Soviet SMGs II

[poesel]

Since the other thread has found a new nice topic I didn't want to disturb them there.

 

Ok, some testing. Goal of the test is to find out if Soviet SMGs are firing more than their German counterparts.

 

Setup: a scout team with 3 PPSh/MP40s versus infantry without cover. No firing back - all troops are regular fanatics.

 

 

 

Please note that there are too few Soviets in this picture. I ran the test again with the correct number but forget to take a picture.

 

 

Result:

 

Soviets:

Starting ammo: 566

Casualties: 95 (including grenade deaths)

Targets: 188

 

Germans:

Starting ammo: 672

Casualties: 66 (including grenade deaths)

Targets: 195

 

The Soviets spent ~75% of their ammo for ~4,5 shots/kill at ~7 shots/second.

The Germans spent ~50% of their ammo for ~5 shots/kill at ~5,6 shots/second.

 

 

I ran the test only two times per side which is not enough. But both results for both sides were very close together.

 

The difference in accuracy may be due to the grenade kills. I would assume that to be roughly the same.

 

IIRC the PPSh has a magazine of about 70 shots and the MP40 32 shots. In theory that is roughly the same shooting time per magazine.

Is there a significant difference in time to change a mag between the PPSh and the MP40?

 

 

Conclusion:

The test shows that there is not too much of a difference in actual bullet output per second between the armies.

As to why the Soviets have spent more of their bullets as % from total - unclear. I'll have to check how much time they respectively spent reloading.

 

[womble]

Try doing the test outside grenade range. If all the troops in the firing side are SMGers, and the MP40s and PPSh are at the same ranges, you don't need to have them close enough to club the targets...

 

Remember also that cyclic RoF figures are not the only factor, since the shooters aren't just holding the trigger down, and the time-to-empty-a-mag will be extended by an amount that is probably constant between the two sides; each shooter, Russian or German, will  take the same amount of time selecting the target for his next burst. And then there are reloading breaks, which you could, if you wanted, time by keeping an eye on the "activity" text bottom left.

[MOS:96B2P]

Try doing the test outside grenade range.

 

This.  Hand grenade range (which you probably know) is three action spots.  If you put the opposing sides at least four or five action spots apart you can eliminate this variable from your test.      

 

This is interesting.  Thanks for doing it.      

[JoMac]

Poesel,

 

Like others said, do tests outside Nad range...Line up an average German & Russian Squad ( better yet a whole Platoon each side ), both sides Green ( +1 Leadership & +1 Motivation each squad ) at say 40 meters ( then again at 100 meters ) behind a Low Hedge, at 15 minutes turns ( keep track of casualties every 5 minutes if you want ) .

 

It's not just the SMG's That I like to see, but the overall casualties for both sides. 

 

Joe

Edited August 9, 2015 by JoMc67

[womble]

Jo, you simply won't learn anything very informative from lining up two sides shooting at each other. It might be a giggle, but you won't learn anything. To test things, like poesel is trying to do, you have to eliminate as many variables as possible, not introduce more (suppression, different weapon types, terrain). If you, yourself, want to test which of those two average squads comes out on top on average, then it's really easy for you to set up that test. But it's got nothing whatsoever to do with what poesel is trying to determine.

[JasonC]

First, I don't understand the test conditions. You appear to be leaving out relevant parameters. Is this finite firing time? How long? What range? You say the Russians fired 75% of their ammo - OK, why did they stop? You stopped the test? At some time limit? How long? The Germans fired 50% of their ammo - same firing tine, I assume?

Next point - you give starting ammo but not ending ammo. I assume around 140 for the Russians, if they used 75% of 566. I assume around 335 for the Germans, if they use 50% of 672.

10% higher per shot accuracy may not reflect grenades, but could easily instead be the effective range compared to the weapon muzzle velocity. Higher velocity bullets with a longer effective range shoot flatter, making a target marginally closer in bullet drop terms. I'd exoect some edge to the PPsH from that, and from the better stock / stabler platform etc, though close enough range it wouldn't matter.

What I see here is just a higher cyclic rate weapon throwing its ammo faster, more so than straighter. If you continue to dry with both forces, I'd expect inflicted losses to be very close. The German ammo load is 7 mags per shooter, the Russian load is 3 large drums or 6 stick mags. Saying the firing time is the same per mag isn't terribly relevant when one team has more mags to run through, and the other has a gun that simply throws more bullets per second when the trigger is down. You should instead take the total ammo expended, divide it by shooters (3), then divide again by the cyclic fire rate to get total trigger-seconds. Both will be below your test time, but the Russian higher cyclic rate effect will be clear. Even holding the trigger down less total time, they threw more rounds.

All I see here...

[thefiend]

The MP40 magazine release is a button where the PPSH is a paddle am I correct?

[poesel]

Ran the test again. Test time is 1 minute (same as above, forgot to mention).

Range is 35-70m - out of grenade range, none were thrown.

 

 

TL;DR: Soviets and Germans fire roughly at the same rate but reload times are different. Nothing wrong here.

 

 

The Soviets shot about 2,7 shots/s/man, reload 8-9s, time per mag 12-16s, 5.6 shots/cas

The Germans shot about 2 shots/s/man, reload 8s, time per mag 7-8s, 5.1 shots/cas

 

 

The Soviets can shoot more bullets for a longer time than the Germans while reload is only marginally longer. The lesser accuracy may be due to the effect that more bullets are flying toward one target at a time but the target only dies once.

My subjective feeling that the Soviets were more likely to shoot (in this test) was wrong. But sides are equally likely to shoot at targets. The difference is in the weapon system and the number of these available.

 

Bonus:

I've put a single German sniper in the position of the scouts. Scoped G43, 23 shots, 10 cas. Hmm, at 35m this is not exactly sharpshooting.

[JoMac]

Bonus:

I've put a single German sniper in the position of the scouts. Scoped G43, 23 shots, 10 cas. Hmm, at 35m this is not exactly sharpshooting.

Try using a Scope at Point-Blank Range, and you will surprised to hit anything...Now, I'm suprised he was able to hit nearly 50%.

Edited August 11, 2015 by JoMc67

[JoMac]

The Soviets shot about 2,7 shots/s/man, reload 8-9s, time per mag 12-16s, 5.6 shots/cas

 

The Germans shot about 2 shots/s/man, reload 8s, time per mag 7-8s, 5.1 shots/cas

 

WOW, and only using 5-6 bullets per casualty is exceedingly far to high ( now, if you put a 0 in front of those numbers, then it be ok )...It's no wonder I think SMG's are far to accurate in CMx2. 

Edited August 11, 2015 by JoMc67

[Baneman]

The Soviets shot about 2,7 shots/s/man, reload 8-9s, time per mag 12-16s, 5.6 shots/cas

 

The Germans shot about 2 shots/s/man, reload 8s, time per mag 7-8s, 5.1 shots/cas

 

WOW, and only using 5-6 bullets per casualty is exceedingly far to high ( now, if you put a 0 in front of those numbers, then it be ok )...It's no wonder I think SMG's are far to accurate in CMx2. 

 

Target rich environment.

[JasonC]

JoMC67 - a lower power scope at 50 meters has no problem hitting accurately.  If the target moves rapidly, it can get harder to track it, that's about it.  (The field of view being narrow and such).  Even that can be handled by just tracking the target with both eyes open.  None of the scopes use by the powers in WWII went beyond 4x magnification, and some were as low as 1.5 or 2.5, which wouldn't even have a serious field of view problem at 50-75 yards.

 

As for the overall effect of 5-6 bullets per hit with the SMG vs 2 to 2-5 bullets per hit with the scoped semi auto rifle, it is the former and the ratio that are problematic.  Yes it is hard to miss with a short burst at that range, but not appreciably harder than missing an aimed shot.

 

Note that with the PPsH, it is 15-16 rounds per second.  The lower rate of fire MP40 is more like 8 rounds a second.  I'd be expecting to see more like one hit per 10-20 fired, and the lower of those only with a really massed, hard to miss target, and only at true point blank range.

 

Keep in mind that the average *MG42* behind Omaha beach hit about 25 men *with its entire ammo load*, when silenced weapons are included in the total. (Some hit early that got few, some living long and getting more, but averaging out to that - or significantly less). The ranges were longer than this, but the weapon superior, the target huge, etc.  And they didn't have 60 seconds, they had 4 hours.  Long enough to throw anything they had, that is.

Edited August 11, 2015 by JasonC

[poesel]

 

WOW, and only using 5-6 bullets per casualty is exceedingly far to high ( now, if you put a 0 in front of those numbers, then it be ok )...It's no wonder I think SMG's are far to accurate in CMx2. 

 

Please note that this test is not about real combat accuracy. The casualty numbers are only to be used as comparison(!) between the two weapons.

Here we are shooting basically at a wall of unmoving, fanatic flesh!

[womble]

JoMC67 - a lower power scope at 50 meters has no problem hitting accurately.  If the target moves rapidly, it can get harder to track it, that's about it.  (The field of view being narrow and such).  Even that can be handled by just tracking the target with both eyes open.  None of the scopes use by the powers in WWII went beyond 4x magnification, and some were as low as 1.5 or 2.5, which wouldn't even have a serious field of view problem at 50-75 yards.

 

As for the overall effect of 5-6 bullets per hit with the SMG vs 2 to 2-5 bullets per hit with the scoped semi auto rifle, it is the former and the ratio that are problematic.  Yes it is hard to miss with a short burst at that range, but not appreciably harder than missing an aimed shot.

 

Note that with the PPsH, it is 15-16 rounds per second.  The lower rate of fire MP40 is more like 8 rounds a second.  I'd be expecting to see more like one hit per 10-20 fired, and the lower of those only with a really massed, hard to miss target, and only at true point blank range.

 

Keep in mind that the average *MG42* behind Omaha beach hit about 25 men *with its entire ammo load*, when silenced weapons are included in the total. (Some hit early that got few, some living long and getting more, but averaging out to that - or significantly less). The ranges were longer than this, but the weapon superior, the target huge, etc.  And they didn't have 60 seconds, they had 4 hours.  Long enough to throw anything they had, that is.

Those MG42 were operating in vastly different circumstances to this test though. Their targets were much further away, and doing their best to not get hit in "real" terrain, rather than being at point-blank range on a plane dirt floor. The number of bullets per casualty doesn't seem very off for a "fish in a barrel" scenario, to me.

[JasonC]

Poesel - sure, but it immediately suggests a rather different test, to see whether the per bullet accuracy of SMG fire under more realistic and typical conditions is appreciably too high.

The reason for the primary concern in the thread and its predecessor, after all, is that some have the subjective impression that PPsH armed, Russian SMG infantry just seems too effective or too deadly or too hard to fight.  If SMG per shot accuracy is systematically too high by a factor of 2-3, even if both sides benefit from it in their SMG modeling, that subjective impression would be correct, and its cause would be identified.  That people noticed it first for Russians only would reflect how common it is in typical CM games to run into a "hot" SMG squad or half squad at the relevant range etc.  But that would just be how it was noticed.  The thing noticed might instead just be an overmodeling of average accuracy with an SMG.  

 

To tell, we'd need to do some tests under more realistic firing conditions.  50, 100, 150 meter targets, in a wheatfield / little over, in light woods, wooden building, and woods foxhole cover (that's 12 cases), able to fire back but with few automatic weapons.  Count outgoing ammo expenditure and hits on the other side.  If we find that such high hit rates per bullet are reasonable / low at longer ranges and better cover, and only really deadly at the short ranges and open-ish cases, no problem.  If instead we find a systematically too high ability to wipe out enemy platoons before running dry, then we confirm the subjective impression and isolate its cause.

[JasonC]

womble - perhaps, but no one actually cares about the fish in a barrel scenario because it doesn't happen (except on Mythbusters, I suppose).  We need a more realistic set of tests, focused not on any MP40 vs PPsH difference, but just on PPsH vs plausible reality.

[Bulletpoint]

I think part of the reason SMGs are so deadly in this game is that the game rewards overkill.

 

In real life, you only need to get hit by one bullet to go down.

 

In the game, each guy gets a chance to not die from getting hit. So the aimed rifle bullet that should knock him down doens't always work.

 

But getting hit by a stream of bullets by a SMG ensures that at least one of those bullets will do the job.

[poesel]

Poesel - sure, but it immediately suggests a rather different test, to see whether the per bullet accuracy of SMG fire under more realistic and typical conditions is appreciably too high.

...

 

Agree on the necessity of a further test. But to evaluate that not-yet-designed test we need an expected outcome. If we don't have them beforehand we would argue forever if number X is realistic or not. If we had X beforehand and design the test correctly we can test CM against it. But not the other way round

 

So - do we have some numbers about the shots/kill for SMGs in specified situations?

[JasonC]

We know for typical cover, which mostly means good cover, and for longish ranges, 100 to 150 meters, that they could fire off a whole ammo load to hit one person opposite, or worse. How do we know this? Because people lived through WWII. And because common good cover forms were effective, and SMG armed infantry bothered to close to shorter ranges, including down to grenade range. There would have been no reason to do so if every man who walked onto the field could just kill the enemy where they stood, at range and in cover, by just holding down a trigger. Ammo wasn't scarce - aberage rounds fired per hit ran as high as 50,000, of course including lots ofbwasteful MG fire from vehicle mounted MGs hosing terrain and such. Not a figure to take seriously fir CM fire, but it shows they had the bullets. If one man with the load he carried onto the field could always hit a man opposite, they'd all be down inside of three days.

In a typical CM scale combat, an infantry squad should hit more than its own numbers only if they had particularly good targets - close range, open ground, not firing back broken troops, some combination of those things. You won't get that average outcome if every SMG in the squad hits 5 men by the time it is dry, firing at its effective range and into normal amounts of cover.

[Melchior]

I think most people just high-ball troop quality in the game too much. Green troops of middling to low motivation seem to pretty accurately reflect the average rifleman in World War 2. I think we run into those "fanatic" and "crack" modifiers a bit too often. 

[poesel]

You need to be a bit more specific and talk in CM terms. I'll try to translate:

 

Setup is two regular, fanatic scout teams of three. The defender sits in a heavy forest hex. The other terrain is empty and flat.

The attacker is 14 hexes (=112m) away. Defender does not shoot.

 

Expected outcome: one dead defender after attacker runs out of ammo (~600 shots).

[Melchior]

I'm not really talking about the test. I'm talking in more of a macro sense from sort of the perspective of all the CM games. I think that's biasing many people's expectations and perceptions of the test results.

[JasonC]

Poesel - don't use fanatics.  Use regulars.  Don't prevent the target from shooting back - let them shoot back.  Use multiple "lanes" to get sample size.  In some lanes have 1 shooter on each side, in others have 2 vs 1, in others 3 vs 1.  Vary the ranges - some 50, some 100, some 150 meters.  Vary the cover - sometimes the more numerous shooter side has little, usually they have reasonable cover - say steppe or wheatfield for the former, wood building could work for the latter.  Put the less numerous side in several types - little / wheat, light woods, wood building, wooded foxhole as a progression from poor to good, for example.  Don't put SMGs on both sides, put them on the more numerous side (shooter number).  The other side should have an LMG and rifle squad with 1-2 SMGs only.

 

Fire until half the ammo load of the SMG side is expended - we can infer the rest.  Report the time that takes, the hits on each side, suppression levels hit, hits per round fired stats, and the like.

 

What do we expect?  That at 50 meters, more numerous SMGs will establish fire dominance, pin or break their target.  They might fail in some even number of shooter cases, particularly if in worse cover, that's it.  They won't shoot the other guys down to the last man unless the other side's cover is poor.  At 150 meters, we expect the SMGs to be relatively ineffective if the defenders have reasonable cover.  They should only experience some suppression and 1-2 men hit, not get "gutted" by outright hits and kills.

 

That is, we expect a tactical relationship - close enough or an exposed target plus more numerous shooters, the SMGs should "rock".  Far enough, into enough cover, they should only "tickle" and should not "kill".

 

Is that clear enough?

[Baneman]

Thing is, if the "targets" shoot back, it skews the results due to random chance.

 

Overall it might average out the same, but you probably have to run a lot more tests to get a decent average.

If they don't shoot back, you at least get a baseline of "in perfect conditions".

[poesel]

@Hawkeye: sorry, was referring to JasonC

 

+1 what Baneman said. The idea of testing is to REDUCE the number of parameters. More lanes, different distances, different numbers, shooting back ADDs parameters.

 

1) Create simple, reproducable setup

2) Estimate expected outcome

3) Test

4) Science!

 

I need a comment on 1) and a value for 2) then I can do 3) & 4)