accuracy/efficiency of machine gun fire

[LongLeftFlank]

I get you, John. Green troops clump up, freeze, haven't got that sixth sense, play follow the leader. And if the leader is himself uncertain or is hit, well fuggedaboudit.

Veterans in contrast know by feel when they're in the kill sack and know the best way to survive is to GTF out of it! still more, they can make the snap call that the quickest way may be a seemingly suicidal head on charge to unnerve the shooters (Immediate Action Drill, e.g. that Scottish bayonet charge at Basra)

Sure, pure "pool table" situations are rare outside wargames. There is of coure the infamous incident from Panama where ~14 (Elite) SEALs were killed advancing across an open runway apron, basically while being misused as assault infantry for a brute force solution to a high risk maneuver, in contravention of all SpecOps doctrine. Their finely honed combat sense, marksmanship, fitness, elan, etc. availed them nothing -- I think that's Womble's point. Not sure kids fresh from Parris Island would have done any worse.

[poesel]

Looks like I tested at the right time

I pitched regular italian infantry against the same with different experience.

The numbers killed by the regulars was ~50 (of 294) against regular and better. 70 against green and 90 against conscripts.

OTOH the number of regulars killed raises linearly from 26 (vs conscrpits) to 120 (vs elite).

So CM models the effect that low quality troops get shot more often but only to the point where they are regular and above. The other factor is the quality of guys shooting at you (obviously).

Thread:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=106617

Data:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApF6zBjLENkUdF9jYlhhUjZObmRnRy03bFhSdk53emc

[womble]

I never said the Veterans could dodge bullets in the literal sense of dodging. I said they could make better use of whatever cover might be available.

When you are running across an open field like in the example in this thread, there is no available cover.

All the other very true points you raise are not the matter of the discussion.

Like it or not, the Veterans will have less exposure to hostile fire than their Green counterparts, and that is in some ways separate from the player's troop handling in the game.

In the game, it is separated by them getting more cover when they are stationary. It might be being factored when they're on the move too, and, no matter how you try and square it, that's plain wrong when they haven't any cover at all, or if you think it's not, the only way you can justify it is by having the vets be dodging bullets.

All the rest of the vet's advantages are in transition states, and we are only at the stage of being able to test in steady states (either hiding or moving). It's important for the game that factors are applied only when they are actually relevant, because it is attempting to be an accurate simulation.

Am not quite sure how to model it, but it is militarily significant.

Cover saves seem like a fair model for where it applies.

As for my 'being condescending," I invite you to compare my incredulity, "Have you never read?" which I kindly phrased, with your "Learn to read, John."

Sauce for the goose, matey. Perhaps I should have put "learn to comprehend".

[Killkess]

Shameless bump for an important thread...

Now, that we are post 1.01, what is the current status of this issue? Was it recognized by BFC as a problem at all? Some kind of official response would be handy.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I was wondering about this myself. I don't recall anything in the patch notes.

[John Kettler]

PanzerMike,

"Hitler's saw seems to be blunt." Sig material if ever I saw any!

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

bob,

Welcome aboard!

Apa,

Yours is exactly the same point I made in, I believe, the Brixia mortar effectiveness thread. there, I argued that if the AI were tweaked so it would recognize mortar teams in direct lay as threats, then this would go a long way toward restoring relative realism to the present insane situation. After all, the AI has no trouble finding and shooting at AT teams, right?

Regards,

John Kettler

[Sublime]

As I said before, I think even just upping the RoFs to more realistic levels would make big strides towards making MGs more realistic. Tests have been done (not sure what exact thread) and it was shown consistently that MGs fire much much much below their actual RoFs. and Im not saying MG42s should constantly fire 1,200 rpms but the results were way lower than that.

[JasonC]

Sublime - every MG ever fielded could fire off its entire ammo supply in minutes, and be left completely dry and tactically useless as a direct result. Theoretical ROF therefore had nothing to do with actual ROF used in the field, because actually supplying ammo to the guns, not how fast they could throw it, was always the rate determining step.

[Sublime]

But still, if you've played CM wouldn't you agree that a higher RoF would be much more appropriate at least in many cases? Maybe then the problem is finding a way to tell the TacAI to push the pedal to the floor so to speak in certain situations. Or like a three way setting - low/medium/high for how much 'suppressive fire' or whatever you'd like.

As it is the MG42 loses one of its main advantages, as do water cooled heavy machine guns.

The real people to ask are people who were actually there in combat - if you can find em anymore. Personally from all the footage, stories and books I've read it feels like it's off a little. I still play CM so its not game breaking but I think someday it could be improved. All that is keeping in mind of course, that I've never been in combat.

[JasonC]

I think that infantry should be suppressed for longer periods by typical fire and typical casualties caused by such fire. I think our pixeltruppen should seek cover more aggressively, with less regard to our boneheaded orders and none at all to action spots or miniature bases glueing them to one another.

I don't think the primary problem with CM as it stands is that it isn't bloody enough.

I see fights in 20 minutes between companies that turn in casualty rolls appropriate for entire rifle divisions for entire days in heavy combat.

In the real deal, not as many men were hit per unit of time or per unit of fire available to the enemy, as we see in CM. Not more. But this wasn't because all shots missed men in the open. It is because fewer shots occurred, fewer men saw each other, fewer men were in the open and for less time.

The forces were in reality much more paralyzed, on average, than our pixeltruppen. They were not much more deadly than our pixeltruppen. They lived considerably longer than our pixeltruppen live. Their morale was abysmally lower than our pixeltruppen's typical morale.

Now, some of that is a deliberate adaptation to the sensibilities of video gamers, who don't like frustration and expect to see an action movie. Or at least, something closer to an action movie, that also takes slightly less time to resolve as a game, than World War Two took to resolve, as an actual war. They also expect it to require less effort on their part.

Here is one possible but wrong correction to the game as it stands - dial the lethality up by a factor of 10. Not what I want to see. Not the direction in which CM gets things wrong.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I'd think the larger problem is the artificial inaccuracy against infantry -- and apparently only infantry -- demonstrated in the OP. It seems to function as a dumbing down of machine gun effectiveness where there is no need for it. Or maybe it's a bug.

[vossiewulf1212]

What it appears to me is that with infantry, it's firing at a randomly selected AS from an array of possible action squares centered on the target. It's hard to tell the dimensions of the AS array from the video but it appears to be at least 5 wide x 3 deep. I can guess at reasons why they might have done that but it would be guesses on top of a guess; but certainly you can see the MG firing at action squares at least two left and right of the target and at least one short and long.

As the target gets closer the array probably is reduced at certain range thresholds to like 3x3, then finally consistently on target at even closer ranges.

[-Coulum-]

I think that infantry should be suppressed for longer periods by typical fire and typical casualties caused by such fire. I think our pixeltruppen should seek cover more aggressively, with less regard to our boneheaded orders and none at all to action spots or miniature bases glueing them to one another.

I don't think the primary problem with CM as it stands is that it isn't bloody enough.

I see fights in 20 minutes between companies that turn in casualty rolls appropriate for entire rifle divisions for entire days in heavy combat.

In the real deal, not as many men were hit per unit of time or per unit of fire available to the enemy, as we see in CM. Not more. But this wasn't because all shots missed men in the open. It is because fewer shots occurred, fewer men saw each other, fewer men were in the open and for less time.

The forces were in reality much more paralyzed, on average, than our pixeltruppen. They were not much more deadly than our pixeltruppen. They lived considerably longer than our pixeltruppen live. Their morale was abysmally lower than our pixeltruppen's typical morale.

Now, some of that is a deliberate adaptation to the sensibilities of video gamers, who don't like frustration and expect to see an action movie. Or at least, something closer to an action movie, that also takes slightly less time to resolve as a game, than World War Two took to resolve, as an actual war. They also expect it to require less effort on their part.

Here is one possible but wrong correction to the game as it stands - dial the lethality up by a factor of 10. Not what I want to see. Not the direction in which CM gets things wrong.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. In Essence...

Pixeltruppen...

• need to expose themselves less when in cover (constantly peaking in and out of cover even under minimal fire)
  

• become suppressed easier
  

• take longer to recover from suppression
  

• have a harder time spotting enemies (in part because spotters and targets are constantly peeking in and out of cover, see above point)
  

TacAi...

• needs to take over more
  

• have the main intention of keeping the pixeltruppen alive
  

Terrain...

• should be more detailed (denser foliage, objects, etc.)
  

• have more micro terrain
  

Once these are implemented than it would be fine to make HMG and firearms in general much more accurate without having unrealistic firefights. But until then shortcuts like horrible weapon accuracy must be in place in order to keep firefight dynamics somewhat realistic. Even now firefights are far to short - with much more advanced equipment, in the modern-day platoon sized fights can last hours. In CMFI they may last 15 minutes or so depending on the terrain.

I do agree that MG effectiveness is a little low in comparison to other infantry weapons but simply upping their deadliness/accuracy is not the best way to fix the problem at the moment. In the current state of the game I believe making the suppression from HMG's more effective would be a better way of balancing them to have a more useful role in one's army.

And of course slower more realistic fights might throw off some player but that is why there are difficulty options.

[JonS]

Pixeltruppen...

• become suppressed easier
  

• take longer to recover from suppression
  

Don't you think, though, that if this were implemented games would tend to generate even more lopsided run-away results?

It seems to me that would allow a katamari-damacy-like snowballing where whoever acheieved suppression first would be able to leveraged that to destroy enemy cohesion - and enemy units - in any given sector, and eventually across the whole game map. If CM units were to become suppressed easier and stay suppressed longer, then esentially whoever pulled the trigger first would win a scenario.

Infantry would become largely immaterial, with results determined solely by who used their artillery and/or armour better. Attacking with infantry would become utterly frustrating.

While that might be more realistic (for some definition of 'realistic'), but it doesn't sound like much fun, especially when you end up on the wrong side of the snowball.

[eltorrente]

Based on what I've seen in many PBEM's, I have to say that MG's do a pretty good job.

I've had many, many games that an MG unit in a good position has made a huge difference in battles. They suppress positions from a distance, and that's their primary role - at least in my battles.

Often I'll take a look after a battle and see how many kills my hero MG team got, and maybe it got 3 kills, or maybe 7, whatever.. but that isn't the key to their success.

When I'm in a heated battle, enemy MG's firing at me are targetted and taken out as soon as I can. They have a big impact on any firefight. I don't charge across a field at them, either - and my opponents don't try either, so I can't talk much about their inaccuracy and lethality against charging (foolish) troops.

They're rarely the only guys firing at a particular unit, either. They are always back as far as I can be while still having LOS on the firefight. If I area fire on a building, or a piece of terrain - the enemy hits the deck and keeps their heads down.

Making them more accurate will make them even more powerful than they already are. I'm just speaking anecdotally and haven't run 100 tests determining accuracy - instead I'm speaking of actual in-game situations in PBEM's, with all the craziness that goes on in any given game, and have always found them quite powerful and valuable units.

They are always worthy of being targetted as soon as they are spotted. They are NEVER ignored because they aren't lethal enough, that's for sure.

[Paper Tiger]

They have a big impact on any firefight. I don't charge across a field at them, either - and my opponents don't try either, so I can't talk much about their inaccuracy and lethality against charging (foolish) troops.

This is probably one of the reasons why this behaviour got missed for so long. We just don't do it when we play because we know that it's wrong. But now we can see that charging a MG frontally is one of the best things you can do because it will fire most of its rounds somewhere else, at least when the ranges are 300m+. Charging laterally in front of MG team gets your guys killed a whole lot faster though.

[-Coulum-]

Don't you think, though, that if this were implemented games would tend to generate even more lopsided run-away results?

It seems to me that would allow a katamari-damacy-like snowballing where whoever acheieved suppression first would be able to leveraged that to destroy enemy cohesion - and enemy units - in any given sector, and eventually across the whole game map. If CM units were to become suppressed easier and stay suppressed longer, then esentially whoever pulled the trigger first would win a scenario.

Okay just to clarify, By "should become suppressed easier", by suppressed I mean when an individual infantry unit ducks down behind cover rather than try and return fire or carry out orders. This doesn't necessarily mean cowering, but simply ducking down to a lower stance in order to protect himself. This in my opinion should happen more often.

By "should take longer to recover from suppression" I mean the squad as a whole should take longer to recover from being pinned or under heavy fire. I don't mean soldiers should be ducking down for a minute every time a shot goes by but rather that a squad shouldn't be to willing to leave their cover 30 seconds after coming under fire.

I think I may have misworded that in my original statement or left it far too open for misintrepation. But your points of "snowballing effect" still stand even under these conditions although I think to a lesser severity no?

You point on snowballing is true - If you place all your men together and someone happens to see and start shooting at them first, thus suppressing them, then yeah you will have a hard time ever winning the battle - but that is why you plan ahead and make sure not to put all your eggs in one basket. Keep men in reserve and use them to try and relieve pressure off your frontline troops taking fire, Use recce teams to find out what's what before committing an large forces etc. If anything, more severe suppression system will only force players to play tighter games.

So basically I think that your snowballing effect is more prone to happen, with more severe suppression effects, but can regularly be avoided by proper tactics and planning.

And it is not as if the effect you describe isn't already present in CM to some extent already - the more engagements you win the easier they become to win, no matter what degree of suppression is in game.

While that might be more realistic (for some definition of 'realistic'), but it doesn't sound like much fun, especially when you end up on the wrong side of the snowball.

To some people fun is realism. For others it is a degree of realism. As I mentioned, having this limited by difficulty setting would be a great way to appease all crowds.

Infantry would become largely immaterial, with results determined solely by who used their artillery and/or armour better. Attacking with infantry would become utterly frustrating.

This is a good point and I agree with you concerning Armour as it would become much more powerful in comparison to infantry. If it takes 20 minutes to advance 20 metres with infantry due to suppression they would be totally outclassed by tanks who are able to span the same distance in less than a minute and return accurate and deadly fire while doing so. The only thing I could offer to try and rebalance things would be to make tank crews have significantly worse spotting and making infantry even harder to spot (which I also partially suggested in the last post via more peeking in and ou of cover). Denser, more detailed terrain would also help rebalance the two.

As for artillery, I think that more severe suppression would actually help balance the artillery. Currently it is not needed as much as it is/was in reality.

[eltorrente]

This is probably one of the reasons why this behaviour got missed for so long. We just don't do it when we play because we know that it's wrong. But now we can see that charging a MG frontally is one of the best things you can do because it will fire most of its rounds somewhere else, at least when the ranges are 300m+. Charging laterally in front of MG team gets your guys killed a whole lot faster though.

Well, if we ever play a PBEM - I welcome you to charge across open fields at me every chance you get. I would enjoy that.

[Killkess]

Based on what I've seen in many PBEM's, I have to say that MG's do a pretty good job.

I've had many, many games that an MG unit in a good position has made a huge difference in battles. They suppress positions from a distance, and that's their primary role - at least in my battles.

Historically one of their main task was to cover large open fields of fire because exactly there it is where the main advantages of these weapons can be brought to full use (ROF/Tripod/Optics). This apparently is not possible in CM2 if it cant even stop 3 people within hundrets of meters running in the open without cover.

And mind U, these are ideal conditions, add terrain which offers cover and concealment for the attacker and things go even worse for the MG... if that is realy possible.

Based on the PBEMs i´ve seen the conclusion is, that HMGs are not worth the investment. At least not if u try to use them in the intended role.

Sublime - every MG ever fielded could fire off its entire ammo supply in minutes, and be left completely dry and tactically useless as a direct result. Theoretical ROF therefore had nothing to do with actual ROF used in the field, because actually supplying ammo to the guns, not how fast they could throw it, was always the rate determining step.

In reality you also did not have such juicy targets very often. I highly doubt that a HMG crew would restrict themself at such low ROF if they have a good target. Ammo preservation in the situation where i shot supression fire seems to be fine, but when the enemy is up and on the move i want him to fall quickly, i dont take potshots at them simply because it is exactly this moment where he is most vulnerable. I can spend hundrets of bullets in the time where i shot preservation fire without any effect while it is possible to bring a couple of enemies down in the moment he moves with maybe 100 shots. Training material i´ve read also suggest the use of longer bursts for long range shooting to get a good beaten zone for HMG fire, which apparently isnt doable with the current 5 shot bursts.

[womble]

Historically one of their main task was to cover large open fields of fire because exactly there it is where the main advantages of these weapons can be brought to full use (ROF/Tripod/Optics). This apparently is not possible in CM2 if it cant even stop 3 people within hundrets of meters running in the open without cover.

Those 3 people won't get much closer than 100m though, nor be in a state to return fire for very long (and your MG's in decent cover, right?). And if they're bringing any friends, those "stray" bursts either side will be inflicting casualties which will affect their morale and suppression state.

And mind U, these are ideal conditions...

Actually, for the game mechanics, they're not. Part of the problem with the "charging across a flat field" is that pTruppen are entirely oblivious of bullets "whizzing around their ears". They only get spooked by bullets hitting something near them (within, IIRC 1AS; bullets 'splashing' in adjacent AS give less suppression, but still suppress). If the MG were firing down a slight grade onto the attackers running on the level, so those 'near miss' shots were hitting the dirt at the feet of the onrushing HQ team, they'd go to ground pretty quickly. The same would be true if there were any foliage around to pick up the rounds.

I think the low level of suppression in the test, compared to what you see from area fire in-game, can very largely be attributed to this engine limitation.

[Michael Emrys]

Don't you think, though, that if this were implemented games would tend to generate even more lopsided run-away results?

It seems to me that would allow a katamari-damacy-like snowballing where whoever acheieved suppression first would be able to leveraged that to destroy enemy cohesion - and enemy units - in any given sector, and eventually across the whole game map. If CM units were to become suppressed easier and stay suppressed longer, then esentially whoever pulled the trigger first would win a scenario.

I'm skeptical. That might happen if the battle were simply one squad on one side against one squad on the other side, but that's not what our battles are like. Instead, the advantage would even out across the engagement front. The only way to achieve an overall superiority would be to use superior tactics, which is what I would call a fair win.

Michael

[womble]

Terrain...

• should be more detailed (denser foliage, objects, etc.)
  

• have more micro terrain
  

More detail in the terrain is down to the designers of maps. There has been much discussion about how to represent various forms of cover.

Micro terrain is abstracted to a "terrain save". No more is necessary than is currently generated by the terrain system. Perhaps there could be some tweaking of values. Perhaps it's getting applied to upright troops when perhaps it shouldn't be. But there's no need to kill our poor CPUs with having to render more of it.

[stikkypixie]

But still, if you've played CM wouldn't you agree that a higher RoF would be much more appropriate at least in many cases? Maybe then the problem is finding a way to tell the TacAI to push the pedal to the floor so to speak in certain situations. Or like a three way setting - low/medium/high for how much 'suppressive fire' or whatever you'd like.

As it is the MG42 loses one of its main advantages, as do water cooled heavy machine guns.

The real people to ask are people who were actually there in combat - if you can find em anymore. Personally from all the footage, stories and books I've read it feels like it's off a little. I still play CM so its not game breaking but I think someday it could be improved. All that is keeping in mind of course, that I've never been in combat.

Pixeltruppen in the game when under stress will forget fire discipline at least for personal weapons. This can clearly be seen in CMSF where everyone totes an automatic weapon. US infantry which normally only fire bursts at the enemy, really let go once the enemy is close enough or when their stress level is sufficiently high.

[-Coulum-]

I'm skeptical. That might happen if the battle were simply one squad on one side against one squad on the other side, but that's not what our battles are like. Instead, the advantage would even out across the engagement front. The only way to achieve an overall superiority would be to use superior tactics, which is what I would call a fair win.

Exactly.

More detail in the terrain is down to the designers of maps.

To a degree you are correct, but no matter how much detail you put into your map you can only jam three bushes/tree into an AS. That's three trees in a 64m^2 area - I can find denser foliage in my backyard.

Micro terrain is abstracted to a "terrain save". No more is necessary than is currently generated by the terrain system. Perhaps there could be some tweaking of values. Perhaps it's getting applied to upright troops when perhaps it shouldn't be. But there's no need to kill our poor CPUs with having to render more of it.

Interesting. I agree that actually rendering microterrain is not necessary. But it would be nice if a mission editor had more control and was more informed about it. Also I wonder if this "terrain save" takes into account differences in elevation between the target and shooter, as well as the stance and movement of the target. And can a unit fully protect himself not only from being shot using this abstract micro terrain, but can he also prevent himself from being seen if in the correct stance? I think all these things are important to include if they are not already.

US infantry which normally only fire bursts at the enemy, really let go once the enemy is close enough or when their stress level is sufficiently high

I have only observed changes in ROF due to range to target, never due to stress (though I think it would be a great addition).

And besides vehicle mounted MGs I have never seen a HMG go full auto even on units very close to them. I think that this should be changed. Rate of fire should not only be changed based on proximity to the target, but also on how endangered the crew feels (stress) and how many targets/how much area fire he is trying to shoot. If he is only shooting at 1 squad at 350 metres than the current ROF is fine. But if he is now trying to shoot at 3 squads simultaneously, or trying to also spray nearby AS with bullets his ROF should increase. Instead of a burst every 3 seconds ROF should be a burst every 1 second, taking advantage of the rapid fire and large supply of ammo of a HMG. This alone could make HMG's much more effective. Overheating would also have to be modelled.