Bulletpoint

If the claymore charge doesn't do the job, send in your veteran bagpipe platoon to flush them out of the forest

Something wrong with the tracers? And what's that bright white light?

Sounds reasonable, but I feel there's something missing from the argument. The more threat to the vehicle, the more chance of popping up to the machinegun to "defend" the vehicle. OK. But this defense is a bit meaningless, because the gunner is extremely unlikely to hit anything, and extremely likely to get hit, himself. The more enemy infantry, and the closer they are, the worse chances of defending the vehicle. The more suicidal the behaviour becomes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is because the gunner receives no "micro terrain protection modifier", whereas the enemy infantry outside the vehicle does receive a significant protection bonus. Would you look into adding a protection bonus to crewmembers?

Yes I remember seeing this happen a lot in CMBN - especially annoying that it seemed to hurt infantry at even longer ranges than mortar shell explosions. Seemed like the AP shells were behaving like fragmentation shells. I haven't seen it happen any more in CMBN after latest patches though, so maybe somebody forgot to carry over this fix to CMFB.

You can also place any vehicle in the editor and then dismount it, and move the crew somewhere else. Might look better in your video if you're going for a realistic "firing range" feel.

@landser Did you read the amazon reviews of the book? Seems like there's some doubt as to whether or not this book is based on real eyewitness accounts or if it's basically fiction.

We don't know if he was talking about German or American panzers though. He could be talking about the Sherman tank with its mounted machinegun.

That's odd, I find that even crawling into position, the guys end up crouching at the end anyway... But I will experiment a bit with your suggestion.

When the map is supposed to be a historical battle, or based on a real location, but the map in the game doesn't really look much like the actual place... I probably skip it.

Thanks for the info. Will modify my tactics to take this into account.

So in your experience, firing the bipod MG from prone position makes it more accurate (in the game)? If so, in rare cases it might be worth it to place the gunner outside the protection of the bocage...

If the infantry is 260 metres away, wouldn't the best defense simply be to stay inside the tank?

Was this changed? I also remember using halftracks like that, keeping them buttoned, but that they will man the gun when given a fire order... If you need to unbutton them now before they will fire, that seems like a change...

Looking forward to seeing someone pop in to explain this as being a highly realistic feature based on an obscure real-life tactic of driving back and forth on bridges to clear them of mines or whatever

I noticed in a recent H2H battle that one (1) HE shot from a Sherman was enough to strip a tree of its leaves. That seems to be something new that was introduced in the latest patch (?) If my memory serves me right, it used to take several HE bursts to remove the foliage from a tree.

Is this issue due to a change to AI logic? Because I don't remember ever seeing a similar situation. In my experience, tanks will normally use their main cannon to kill anything that moves, even jeeps. I've never seen a tank "save ammo" by using its machinegun against lightly armoured targets before,

I am not complaining about the game, I am just asking because I am curious. Obviously in real life, guns have recoil, and the faster they fire and the bigger they are, the harder the recoil is to control. But as you say, real soldiers are able to control the recoil better by resting the gun on something to stabilise it. I am wondering if the game models this, or if it's basically completely random, so that as long as the MG is "semi deployed", it has a random chance to lose control of recoil. I always assumed that placing my gunner next to a low wall, a window, or bocage would mean higher accuracy. But I don't know if I am right. Maybe the bigger accuracy only comes from being prone (deploying the bipod)? Or maybe none of this matters, and every weapon only has one accuracy setting that is used for all situations (apart from "deployed" state)?

Never said I was a military intelligence analyst. My point was whether or not it should be up to the pilots themselves and their potentially inflated egos to assess their own impact.

All this talk about pilots' exaggerated kill claims... I think I read somewhere that all planes had gun cams that would record while the trigger was pulled, and that the film would later be analysed by military intel in order to estimate damage. In that case, I don't see why they would even ask the pilots. Or did they only record gun footage in special circumstances?

Yep, but I'm wondering why sometimes the fire is erratic and sometimes not.

That makes me wonder, does that mean MGs are inherently more inaccurate as well when fired from a crouching position, no matter if there is support for the gun (such as bocage or a low wall in front of the gunner)?

I've been wondering for years about why sometimes, automatic weapon gunners seem to lose control of the recoil and most of the shots in a burst go high. I understand why this could happen in real life, but what triggers it in the game? Does it happen when troops are low quality, is it about morale state, about the terrain the shooter is on, if the target is moving too fast, etc. etc. ? I used to think it only happened when the gunner was panicked, but today I saw it happen several times when the gunner was fresh, regular quality, 'OK' morale state, in Command and Control, etc. I also thought maybe it had to do with the bipod-MG42 not being able to deploy the bipod (due to having to fire from a crop field, so unable to find support), but today I saw it from a hedgerow position, and I assume that the bipod can be supported when firing from bocage? In short, I'm puzzled... Maybe it's just a random thing, with higher quality troops doing it less?

That's really surprising to me, as I always put a face command at the end of the movement path. Have I been doing something stupid all this time? My intention has always been to make sure the team face the right way when they reach their destination.

Several other people have posted about the same problem on this forum. I can only recommend filing a bug report to BattleFront through their oficial channels (open a ticket at their helpdesk).

Another factor: Planes have a small cross-section when seen from the front. So to the enemy, a plane at 1.5km distance would be a small dot (the engine and cupola) with two faint lines on either side (the wings), whereas to the pilot, trucks and vehicles would be seen as rectangular objects. Especially when coming in from the side of the column.