanks (even if they are the same tank) to reflect the different firing doctrines. On the other hand, the '44 tanks would be slower than the '42 tank because it would have to slow down, briefly stop, and accelerate up again to accomodate its firing method. If the tanks in question have a ROF of 2 or 3 shots/minute, the '44 tank would be noticeably slower. Maybe there's another way of dealing with this. My proposals lack elegance.