Kauz

You are right , but we could discuss about the weight/impact of your single arguments on the firepower of an HMG. Especially the range thing. It is not only additional optics of the gun or the binoculars of the leader/operator.... (the optics weren´t in use in the videos) The advantage of an HMG is that the gunner just could watch the impact of his rounds. A light machine gunner could not because of the rattling/recoil/impulse/shaking transfered on the gunner himself. I shot the MG 3 myself...i now what i am talkling about. In case of higher distances and/or infavourable soil conditions the impacts of the standard 8X57 IS sS round would NOT be visible or at least hard to spot...you are right.... For this case they could use the "b-patrone"(more uncommon) or the standard tracer/inceniary rounds (very common). Additional the option to fire a lot of rounds per burst AND to fire one burst after the other not only increased the hit probability itself , the probability to find the right range/target increased extremly. You are fireing burst after burst till the guys or the guys fall...You can correct the fire/aiming immediatly a little ....but watching the kill effect is not all...you just can watch the tracers and correct the fire. Correct...that i tried to simulate with my test i reported in this thread... and i was very unhappy with the weak result.

In general you are completly right!... In fact i always wondered why there were not more casualties. Every officer on the beach was able to decide himself when he wanted to retreat. In case of WN62 some gunners already left their positon and Severloh still fired. I do not know if they deserted or got the order. The retreat of Severloh was later and only for the given order of his officer Bernhard Frerking. So we have the personal decision/order of the local officer or simply desertion of the german soldiers. The destruction itself continued even after the first bombardment...the ships may be the main causes for the take out of german gun positions. After the landing the ships later fired again to support the troops. So it was not only the initial bombardment even in case we say this was useless in every attack sector. But ok....if you ignore the later ship supporting and the orders and desertions then your argumentation is completly right.

who said that the others Gunners were not already disabled/dead or abandomed before they could even try to shoot? Do really believe that every strongpoint was so lucky to survive quite good the supporting fire of ships and air like the WN62? Do you really believe that the remaining strongpoints not just got the order to fall back or just surrendered or deserted in sight of the incoming masses?

Watch the following video at second 0:12 to the 0:18: You will a see a heavy MG42 (MG3) derivate which is fighting fast 4 white targets without real aiming!!!! and WITHOUT fixating the vertical elevation (so it has more recoil). THIS shows how fast a gunner even without vertical fixation and without a lot aiming is easy able to fight fast and accurate 4 different targets. Watch the following video: from 0:39-1:11: he is fighting with vertical fixation help accurate a target ring on the earth below the right white standard target (the target is build out of stones). from 1:22: You will be able to see the above mentioned target when the camera man is starting to zoom From 1:18-1:57: he fights a black stone/box at the center of area below the white targets. He is doing it without gun optics just by looking and using the normal iron sights. Here you can see how accurate the gun is even with bursts. from 2:27-2:38: He is shooting with vertical fixation i guess. AND he is shooting while swinging the gun. Here you can see how accurate the gun is able to spread/dispense the burst in a horizintal line. Now imagine how easy for a gun with 25 rounds per second it is not only to suppress a forward marching/assaulting group of enemy with a single burst before they can search cover. The most of them just get hit/disabled and game over before they can even try to lay down and search cover An even in case there are some remaining the heavy machine gunner is easy able trying to snipe the cowering rests like you can see in the other videos. If he do not hit them...they won´t get upt....and if they try to stand up the gun instantly able to aim and fire this easy target. The only thing which could help after standing up...is only to run 1-2 meters before dropping down to soil again and hoping the gunners attention and reaction time is low. Additional to the above video i found the following video very eye-opening in terms of possible accuracy: from 0:37: He only changes vertical elevation while shooting....(and the to the side flying tracers are richochets/broken inceniary charges after the impact of the bullets)

That is the point.....i do not think you can.....try it and then tell me your results!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And another point in general: ------------- ...I do not want a discussion of Omaha.... i just said that i do NOT believe in the number of 2000-3000. I SAID we should assume 500 !!! And the talking that the germans were OP on the beach is in general bull****. Some poor few american soldiers who tried to fight without support against massive entrenched germans...that is a story you only could get by watching soldier james ryan. The germans had a few men on the beach in relation to the 1000´s and 1000´s of GI who got deployed at the landing beach (130 000 should get deployed in total the first waves had 34000 men) And the americans had MASSIVE SHIP artillery support (from rocket laucher spam up to battleship artillery) and air support (23000 tons of bombs?!). IN case of the Widerstandsnest 62 with its 40 men defenders the ship artillery may be ineffective at the beginning and may be the most air bombardments weren´t so sucessful like expected. But the airsupport did not stop...and even in case of Omaha the ship artillery later started direct fire support to destroy sucessfully the remaining strongpoints/bunkers....so please stop insinuating to me the germans had a lot and did not cause real casualties with it. I do not want to know how many of these improvised little strongpoints with its few men crews just got overwhelmed and destroyed by so much firepower before they could start to use their machine guns or their few old french and polish captured guns. And even in case of remaining positions....would you fire as an average single machine gunner against 100´s and 1000´s of landing american soldiers with 6500 ships in background.....may be not....may be you would just run...and abandom your position and fall back. --------- The main conclusion i have is what i already told as answer to Steve: "Yes there are other effects.... The biggest effect for a machine gun to fire not or ineffecient are four: 1. the enemy fired a lot to your MG position and you get supressed ...so can not fire 2. The enemy is far away and so hard to spot 3. The enemy is moving carefully or is hiding and/or is in unclear terrain (for example )bushes 4. The enemy density in the area you fire is low. (It is easier to kill someone if i squad or group is moving forward in the area you shooting at than to kill a single soldier) In my example all these points were excluded to get an idea how the developer modelled the machine guns. I wanted to see what they are maximum capable (so i build up these superb circumstances) In case the maximum capability is not achieved it is obvious that the firepower under even worse circumstances will be by far not correctly modelled. The results in my game i would guess are the maximum a player can achieve in this game under ideal circumstances. But i guess they are far far far away what real machine guns would be achieve achieve under same circumstances in real life. So my conclusion is that the (h)MG´s are in general underpower. Also for you i would recommend to study the follwing videos carefully, especially the first one: http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=...0068EB3A31A134 "

I just answered JasonC. Do you talk about "Hein Severloh"? light machine gun 42 in an open foxhole, with 12000 rounds @ starting distance of 400-500 meters? Yes there are other effects.... The biggest effect for a machine gun to fire not or ineffecient are four: 1. the enemy fired a lot to your MG position and you get supressed ...so can not fire 2. The enemy is far away and so hard to spot 3. The enemy is moving carefully or is hiding and/or is in unclear terrain (for example )bushes 4. The enemy density in the area you fire is low. (It is easier to kill someone if i squad or group is moving forward in the area you shooting at than to kill a single soldier) In my example all these points were excluded to get an idea how the developer modelled the machine guns. I wanted to see what they are maximum capable (so i build up these superb circumstances) In case the maximum capability is not achieved it is obvious that the firepower under even worse circumstances will be by far not correctly modelled. The results in my game i would guess are the maximum a player can achieve in this game under ideal circumstances. But i guess they are far far far away what real machine guns would be achieve achieve under same circumstances in real life. So my conclusion is that the (h)MG´s are in general underpower. Also for you i would recommend to study the follwing videos carefully, especially the first one: http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=...0068EB3A31A134

Well i could do it... but if i would have to answer instantly i might would answer that "Hein Severloh" may be one of your candidates. If i remember right he was part of "Widerstandsnest 62" who only had 40 men soldiers. He had a light machine gun 42 (not six heavy one, like in my tests) and a K98. Got equipped with 12000 rounds. Was positioned in an open foxhole on the dune/hill and fired the first 9 hours before he fall back (the invasion waves did not come all instantly so he might have most time breaks or tried to kill the rest of a wave with his MG42/K98 while they tried to hide behind a Czech hedgehog). He opened fire at about 400-500 meters. The lowest number of casualties i read even in allied sources were hundreds (so more than 100). The upper-medium estimates concede him to cause up to 1000 kills. And the highest talk about 2000-3000. These last numbres i do NOT believe either because of the total casualties on the beach and the coexistens of 2 polsih machine guns (but which got abandomed far earlier)) So let us assume that this light machine gun 42 starting its fire at about 400-500 meters and fired in 9 hours of the invasion 12000 rounds and killed about 500 men. ( guess the most got killed between 300 and 400 meters bailing out and walking into water) What then should sixelite heavy machine guns on 100-300 meters (not counting the MP40 and K98) produce with totally about 13000 rounds on a much more concentrated area? And before you answer, watch the following videos to get an idea of the accuracy (low spread) of the heavy machine gun and the ablity to swing clean from left to right and spread this way the burst controlled in horizontal area. Watch the following video careful and complete to get it the right way: http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=...0068EB3A31A134

I found a very interessting video: http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=MG3+&qs=n&form=QBVR&pq=mg3+&sc=8-4&sp=-1&sk=#view=detail&mid=CF55F70068EB3A31A134CF55F70068EB3A31A134 WATCH it simply COMPLETE with whole attention! You will get an very good impression of the accuracy and the spread and the ability to swing . Super accurate.... BTW: In case you do not watch it whole ...he is not fireing at the right white target at the beginning...he was fireing on the stone circles below...AGAIN watch the video as a whole

Thx Thx Thx... a reasonable guy... *breathing easily* Exactly that is what i think. Sure there must be NO 1:1 ...even it would be programmable it would not be calculateable. The point is that the actual results are so far away from any plausible expectation that i have problems with it.

Believe me i know something about statistics (being physicist). The point is that this was an example. The fact alone that it happened says something about probability. Despite that, this and similar behaviours are happening very often in this game otherwise i would not have mentioned it. In this particular example i wanted to give an impression how weak trenches are and how accurate DP and PPSH...especially in realation to the heavy machine gun in counterpart. I will do further tests with other configurations to undergird these impressions ...For start you have this test....and now give me time to do homework....i can not do all alone ( no time) and parallell write whole novels here to convince people. so you do not need the "tiefenfeuereinrichtung" if the gun is spraying by itself....? Again the changing elevation of the gun is done by the gunner. Yes, it is possible that the Tripod is unstable.... But, the Tripod only starts wiggling/escalating if the mass centroid of the tripod is set to high and nobody (in this case) is holding/supporting/stabilizing the forward part/pod of the Tripod manually.

that is just useless trolling...

Ups sorry ...my fault....it were 6 HMG...the two at 320 meter were just so useless that i ignored them for a moment while reading your post and writing mine. (2 MG fire 5000 rounds for 96 kills at 300-340 meter ) In one round 1 (ONE) DP28 LMG (light machine gun ) fired within 10 seconds 4 short bursts to my front trench with my both hMG42 units in it ...from a distance of 170 meter. And now ask me how many people he killed. 3 ....yes you heard right.....THREE. Similar with PPSH people....they need regulary 1 to maximum 3 bursts at 100-150 meters to kill 1 guy in my trench... Now imagine what would have happened if not 2-3 people shoot at me occaisonally .......doomed. My personal results are PPSH and DP in relation to heavy MG42 faaar much to accurate... and/or the Trench does NOT provide "enough" (euphemism) protection. The heavy MG in general much to weak. Would be interessting how they programmed it. please read my answer to zmoney one or 2 posts before...do not want to write it again.

Agai, take a close look what happens at following video (0:36 min it is starting): The tracers flying to the sides are richochets or inceniary charges of breaking bullets after impact....the later increasing elevation of the "laser point" is done by the gunner and not the "spread" of the gun.... The video-link above shows that the gun is super accurate! So: At distances of 100 meters they are like "laser guns" ^^ ...if they would not have had such a general accuracy like that, the heavy machine gun could not be properly used at their so called effective range of 1000-1200 meter in direct fire and up to 3500 meters at indirect fire. The accuracy is in generally so high that you are still have a high probability to hit the enemy even on these high ranges. You called this"beaten zone" concept. It is an indirect fire concept which is used on higher distances, especially at indirect fire (no vision line) and especially in world war one. The game does not support that tactic.....for good reason....the armies did not use that tactic a lot especially with progressing war-time (may be due to the high mobility of the armies and changing battle situations) By the way: The effect of the bullet drop is not relevant on 100meters distance. Your "8mmX57 IS-sS" round has a bullet drop at 100 meters of about 4-5 centimeters and at 200 meters 14-15 centimeters.

It were 4 and not 6 hMG and the artillery was only the mentioned fused artillery at 100 meter distance. AND the enemy did not shoot back on a specific order ....only some occasional while running forward due to the AI that only tried to move forward fast from the wood on the one side of the bridge to the wood on the other side of the bridge. He did NOT establisch a base of fire to suppress my machine guns. If you keep that again in mind (what you would have if you read my post before carefully) than it is obviously that the MG´s are clearly underpowered.

Here an example picuture: http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3617/u3th5nz5_jpg.htm Machine gun 5 fired all his ammo too and inflicted especially at the beginning some casualties. Machine gun 6 is empty too and inflicted the most casualties: So the only MG which did not fired all his rounds were Machine gun 2 because of being killed relativly fast. The russian were able to pass the bridge after all guns were empty and fight finally against mainly MP40/pistols of company HQ, MG5, MG 6. After about 60 minutes the round ended by time Here the results: http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3617/cnsk4wcu_jpg.htm and some impressions: http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3617/l9iz4plp_jpg.htm http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3617/3h2368c9_jpg.htm The Results of the Machine guns (distances are to the center of the bridge): MG 1: 143 "kills" (empty) 110 meter MG 2: 22 "kills" (not empty because killed soon) 110 meter MG 3: 44 "kills" (empty) 320 meter MG 4: 52 "kills" (empty) 320 meter MG 5: 76 "kills" (empty) 145 meter MG 6: 157 "kills" (empty) 210 meter Some people now will say.....WOW...the MGs are devasting....in my opinion it shows exactly the opposite. ON such short distances and such superb conditions the 4 (FOUR) heavy Elite machine guns fired more than 12500 rounds into the enemy (not counting the MG 2 who was disabled relativly fast and only inflicted 22 casualties) and were only able to inflict 500 casualties and still left 240 guys alive. And that all despite the fact that they all were located and concentrated on a few squaremeters and there was nearly no way to hit NOT someone. :eek: The best MG killed under these ultra superb conditions with about 2500 rounds only about 150 people. That are about 16-17 rounds per person while you are shooting with a laser accurate gun into a wall of meat.... Most dissappointing were the results of MG 3 & 4 which achieved only about 50 kills each while hammering 5000 rounds into enemy meatball. And that all i guess mostly because for the bad spotting at 320 meters, may be a less accuracy (which should not be the point at that distance) and a less enemy density in relation to MG 5 & 6.

Machine gun 5 (semi left flank; 3rd floor in house; 145 meters; big fire arc): http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3617/3pv6v9rq_jpg.htm Machine gun 6 (semi right flank, 2nd floor in house; 210 meters; big fire arc): http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3617/ljueezv7_jpg.htm The MG-HQ got set into same trench like MG 3 & 4 in hope to increase the spotting/fire-leading power of these 320 meters distant MGs: ----------NO picture--- company HQ got set next to MG 1 & 2 mainly because of moral issues: http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3617/rs2yrkwx_jpg.htm So.....you may ask what the enemy got? The enemy was the AI on Iron mode and was allowed to equippe himself for a lot of money in "infantry-only"-mode. He bought artillery and had 747 men on the field to attack me. (between green and skilled) In a Human to human gameplay i guess i lost this game very very very very fast after some rounds.....cause already 1 or 2 simple squads are able to suppress or kill a machine gun especially on 100 meters "only" being in a trench. A machine gun which does not fire, does not kill or suppress...so he is able to advance. But with this amount of men he could easily just spray me to death and then enter the bridge area. GOD thx the AI did not do that.....he just did like expected and tried running over the bridge to reach the wooden area on the other side left and right to the bridge. So i could watch if the MG42 bullets which do not hit the intended target at least kill some other people/squads running around or behind....the high density of men should let that beeing expectable . Nevertheless these only random/ occasional back fireing soldiers inflicted fast casualties. Some PPSH sprays already were able to kill my entrenched Machine gunners dip by dip. And they did not shoot often.... Machine gun 2 (with the small fire arc) got kille quite fast by this seldom occasional fire and still had a lot of ammo. http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3617/jnthwol9_jpg.htm Machine gun 1 managed to fire till all ammo was gone. ----- Then the game began he put some artillery on me. Especially a time fused artillery(i guess a 2 tubed heavy artillery in personal attack mode) was able to produce dip by dip up to 11 casualties of the 17 guys in the trench of MGNest 3 & 4. The explosions were always about 100meters away. But the good thing was that the machine guns still fired to the end till the ammo was empty.

I made a quick test. I wanted to get an idea what the maximum firepower of Heavy Machine guns (42) is. I took again the Town-Water assault 079 map but modified it that way he can only assault via the stone bridge. Like i already mentioned i thought that a single HMG even on high distance should be easily able to block enemy movement over the bridge. The HMG´s optics, the additional binoculars and a free line of fire at daylight should it make easy to spot instant any movement on that small area of the stone bridge. The effective range of HMG in direct fire is often mentioned with 1000-1200 meters which is twice of a light machine gun (bipod). If you take a look on the accuracy(low spread) of the following MG34 video (starting at 0:36) you can imagine that the firepower is only/mainly decreased by not being able to spot an enemy on high distance: You can just choose if you want to pinpoint a specific area or if you want to spread the amount bullets of a burst in an area while swinging the gun in horizontal way. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N59msUnyy1g I bought some trenches, a company HQ, a MG-HQ and the 4x heavy Machine guns 42 ....all ELITE, FANATIC, max ammo, and max leadership Despite the small and easy bridge-target which should it make easy to spot every running man on it....despite the Elite factor and 2+ leadership, despite the gun optics and additional binoculars of such a MG unit, despite the right facing and set fire arcs, despite the optimal field of view and good visibility, i wanted to ENSURE that NOBODY is just able to run over the bridge and got not seen. ( and you know that happens a lot ) So i intended to shorten the distance for my machine guns to about 100-300 meters in hope to ensure that even a blind man is able to see a Golem on the bridge. 2x HMGs i positioned in a trench about 110 meters in front of the bridge. I hoped that the 110 meters and the trench would provide enough protection against occasional PPSH spray (this hope was wrong like i recognized...ppsh are very accurate and infantry in trench just shows to much of its body and so they get hit quite easy; 1 to maximal 3 ocassional bursts are enough to kill 1 guy in the trench). Machine gun 1 (111 meter big fire arc): http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3617/rxa4eoks_jpg.htm Machine gun 2 (111 meter small fire arc): http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3617/rmy9j7qg_jpg.htm Machine gun 3 (on higher level of the street; at 320 meter; big fire arc): http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3617/p2vmqs6s_jpg.htm Machine gun 4 (on higher level of the street; 320 meters; small fire arc): http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3617/sqt5ijw9_jpg.htm

Your results simply support my saying. You had 2 hMG and 2 lMG if i see it right which produce the (few) casualties i already told. (and additionally nobody can say which of these casualties where caused for example by MP40 fire ...especially at your close infantry squads) In my opinion 1 (ONE) single heavy machine gun would be enough to prevent an movement over the bridge as long as it is fireing. So in case nobody is able to suppress your machine gun, it would produce a volume of fire of 460 rpm practically/statiscally (included reloading, barrel change and spotting/aiming, jams) and 1500 rpm theoretically. It starts with a 250 round belt which simply can be supplemented with aditional belts while fireing. If necessary (it would destroy the barrel or at least the precision for later tasks) you could fire about 300 rounds sustained fire before a barrel change is really necessary. Even in case you need finally a barrel change ...it only would take 5-7 seconds. The enemy would not even recognize that you are doing it, because it could be one of the fire breaks you are doing while he is laying down on earth and is not even thinking of entering bridge becuase of the former casualties. So in real life you can fire longer without barrel change because you just fire 5-50 rounds bursts to kill and supress enemy movement. And only need to fire again if you see movement on the bridge again. Additionally your weapon cools down a little and that delays yours barrel change schedule, too. The bridge is such a small field of fire that it is no problem to spot/kill/supress anyone trying to pass it. Nobody would stand a change trying to run over the bridge..... It is even more easy than the machine gun rape fests in world war I, when machine guns had to manage big fronts/waves of infantry assaults.

wondered that the MG 1917 is so OP under these conditions you told....looks like german weapons are underpowered .. What distance they starttheir advance on your MG position? Do the same thing with sicherungs guys (blue vs blue in CMRT) against a hMg42 and then tell me please your results

... :eek: ...

"studied" the way it works ....study "grazing fire" ...."beaten zone"....so? does all not change any of my arguments....

Hello Steve, first i want to thank for your reaction. The point of "weak supporting evidence" i can not accept because of two simple issues. 1. in this thread i tried to argue with some numbres (for example accuracy of light machine guns: "Schützenschnur Bronze for MG3"). What is a base of a good argumentation if not something like this? Or the experience of a MG3 gunner or our order how to use it (~5 shot burst LMG, ~25 shot burst HMG). A plausible video of a HMG 34 with shows the accuracy of a tripod mounting....The option of just swinging especially the HMGs in a horizontal way to spread the 25 rounds of a burst into the dense enemy lines 2. It is not done by just saying someone has a weak argumentation and just pretend on being the master and hide your own arguments and numbres and thoughts. Sure....handling it like this always brings you in a better position than others. Nobody knows your arguments ... If arguments are weak or not most time only is possible to decide if you see them in relation. So....please let us participate on your knowledge, arguments, conclusions and decisions. Before you do not share it is not "fair"/correct to discount/reject the points/arguments of others. But back to the specific MG problem. Like i said ....till now i did a lot of testing ...and never were able to produce more than 18-20 kills with HMG. Try it yourself. Let the enemy attack a small bridge and put an HMG in a position 150meters in front of it and let them rush over it. I would expect that an heavy MG42 with 1500 rpm theoretically and 460 rpm practically and a 250 round belt for start is easily able to kill everybody running over the bridge trying to reach the other side. Just take the map "Town-Water Assault 079" ....try it...... you will see. And after that please make always a screenshot in case you can achieve more than 20 kills with a HMG within 30-60 minute standard map. Till now all my trials to increase the effectiveness of (H)MG were useless. on the other side a panther turret machine gun is a real killer....easy to achieve 60-70 kills in 10-20 rounds

Sure ...the people search cover because they need it....and then the machine gunner simply switch target to an unit which is not supressed and kill some of them...after a time the first supressed enemy unit may feels encouraged to get up again and continue the advance and then the MG may switch back to them and kill again some of them till the formation search covers again......and so on and so on....that way you produce casualties and supression! Yes....In my opinion the damage of HE on laying infantry men or the extreme exposed trenched guys is much to heavy. But the artillery supression work pretty well i think. You should not forget that you most time use 81mm mortars. Try to imagine the moral effect if a 105-150mm howitzer is working.

nope ^^ How do you think the enemy feels suppressed?...*thinking*... Exactly!!!.... in case he is in fear of his life. If he runs or put his head up he is dead....and how does he knows that?: Watching his comrade(s) getting hit and fall, by watching the impact of bullets into soil or other materials (tree), by passing tracer bullets. A gun which causes no effects/casualties does not have supressing power ! In case it had germans would just use blank cartridges or a grammophone.

I would have expected that someone who has a specific arc and ao is not allowed to fire somewhere else would focus his attetion on the ordered area.... In case you are right and it is not like i hoped then there is a big tactical issue/advantage of the arcs totally gone. May be you are right, but Combat mission Normandy is already released since 3 years and three of the most irritating problems are still not solved. -The low firepower of light/heavy machine guns -The obsolete trenches which exposure half the infantrie bodies and so do not provide protection -The high spotting and hitting ability of tanks especially of closed hatch MOVING tanks whose turrets spot and kills like skynet aimbots. In case of machine guns it seems to me that the developers won´t admit such a realistic/high firepower. For some players it would be a moral problem to suffer casualties and learn to suppress or kill these things first before advancing. So the developer for sure established it as balancing issue. But the germans relied on that firepower to handle the russian overwhelming numbres. The russians can spam around with huge ammount of efficient PPSH spray companies while germans got deprived of their only real advantage in ways of infantry armament ...their light and heavy machine guns. I only can hope you are right...and the devs have an understanding.