"Red Hordes"-results and impressions to the game(play)

[womble]

16-17 rounds per kill is at least one order of magnitude better than you have any right to expect from any small arms weapon system other than maybe a Sniper Scout in any realistic situation. Probably two orders of magnitude.

That's your problem, right there. The fact that 6 HMGs managed to eliminate a Battalion of troops in the face of artillery and other return fire shouldn't have you despairing. If anything, it's an argument that they're overmodelled.

[Kauz]

....

That's your problem, right there. The fact that 6 HMGs managed to eliminate a Battalion of troops in the face of artillery and other return fire shouldn't have you despairing. If anything, it's an argument that they're overmodelled.

It were 4 and not 6 hMG and the artillery was only the mentioned fused artillery at 100 meter distance.

AND the enemy did not shoot back on a specific order ....only some occasional while running forward due to the AI that only tried to move forward fast from the wood on the one side of the bridge to the wood on the other side of the bridge.

He did NOT establisch a base of fire to suppress my machine guns.

If you keep that again in mind (what you would have if you read my post before carefully) than it is obviously that the MG´s are clearly underpowered.

[Kauz]

MG's aren't laser accurate weapons. ...

Agai, take a close look what happens at following video (0:36 min it is starting):

The tracers flying to the sides are richochets or inceniary charges of breaking bullets after impact....the later increasing elevation of the "laser point" is done by the gunner and not the "spread" of the gun....

The video-link above shows that the gun is super accurate!

So:

At distances of 100 meters they are like "laser guns" ^^

...if they would not have had such a general accuracy like that, the heavy machine gun could not be properly used at their so called effective range of 1000-1200 meter in direct fire and up to 3500 meters at indirect fire. The accuracy is in generally so high that you are still have a high probability to hit the enemy even on these high ranges.

You called this"beaten zone" concept.

It is an indirect fire concept which is used on higher distances, especially at indirect fire (no vision line) and especially in world war one.

The game does not support that tactic.....for good reason....the armies did not use that tactic a lot especially with progressing war-time (may be due to the high mobility of the armies and changing battle situations)

By the way:

The effect of the bullet drop is not relevant on 100meters distance.

Your "8mmX57 IS-sS" round has a bullet drop at 100 meters of about 4-5 centimeters and at 200 meters 14-15 centimeters.

[womble]

It were 4 and not 6 hMG...

MG 1: 143 "kills" (empty) 110 meter

MG 2: 22 "kills" (not empty because killed soon) 110 meter

MG 3: 44 "kills" (empty) 320 meter

MG 4: 52 "kills" (empty) 320 meter

MG 5: 76 "kills" (empty) 145 meter

MG 6: 157 "kills" (empty) 210 meter

That looks like six being scored to me. Sooo sorry I didn't notice some of them weren't Heavy. Frankly, it just makes my point more firm: 4 HMGs killing 500-odd men in an hour and holding the bridge til they run out of ammo is really good going.

AND the enemy did not shoot back on a specific order...

So? The sporadic fire probably didn't have a great deal of suppressive effect. Just makes your test less and less like RL.

...it is obviously that the MG´s are clearly underpowered.

Again: the only thing that is obvious is your inflated expectation.

Do you think that even the cunning Lafayette tripod doesn't make the MG have a "cone of fire"? It. Is. Not. A. Laser. And if you look at the tracer lines in the game, you'll realise that they're a lot bigger than 8mm across and they do have a scatter.

[ASL Veteran]

You called this"beaten zone" concept.

It is an indirect fire concept which is used on higher distances, especially at indirect fire (no vision line) and especially in world war one.

Kauz, please stop embarrassing yourself. I suggest that you stop making assumptions about things and take the time to actually find out how they work in the real world.

[Kauz]

That looks like six being scored to me. ...

Ups sorry ...my fault....it were 6 HMG...the two at 320 meter were just so useless that i ignored them for a moment while reading your post and writing mine. (2 MG fire 5000 rounds for 96 kills at 300-340 meter )

So? The sporadic fire probably didn't have a great deal of suppressive effect. Just makes your test less and less like RL.

In one round 1 (ONE) DP28 LMG (light machine gun ) fired within

10 seconds 4 short bursts to my front trench with my both hMG42 units in it ...from a distance of 170 meter. And now ask me how many people he killed.

3 ....yes you heard right.....THREE.

Similar with PPSH people....they need regulary 1 to maximum 3 bursts at 100-150 meters to kill 1 guy in my trench...

Now imagine what would have happened if not 2-3 people shoot at me occaisonally .......doomed.

My personal results are PPSH and DP in relation to heavy MG42 faaar much to accurate...

and/or the Trench does NOT provide "enough" (euphemism) protection.

The heavy MG in general much to weak. Would be interessting how they programmed it.

.....

Do you think that even the cunning Lafayette tripod doesn't make the MG have a "cone of fire"? It. Is. Not. A. Laser. And if you look at the tracer lines in the game, you'll realise that they're a lot bigger than 8mm across and they do have a scatter.

please read my answer to zmoney one or 2 posts before...do not want to write it again.

[Kauz]

Kauz, please stop embarrassing yourself. I suggest that you stop making assumptions about things and take the time to actually find out how they work in the real world.

that is just useless trolling...

[Pandur]

i played this scenario yesterday. in my first play through with no reload i got a minor victory. i consider this ok´ish for playing this blind first time.

some observations;

-since the machineguns where buffed in 2.0 they are quiet fine. they where utterly useless befor that. in this red hordes scenario, only 2 machineguns, later only one left, where keeping the whole russian infantry on the other side of the water, after the tanks left them alone and moved on, at their left most crossing point. what crossed got killed. only 2 machinegunns at a range of about 500m. sure tank riders where killed on exploding tanks and all but the hmg´s had great effect over a range a squad cant even think to compeat. 47kill on the tally for the surviving HMG team. thats almost 5 squads killed by this hmg.

maybe they dont have target practice range performance, but what was befor 2.0 was much much worse then this.

- tank spotting and accuracy while driving is sometimes weird, absolutely. from what i read in the countless threads in the CMBN section about this problem is that basicly, "it needs to be unrealistic to be realistic" or that was the essence of the explaination. i think its the AI that has no sense of SA and moves tanks often at the wrong time, so fireing on the move needs to work better.

in assault mission i had 2 t34-85 positioned like 200 meters from a tiger that advanced with its 2 to 3 o clock position to my 2 waiting t34.

guess what, first shot is mine, bounce from side turret, bad luck. next, tiger sees one t34, swings turret slowly while driving, my t34 lost the tiger, my inf keeps it spotted.

BLAM tiger nails t34 on the move with first shot. few seconds after that my 2nd t34 squeez off his first shot, slams into a tree the tiger passed at that moment, but tiger is now aware and sees the 2nd t34, and has stoped. me and my t34 crew in agony, moments befor they sniped a tree(why again, are AP shot stopped dead by trees???) in front of the big tiger and now they reload. WAAAM tiger shoots, tiger hits, tiger kills, there goes my last t34

i could have rage quited right there, but ok, thats how it goes since the engine is out. there have been lots of threads about this and they produced nothing i think. so it wont go away i guess.

if you imagine how a fixed gun sight would bounce around on like "normal" speed and they, time after time again, make this shots even on much longer ranges.

in the end this is still a game, fancy this fancy that, if it would play like war in real life they couldnt make a living with it. just need to manage your expectations.

[womble]

In one round 1 (ONE) DP28 LMG (light machine gun ) fired within

10 seconds 4 short bursts to my front trench with my both hMG42 units in it ...from a distance of 170 meter. And now ask me how many people he killed.

3 ....yes you heard right.....THREE.

And how many times does an MG42 burst kill more than 1 person in that hour.

You need to learn something about statistics.

What you talk about with zmoney is pretty much irrelevant, and what isn't is simply wrong. As is that meaningless video. When the gun rattles about on its tripod, it deflects its aim ever so slightly, in a random fashion. If you put a stationary chest sized target at 100m, rounds will miss it. That's the cone of fire. The arbitrary scatter imparted by the rattling around of the gun against the backstop of the tripod. The Lafayette has a hydraulic damper that cuts a lot of it out for the first few rounds til the recoil pushes the sliding mount back against the rear of the slide. After that, it's just the spring in the legs and the inertia of the tripod that's keeping the gun from leaping about. That's partially why shorter bursts are more accurate (per bullet). A tripod is not a sandbagged bench. It's better than a bipod, but it's not a "benchmark" stable platform, so you don't get sub-MoA cones of fire out of them.

[Kauz]

And how many times does an MG42 burst kill more than 1 person in that hour.

You need to learn something about statistics.

Believe me i know something about statistics (being physicist).

The point is that this was an example. The fact alone that it happened says something about probability.

Despite that, this and similar behaviours are happening very often in this game otherwise i would not have mentioned it.

In this particular example i wanted to give an impression how weak trenches are and how accurate DP and PPSH...especially in realation to the heavy machine gun in counterpart.

I will do further tests with other configurations to undergird these impressions ...For start you have this test....and now give me time to do homework....i can not do all alone ( no time) and parallell write whole novels here to convince people.

What you talk about with zmoney is pretty much irrelevant, and what isn't is simply wrong. As is that meaningless video. When the gun rattles about on its tripod, it deflects its aim ever so slightly, in a random fashion. If you put a stationary chest sized target at 100m, rounds will miss it. That's the cone of fire. The arbitrary scatter imparted by the rattling around of the gun against the backstop of the tripod. The Lafayette has a hydraulic damper that cuts a lot of it out for the first few rounds til the recoil pushes the sliding mount back against the rear of the slide. After that, it's just the spring in the legs and the inertia of the tripod that's keeping the gun from leaping about. That's partially why shorter bursts are more accurate (per bullet). A tripod is not a sandbagged bench. It's better than a bipod, but it's not a "benchmark" stable platform, so you don't get sub-MoA cones of fire out of them.

so you do not need the "tiefenfeuereinrichtung" if the gun is spraying by itself....?

Again the changing elevation of the gun is done by the gunner.

Yes, it is possible that the Tripod is unstable....

But, the Tripod only starts wiggling/escalating if the mass centroid of the tripod is set to high and nobody (in this case) is holding/supporting/stabilizing the forward part/pod of the Tripod manually.

[Pandur]

the thing with the mg´s is a problem of abstracted hidden factors for troop´s and the exact visual representation of mg fire. it doesnt fit, like some other things.

If you put a stationary chest sized target at 100m, rounds will miss it.

sure, but do not underestimate a properly weighted down tripod or similar mount. its cone of fire is very smal.

look up the vid, its mounted mg34 with tracers viewed along the gun, starts at second 33.

i guesstimate the distance to the other slope is like 300 meters at least, yet still most real spread is by gunner input. if you would use this sort of accuracy on targets that are packed so tight like in the game, sure you would get better results, but thats why there is the abstraction we dont "see".

i guess kauz expects 1:1 representation to show 1:1, but it doesnt.

[Kauz]

the thing with the mg´s is a problem of abstracted hidden factors for troop´s and the exact visual representation of mg fire. it doesnt fit, like some other things.

sure, but do not underestimate a properly weighted down tripod or similar mount. its cone of fire is very smal.

look up the vid, its mounted mg34 with tracers viewed along the gun, starts at second 33.

i guesstimate the distance to the other slope is like 300 meters at least, yet still most real spread is by gunner input. if you would use this sort of accuracy on targets that are packed so tight like in the game, sure you would get better results, but thats why there is the abstraction we dont "see".

i guess kauz expects 1:1 representation to show 1:1, but it doesnt.

Thx Thx Thx... a reasonable guy... *breathing easily*

Exactly that is what i think.

Sure there must be NO 1:1 ...even it would be programmable it would not be calculateable.

The point is that the actual results are so far away from any plausible expectation that i have problems with it.

[A Canadian Cat]

Your results simply support my saying. You had 2 hMG and 2 lMG if i see it right which produce the (few) casualties i already told.

I don't think so. The two HMGs had keyhole LOF to the German end of the bridge. So I think their performance was better than I expected given that they had a small area that they could fire on the enemy.

Let me make something clear: the assault I forced the Soviets to do was insane. The TacAI did not want to cross that bridge. As I said the first company was totally useless it was not until the best placed MGs were mortar'ed that the other two companies managed to cross. But again the Tac AI did not want to cross. As soon as they came under HMG fire they hit the deck and or ran back. If those HMGs had better LOF they might have beat the attack back totally.

I think the main reason that you are not seeing 20, 30 kills for each HMG is that the Tac AI does not want to run into the bullets. The soldiers are trying not to. If I were to properly command that Soviet battalion I would stop sending guys over the bridge until I had a plan to deal with the MGs and I would deal with them one or two at a time as I found out where they were. I could have taken on those defending Germans with fairly light casualties but it would have taken longer then 20 minutes.

(and additionally nobody can say which of these casualties where caused for example by MP40 fire ...especially at your close infantry squads)

Actually I can say and I forgot - oops. That blocking squad had one MP40. It opened up once the first Soviets started trickling over the bridge and he hit between 3 and 5 guys over the course of less than a minute until he was killed.

In my opinion 1 (ONE) single heavy machine gun would be enough to prevent an movement over the bridge as long as it is fireing.

I think that one HMG well positioned (mine were not that great) could have done so - until the attacker dropped HE on its head. The lead elements of my initial assault were all turned back without even making it to the bridge. If I were really trying, no more of my soldiers would have tried to cross until those MGs were dealt with.

[Kauz]

I found a very interessting video:

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=MG3+&qs=n&form=QBVR&pq=mg3+&sc=8-4&sp=-1&sk=#view=detail&mid=CF55F70068EB3A31A134CF55F70068EB3A31A134

WATCH it simply COMPLETE with whole attention!

You will get an very good impression of the accuracy and the spread and the ability to swing .

Super accurate....

BTW: In case you do not watch it whole ...he is not fireing at the right white target at the beginning...he was fireing on the stone circles below...AGAIN watch the video as a whole

[RockinHarry]

For lack of literature, I can´t tell what US, UK and USSR philosophies exactly were for developing their WW2 standard machine guns and associated tactics, but for germans it surely wasn´t to develop a MG for just getting rid of huge surplus quantities of ammo. Quite the contrary. They stuck to high ROF MG´s for all of the war, even thinking about raising ROF even more, despite the increasing shortage of small arms ammo from 1941 onward. (due to Adolf then himself demanded cutting production sharply, expecting the war vs. the USSR would be over by end of 1941).

So what´s the deal about MG34 and MG42 (particularly the tripod version)? Suppressing and scaring the **** out of enemy infantry? Surely a desired side effect and yet secondary to the aim of actually hitting and thus killing infantry (or any soft target) most efficiently by means of:

1. Surprise fire on a good target (moving and well exposed in little cover terrain)

2. Putting as much bullets in shortest time as possible on target, as long as this "good" target yet presents itself. (The main point for having that high ROF). The main ammo unit usually is a belt (50 rounds), for a proper target in continuous mode (Dauerfeuer).

3. Fire concentrations by means of using pairs of HMG (the german HMG Gruppe) as principal firing unit for a given combat task.

4. Proper combat ranges. For HMG 34/42 it was intended to be upto ~2000m (+), yet deployment would be if possible, about 200-500m behind the forward infantry line (MLR).

5. Providing flanking fires before the MLR. Yet some associated point is little mentioned in discussions here. Deployment for flanking fire usually demands HMGs to be also frontally covered by terrain (keyholed).

These is the basic german combat doctrines, or "by the book" stuff and everything else is derived from here to apply to the multitude of combat situations. So when setting up testing ranges for CMX2 HMG34/42, the above points should be well considered. Point 2. yet remains problematic in every case.

Nonetheless, as long as there is "one fits all" game code for all the MG´s in CMX2, the MG34/42 will always appear "underpowererd". Implementation of individual capabilities and national doctrines might be a good thing for the future then.

[YankeeDog]

... and you can do all of those things in CMRT. It's all about how you set up the MGs and what orders you issue to them (target orders, cover arcs).

I actually find some of the comments here quite humorous. Given a decent defensive setup, I have completely wrecked entire Russian infantry companies with just 2 x HMG42 teams. Sometimes, I've done it with just one if there is favorable terrain. This is, of course, against the AI. I couldn't do this against a competent human player, but this is as it should be; a smart human isn't going to just continue marching his pixeltruppen into the line of fire of my MGs as the AI will.

And if anyone has any doubt as to whether HMG42s are better than DP1928s or M1910, try this: set up a defensive situation with 2 x HMG42s vs. a platoon or two of infantry, and see how well the MGs do. Then, substitute 2xDP1928 teams or 2xM1910 teams in the exact same situation and against the exact same opposition. Remember, can do "Blue on Blue" in the editor.

Run both of these tests for a few iterations and then tell me whether you think HMG42s are substantially better in the game than other MGs or not.

Seriously, don't try to use the game's modeling as an excuse for your own poor tactics.

[H1nd]

HMG42 is a beast. Nuf said.

[JasonC]

Kauz - name a single occasion in the history of warfare in which defending machinguns inflicted more than 100 casualties each on an attacking force, as an average. Any war, any front, any scale but the bigger the better. Cherry pick outliers to your heart's content. But you must obey the following rule - the losses sustained must be reported by the side sustaining them, not "claimed" by the shooting side.

Somme? Not even close. Omaha beach? Not even close. Go ahead, look, do the research. Not on a firing range, not your personal opinion, something that actually happened in actual warfare with actual bullets and real death. We will wait.

And a warm place down under will freeze over before you can report back with a positive example. I know. I've looked. I have done the military analysis, history, and math. MGs in real life just do not do what you think they do. What they do is awful enough and makes them perfectly effective. But they hit more like 15 to 20 men each being effective, not over 100 apiece in single engagements.

[Apocal]

MGs in real life just do not do what you think they do. What they do is awful enough and makes them perfectly effective. But they hit more like 15 to 20 men each being effective, not over 100 apiece in single engagements.

One disconnect I encountered was that dug-in machine guns would frequently be described as stopping "a full company dead in its tracks" or similar, with no indication that the "full company" in question consisted of something like seventy men total and only a small portion were actually hit.

[JasonC]

I think the more basic disconnect is between the definite combat effect of MG fire and the actual count of the MGs putting out that fire. Yes MGs stop infantry attacks over open ground, drive the attackers to the earth, pin them there and keep them pinned, and massacre men who get up and try to continue the mission. But these effects are not being produced by one MG, or by two MGs. MGs are not scarce.

In 1914 a German infantry division only had 24 heavy MGs. It was a rare weapon at the infantry regiment level, rather like a new category of infantry gun. But by mid WWI, one German division had 120 of the things. By the end of WWI, one German division had 360 of the things. In 1944, the Germans had over 200 MG-42s looking down on Omaha beach, and that was the complement of four battalions.

The big effects are being caused not by 1-2 guns, but by literally hundreds of them. Yes, a defending unit can put down hundreds of attackers in five or ten minutes and break an attack - but that is because the defenders are covering a few kilometers of frontage with 40 to 60 of the beasts (each battalion has that many in WWII).

There is a reason the massive effect of the weapon system arrived when and as the number of them fielded soared, and wasn't really there yet when they were two to a battalion...

[Battlefront.com]

I've caught up with this thread since I last posted. As expected, there is no evidence that the game has MG modeling wrong to any significant degree. To me it looks like highly flawed testing and even more highly flawed expectations.

You guys can continue having this discussion, but I'm (once again) satisfied that it's "much ado about nothing" and should spend my time on something else.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

In 1944, the Germans had over 200 MG-42s looking down on Omaha beach, and that was the complement of four battalions.

I remember one of the first times I read an account that had me understanding why the Germans were unable to defeat the Normandy landings on the beach.

I read a story from a German MG gunner in a bunker overlooking one of the beaches. He had tons and tons and tons of ammo available, plenty of spare barrels, and a field of fire that was determined by engineers to be optimal for killing anything on the beach. Oh yeah, and he was encased in feet of reinforced concrete.

The gunner said that he fired off every single last round of ammo he had. Towards the end all he had left was 100% tracer ammo for target practice. He fired that off too. I bet he fired off somewhere around 10,000 rounds under optimal conditions. He doesn't know how many American soldiers he killed or wounded that day, but he did know that he didn't stop them from advancing and later capturing him.

Yup, that's when I realized that there was more too MG effects than what I had seen in the movies or what made sense to me (this was long before making CMBO).

Steve

[LukeFF]

Kauz - name a single occasion in the history of warfare in which defending machinguns inflicted more than 100 casualties each on an attacking force, as an average. Any war, any front, any scale but the bigger the better. Cherry pick outliers to your heart's content. But you must obey the following rule - the losses sustained must be reported by the side sustaining them, not "claimed" by the shooting side.

Somme? Not even close. Omaha beach? Not even close. Go ahead, look, do the research. Not on a firing range, not your personal opinion, something that actually happened in actual warfare with actual bullets and real death. We will wait.

And a warm place down under will freeze over before you can report back with a positive example. I know. I've looked. I have done the military analysis, history, and math. MGs in real life just do not do what you think they do. What they do is awful enough and makes them perfectly effective. But they hit more like 15 to 20 men each being effective, not over 100 apiece in single engagements.

John Basilone

[Kauz]

Kauz - name a single occasion in the history of warfare in which defending machinguns inflicted more than 100 casualties ...

Well i could do it...

but if i would have to answer instantly i might would answer that "Hein Severloh" may be one of your candidates.

If i remember right he was part of "Widerstandsnest 62" who only had 40 men soldiers.

He had a light machine gun 42 (not six heavy one, like in my tests) and a K98.

Got equipped with 12000 rounds.

Was positioned in an open foxhole on the dune/hill and fired the first 9 hours before he fall back

(the invasion waves did not come all instantly so he might have most time breaks or tried to kill the rest of a wave with his MG42/K98 while they tried to hide behind a Czech hedgehog).

He opened fire at about 400-500 meters.

The lowest number of casualties i read even in allied sources were hundreds (so more than 100).

The upper-medium estimates concede him to cause up to 1000 kills.

And the highest talk about 2000-3000. These last numbres i do NOT believe either because of the total casualties on the beach and the coexistens of 2 polsih machine guns (but which got abandomed far earlier))

So let us assume that this light machine gun 42 starting its fire at about 400-500 meters and fired in 9 hours of the invasion 12000 rounds and killed about 500 men.

( guess the most got killed between 300 and 400 meters bailing out and walking into water)

What then should sixelite heavy machine guns on 100-300 meters (not counting the MP40 and K98) produce with totally about 13000 rounds on a much more concentrated area?

And before you answer, watch the following videos to get an idea of the accuracy (low spread) of the heavy machine gun and the ablity to swing clean from left to right and spread this way the burst controlled in horizontal area.

Watch the following video careful and complete to get it the right way:

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=...0068EB3A31A134

[Kauz]

I remember one of the first times I read an account that had me understanding why the Germans were unable to defeat the Normandy landings on the beach.....

....

Yup, that's when I realized that there was more too MG effects than what I had seen in the movies or what made sense to me (this was long before making CMBO).

Steve

I just answered JasonC.

Do you talk about "Hein Severloh"?

light machine gun 42 in an open foxhole, with 12000 rounds @ starting distance of 400-500 meters?

Yes there are other effects....

The biggest effect for a machine gun to fire not or ineffecient are four:

1. the enemy fired a lot to your MG position and you get supressed ...so can not fire

2. The enemy is far away and so hard to spot

3. The enemy is moving carefully or is hiding and/or is in unclear terrain (for example )bushes

4. The enemy density in the area you fire is low. (It is easier to kill someone if i squad or group is moving forward in the area you shooting at than to kill a single soldier)

In my example all these points were excluded to get an idea how the developer modelled the machine guns.

I wanted to see what they are maximum capable (so i build up these superb circumstances)

In case the maximum capability is not achieved it is obvious that the firepower under even worse circumstances will be by far not correctly modelled.

The results in my game i would guess are the maximum a player can achieve in this game under ideal circumstances.

But i guess they are far far far away what real machine guns would be achieve achieve under same circumstances in real life.

So my conclusion is that the (h)MG´s are in general underpower.

Also for you i would recommend to study the follwing videos carefully, especially the first one:

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=...0068EB3A31A134