Triumvir
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Posts posted by Triumvir
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Vanir,
An LMG can theoretically be crewed by one man, and two men is the norm. The optimal would be three, one to fire and two to carry ammo.
The section organization I had when I was a conscript was:
1 x section commander (M-16)
1 x rifleman (M-16 + Armbrust)
1 x marksman (scoped M-16 + Armbrust)
2 x grenadier (M-16 + M-203)
2 x gunner (Ultimax LMG)
One gunner and grenadier would typically form one group, the marksman and the other gunner would form another, and the section commander would lead the rest.
Everyone was supposed to carry extra ammunition to feed to the MGs, working out to roughly 3 men per MG, and two MGs per squad.
The MG and the grenades do the real killing; infantry is there to hold the ground and give them the chance to kill.
As for bolt-action vs semi-auto, I honestly don't think that, given equal levels of training, there's much point in comparing the two. All things being equal, a semi-auto action is easier to use over the long run than a bolt action.
As an example, on one type of arty piece I was trained on, there was no hydraulic rammer to seat the projectile. We achieved the same rate of fire with that piece as we did with one that had a rammer in the short run; but if we had had to keep firing over hours and hours, the piece with the hydraulic rammer would have clearly been superior.
Mad minutes etc may be illustrative, but are not good bases for comparison.
However, the British have in the past century placed a greater premium on marksmanship than the US Army has, and thus the better individual arms training made the Lee-Enfield comparable to the Garand in the field in ETO. Of course, this came at the expense of other things, like private soldiers being trained to call arty fire; but it did make the two comparable _in those circumstances_.
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It took you that long to find that out? 8)
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Priest, you are of course entitled to your opinions and BTS's hard task is to balance out all our opinions and their creative decisions and come up with some kind of synthesis that leaves everyone roughly equally unhappy.
Please note, though, that my suggestion applies only to setup, and not to actual gameplay and that everything in there is currently duplicable using existing code. It just makes setting up a bit faster; something that, if you play a lot of TCP games, is not to be sneezed at.
I generally don't like your examples of games not changing; first off, all of them are sequels, and have included refinements. (What's a refinement? A change I agree with!) But think of Will Wright -- from Sim City, we went to SimTower and The Sims. As for sticking with the same schlock, look at Star Control going to Star Control 2 -- a completely different game. When they moved to Star Control 3, it was the same schlock as SC2, but not as well done.
It all comes down to implementation; change for change's sake is not a bad thing, but it has to be done right. If Interceptor had had a better tie with the other X-COM games and hadn't been quite such a buggy bland piece of crap, I'd have _loved_ it.
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Why not follow the Steel Beasts methodology for the LOS tool? You can only use LOS when setting up, and only when inside your setup zone. You can already mimic this by placing your units in the desired positions and doing a LOS look around, but a 360 view _would_ be easier to handle than the current single line for LOS.
A behavioural outline would be:
1) Place unit in desired location.
2) Select unit
3) Choose LOS tool
4) Move mouse up and down to increase and decrease the LOS distance from the selected unit
5) Areas within LOS would be blue, out of LOS would be black, in LOS but out of firing arc would be red, same as current CMBO.
I agree with Germanboy and Username; being able to plunk a marker down and calculate LOS from it is an unrealistic decision.
When we dug defensive positions on a hill, it was deceptively easy from standing height to see what is and isn't visible from a position. But the second you go down to the height you'll be in a foxhole, all that nice open ground suddenly turns into dead ground. How much harder it must be to calculate LOS from six hundred metres away!
I also think that the 360 arc is probably too much information when actually issuing orders; but I don't think it's a distorting abstraction when doing setup.
Finally, I don't think that there's a chance in hell that this'll make it into CMBB. But I would like to see it in CM II, as I think it's a worthy item.
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Oh, goody good good. Brian Ross is here, from s.m.m... I've always wanted to have a good game with him and CM is a great platform.
A word of warning; Brian loves to troll, and be inflammatory. Try not to jump with both feet into his posts...
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Who are these stones who dare not only to accept my challenge but throw it back in my face by asking me for my tru-blu Pengiosity?
I was a Hokkien Peng in the army; so fie, fie, _fie_ upon these gentrified Pengs!
Prepare for my mailed gauntlet, Who-are-these -- I don't use it to slap people in the face! (There are other, better spots for it to go and other, better spits for it to emulate!)
Not _only_ will I challenge you to a random match, with random weather, random troop quality, random troop _pick_ and random time of day, I will show you exactly why they call us cannon-cockers!
Bahahahahaha! My super-duper Haig offense skills will overwhelm all before me!
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Hah! A beak in the weather? This isn't some threat to set free the wundernichtsgeflugelschnabelvogelwaffe divebombing penguins, is it? 'They' are always looking for an excuse to sneak in new evil, like Russian tanks in Texas!
The big black invisible helicopters never rest!
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I'd rather have the HMGs move into position on their own power. The proper engagement range for the HMGs is about 300m or so, and I usually use them to initiate contact. They do a stellar job of suppression at a long range, and have enough ammo to just keep hosing an area down while the infantry advance.
Moving them up on the back of a vehicle tends to draw attention to the vehicle before you really want to do so.
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Rrrright. Having lurked for nigh on one and a half years, and having broken silence by accident three months ago, I think it is time to claim my rightful place as an SSN. It's five months to CMBB, the Gimn Sovetskogo Soyuza is blaring from the speakers, the office is all dark and I've got a force-feedback mouse. Hit it!
And my first victim is.... Juardis! It's fitting that another first-time SSN should be the first to feel my brilliant secret plan of climbing out of trenches and walking slowly in formation towards waiting machine guns! It worked wonders for Haig, didn't it?
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As a quick injection of physical experience, manhandling even a 25pdr 200m uphill across grassy terrain only takes 3 minutes without ammunition, and ammunition back then came in a neat handy wheeled container. A modern 105mm gun weighs about the same and can be moved equally quickly. I don't see why we can't allow AT guns to be manhandled into position, especially light ones like 6pdrs.
I know that another battalion when I was doing conscription regularly did 4km route marches without transport for their 120mm towed mortars. I don't think it is at all either ahistorical or gamey to have AT guns, or any gun under 76mm for that matter be manpacked.
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Steve,
I don't think the use of a hunt command is quite enough to simulate a brief pause. I like the idea of interspersing hunt and move commands, but the problem with hunt that I've noticed is that when the tank engages the target, if it misses, it will stay in position and shoot at the target.
This is fine for a hunt-into-hulldown, but I don't feel that it's suitable for an advance over open fields. Instead of charging between patches of cover, a hunt-move tank will stop just outside of cover and volley with its opponent, instead of moving forwards while reloading.
I like the implementation of the hunt -- note that a hunting tank moves faster than a moving tank too, but models the pause correctly. But I'd rather see a hunt-pause-shoot-move.
Your sources say that a tanker needed to bracket before assuring a hit; but bracketing is sometimes an unaffordable luxury.
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Speaking of MGs, is it true that you need an asbestos glove to change the barrel of an MG42, same as with an M60?
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Then again, there are the (probably) apocryphal stories of Israel Tal, Gen of Tank Troops and father of the Merkava, directing fire from Centurions at trucks 6km away and scoring first round hits.
Not to mention the (probably reliable) story of the 5000m Gulf War kill by a Challenger.
In one of the shooting galleries I've set up, a Nashorn scored a first round kill on a Sherman at 2000m with a 9% hit percentage.
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Maybe I've been lucky, but I've never run into an uber-flak-ver-trucken. All the SdKfzs I run into or have were killed very quickly by either bow MGs or HE.
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Don't forget too that after the Israelis got their Mag'achs, they converted their M50s and M51s (and if you like irony, the M50 used what was basically the Panther's 75mm -- a GIAT 75mm that was also used in the AMX-13 and adopted from the battalion of Panthers that the French used till 1949) into self-propelled howitzers, mounting their Soltam 155s. I think there are even still some Sherman recovery vehicles in reserve somewhere in Israel.
Apparently they're still in use in Chile.
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I rode in M113s when doing mortar training (I first went to SP mortars, then to guns) and I can say with absolute certainty that you do NOT want to be standing, let alone trying to shoot while travelling cross-country in an M113. Presumably an M113 has even better suspension than a WWII halftrack -- if that's the case, then good luck to the poor bastards who try shooting while moving.
Unless, like the VC or an MG gunner, you have a mount to hold on to, it's next to impossible to keep footing when moving at any kind of speed. My memories of cross country moves (and this on what would count as CM dirt roads) somehow all seem to blur into one continuous jackhammering of my (helmeted) head into the roof...
(Hmm... maybe that explains some of my posts... 8))
And our mortar tracks were considered roomy with only six people inside! I'll never regret moving to guns... there are so many more flat surfaces in trucks and guns to sleep on than inside a track...
However, if the vehicle is stationary, then I would think that passengers should be allowed to shoot out; in fact they may get a bonus as there would be quite a few protrusions to balance weapons on.
Incidentally, the bravest people I ever saw were Taiwanese artillerymen deploying their M109s; those poor bastards hung on to the barrel of their tracks with one hand and waved flags in the other, trying to move into their deployment ground. Lose concentration for a second and hey presto! gun commander pancakes...
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This is a great primer! One of the reasons I like reading Jason's works is that you get a quick summary on a particular TOE, a ready deck in other gaming parlance that you can spring on others.
Much like a chess player learns by standard gambits, a standard force loadout is a great boon for beginning players. It may make them predictable, but they do learn enough to get familiar and confident, until they get thrown an adhoc kampfgruppe to handle...
I'd personally advocate dropping the minefields for more TRPs. AT minefields, even in a block of 3, tend not to be sufficiently deadly for area denial. That's a job that can be reasonably handled by the PaK, schreck and faustpatrone.
I agree with Jason's comments on sharpshooters; they are especially potent at VC (as in vehicle commander) killing. I once had a regular sharpshooter kill a tank commander at 400m -- that tank was effectively blind for the rest of the game (incidentally, playing Israeli-style really makes a huge difference in playing -- hopefully in CMBB, the AI can be persuaded to unbutton by itself.)
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Likewise, Steve... although I must confess to being a bit shocked at the results. They seem much higher than one would expect... proving that gut feelings can be nasty treacherous things.
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Who "is" this "Charles" "person" anyway? "Or" for "that" matter, Doug "Beman"?
Asshole I'm "being" no "doubt" but "scare" "quotes" get "my" goat. Too many "people" use "them" wrongly (even though "Doug" used "them" correctly...)
8)
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Treeburst, I don't mean to call your runs anecdotal. But there is some algorithm I recall that pins down exactly what your minimum population size should be; if we can find that, then we can say with certainty that something appears wrong and make a good case for fixing it.
Slapdragon, what you posted is almost exactly what I was talking about, except that if I remember correctly, you can also fix the minimum size so that we can determine if the set is sufficiently large to make predictions from. I honestly can't recall what the average samples should be; it's been a _long_ time since Econometrics or Stat 101.
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Dredging up horrors from the depths of my memory, I seem to recall in my Stat 101 class an algorithm for determining the minimum population size necessary to prove a hypothesis at some confidence level. Can anyone refresh my memory so that I can see whether it can apply to CM and thus make our tests a little less anecdotal?
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If I'm not wrong, the Germans realised the AP capabilities of the Flak 36 during the Spanish Civil War.
I presume that for CMBB, all Soviet guns will have AT rounds and HE rounds, to follow their principle that anything bigger than a rifle is field artillery _and_ anti-tank artillery.
It's actually a very laudable concept; why dedicate a gun to anti-tank or artillery when by changing the fuse and filler, you can let it switch from one to the other? Build it for high muzzle velocity and you can vary the charge accordingly.
Even to this day, Soviet artillery has HEAT rounds issued to all units, on the offchance that they may be engaged against armour.
When I was a conscript, doctrine was to use HE rounds against armour if ever we were overrun (but that would mean that we were pretty much ****ed to begin with). I wonder what our steel drill rounds would have done, though...
A question for Rexford; given the shape of an M107 155mm HE and an initial muzzle velocity of 924m/s and a single block of machined steel, would something like that be effective against, say, a T-72, at 500m? Or is that not in your speciality?
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Well, I just ran a shooting gallery test at 2000m and the TRP seems to have no effect at all on chances to hit. I set 4 Nashorns against 4 ammoless Jumbos at 2100m with sharpshooters at 1600m to provide spotting. All units were regular
The chance with and without a TRP was the same at 9%
Interestingly, even with bracketing, my chance to hit never rose beyond 31%; not unreasonable considering the range.
What was scary is that even Jumbos can be killed at 2000m by the 88L71, artificial though the test may be, and from frontal turret hits, no less.
[ 07-29-2001: Message edited by: Triumvir ]
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Michael, yes it was in recent years. Based on how we set up our 25 pounders, though (and I recognise that we weren't doing so for firing, just for saluting) and since the basic principles of aligning your gun haven't changed that much since 1916, I don't think that hours is an accurate assessment for how long it would take to prepare an artillery position. If you count stocking the position with rounds, that's different. But simply deploying and firing whatever rounds are on hand should be in the scope of a CM game.
As for hamsterwerfen, our primary weapon, we actually used a squeezebore chamber that gradually translated our little hamsters into a chunky cylinder of furry firepower ala how hamsters roll over when you tickle their bellies.
Anyway, back to the topic; I think that the capability definitely exists for indirect fire for all tank guns (the Americans did it in Vietnam and I believe the Israelis did it in the War of Attrition), that it was doctrine, but that the likelihood of it happening on a CM scale is so low that it may not be worth coding it in.
Imagine, if you will, having the tank sit still for five turns (or less, depending on experience) before it becomes available for indirect fire; and if it moves, it needs to stop and reregister.
Not particularly fun and not particularly likely to be used. There's a reason why assault guns were so popular then; quick directly applicable firepower.
Defensive tactics using the Archer
in Combat Mission Archive #4 (2002)
Posted
Quite agree with Michael. I've always had good results with Archers, but they require careful placing and a good position. Treat them exactly like an AT gun that can move like blazes.
I've scored a first round kill on a Tiger at 1000m with an Archer and two rounds later, killed a Pz IV; not a bad kill ratio for a 99pt vehicle.
As redwolf says, it's excellent insurance against uberpanzers, and since you have to treat all Allied armour like they're made of glass anyway, the marginal care needed over a normal tank isn't that great.