holoween

I didnt adress it because 1 it isnt particularly relevant to general troop survivability as it can only be used at fairly long range and at those ranges it doesnt make a big difference and 2 because it isnt particularly relevant to the issue of supressing. The game depicts historical oob. The mortars are there because they historically were. I ight have different standards to you but at best that mg fire covers 10m of that wall barely more than a single action square. Thats not shifting fire for me. While true its irrelevant to the discussion on the capabilities a specific weapons system should have. 1 Depends on the situation and your fire doctrine. 2 2500rounds 3 3:20-2:40min for 4k rounds 4 It shoots at 125rpm exactly the same as the us hmg at 300m. And 190rpm vs 160rpm at 100m.

I always test on regular experience, normal motivation, Fit Fitness and 0 leadership for both sides with hotseat on Iron skill level.

Just tested 800m and there the left and right bursts were hitting the adjacent action squares. Though it also never managed to fill the supression bar even on the target by more than 2/3.

I thested the us hmg at 130m and it clearly fired bursts at each edge and the center.

This doesnt happen what happens is this: Basically it seems the mg targets one burst on the left edge of the square one on the right edge and one in the middle. With supression having some aoe it bleeds into the adjacent squares depending on where the enemy actually sits i the square.

That i cant effectively use a hmg for supression because the game will only let me target one action square per turn even though this is the only role hmgs have on the offense is the core issue here. That i could use other assets doesnt change the fact that the hmg cant perform as it should I almost entirely play against other humans. It does however only make the issue more aparent as against the ai it really doesnt matter.

Buddy aiding is human behaviour. kneeling in the open to get shot yourself isnt. Hiding in a trench doesnt protect you from the shells landing inside. CM trenches simply are far wider than any infantrymen would ever build them. To get supression fire only on the last 15 seconds you need to get a movement command inbetween which makes it practically impossible to do what you suggest with a hmg and simply impractical with lmgs. Unless youre in a perfect flanking position with your hmg targeting one action square wont get fire on the entire treeline so if there is more than one team your supression will fail. Yes you can use bad things in a smart way. Doesnt mean most defenses arent underperforming in CM.

Houserules shouldnt be required for something so simple As long as your unit is in an action square with a casualty it will try to buddy aid no player choice involved Yea if i want to assault a treeline ill put my hmg on a cover arc rather than have it fire supression fire at it great idea.

There are a lot of reasons why the casualty rates are so high Things that arent related directly to the mechanics: Battles usually represent tip of the spear scenarios where high casualties are expected. Players push their forces way too hard. Low time limits lead to overly hasty attacks. Directly related to the mechanics: Infantry maintains too little spacing. Infantry accuracy is too high while under fire (and too low when not). Support weapons can only effectively supress one action square. All belt fed mgs are far less effective at supressing than they should be. Hunt command doesnt work properly. Units shoudl stop when getting shot at rather than just when they see a target. Entrenchments are underpowered. They are far too easy to spot and generally provide too little cover. Tanks are far too good at spotting infantry close up especially on the flanks and rear. Units giving first aid expose themselves unnecessarily.

Except if you have to take the area

Soft body armour in the military is intended to protect against artillery shrapnell. Same with steel helmets. So in CM terms soldiers wearing them should be harder to kill or wound with artillery especially if they are outside of the blast area.

I might be wrong but i always felt like in cm vehicles simply have a reverse speed somewhre 30%-50% of their max forward speed. If that is the case it might actually need an engine upgrade to fix but would also be something quite worthwile doing as especially for tanks it can have a big effect.

You can playback. Depending on if youre attacker or defender after or before the new order phase.

40m bar+4 garands 3.75 vs 1lmg42 4.4 80m bar+4 garands 1.45 vs 1lmg42 1.45 120m bar+4 garands 0.8 vs 1lmg42 0.8 160m bar+4 garands 0.55 vs 1lmg 0.46 192m bar+4 garands 0.44 vs 1lmg 0.34 Note this is against foxholes which provide some of the best cover ingame. So at relevant small arms ranges its overall similar with the lmg doing better at shorter ranges. Note that supression isnt factored in here. 312m bar 32rpm vs Bren 44rpm vs lmg42 71rpm so assuming each supress as much per round youre still left with quite a bit higher supression. Supression reduces rate of fire so even a slight advantedge quickly compounds to give a massive one. So overall the lmg42 gives a german infantry squad the firepower advantedge. This wont matter much against ai which wont hold fire until targets are in effective range and let themselves get destroyed by heavy weapons but against human oponents that edge does matter massively.

How is 80-100% moe firepower compared to a normal lmg only slightly outperforming?

Small arms are only really usefull within 200m and even then only pick up much killing power below 100m Beyond 200m heavy weapons like hmgs, mortars, tank guns, arty matter and small arms fire only serves a purpose in the absnece of these. If they are available small arms fire beyond 200m simply makes the unit a target for larger weapons. Within the 200m though the lmg42 on its own has the same firepower as half an american infantry squad (1bar+4m1). And thats not counting supressive ability. Its one of the weapons that massively outperforms the allied counterparts. The issue is that all those weapons keep getting treated like magical superweapons. Once they are used with proper care and their inteded tactics they do show their potential. Id argue the plentiful radiaos and quick artillery calltime are the primary edge the us has. The mortar is nice but personally i find mortars at platoon level overkill and for company level 80mm mortars seem more useful to me. And splitting into 3 teams is only rarely usefull for at or scout puropses and at least at i find is better dealt with by an additional team for the platoon. The germans work differently but aside from scenarios putting them into the underdog role i cant see them as such.

Another thing for your list: GMGs that are mounted on vehicles are significantly less acurate than tripod mounted.

Looking at the CMFB qb points for german afvs it seems to me that they really arent priced based on actual performance. It goes from 241points for a pz4j early to 418points for a king tiger. Unless the battle is on tiny there will rarely be a reason outside of rarity to not go for the heaviest german tanks possible.

A few things to keep in mind for mp Anything except wego becomes practically impossible to controll past platoon level in real time (ive tried). An ingame automated pbem would certainly be nice to have though i think it would be fairly low priority overall since the majority of players interested in it will find their way to the forum or any of the fan forums to organize games.

THX for the reply. Yes i only got my first CM game then. How extensive are these features? What was in other engine upgrades for example?

This might be a stupid question but what does engine upgrade even mean in practical terms?

In Europe, by gpmgs/mmgs and assaultrifles, starting in the mid 30s and certainly being the case by the mid 40s. For what is essentially a mid 20s design thats very good. And i dont think the brits were making a bad decision when getting the bren since they were getting what was the best lmg in the world. That they ended up against one of the best gpmg designs was bad luck they couldnt have forseen. Also note that obsolete isnt useless. Bolt action rifles became obsolete in the mid 30s They still ended up being the most prominent weapons in ww2 due to several factors and they still worked but they got destroyed when up against selfloading rifles.

Obsolete in the sense that using it gives you a significant disadvantedge. For the rest of your post i really dont get your point tbh.

Where is the difference in usage to an mg42? That seems about as focused on the mg as the germans. A proper mg is simply a better weapon. Just like semiautomatic rifles completely obsoleted boltaction rifles as an infantry weapon and then the assaultrifle obsoleted it. The only place where you still find lmgs is when they are basically just a standard assault rifle with a heavier barrel and a bigger magazine. While the bren was quite possibly the best lmg it simply became obsolete just like the watercooled hmg.

At least for the mg3 that isnt the case. The barrel change mechanism simply doesnt allow thicker barrels. It also would contradict the idea of a general purpose mg. Incidently watercooled mgs have much thinner barrels precisely because they have water to cool them. I havent seen anyone loose them so far and even if they did you can simply let the hot barrel dropp out or use a stick to draw it out. You need 2 men to serve it in the HMG role mostly to be able to move it with the tripod. Everyone else is there to carry spare ammo, the tripod when marching and to give security to the mg. Heres a nice demonstration of the tactical use. Yes its an mg3 but aside from the caliber its the same gun and tripod. The mg42 has its sights on the reciever not the barrel. The bren on the other hand does. And aside from a bit of ammo wasted it isnt a big deal to accidentially hold down the trigger a bit longer for the mg42. It suggests 120 rounds because the standard belt length was 120 rounds so the idea was to change barrel while changing belt. As said in actual practice that is never actually adhered to and barrel changes are fare rarer since the gun can easily deal with it. First it doesnt exactly have a light barrel. Second if it did start to warp it would actually aim higher as it is supported at the front of the reciever aswell. Third the actual maximum range asssigned to it in the german army is 1200m. And fourth its a machinegun not a sniperrifle. I dont see that. If you have bad trigger discipline youll imediately have to reload with the bren. with the mg42 you can imediately continue as you waare only with a few rounds wasted. Ive personally never found belts to be a pain to carry. If you keep them the containers are just fine and if you dont you can simply sling the belts across your neck or put them into random bags and take them out when needed.