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There is a limit to how much the guys can carry

Thanks, el Jado

Well, there has been a wealth of information both historical and technical posted in this thread that flatly contradicts your statement.

It's a fallacious premise you use. You say, "if suppression were working, then this HMG would either chew up this squad or stop it cold". You assume the HMG is working right. It is not. Fix the HMG and you get your correct result. The end. If you increase the effects of fire, you will get increased suppression. The rapid rally is the only thing I see really strange about the morale situation. *EDIT - I do agree with you about what is a realistic outcome on this matchup. But you just aren't really understanding that a burst or three in Panzer is likely close to a couple hundred rounds. In CMx2, it is 15-20. To my mind, half suppression is like going from a casual walking pose to a fast ducking pose, looking for cover, and keeping your head down as much as possible. Full suppression/pinning is pissing your pants in terror at the likelihood of imminent demise.

This for me as well.

I ran this test again with the hmg not firing and the us infantry firing, advancing from 1km. I did not break up the squad. Only the sniper would fire until about 450m, when the rest of the squad (minus the thompson) opened up. I then had the HMG open up on the squad, and left both in the open firing at each other for 25min or so. Results: 4 casualties on the HMG, 6 on the squad (the BAR ate it at about minute 10). The HMG broke right at minute 2, but it was never pinned (3/4 max suppression at a few points). I would consider this a draw... at 450m with stationary targets... Impressions: The squad will have no problem advancing to within 300m where they will decimate the HMG. The HMG certainly has the advantage at >500m, as the squad will not have any firepower at that range. Regardless of this, it is largely meaningless, as the effects of HMG fire at that range generally have no effect to stop advancing infantry. I would agree with the super fast repeated rally that someone mentioned. It happens at the end of every minute it seems. That really allows the suppression levels to be minimized, unless a continuous lot of fire is building up. That being said, the HMG would sometimes hit the target, sometimes not, and it only fired very infrequently (every 3-4 seconds). Suppression only really went up into the pinned region when a casualty occurred, and the unit was still taking fire. This happened once, on the infantry. I have the screenshots, if anyone is really interested.

This is with v2.0 and commonwealth module. I set up a test with one squad of regular US infantry, advancing from 1000m out, over level ground with no cover, vs. a HMG42. I split the US squad into three teams about 30m apart and told them to "move" to the other end of the map. I then left the HMG42 to do it's thing. It immediately spotted them at 1km, but did not open fire until the US troopers were approximately 650m out. One casualty was inflicted at about 550m distance, on the BAR team. This was after one minute of firing. But very little suppression arose from that. Before the burst that got the team member, suppression was identical to the photo. Also, I noted that suppresion increased about one bar per near burst for each team. Incidentally, the HMG fire was reasonably accurate, once the first few bursts had occurred. These missed horribly, but were more elevation misses than windage. The burst frequency at this range was about one every five seconds (x6rds = 72rpm). The fire was shifted between the BAR team and right most team by the HMG TacAI. After 3 minutes of being fired on by the HMG, the rightmost rifle team had no casualties and was midway on the suppression meter. The midmost rifle team had not taken any bursts and was completely fine. The BAR team had taken one casualty but was only midway suppressed. The rifle squad had not fired at the HMG team spontaneously (they were jogging under fire). They had reached 400m from the HMG42, so I ordered them to halt, and ordered the HMG team to cover arc so that they would not return fire. I had the teams all open up on the area of HMG crew (not directly targeting). After 1.5 minutes of so this, the HMG team had taken a casualty and were suppressed midway. After 2 minutes they had another wounded and were 3/4 up on the suppression. At this point I stopped the test, convinced that my point had been proven. Conclusions: 1. Suppression as a mechanism works. There just isn't enough being generated by the HMG. For the HMG, it appears suppression is increased on the target "per burst", about one bar per. 2. A US rifle squad outsuppresses an HMG team, from 400m at least. I suspect this is true all the way out to 600m. 3. If HMG ROF is increased even by a factor of two, we will get more realistic results. The teams do not begin to cower or hit the deck until about 3/4 the way up the suppression meter, but they will cower and/or hit the deck. There just needs to be more bursts.

I do not agree that HMGs with a higher, realistic rate of fire would be "death stars". Wasn't that the problem with the accuracy issue? Low accuracy x low rof = low suppression. MGs are not sniper rifles. Neither are they semi-automatics. They are area denial weapons that operate on the basis of throwing a lot of lead. Suppression increases simply make everybody more fragile. They do not address the relative, and ahistorical, imbalance between a squad and HMG at 200m plus distance. Adjusting global levels of morale is not fixing particular weapon systems. It is changing the entire nature of the game. I am not necessarily disagreeing that morale needs to change. I liked CMBB. I am disagreeing that any morale changes are germane to the lack of effectiveness of an HMG unit, as compared to a infantry squad. As to sniper fire, it is just one or two more bullets on a battlefield with thousands flying around. It is not convincing to me that in the middle of combat, sniper fire would be recognized and pin an entire squad. Casualties might be recognized, and promote suppression, but that is already modelled in the game. Using such an extreme example of "a few shots should suppress", as a reason why suppression should be up-modeled is a bit disingenuous.

Correct, however, we are not simply talking about accuracy, either. We are talking about both. Both contribute. That is why I've continually tried to bring both into the discussion. Of the two, however, I consider the ROF issue to be more critical and germane to the issue at hand. Nobody's pinned by shots that don't get fired, if you get my double negative. I don't think it's clear exactly how much accuracy improves. That is abstracted to some degree in the game itself. Action squares and all. And increasing HMG ROF a tad is actually far from the truth of what is being advocated here. 0-100m = 400rpm. 100-500=250rpm. 500+ 100rpm. Make it a nice decreasing non-linear function if you want. That is a far cry from the current situation of: I don't know what you're seeing, but from the games I've played, especially in the more open areas in CMFI, there IS a lot of pinning, and sneaking away, and withdrawals. There ISN'T a huge amount of lethality at 300+m range, especially if you cease firing with cover arcs, and sneak away. That is, unless you choose to duke it out and continue to present a target in the face of superior firepower/cover. If you're talking about CMBN, well, close fighting is always extremely lethal. Agreed, there needs to be a different effect here. Ultimately we are talking about increasing the effects of HMG fire here. You want to do it through suppression effects globally. But that will not make HMGs more effective relative to other units. It will also, as another person pointed out, make everything else more effective vis-a-vis infantry. You are upset about how long infantry will continue to advance in the face of fire IN GENERAL, but that is a different issue altogether. And here I thought you were discussing how lethality is rediculously high and doesn't need to be upscaled. Perhaps increasing the ROF will likely increase some casualties. But more likely it will cause earlier pinning and thus less or equal casualties. If you increase accuracy, however, you increase casualties, and not necessarily suppression. I agree, but it's not from inaccuracy. It's from a very low ROF. Infantry won't be pinned by non-existent bullets. Well, there are many accounts of infantry "wiggling out of the dispersion zone" and finding cover. However, in general I agree with you here... but again, decreasing morale is not a SPECIFIC fix. It's a global one that will have far-reaching consequences. It's like opening a stuck pickle jar by using a sledgehammer. Again, not a specific fix. This is a global change.

Absolutely agree, a bunch of different sliders is really just sidetracking the discussion. I just wanted to point out that we already have a slider for that sort of thing.

Nearly everyone in this thread believes the overall situation presented by the OP in his test needs fixing. The outcome is glaringly, obviously wrong. However, in this ensuing discussion, we have been dealing with three phenomenon, which are variously being postulated as the cause of the outcome in the OP (depending on the particular person, and their particular axe): It would be helpful to examine the bearing these have on the original issue in the OP. The mortar effectiveness thread shows that #2 certainly needs tweaking. However, that does not enter into our discussion here on HMG effectiveness. That issue, if it does not have one already, needs its own thread and its own discussion. Now, it has been postulated that #1, the HMG effectiveness issue, does not need tweaking, and that suppression/morale levels do, because suppression levels and morale bounce back too easily among squads/teams (#3). The assumptions behind this train of thought need examining. First, suppression/morale effects appear to be based on the volume of incoming fire per unit time. You can expend all 2000rds of mg fire on a squad, but if it comes in slowly enough (as current), the squad will not get pinned/suppressed. Turn up the RATE of fire, and you will get more pinning and suppression, and dramatically so. Second, spreading out teams is a viable and realistic way to reduce the impact of area denial fire. Decreasing the density of targets is always a good idea on a battlefield. In fact, MG gunners were trained to look for infantrymen who were bunched up as "preferred targets". I see no issue with the game's reduction of the effects of suppressive fire on several fragmented teams, versus one bunched-up squad. Splitting teams has its own, inherent, disadvantages. The only real advantage is to decrease the target density. Third, suppression levels do bounce back quickly. But morale decreases DO NOT. They are much more permanent than in CMBB/AK. If you have enough suppression for long enough, you get morale decreases... "rattled", etc. Increase the suppressive fire of HMGs, and you increase the (more or less) permanent effects on the squad, regardless of if casualties are taken. Again, #1 is the single biggest and most realistic way to more closely correlate CM with reality in this regard. And I think we are all looking to correlate CM with reality. If some individuals want to have "easier" CM gaming, that's what the difficulty slider can do. But I think that we all, at some level, want to be able to turn it up to the "this is as real as it gets, guys" notch.

Yes, you had to pin the crap out of them with arty or MG fire, then get the inf in close. It was usually a massacre. As long as they didn't have an unpinned squad covering the approach in ambush! Had that happen a few times! :eek:

The problem is that if you change the model for all shooting, then everything changes, not just the MG fire. And a lot of people think the current system is fine the way it is for squad firepower. HMG effectiveness is the issue here. It blows. But people who are seeing the effects of an HMG when it is shooting at less than 50-100m distance to target are impressed by the (realistic) results. And it just so happens that's the only situation in which the HMG shoots at a realistic (higher) ROF. In other words, closer to the 250rpm mark. That says it all to me. It is strange to me that the people who like to say suppression needs to be turned up are not considering what happened in the OP's test. That is to say: There was suppression of the HMG team by the squad, but not vice versa. You turn up suppression globally, and yes, there will be more suppression. You will see more effectiveness from the HMG. BUT BUT BUT(T), there will ALSO be more effectiveness globally. The relative effects between a squad and HMG will be the same - a squad will outsuppress a HMG, as in the test. Now say suppression gets turned up for every unit. Perhaps you will say that in that case the squad will get suppressed from the HMG when it's running in from 800m out and we won't have a repeat of the OP's test. Yeah, maybe, in that extreme example. But then what happens if both a HMG and a squad open up on each other at the same time? Should the HMG position still get out suppressed? That's what would happen in this scenario, because the RELATIVE effects we are seeing here remain the same. This is because the SHEER VOLUME of fire being put out by the squad out-classes a crew-served, well-supplied, belt-fed machine gun team. It is the relative strength of HMG effects, just as much as the absolute strength of the HMG effects, that needs addressing. The single simplest, most effective, and (just so happens) most realistic way to do this is to turn up the ROF on only one unit, the HMG team.

And I am playing Flames of War.

I agree completely. However, we won't be going back to CMx1, with abstractions that make realistic results. We're stuck with the CMx2 system. So that necessitates, as you say, that every subsystem is perfect to solve the problem.

Run, Forrest. Run!

It's funny that we have a whole thread about just that, now...

Yes, when you model lethality and suppression with actual physical intersections of trooper and bullet, it is important to have a realistic amount of lead going down range...

Have you read "Death Traps"? Talk about demoralized...

Yeah, actually 422 the order is reversed. I'm off to bed now, frustrated

This is absolutely true. You are referring to suppressive fire from a MG, directed from different, closer troops? As in, "lay down some suppressive fire at those trees on that ridge"?

And again, this is a questionable remark when we consider accuracy and precision, and what they mean, rather than the laymans simple "accurate". More than likely, he is saying the BAR is both accurate (has good operators in general, quality of assembly, and sights) and precise (good ammunition, materials, and design). For example, I could have a rifle and it might shoot two shots into two places, 6' apart, when I aim at a single target. As long as the average impact location (IE, right in-between where the two shots actually hit) is at the same spot as the sights were aiming when I shot the rifle, the rifle would be considered accurate. I could have a very precise rifle that shot all shots into the same hole, but the hole was always 6' to the left of the target I was shooting at. That would be an example of a very precise rifle. Ideally, for a rifle, you want both precision AND accuracy. For a MG, you want ACCURACY, but NOT precision. The GIs only spoke of the MG42 as having "small dispersion", IE: great precision. They spoke to its accuracy (in the document) as being less than the BAR. That makes sense considering the quality of assembly of the BAR and the operators using it. Again, vague. But since we know it has "small dispersion" IE: great precision, that can only mean in this context they were talking about accuracy. So in general, MG34/42, very precise, not very accurate (could be operator error however - we'll never know until someone chimes in who's shot one).

FROM JonS I meant, their accuracy could be either precision or dispersion, but when referring to dispersion specifically, they would have to mean precision.... must be the long hours... sorry for confusion/frustration Ideally, the fire from the MG34/42 in CM would be very precise but not very accurate, using scientific terminology as in posted graphic. That would mean that the gun itself was capable of great precision, but when it was aimed at something, would direct fire away from the "point of aim", IE: was not accurate. The origin of this could be: 1.Sights 2.Operator ineptitude (most likely) Keeping in mind that great precision IS NOT a desirable characteristic in a machinegun, this would explain what the GIs meant when they said: The GI here is talking about bolt-action rifle fire he says was not accurate (it was either not precise, or not accurate, or both) and being pinned by MG42 area fire that we know has "small dispersion" (it WAS accurately aimed, at least at this point, but also VERY precise, and easy to escape). When a target hits the dirt, the gunner doesn't necessarily see the target anymore. The gunner will continue to fire at the area the target was last seen in to keep their heads down (or to try and hit them through cover, etc). If the precision of the weapon is great, not many rounds will deviate from the aimed at area. That means that the GIs could easily "wriggle out of the (small) dispersion (aka VERY PRECISELY HIT) area". Presumably on their bellies. But if the sights show the gun is shooting at the correct area, and the gun is actually shooting 20m to the left, that is bad ACCURACY, and would affect the first burst or two coming from the weapon, until the gunner had walked rounds onto target.

Hi John, those two books are probably great, but I'm really interested in his ww2 archival work. The cold war was a tragedy in my opinion. I'm just glad the LeMay types didn't win out. Thanks, though.