Crewing abandoned guns

[Copper]

I think there should be some way to recrew an abandoned gun (Anti-tank, Artillery ect..). I have read more then a few times of men using an anti tank gun in a desperate effort when the crew ran off or were killed. The british paratroopers on D-Day manned a 50mm anti tank gun. I don't recall if they engaged any tanks but they did use it to hit suspcted sniper locations.

There are other stories of infantry turning around enemy machine guns on thier former owners too.

[TheVulture]

Theer are stories of just about every conceivable event happening at least once. To quote one of Steve's favourite is about some soldiers deliberately stampeding cows to use them as cover. The point being that just because there are accounts of something happening, it shouldn't necessarily be in the game.

The question is a) how common was it how much effort is it to implement c_ how much difference will it make and d) will it be exploited in a gamey manner.

Re-manning guns etc. so far has fallen on the wrong side of the line (at least enough to mean that there are a lot more things that ought to go in in preference to it).

[TrailApe]

This has been recently debated (again) on the Normandy board.

There are valid reasons for allowing the crew to bug out and then re-man the gun at a later date, however I feel that the vast majority of people that are 'for-it' seem to disregard the fact that anything that can incapacitate a crew, can also damage a gun - and the bigger the gun, the more complex and vulnerable is the recoil system and other elements that those not familiar with field guns tend to forgat about.

Even the most basic part - like a sight bracket, can be bent and mangled even by a rifle bullet and without the ability to use the sights the gun just becomes a glorified tube.

As for abandoned guns being crewed by the opposition - well if the gunners have legged it they will have taken vital bits of kit and the gun will be unuseable, and if the gunners have died in situ around the gun, well its likely the gun will be damaged also.

[WriterJWA]

Re-manning guns etc. so far has fallen on the wrong side of the line (at least enough to mean that there are a lot more things that ought to go in in preference to it).

I respectfully disagree, kind sir. Crew-served weapons and some vehicles should be treated as objects, not units. The crews are the units, the ATG/jeep/halftrack/MG is their assigned equipment, and technically usable by anyone on the field (with less aplomb depending on the type of equipment).

[womble]

I respectfully disagree, kind sir. Crew-served weapons and some vehicles should be treated as objects, not units. The crews are the units, the ATG/jeep/halftrack/MG is their assigned equipment, and technically usable by anyone on the field (with less aplomb depending on the type of equipment).

I'm sorry, but you can't disagree with the facts. This issue has fallen the wrong side of the "improve this now or later" line and there are still many things that are more significant to both game play and presentation that would be more worthwhile use of development time. It is futile to bemoan possibly unfortunate design compromises to people who are simply telling you the way life is.

[WriterJWA]

I'm sorry, but you can't disagree with the facts. This issue has fallen the wrong side of the "improve this now or later" line and there are still many things that are more significant to both game play and presentation that would be more worthwhile use of development time. It is futile to bemoan possibly unfortunate design compromises to people who are simply telling you the way life is.

Oh sure! It's not a game breaker as it is now, but it would add an element of realism and complexity to the game. I'd rather have fire, flares, and amphibious movement before that. I should have been clearer. I wasn't arguing the timing point, but rather the technical issue of re-manning crew-served weapons.

[Steiner14]

I respectfully disagree, kind sir. Crew-served weapons and some vehicles should be treated as objects, not units. The crews are the units, the ATG/jeep/halftrack/MG is their assigned equipment, and technically usable by anyone on the field (with less aplomb depending on the type of equipment).

I don't know how it was handled in other armies, but leaving a gun without disabling it was equal to court martial and death penalty in the german Wehrmacht (but depended on the capabilities of the commanding general). My grandfather was a Panzerjäger in the 3.Gebirgsdivision and left his gun and the ammo behind, because of a sudden Russian breakthrough. There was no time to detonate the ammo and destroy the gun and he could only take the gun's lock with him.

It was investigated and since he could proove with independent witnesses what happened and that there was no other possibility, the case was not put to court. If he would have not been able to proove his claims, or if he would have left a functioning gun behind, the case definately would have gone to martial court. Leaving weapons behind was not a minor thing - not under a good general and not even under the extreme conditions of the Heeresgruppe Süd in 1944.

[Bartokomus]

quick clarification; are we talking about any old grunt recrewing or the actual crew coming back to the weapon? i have no strong opinion either way about other units manning a de-crewed weapon, but what i don't understand is why an at/howitzer crew can't abandon their gun and come back. anyone know if that is in the plans to be remedied?

[WriterJWA]

I don't know how it was handled in other armies, but leaving a gun without disabling it was equal to court martial and death penalty in the german Wehrmacht (but depended on the capabilities of the commanding general). My grandfather was a Panzerjäger in the 3.Gebirgsdivision and left his gun and the ammo behind, because of a sudden Russian breakthrough. There was no time to detonate the ammo and destroy the gun and he could only take the gun's lock with him.

It was investigated and since he could proove with independent witnesses what happened and that there was no other possibility, the case was not put to court. If he would have not been able to proove his claims, or if he would have left a functioning gun behind, the case definately would have gone to martial court. Leaving weapons behind was not a minor thing - not under a good general and not even under the extreme conditions of the Heeresgruppe Süd in 1944.

I wasn't really referring to the administrative penalty of leaving a crew-served weapon on the field. Regardless of what the off-map punitive actions are, crews do abandon guns, or are killed while manning them, making them inanimate objects the rest of the game as the engine exists today, which is unrealistic. It's not a game-breaker, re-crewing weapons is something that should happen.

[Dadekster88]

I wish there was a way where I could take the crew and redeploy them in a way that they could beat off a close assault maybe or let them take better cover than just huddling around the weapon as rounds really start to come in. Sure the weapon may be destroyed but at least the crew is still alive even if they just scamper off to the rear. I'd really love to have the ability though that if the crew get flanked that they could deploy in a line to face the threat and maybe fight back a bit instead of just get killed as they struggle to rotate the weapon around. Not a game breaker of course, just a nice wish I could.

[womble]

I wasn't really referring to the administrative penalty of leaving a crew-served weapon on the field. Regardless of what the off-map punitive actions are, crews do abandon guns, or are killed while manning them, making them inanimate objects the rest of the game as the engine exists today, which is unrealistic. It's not a game-breaker, re-crewing weapons is something that should happen.

Recrewing weapons with whom? The dead crew? The run away crew? Some random infantry that doesn't know not to slam his hand in a breech screw? Sure, it'd be nice if the gun's crew could step away from the gun to evade a mortar strike, but if they abandon the gun, Steiner14's account is entirely relevant because of the penalties suffered for not disabling the weapon: it will not be a serviceable piece for anyone who's not, by some happy accident, carrying the correct mechanism to return the unserviceable weapon into service. And if the crew were killed, it would take an expert "some time" to make sure the weapon hadn't been damaged along with them.

Returning truly abandoned guns to service isn't something the game's scale covers.

[eltorrente]

I don't think this is much of an issue, but it's something that would nice.

In the perfect world, all that would be required to make it feel more realistic is for the crew to move 10-20 meters here and there to take cover sometimes.

However - the game isn't setup for that and it wouldn't be a quick fix in their engine. As far as I can tell, no other units in the game have a "home base" that they are tethered to that allows them to move away from it and back again when they need to. There would be more involved to make this work than just turning the gun into an object that is separate from the crew.

BF might have the tech to make the gun behave sort of like a jeep, in that they could crew and uncrew it - but once they uncrew it, they'd need to be locked into a certain radius and place great importance on getting back to it, or disabling it if they need to run away.

[c3k]

I think that something along this line should eventually make it in. The Soviets used shelters for crews (and sometimes guns, as well), to protect their pakfronts from German artillery.

I could see a dugout with the crew emerging to man the gun, as PART of the gun emplacement.

Ken

[Steiner14]

I wasn't really referring to the administrative penalty of leaving a crew-served weapon on the field. Regardless of what the off-map punitive actions are, crews do abandon guns, or are killed while manning them, making them inanimate objects the rest of the game as the engine exists today, which is unrealistic. It's not a game-breaker, re-crewing weapons is something that should happen.

But leaving the weapon could easily turn into a oneway-ticket. And then?

If re-crewing is modelled also the good/bad consequences should be reflected somehow by the game (eg. the player can disable the weapon or otherwise lose points if the enemy captures it intact).

But what happens if a crew falls while the gun is intact? (eg. the small über-mortars knock it out). If there are other crews of the same weaponry, shouldn't they be able to disable it, too?

And if this is modeled with guns, how about tanks?

Don't get me wrong, i'd like to see this kind of flexibility, but IMO it's important that the pros AND cons are somehow modeled.

[Dadekster88]

I think that something along this line should eventually make it in. The Soviets used shelters for crews (and sometimes guns, as well), to protect their pakfronts from German artillery.

I could see a dugout with the crew emerging to man the gun, as PART of the gun emplacement.

Ken

This would get my vote as a nice improvement. I bet it would be hell to code though. I'd also rather see other things be included or improved prior to this tbh though.

[Erwin]

Enemy capturing guns and actually knowing how to use em are two different things. That's like worrying about the enemy capturing one of your abandoned tanks.

The big issue is that gun crews should be able to take cover in foxholes or whatever when something threatens their gun and recrew when they can. It would mitigate the problem that foxholes etc don't provide protection to guns.

[Stiboo]

I have had at least 3 battles where a tank crew have abandoned their tank and ran off and recover later...meanwhile their tank has been destroyed..

But other tank crews have also left their tanks but have then been killed, but the other crews cannot then go into another identical tank ONLY their original tank...

This is silly of course....

If we are to have tank/gun crews run away in the game then they should be able to man any identical tank/gun.

I don't really feel tank crews should exit and run away from a fully operational tank...did this really happen that often?

Hope this helps!

Regards

Simon

[YankeeDog]

I don't really feel tank crews should exit and run away from a fully operational tank...did this really happen that often?

Yes, it did happen pretty frequently, especially wrt Sherman crews. Generally, if one AT round penetrated into the fighting compartment, the tank crews were not very inclined to stick around and find out what the second penetration might do, even if the damage caused by the first penetration was minor. Quite often, the crew simply bailed and let the recovery crew sort it out later.

Don't have the time to pull cites at the moment, but if you sample some first-person accounts of tank warfare in the ETO, it won't take long to find incidents where this sort of thing happened.

[womble]

...crews cannot then go into another identical tank ONLY their original tank...

This is silly of course....

Blame the exploitative, gamey bastiges that collectively make up the CM community. If we were allowed to have crews change tank, we'd be buying one Elite crew and 4 Conscripts and having the crack crew remount every time a tank was destroyed under them, because that would get us some advantage over employing all the tanks... At least that's how BFC see it, apparently.

[John Kettler]

Erwin,

Even the standard histories have pictures of U.S. artillerymen firing a Flak 41 88.

The U.S. 2nd AD "Hell on Wheels" was notorious for employing all kinds of captured German kit. Am still look for a citation beyond the ambiguous Wiki. The Germans used cannon from everybody they'd invaded and used captured tanks and carriers for security, (French tanks and ACs, Polish tanks), as Panzerjaeger, as SPG chasses (FCM) and more. This is easily shown by looking at the Wiki or Achtung Panzer, among many.

Both the British and the Russians had captured Panthers in service, and the Germans had quite a few T/34s, both converted and not.

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=45138&highlight=captured+Panther

British Panther

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.historyofwar.org/Pictures/panther_I_panzer_V_ausf_G_british.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.historyofwar.org/Pictures/pictures_panther_I_panzer_V_ausf_G_british.html&h=466&w=750&sz=57&tbnid=2XlAvqS_MKcM3M:&tbnh=90&tbnw=145&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dbritish%2Bpanther%2Btank%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=british+panther+tank&usg=__dQ_wLX4qITqCjBQEmCk8ec83CQM=&docid=71hRLaMIONAkrM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3EpKUIH2G8XUqgGuwoDABA&ved=0CCYQ9QEwAQ&dur=10600

The Russians operated considerable quantities of captured German armor, so much so, that in CMBB there are formations of captured Panthers available.

http://www.wio.ru/tank/capt/capt.htm

Within broad limits, to someone trained in the broad category of equipment, a gun is a gun, and a tank is a tank. This is especially true when trading down to simpler. less complex equipment. U.S. manuals on how to use German equipment clear through the SiG33 are readily obtainable, and other countries did the same. I've got photos of Russian partisans carrying MG-34s in battle.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

Erwin,

You might like this, too. Russians operating German artillery.

http://www.wio.ru/galgrnd/ww2gun.htm

Regards,

John Kettler

[MikeyD]

Germans are currently using Russian guns in the game of course, but it is the extensively rebuilt Pak36r. When Italy gets kicked out of the war in the coming modules I would very much like to see German units utilizing as much Italian equipment as possible. use it or lose it. Not on an ad hoc basis, found laying around the battlefield, but as integrated units. 47mm gun as a 'poor' weapon alt for AT gun units for example.

If a gun team finds itself forced to abandon its weapon in the face of an advancing enemy I believe they're supposed to disable the weapon first - which might be as simple as taking one small piece off and throwing it into the field by the road. No recoil fluid drain bolt, no working gun.

[beatmasta]

I think that there should be some kind of middle of the road in this case.

The constant abandoning and remanning the gun will easily end up with gamey results. I think the at gun crew should be able to take more dispersed cover if ordered to do so (with reduced cabability to engage the enemy). Also some kind of re-use of the gun would be good.

If I was in a position to decide something, I think I would do something like this:

- Give AT-gun crew a possibility to scatter for better cover when needed with reduced engaging cababilities

- If the crew is killed, give an option to re-man the gun if it's still operational but with severely reduced performance especially if the remanning unit is a non trained at gun crew

- If the crew decides to abandon the gun it would disable the gun (breaking the sights, blasting the bore, etc.) and after that the gun couldn't be manned again. This would prevent the use of abandoning and re-manning the gun with gamey way

[womble]

- If the crew is killed, give an option to re-man the gun if it's still operational but with severely reduced performance especially if the remanning unit is a non trained at gun crew

Note that currently you can't even have non-members of the crew of a medium machine gun recrew it if the game-start crew are killed. Even if they're an LMG team using the same weapon on a bipod.

[beatmasta]

Note that currently you can't even have non-members of the crew of a medium machine gun recrew it if the game-start crew are killed. Even if they're an LMG team using the same weapon on a bipod.

Yes, that's the case.

It would be quite an amazing feat to code that everything in the game could be re-manned, was it atg's or mg's.