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

[Apocal]

Not correct....

Yes, they provide the firepower on high distances (other weapons can not)

.

and yes...before you use a HMG in a distance of 50 meters you will surely take a LMG for that purpose....if you have one....

but that does not mean they got not established at distances between 100-500 meters if it was necessary or convenient.

If you have an area with only 400 meters diameter where you can shoot at. Then you WON`T hold back establishing you HMG, only because it is able to shoot at higher ranges

Or in another case....the enemy approaches closer to your HMG 100-500 meters in front your position ...then you won´t stop fireing on them because somebody says....ups...we are not meant to fire on that distance (despite the fact that you are extremly deadly/effective on that distance).

If you think HMGs only got established on the battlefield if they can fire at 1000 meters then you are a little blue-eyed.

And another point in general:

The effective range of a LMG is 500-600 meters....But it is more effective on ranges below...

Same thing with a HMG...effective range is 1000-1200 meters in direct fire.....but it gets more effective on ranges below...

A HMG does NOT get ineffective with lower ranges....

I'm not sure what you're arguing here: in-game a HMG42 team gets as many kills as a German rifle squad at 100-250 meters - at least until suppression or casualties take the team down. Obviously the rifle squad has two teams so its a bit more resilient in terms of resisting suppression, but the HMG42 still does about as well at killing and suppressing the enemy in that range.

Are you arguing it should be better?

[Kauz]

....

Are you arguing it should be better?

Yep....a HMG unit should be far better than a standard squad.

[womble]

Yep....a HMG unit should be far better than a standard squad.

Better than a standard squad with 2 full auto weapons? At 100-250m? You really are in La La Land.

[Kauz]

Better than a standard squad with 2 full auto weapons? At 100-250m? You really are in La La Land.

HMG unit:

6-7 guys with 1 MP40, 4-5 K98, 1 HMG

standard squad: 1 MP40, 5-8 K98, 1 LMG

LMG is bull**** comparing to HMG

conclusion:

HMG unit is better than standard squad

[Apocal]

Yep....a HMG unit should be far better than a standard squad.

Why would it be any better? The German rifle squad has an LMG with practically the same accuracy out to 250-300m and slightly more dudes.

[Kauz]

Why would it be any better? The German rifle squad has an LMG with practically the same accuracy out to 250-300m and slightly more dudes.

1.

That is point.....it is NOT slightly more accurate.....it is far more accurate.

Compare the accuracy data of a LMG i gave you in following post:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1528322&postcount=5

with the accuracy-picture you can imagine watching the videos i gave you in following post:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1529578&postcount=135

2.

A second thing is that you can not watch the target/effect while shooting with LMG (recoil shock/ratteling of iron sight.)

With the HMG you can do this and you can adjust instand easily because you have less trouble with getting the iron side correct.

3.

With the LMG you only can set 3-7 rounds with a burst (first round most accurate together with round 2 and 3....round 4 and 5 more INaccurate....round 6 and 7 even more inaccurate)

With the HMG it does not really matter how long your bursts are.

Even the developer recognized this difference in resulting firepower at least in CM:BB.

The LMG had 30-50 firepower the HMG 100-155.

[Apocal]

1.

That is point.....it is NOT slightly more accurate.....it is far more accurate.

That's why I inlcuded the word "practical." As a practical matter, the accuracy is the same at those ranges. The limiting factor on machine gun accuracy at those ranges isn't stability of the firing mount. Its actually preferable, to keep an adequate beaten zone at short ranges.

2.

A second thing is that you can not watch the target/effect while shooting with LMG (recoil shock/ratteling of iron sight.)

With the HMG you can do this and you can adjust instand easily because you have less trouble with getting the iron side correct.

Tracers.

3.

With the LMG you only can set 3-7 rounds with a burst (first round most accurate together with round 2 and 3....round 4 and 5 more INaccurate....round 6 and 7 even more inaccurate)

With the HMG it does not really matter how long your bursts are.

You can walk tracers with a machine gun - well, a medium caliber one, 50 cals are something else.

[Kauz]

That's why I inlcuded the word "practical." As a practical matter, the accuracy is the same at those ranges. The limiting factor on machine gun accuracy at those ranges isn't stability of the firing mount. Its actually preferable, to keep an adequate beaten zone at short ranges.

Tracers.

You can walk tracers with a machine gun - well, a medium caliber one, 50 cals are something else.

Sorry to say....i do not understand any of your points...

[Apocal]

Sorry to say....i do not understand any of your points...

1. LMGs just as "battlefield" accurate at the quoted ranges as HMGs.

2. Machine guns use tracers to adjust their aim once they fire, not the sights.

3. Its entirely possible to accurately adjust the aimpoint of a medium caliber (7.92 in this case) MG while firing using tracers. Its less possible with a true HMG (50cal) just because the whole setup bounces around too much. My personal experience, YMMV, etc.

[Pandur]

maybe it would help if you could formulate what you expect the HMG´s to do in the game?

this long thread now shows and says a lot but i am not sure, or i did not find the part where it says what you actually expect from the HMG´s and what you want them to do what they can not do now?

do you expect them to be like in real life? if you look closely and see that almost nothing in the game works "exactly" as in real life, arty does not work exactly like in real life, vehicles not, infantry sure not, the whole ground is made of squares called action spots, add to the list.

you could cry for tank coaxial machineguns be inadequate the same way the HMG´s are. they behave mostly the same in shooting.

i am not sure where you want to go with this HMG´thread, whats the goal?

[Skwabie]

you could cry for tank coaxial machineguns be inadequate the same way the HMG´s are. they behave mostly the same in shooting.

indeed for the tank MGs. actually that one is more obvious. probably the same mechanism/code is used for both.. ofc i'm just guessing

[RockinHarry]

1. LMGs just as "battlefield" accurate at the quoted ranges as HMGs.

2. Machine guns use tracers to adjust their aim once they fire, not the sights.

3. Its entirely possible to accurately adjust the aimpoint of a medium caliber (7.92 in this case) MG while firing using tracers. Its less possible with a true HMG (50cal) just because the whole setup bounces around too much. My personal experience, YMMV, etc.

Hm...you mean at the rather short ranges (<= 3-400m ), a tripod mounted MG is as accurate as one with bipod (or vice versa)?

CMX2 uses tracer rounds actually not, cause these were used at every occasion in RL. Germans observed fire accuracy by ground hit pattern, as well as "effect" on the target. Maybe ranging fires (before battle) used some, but beside that, these were meant to be used in the AA role primarily. At least that´s what´s to be found in any the german training manuals.

The main concern for not using tracer rounds, was for the sake of camoflage.

The MG Lafette 34 (the german tripod) would be normally operated with 3x targeting optics ( Z 40 or Z 44), while the gun section leader does target assigning and observing job, with at least a 6x30 binoc. If employed in sections/squads (Gruppe/Zug) or above, associated HQ´s will employ even more sighting and range finding equipment, in order to get the battlefield measured for the general fire plan.

Some legal online sources for the interested:

TM E9-206 A - German MG 34 Tech Manual

http://www.cgsc.edu/CARL/docrepository/MG34Manual.pdf

Special Series Nr. 9 - The German Squad in Combat

http://www.cgsc.edu/CARL/docrepository/SpecialSeriesNo9.pdf

Information Bulletin Nr.15 - Reibert - The German Rifle Company

http://www.cgsc.edu/CARL/docrepository/BulletinNo15.pdf

the latter two also provide some insights on usage of the MG34, both in squad lMG and HMG role.

and more interesting stuff in the main folder:

http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/docrepository/

[Kauz]

i am not sure where you want to go with this HMG´thread, whats the goal?

The goal is:

1.

establish the 25 round bursts.

Actually there are no 25 round bursts (standard in game are about 5-7 rounds....maximum 10).

With the Tripod (HMG) the gun is able to fire long bursts without decreasing accuracy, the bipod in contrary not...it has to be used with short 3-7 round bursts.

The HMG is ordered to use long bursts for that reason in real life.

A longer burst provides a better hit probability on (extreme) high ranges

AND at shorter or medium ranges the longer burst allows you to dispense the rounds on a bigger area by simple swinging the gun from one side to the other in a horizontal way.

2.

For the reason above the swinging of the gun has to established to increase the effectiveness on shorter/ medium ranges against groups of enemies (for example a squad).

At the moment it seems that the gun only fires a short burst on one person....if the aiming of the burst was right the target gets perforated like a swiss cheese and if not it was waste of ammo.

[Pandur]

ok, thats very reasonable i think. the machineguns behave, simply put, largely like the ones in CMSF as far as i see it, over the time with cmsf many similar threads poped up, all basically saying, MG´s work like big rifles, no area saturation, no "real" beaten zone on longer ranges.

now in turn if you have no beaten zone or a very tiny, you can saturate it with "tiny" bursts. just so i have said it

now what you could do, is to dig into the forums and look up the old reasons steve gave to why they are they way they are. i am not sure if that has changed till now.

i think it was either technical limitation, AI limitation like tell the ai when to shoot at point and when to shoot area targets, or simply matter of priorization, it wasnt important enough to put into the game as other stuff was considered more important at the time.

now to satisfy the crowd so to say, in 2.0 engine MG effectiveness was made a lot better, i mean realy better then befor. but they still behave the same just have more suppression and accuracy, AI has no understanding on beaten zone, how to produce it and when! to use it.

its not just like giving the mg simply 25 shot burts and all is fine, that wont work. and the mechanics need to be changed quiet a bit for all MG´s to be able to do this things. thats unfortunately a lot of work i guess. and probably a new feature and noting that gets patched in.

maybe that doesnt sound good, but revolving around the same stuff for another 5 pages wont get it any better, your point is reasonable and it was made often, especially in 2007 and 2008, MG´s where a hot topic. i guess you can only hope for the issue to be no.1 on "the list" one day.

EDIT: you could try to make a new thread specific to this 2 issues. now that you isolated what you want and where the problem is you could try make it important and hope steve does not come again into the thread and say; "As expected, there is no evidence that the game has MG modeling wrong to any significant degree."

significant degree is debatable i think.

[JasonC]

Swinging fire is rarely used because it is normally the wrong idea entirely. A very wide area target at relatively close range is the only time it is appropriate. Even then, it has more of a suppression effect than a direct impact effect. The reason is simply that the total area through which the gun swings is way too large for the number of rounds it can fire, and they are also not spread uniformly, as the velocity of the gun varies continually (slower at the end of the swings, etc). Like "spray and pray" with an assault rifle, it is just very unlikely to hit anything.

What HMGs actually use is traversing fire. This means the gun is locked onto a definite firing axis by its elevating and traversing screws, then a short burst is fired. The gunner then dials 2 or 3 clicks to the traversing screw and fires another short burst. Those move the gun through only a very small angle, a couple of minutes of arc. The gunner repeats that sequence through several such changes of point of aim and several such short bursts. The click changes are deliberately chosen to about match the dispersion of fire - the normal cone produced by the variations from recoil and the like, as the gun fires.

To fully cover a *single degree* of arc with such traversing fire takes *20 to 30* short bursts, which will consume whole belts of ammunition. The target range must already be exact or all of that fire will be wasted. But delivered in such a sustained fashion, a fully covered area can be "painted" on the ground at the impact range. The same technique can be used with changes to the elevation screw instead, to trace out a pattern along the line of fire rather than across it.

When instead the gun is just swung fast through much larger angles, you are producing huge gaps downrange, *not* painting the full arc through which you swung.

These techniques matter most at longer range and on clear fire plans - which are what HMGs excel at.

When instead you are trying to find the exact bearing and range to the target by searching fire, the gun commander (not the gunner) observes the fall of shot with binoculars and calls the adjustments to the gunner. This "walks" the bursts to the target with a sequence of adjusts, like an indirect fire mission. The bursts are kept short until the range and deflection are found, to avoid wasting ammo. Once both are approximately correct, the gun commander will call for more sustained fire - longer bursts - and may have the gunner traverse a few times to "cross" the target. All in much less than a single degree of angle.

None of those tripod MG fire techniques matter or help vs very wide or close targets. They help get fire at long range (where range not just deflection matters) to put any rounds on the target, and they help to cover a definite line as part of a fire plan, and the like.

Large targets at close range are actually multiple targets that need to be hit, then switched to a new one, and again, without fire being wasted between them. A locked down gun is a positive hindrance to that kind of fire, and a tripod adds essentially nothing to delivering it (maybe a slightly wider angle the gun can be redirected through without the gunner repositioning his body on the ground). If taking fire, the higher profile of the gunner is a hindrance, again.

So yes, against far targets and sustained fire and as area denial, HMGs are far superior to LMGs. The things that make them excel in those cases, however, are things that do not help in exactly the situation of lots of nearby targets with wide angles of separation between them. Sustained spraying doesn't help with those - you want to reorient, fire, reorient, fire, etc.