Rickusty Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Hello everybody, I've been an old timer gamer and supporter of the CM series since the first Combat Mission, even though I rarely posted on this forum with my older account. As soon as CMFI went available to the public I hurriedly bought it , as I was really eager to try out the royal italian army, my country of origin. The game is fantastic and the new version of the CM engine is just superb. Also, attention to detail is amazing, as it has always been though. I only think there is a problem with the Reloading times of these following weapons, the Breda 37 MMG and the Breda 30 squad LMG. Breda 37 Medium Machine Gun As soon as I was trying the Italian Campaign and I set up the heavy Breda 37 to cover my infantry, I noticed that there was something wrong. A squad of american infantry closed up on the MMG, and as soon as they were at 50 meters distance, I noticed that the Breda was firing so slow that I closed the zoom on it just to realize what the problem could be.... I realized that the reloading time was very very slow, and fundamentally wrong. Also, in other battles, I found out that I could never fire many bullets at all and the gun was always full of ammo for the entire battle, even though I made it fire from the beginning to different (supposed) targets. I try to explain the problem. The "37" used a simple 20-rounds strip, which had the (un)famous characteristic of expelling the spent rounds directly into the same strip as soon as they were fired. It was not a very bad solution as it may look though, as the loader could insert a new strip just after the last one was exhausted, and thus it was possible to have a continous ROF. In the game, after the Breda has fired the 20 rounds from its strip, the gunner and the loader slowly try to reload the gun. It looks like they would remove a kind of magazine, attach another one in place, check the reloading handle and fire again. I tested it out in a mission I made especially to test these weapons. I instructed a team to fire at a distance of 30 meters ahead, as to fire as fast as possible, and... I found out the 37 takes in average 16-19 seconds to reload each strip (!), which is far from the reality of this weapon could do. It's just too long. It was regarded as a very good and sound weapon, quite fast and it could lay down a quite dense and continous fire on the enemy (I've read countless of Italian soldiers' first hand accounts regarding this weapon). It fired an excellent and heavy 8mm round, and in general it was the only weapon which could suppress an enemy position quite well. Too bad there were not so many of them in each Italian divisions. If someone of you may already start to look at me like an "herectic" for having said something wrong about our beloved game, I hereby attach here a very interesting video. Look closely at 0:40 and you will see what I am talking about. Simply, the fire could be continous. For sure, it could not take 16-19 seconds to reload each strip... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txCG23HEfb8 And then, the other opposite problem, the reloading time of the Breda 30 LMG. Now, this was not a very good weapon, it was quite fragile, the troops didn't really like it, it used some kind of oiling system for each cartridge that entered the firing chambre, and stoppages were frequent (especially in Africa). All in all, it was not the best LMG fielded in WW2, and actually it could be said that probably it could have been the worst. But... one of the worst problem of all, was its reloading system. The Breda 30 had a permanent magazine attached to its right: inside this magazine, the gunner or loader had to insert a special 20-rounds clip, after he had turned the magazine towards the barrel. After that , he had to remove the clip as soon as the bullets were inserted in the magazine, close the magazine, arm the gun, and fire. All in all a very bad reloading system, which required quite a lot of time to be completed. As such, the practical ROF was not very high. I tested the gun also in the game and... I found out that it takes in average 5 seconds to reload, which is just too quick compared to its real life counterpart. Again, I put here a small video which illustrates how long could it take to reload the "30"... In a practical game then, the Breda 30 LMG can deliver more bullets per minute and suppressive fire to an enemy position than the Breda 37 MMG (which was made especially for this reason though...), which is quite wrong. Maybe a small solution could be to swap the reloading time between the 2 weapons to better simulate their different mechanics? Cheers Rick p.s. If some of you could read italian, HEREhttp://www.scribd.com/doc/69417813/Mitragliatrice-Breda-Mod-37-8mm-1940 there's the manual for the Breda 37 MMG. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Rickusty, Welcome aboard, A most impressive and well documented first post! Here's hoping BFC will pay close attention. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SelfLoadingRifle Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 I recall a comment made on the Breda 30 - I think in Virginia Cowles's The Phantom Major (I may be wrong) that it seemed to be a light well designed weapon that we couldn't get to work, even under ideal conditions. Hopefully Battlefront will re-work their coding for it in the next patch. SLR P.S. I also note in CMN that their reload time for the Bren, a weapon I am extremely familiar with, is completely wrong. (The weapon fires, the weapon stops. Cock weapon, mag off, look in. Empty mag: new mag on, go on.) Two seconds max when working with a no 2. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c3k Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Thanks for posting with the links. Ken 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pak40 Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Well stated and researched Rickusty. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisND Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Very nice post Rickusty, thanks for the info! I'll forward this along internally. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amedeo Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Interesting considerations. Surely you have a point. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nachinus Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Great post. I'm really impressed by the crazy reloading system of the Breda 30. I knew it was an odd weapon with the unique cartridge oiling feature, and although I had read about its built in magazine fed by clips, I assumed it was a more agile system closer to the Breda 37 or the japanese MMGs. I'm amazed by the awkwardness of it. Surely it's faster with a reloader assistant, but still... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baneman Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Yes, watching that video, you think "who the hell designed that and thought it would be good in combat ?" For all the tactical doctrine supposedly stuck back in WWI mode, they sure forgot about sustained fire ! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fernando Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Yes, watching that video, you think "who the hell designed that and thought it would be good in combat ?" For all the tactical doctrine supposedly stuck back in WWI mode, they sure forgot about sustained fire ! However the Breda 37 is easily fed and, even more important, its barrel can be quickly replaced once it is too hot. It can be replaced almost as fast as an MG42 barrel, perhaps faster than an MG34 one. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sublime Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 well done. In my experience this is one of the things that I brag about battlefront to people when I describe cm - this is a classic example of a fan having proof that something in the game should be altered, and I wouldnt be surprised if battlefront looked at it and fixed it..well I hope. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 well done. In my experience this is one of the things that I brag about battlefront to people when I describe cm - this is a classic example of a fan having proof that something in the game should be altered, and I wouldnt be surprised if battlefront looked at it and fixed it..well I hope. Yeah that's two really good first time posts today. I think with the release of CMFI BF has tapped into a better fan base. Soon they won't even talk to us anymore. :eek: 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ASL Veteran Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Well, theoretically the HMG loading time might be accurate if you assumed that the MG only had one strip available. The loader would have to shell the spent casings from the strip and then reload new rounds onto the strip before the weapon could be reloaded. That could take a while. I have to think that more than one strip would be available, however, once the supply of new strips is used up the gunner would be entirely dependent upon the loader shelling and reloading the strips for reuse. For those who didn't catch it - the HMG uses strips that when the weapon is fired instead of just spitting the spent casing onto the ground somewhere several meters away it actually replaces the spent casing back onto the strip. :eek: The only theoretical reason to do this would be to keep the gun position neat and tidy since all your spent casings would be on the strip rather than scattered around the gun position. Of course, when reloading the strip the loader would have to remove those spent casings from the strip before he could place new live rounds onto the strip. One can imagine that performing this task under fire would be an unpleasant activity. The long time delay seems reasonable for that sort of activity. The problem comes with how many fresh strips the gun starts with and how soon the loader can get started on his task after firing begins. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fernando Posted August 9, 2012 Share Posted August 9, 2012 On the link provided by Rickusty on his first post the machine used to quickly removing the spent case and replace it for a new cartridge is shown in action. I guess it takes about 10 seconds to replace the cases and leave the clip fully reloaded in order to be used again. That kind of reloading machine was available for all machineguns of all nations feeded by belts and clips and was usually carried in an ammo tin box. Germans had their one, I own one for my ZB-37 etc. It allows for a quick reloading of belts and clips. Don't forget an HMG team was not formed by gunner and assitant gunner alone but it usually included several ammo carriers and a leader. One of them could reload clips almost as fast as they are used. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rickusty Posted August 10, 2012 Author Share Posted August 10, 2012 Hello everybody and thank you for your kind welcomes! I made two small videos of the two machineguns in action in the game. The point here is to focus especially on the reloading times of the Breda 30 and the 37. Breda 37 MMG Breda 37 MMG in the game - Youtube Video ----- Breda 30 LMG Breda 30 LMG in the game - Youtube Video Cheers 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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