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2.0 machine gun woes =(


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So far, the suggestion for MG teams to issue a Move order and give Face and Deploy orders at the end/destination waypoint seems to be working for me. (Don't start a turn by issuing a Deploy order.)

Thanks as I missed this suggestion mj. I'll give it a go. As long as there is workaround it might not be too bad for now. I just have to remember to get used to giving the order sequence as suggested.

Hope they fix all these problems soon though. Especially the crew dispersion I show above. Like I said this is happening with MORTARS too. I gave a crew a move order with the same spread out wich seems to be effecting pathfinding too. They went in a totaly unpredicted path right into a mine field. Boom! I am sorry I didn't take a shot of it, but I can post some of the casualties :(

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The bug I was experiencing is slightly different, if it is indeed a bug. Your situation is definitely a bug that people have experienced, I always give an added move order next to the destination point and make sure its only 1 AS away. The crewmen who 'wander off' seem to follow previous waypoint lines, and then return, and this way if they do it the delay is shorter for my weapon to be in action.

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The bug I was experiencing is slightly different, if it is indeed a bug. Your situation is definitely a bug that people have experienced, I always give an added move order next to the destination point and make sure its only 1 AS away. The crewmen who 'wander off' seem to follow previous waypoint lines, and then return, and this way if they do it the delay is shorter for my weapon to be in action.

Thanks for that, Jeff!

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of course =D I cant take all the credit though, at some point when 2.0 was released someone ( can't remember who ) mentioned the walking back previous waypoint behavior. So i just assumed if I put another WP next to my destination then they'll have a lot shorter walk. Seems to work...

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  • 6 months later...

Now I am playing with 2.01 on the excellent "Rats du Désert" Villers Bocage map.

I have those 2 Vickers teams (from HMG Carriers) trying to deploy in tall buildings. In fact the deploy time indicated is 2.3 min and it actually does not seem to really deploy after 3 min+.

It looks the same as the bug described here, and does not seem to be fixed...

First question: is it normal that the deploying time is not the usual one (23 s)?

If not, it is now clearly a bug !

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Well, as has been stated several times on this board, it actually does take longer to set up an MG inside a building. You can't just plop it and its tripod on the floor and have a clear shot. You either have to knock a firing loop in the wall, or set up some kind of support (like furniture or a stack of sand bags) to raise the weapon above the level of a window sill. All this takes time if you want the support to be stable enough to sustain firing.

Michael

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I have no opinion either way. That being said I could easily see how setting up a heavy MG that needs a stable firing platform could take some time.

You can't fire bazookas or Panzerfausts from within a building due to back blast.

I would also add I would not want to be in an enclosed space when a HMG is going off-especially if it were setup so its barrel was not sticking out the window so as to not be seen as easily-and the blast was being vented away from anyone inside the building.

I never had the pleasure of experiencing it nor do I want to. I have been in an enclosed space when someone next to me was firing a AR15 chambered for .308 with a aftermarket barrel with muzzle brake and it was very unpleasant to say the least-and I had ear protection on and the freaking muzzle of his gun was protruding outside the window.

I would venture to guess that setting up a HMG inside a building take a lot of time and preparation.

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I would also guess that some MG's are easier to setup to fire in an enclosed building than others. MG's with water jackets as well as a heavy MG like a Ma Duce could be an absolute PITA to setup.

The German MG42 which could be configured as a light, medium or heavy MG is another story. You could just use it as a LMG and get it into action quickly.

I thinks we need someone with some real world experience to settle this :D

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The German MG42 which could be configured as a light, medium or heavy MG is another story. You could just use it as a LMG and get it into action quickly.

And the same is true of the BAR and BREN or any other LMG, I should think. I'm not sure how the game treats these though as I have never had the occasion to use any of them from within a building SFAICR.

Michael

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In one episode of Band of Brothers, the US soldiers semi-deployed their MG on the window-sill to cut down German soldiers trying to escape over an open-field.

Actually, that was easy to find:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=UitLOeZENlU&t=527

The (real) soldiers among us can certainly tell whether this is realistic or not.

Best regards,

Thomm

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I remember that scene....

I would say that would not be classified as a HMG in CMBN terms, but a light/medium MG. The heavy MGs for Americans have a water cooled barrel, and the Vickers if I'm not mistaken had a water cooled barrel too.

The German MG34/42 gets a bit more complicated as the type of mount as well as the sighting system dictates whether its in a light, medium or heavy MG role.

Firing a heavy Vickers or Browning with a water cooled barrel ala Band of Brothers style from a window still hmmmm. There have been a few exceptions -in Guadalcanal there was a case of someone using a watercooled Browning with their bare hands and no mounts, but that was at close range against charging Japanese soldiers. That was normally not the case and expecting any sort of accuracy at distance was asking the impossible when a HMG was not properly setup.

I'm sure there is someone who can go into more detail about all of this.

Perhaps for this discussion there needs to be a distinction made between a machine gun in a heavy, medium or light role-not just whether its crewed served or not.

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Don't forget, though, that the Deploy command is to set up the tripod arrangement on the 34 and 42 (and I assume on the US and Brit MGs as well), and (I'm pretty certain) does not represent just resting the barrel on the window ledge.

The MG 42 (and I will assume the MG 34 as well until shown otherwise) in the HMG units can also fire in a Semi-deployed state, though not very accurately. I wonder if they will fire from within buildings in that state.

Michael

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nachinus,

Basilone's song certainly needs to be sung, but the colorful account you provided in no way supports what you describe. Rather, it says he lugged the tripod-mounted weapon from one firing position to another, which is a far cry from firing that same HMG, even sans tripod, while standing.

Regards,

John Kettler

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Both the M1919A4 and the M1917A1 could be fired standing from the hip. In fact, period training films for same specifically showed how to do this, so presumably it's something MG gunners were formally taught. If you do some rooting around on Youtube, you can probably find the training films. I know I've found them there or some similar video site, but I didn't bookmark them and I'm not interested in being the forum's Google B*tch unless someone wants to pay me.

The heavier of the two, the M1917A1, weighs about 50 lbs. without the tripod attached. This is is heavy but hardly impossible to hold at the waist with two hands and fire or carry short distances. In fact, R. Lee Ermey (the retired USMC Gunnery Sgt. turned actor who hosts all those shows in the Military Channel), demonstrates firing the M1917A1 from the hip on one of his shows. He handles it without much difficulty. R. Lee is a pretty fit guy, but he's also in his 60s. If he can do it, I'm sure a reasonably fit 20-something could do it.

But while these weapons can be fired from the hip, accuracy absolutely blows. Ermey has trouble hitting a large (maybe 2m x 3m) target just a few dozen meters away when he shoots the M1917A1. So I'm not sure how useful this technique was IRL, and how applicable it would be to combat situations you typically see in CM.

I have seen newsreel footage of G.I.s in the PTO firing M1919A4s from the hip in the jungle in what looks like a "walking fire" exercise. The newsreel footage is almost certainly staged, but it looks like they're demonstrating the use of the MG fired from the hip as a "spray and pray" tactic to clear nearby thickets and treetops of Japanese snipers. Given the terrain and nature of the fighting in the PTO, such a tactic might make sense there. I'm less convinced you'd see this kind of thing very often in the ETO.

In all, CMx2's restrictions on firing MGs from buildings seem fairly reasonable to me. If I were ringmaster of the CM circus, I *might* allow the M1917A1 and M1919A4 to be fired "semi-deployed," albeit at a severe accuracy penalty -- much worse than the MG34 or 42 because the American MGs don't have a bipod mount to fall back on when they're not using the tripod. I'm really not sure how important it is that this kind of improvised "spray and pray" usage gets modeled, though, so it's not something I would waste much coding time on.

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