Hard coded SMG range limit.

[JasonC]

Amedeo - I wouldn't mind there being significant differences between the SMGs, based on their muzzle velocities for instance.  The PPsH was better at 200 yards than a Thompson, for example, simply because the 7.62x25 round has nearly twice the muzzle velocity of the 45 ACP.  I don't think that the hard cut off is the way to handle that.  Neither should be firing beyond 200 yards, and neither should be competitive with a bolt rifle in aimed fire at 200 yards.  The latter is the *reason* why they shouldn't be firing beyond 200 yards - because it is a waste of their great close range firepower to shoot off all their ammo at their least effective ranges, ranges where a bolt rifle seriously outperforms any of them.  

Get the effective accuracy fall off *correct*, and that will all handle itself.  Including allowing a hard cut off at 200, where nobody would want them firing, because the hits per burst would have already fallen to levels where the players would rather save their ammo and use them in closer.  To me, the issue only arises in the first place because the fall off is *not steep enough* right now, and therefore the SMGs appear too effective at 150 to 200 yards.  That leads players to *want* them to fire at those ranges and longer, and to feel "gyped" if they can't fire the PPsH at 250, say.  If firing at 250 just missed and blew the ammo, nobody would feel gyped about not being able to do it - the cut off would be acting as the designers intend, and would be a feature, and everyone would be all for it (most already are, no doubt).  I think it is a feature regardless, because bolt rifles and LMGs *should* be dominating firefights at ranges of 200 to 400 yards, and "turning off" SMGs at 200 is a step in that correct direction.

To me, this reduces the difference between me and Amedeo to, he would like to see the PPsH significantly more effective than a 9mm or a 45 caliber SMGs in the range window 100 to 200 yards. That'd be fine by me, but it is a much less important issue than the fact that all of the SMGs are performing too well in that range envelope.  Absolutely, and compared to the rifles and LMGs.  Arguably the PPsH should do better than a Sten in that range window, maybe especially in the second half of it.  Bully.  But neither should be matching a bolt rifle at 200, let alone exceeding them, and that is what is happening now.

I see two reasons that is happening.  One, the increase in the difficulty of a shot with an increase in its flight time to that distance is undermodeled.  Range makes a shot harder for all weapons by increasing the impact of aiming misalignment, and of the lighter automatics by increased bullet dispersion from muzzle climb and shake from recoil and all that.  All of which effects all the rounds.  But range also makes shots harder with slower bullets, even with a sight with range graduations, because it increases the flight time, thus the bullet drop, and thus the "golfing" aspect of shooting - the holdover, and the need for an accurate range estimate, and such factors.  All make it so the difficulty of a shot grows as a function of both the range (all weapons) and the flight time (affecting the lower muzzle velocity weapons the most).

That's all reason one.  The second reason is just that the bolt rifles are firing too slow, too infrequently, and this is exaggerating the benefit of the ROF of the automatics, because their short bursts are being compared to frankly muzzle loader rates of fire for the bolt repeaters.   Bolt rifles in aimed fire shoot 10 to 12 times a minute, not 3 to 5.  What we get as things are now is the SMGs firing 6-9 round bursts with each round 1/3rd the modeled accuracy, for 2-3 times the expected hits per shot, in the 100 to 200 yard range window, and even out near the far end of it.  At 100 with the PPsH I'd buy that relationship, and at maybe 70 for the 9mm SMGs.  But by 180-200 they should have a lower chance of hitting with a whole burst than the bolt rifle does of hitting with a single (supported, aimed) shot, while using 6-9 times the ammo to do it.  And to keep from running dry almost immediately, they aren't going to fire 6-9 round bursts 10-12 times a minute, where a bolt rifle readily can fire single rounds that often.  The bolt rifle will thus be getting more hits per minute at those ranges, while also being able to keep it up for far longer, because it is getting not around 3 but around 10 times the hits per round, at those ranges.

To me, all of that is way more important than whether the PPsH has 33% more effective range than a 9mm SMG.  You don't need to worry too much about the relative SMG effectiveness - the PPsH armed infantry are going to rock anyway, because they have SMG numbers and they have cyclic rate of fire advantages as well, and both are modeled and modeled correctly.  We do, however, emphatically need to worry about SMGs seriously outperforming full LMGs and bolt rifles in the last 50 or so meters of their effective ranges.  Because that isn't historically accurate and it messes up the actual tactical relationships of combined arms tactics and such.

I don't think there is any reason for BTS to change the 200 meter range limit.  I do think they could look at adjusting the rate of fire of the bolt rifles upward, and the rate of drop off of weapon accuracy with range more generally, and of the slowest muzzle velocity weapons especially.

 A uniform formula could do the latter objectively, if it has the form, per round accuracy is a function of three variables (actual range, flight time, inherent weapon dispersion).

All automatics have higher inherent weapon dispersion, and the lighter SMGs the largest, and in unsupported fire especially so.  But basically this can be taken from weapon specs as 1 MOA sniper rifles, 2 MOA single shot rifles, up to 10 MOA SMGs, and a middling figure between the last 2 for full LMGs.

The lowest muzzle velocities have the longest flight times, and the difficulty of a shot grows slowly for flight times over 0.25 seconds and rapidly for shots longer than 0.5 seconds.

Range causes a linear increase in the importance of any error in the angle for all weapons.  The initial error in the angle is determined by firing stance (prone and supported best, standing upsupported worst e.g.), some quality and morale state adjustments perhaps.

How I see it, for what its worth...

Edited September 22, 2015 by JasonC

[Muzzleflash1990]

I have only read very limited about WW2, only a couple of books, so I may be in error here. In Stout Hearts, the book recommended in another thread, one of the accounts (from a British soldier), explains they suffered low amounts of bolt rifle fire from the Germans. Instead it seemed they supplied the LMG gunners with "seemingly endless supply of bullet", or something like that. From some other sources, from the German perspective I seem to recall, states the same; the squad leader would direct targets for the gunner and ensure the other members brought ammo, or something akin to that.

Could this be the reason for the low rate of fire for bolt rifles?

Edited September 22, 2015 by Muzzleflash1990

[Battlefront.com]

Amedeo,

Sounds like you're making a much stronger case for lowering the max range for some weapons rather than increasing the range of the PPSh.  I'll take that into consideration.

Sorry if you disagree with the game's logic of restricting range.  As I've said, we've wrestled with this very issue before.  We do not make design decisions based on customer perceptions or complaints.  If we did, we'd have to change the game every single day.  Including today   However, since the game system is an artificial construct we are focused on doing our best to make sure the outcomes are favorable.  If customers are blowing through their ammo at unrealistic rates, what does it matter if we have the PPSh set for 200m or 2000m if the game outcome is horribly flawed due to extremely unrealistic ammo wastage?

As game designers we have to keep an eye on the whole forest, not just a specific branch of one tree.  You said it best yourself when you said "perhaps I'm not in the best position to judge."  Game/sim design requires a skill set that is rather specialized that has nothing to do with a grasp of the subject matter.  I could design a better Napoleonic warfare game than probably any Napoleonic warfare experts, but I'd get my arse handed to me in any debate about the subject matter even against someone with a moderate interest in it

Steve

[MikeyD]

One thing to consider with PPSh is its murderous rate of fire, higher than a MG42. I vaguely recall once estimating a PPSh squad given an area fire command would put something like twelve thousand rounds on-target in the space of a minute. So anything you can do to dissuade the AI from distant area firing is appreciated. I think since doing that estimate Charles introduced controlled burst fire for PPSh, didn't he?

Also it should be noted PPSh fired a pretty powerful round. Again, I recall reading it has twice the MV of a Thompson SMG .45 round (Oops! already mentioned by JasonC). Considerably outperformed German/British 9mm as well. So PPSh was on the cusp between SMG and assault rifle.

Edited September 22, 2015 by MikeyD

[JasonC]

The 7.62x25 is not a carbine round and the PPsH is not an assault rifle.  It is a pistol round, very light bullet.  2/3rds a 9mm and only 1/3rd a 45 ACP.  It just puts all its pistol amount of powder energy into a light bullet instead of a moderate or large one.  So it gets more velocity, and is flatter shooting than other pistol rounds.  By 100 yards it is down to 1200-1300 FPS - which is what you get with a 22 at the muzzle.  The round weighs twice what a 22 weighs.  It is by no means a high powered round in total energy terms.  

As for rate of fire, no it is not higher than an MG42.  It has a cyclic rate around 850 to 900 rounds per second, the MG42 clocks 1200 plus.  Of full power rifle ammo, bullets twice the weight and moving 50% faster or more, with over 4 times the muzzle energy each.  Also the PPsH would run dry in seconds fired cyclic - rate of fire is *not* firepower.  Very high rate of fire helps hit moving targets close or briefly exposed ones, that's it.  It does so at a cost in lower average hits per bullet fired.

Compared to a real assault rifle like the AK-47, the PPsH is firing a bullet 2/3rds as heavy moving 2/3rds as fast at the muzzle, with only 1/3rd the energy each.  It is pistol ammo.

[Alchenar]

Amedeo,

Sounds like you're making a much stronger case for lowering the max range for some weapons rather than increasing the range of the PPSh.  I'll take that into consideration.

Sorry if you disagree with the game's logic of restricting range.  As I've said, we've wrestled with this very issue before.  We do not make design decisions based on customer perceptions or complaints.  If we did, we'd have to change the game every single day.  Including today   However, since the game system is an artificial construct we are focused on doing our best to make sure the outcomes are favorable.  If customers are blowing through their ammo at unrealistic rates, what does it matter if we have the PPSh set for 200m or 2000m if the game outcome is horribly flawed due to extremely unrealistic ammo wastage?

As game designers we have to keep an eye on the whole forest, not just a specific branch of one tree.  You said it best yourself when you said "perhaps I'm not in the best position to judge."  Game/sim design requires a skill set that is rather specialized that has nothing to do with a grasp of the subject matter.  I could design a better Napoleonic warfare game than probably any Napoleonic warfare experts, but I'd get my arse handed to me in any debate about the subject matter even against someone with a moderate interest in it

Steve

This.  The level of spec knowledge on these forums is continuously impressive, but people have a tendency to fixate on an inaccuracy and suggest a fix to it which would completely upset the cart of abstractions and rules the game has in place to produce a plausible end result.

[Battlefront.com]

The 7.62x25 is not a carbine round and the PPsH is not an assault rifle.  It is a pistol round, very light bullet.  2/3rds a 9mm and only 1/3rd a 45 ACP.  It just puts all its pistol amount of powder energy into a light bullet instead of a moderate or large one.  So it gets more velocity, and is flatter shooting than other pistol rounds.  By 100 yards it is down to 1200-1300 FPS - which is what you get with a 22 at the muzzle.  The round weighs twice what a 22 weighs.  It is by no means a high powered round in total energy terms. 

The comparison to a .22 round is a major point of consideration.  Once a military round's performance begins to look like a .22, it's in a bad place   I don't have the math skills to figure out what the velocity and kinetic properties are of a 7.62x25 is at 200m, 300m, and beyond, but I'm sure it's not very impressive.  If it was, then assault rifles would have been invented 20 years earlier and modern firearms would be using pistol rounds to this day.

The PPSh can certainly toss a round further downrange than the other SMGs we've mentioned, and do it more accurately too.  But everything is relative.  The benchmark we need to focus on is how effective is it?  It's going to be a very difficult argument to make that a PPSh, with it's crude (but effective) manufacturing, open sights, recoil, wind, etc. has a consistent ability to place lead on target beyond about 200m even in the hands of a very experienced and competent soldier..  Even if that case could be made, then the next case is to look at how effective such rounds hitting at various extended ranges would be.  This gets back to my comment about annoying the enemy by dropping the rounds in their laps.

Steve

[Sgt Joch]

another point to bear in mind is the fact that even though this limit has been in all CMx2 games for 2-3 years now, no one ever noticed, so obviously it has had no impact on gameplay.

Edited September 23, 2015 by Sgt Joch

[c3k]

Amedeo - I wouldn't mind there being significant differences between the SMGs, based on their muzzle velocities for instance.  The PPsH was better at 200 yards than a Thompson, for example, simply because the 7.62x25 round has nearly twice the muzzle velocity of the 45 ACP.  I don't think that the hard cut off is the way to handle that.  Neither should be firing beyond 200 yards, and neither should be competitive with a bolt rifle in aimed fire at 200 yards.  The latter is the *reason* why they shouldn't be firing beyond 200 yards - because it is a waste of their great close range firepower to shoot off all their ammo at their least effective ranges, ranges where a bolt rifle seriously outperforms any of them.  

Get the effective accuracy fall off *correct*, and that will all handle itself.  Including allowing a hard cut off at 200, where nobody would want them firing, because the hits per burst would have already fallen to levels where the players would rather save their ammo and use them in closer.  To me, the issue only arises in the first place because the fall off is *not steep enough* right now, and therefore the SMGs appear too effective at 150 to 200 yards.  That leads players to *want* them to fire at those ranges and longer, and to feel "gyped" if they can't fire the PPsH at 250, say.  If firing at 250 just missed and blew the ammo, nobody would feel gyped about not being able to do it - the cut off would be acting as the designers intend, and would be a feature, and everyone would be all for it (most already are, no doubt).  I think it is a feature regardless, because bolt rifles and LMGs *should* be dominating firefights at ranges of 200 to 400 yards, and "turning off" SMGs at 200 is a step in that correct direction.

To me, this reduces the difference between me and Amedeo to, he would like to see the PPsH significantly more effective than a 9mm or a 45 caliber SMGs in the range window 100 to 200 yards. That'd be fine by me, but it is a much less important issue than the fact that all of the SMGs are performing too well in that range envelope.  Absolutely, and compared to the rifles and LMGs.  Arguably the PPsH should do better than a Sten in that range window, maybe especially in the second half of it.  Bully.  But neither should be matching a bolt rifle at 200, let alone exceeding them, and that is what is happening now.

I see two reasons that is happening.  One, the increase in the difficulty of a shot with an increase in its flight time to that distance is undermodeled.  Range makes a shot harder for all weapons by increasing the impact of aiming misalignment, and of the lighter automatics by increased bullet dispersion from muzzle climb and shake from recoil and all that.  All of which effects all the rounds.  But range also makes shots harder with slower bullets, even with a sight with range graduations, because it increases the flight time, thus the bullet drop, and thus the "golfing" aspect of shooting - the holdover, and the need for an accurate range estimate, and such factors.  All make it so the difficulty of a shot grows as a function of both the range (all weapons) and the flight time (affecting the lower muzzle velocity weapons the most).

That's all reason one.  The second reason is just that the bolt rifles are firing too slow, too infrequently, and this is exaggerating the benefit of the ROF of the automatics, because their short bursts are being compared to frankly muzzle loader rates of fire for the bolt repeaters.   Bolt rifles in aimed fire shoot 10 to 12 times a minute, not 3 to 5.  What we get as things are now is the SMGs firing 6-9 round bursts with each round 1/3rd the modeled accuracy, for 2-3 times the expected hits per shot, in the 100 to 200 yard range window, and even out near the far end of it.  At 100 with the PPsH I'd buy that relationship, and at maybe 70 for the 9mm SMGs.  But by 180-200 they should have a lower chance of hitting with a whole burst than the bolt rifle does of hitting with a single (supported, aimed) shot, while using 6-9 times the ammo to do it.  And to keep from running dry almost immediately, they aren't going to fire 6-9 round bursts 10-12 times a minute, where a bolt rifle readily can fire single rounds that often.  The bolt rifle will thus be getting more hits per minute at those ranges, while also being able to keep it up for far longer, because it is getting not around 3 but around 10 times the hits per round, at those ranges.

To me, all of that is way more important than whether the PPsH has 33% more effective range than a 9mm SMG.  You don't need to worry too much about the relative SMG effectiveness - the PPsH armed infantry are going to rock anyway, because they have SMG numbers and they have cyclic rate of fire advantages as well, and both are modeled and modeled correctly.  We do, however, emphatically need to worry about SMGs seriously outperforming full LMGs and bolt rifles in the last 50 or so meters of their effective ranges.  Because that isn't historically accurate and it messes up the actual tactical relationships of combined arms tactics and such.

I don't think there is any reason for BTS to change the 200 meter range limit.  I do think they could look at adjusting the rate of fire of the bolt rifles upward, and the rate of drop off of weapon accuracy with range more generally, and of the slowest muzzle velocity weapons especially.

 A uniform formula could do the latter objectively, if it has the form, per round accuracy is a function of three variables (actual range, flight time, inherent weapon dispersion).

All automatics have higher inherent weapon dispersion, and the lighter SMGs the largest, and in unsupported fire especially so.  But basically this can be taken from weapon specs as 1 MOA sniper rifles, 2 MOA single shot rifles, up to 10 MOA SMGs, and a middling figure between the last 2 for full LMGs.

The lowest muzzle velocities have the longest flight times, and the difficulty of a shot grows slowly for flight times over 0.25 seconds and rapidly for shots longer than 0.5 seconds.

Range causes a linear increase in the importance of any error in the angle for all weapons.  The initial error in the angle is determined by firing stance (prone and supported best, standing upsupported worst e.g.), some quality and morale state adjustments perhaps.

How I see it, for what its worth...

JasonC,

This is a well articulated post. Thank you for taking the time and effort to share it.

Ken

[Battlefront.com]

another point to bear in mind is the fact that even though this limit has been in all CMx2 games for 2-3 years now, no one ever noticed, so obviously it has had no impact on gameplay.

Dang, I usually am the first one to make this point

While I do not think the "nobody has complained before" defense is not very good on its own, it does put more responsibility on the critic (I do not mean this negatively!) to show that a change is important to make.  It is true that sometimes a customer can point to a feature that people have used for years without complaint and make a strong case for change.  However, it does not happen very often.  And usually within a post or two there's a dozen people slapping their foreheads and saying "you're right!!  How did I not see that before!".  That certainly has not happened in this thread.

Steve

[MOS:96B2P]

<Snip> Now we have only one person complaining about it.  I think that's a major improvement   <Snip>  

<Snip> Perhaps you're referring to the original poster, since I'm not really complaining!   <Snip>

<Snip> it does put more responsibility on the critic (I do not mean this negatively!) to show that a change is important to make. <Snip>

Okay, I was not following the thread I started very closely because it went away from game mechanics and the development of TACSOPs to play and win PBEM games. But I happened to notice one of the above posts and then spent some time skimming through the thread and found a few more similar posts.  I guess I should have paid more attention and spoke up sooner.  

To be clear the opening poster was not complaining about hard coded SMG range limits.  I was sharing this knowledge in an effort to spark discussion about the TACSOPs that could be created with the knowledge of the range limits. I even offered a TACSOP along with a partial counter TACSOP.   I am not a grog and have no interest in changing range limits or arguing about xyz weapons manual stating 123 that contradicts abc weapons manual.  I am a fanboi and trust BFC to produce the best game they can with the resources they have.   

My interest is in identifying game mechanics and developing TACSOPs to use in conjunction with the game mechanics in order to play and win PBEM games.

See ya in a combat mission on the PBEM field.  

 

  

         

[Battlefront.com]

Understood

For me to be clear, this has been a great thread.  We do encourage this sort of discussion, including when people do view it as a "complaint".  It helps the game get better over time even if we don't always agree on a specific topic or proposed solution.

Steve

[slysniper]

another point to bear in mind is the fact that even though this limit has been in all CMx2 games for 2-3 years now, no one ever noticed, so obviously it has had no impact on gameplay.

Well this statement might not be true in a sense. I noticed it shorty after the game was released. I just had no issue with it or thought it was impacting play. So never thought of it past that.

There is many players here that really get into the game and like to dissect it as to how it woks. So I am sure there is others who have noticed many of the little things within the game as to how it functions  that does not really match what the real world counterparts are able to do.

I just think many understand that there is just certain things that must be accepted to the fact that it is required to make the game function. There is a realistic limit as to what one should expect the game to do as to imitating real events.

Bringing issues up is always a good thing, but judging the importance of how they affect the game and is it worth trying to change game programming to adjust them for how it would impact play is also important when it comes to bringing topics up and wanting to see change.

I can think of much better items to program and change before this one.

Like realistic limits on gun elevations on armor. 

So when BF decided this is the best way they had to not waste ammo, then accept it and stop pushing for a detail that is not worth the effort.

 

[Amedeo]

 

Amedeo - I wouldn't mind there being significant differences between the SMGs, based on their muzzle velocities for instance.  The PPsH was better at 200 yards than a Thompson, for example, simply because the 7.62x25 round has nearly twice the muzzle velocity of the 45 ACP.  I don't think that the hard cut off is the way to handle that.  Neither should be firing beyond 200 yards, and neither should be competitive with a bolt rifle in aimed fire at 200 yards.  The latter is the *reason* why they shouldn't be firing beyond 200 yards - because it is a waste of their great close range firepower to shoot off all their ammo at their least effective ranges, ranges where a bolt rifle seriously outperforms any of them. 

I agree that they should be not firing above 200m but I think that, in the very peculiar situation depicted by the OP and some similar other, that 200m cap could give way to gamey tactics. You know, one thing is avoiding to fire at ranges in excess of 200m because you know that nine times out of ten you'll only waste your scarce ammo supply, another thing is having your enemy dancing in the open just exactly over the 200m mark because he knows that no single bullet will ever hit, ever, and he has the equivalent of a laser rangefinder to assess the range with the required precision.

Get the effective accuracy fall off *correct*, and that will all handle itself.  Including allowing a hard cut off at 200, where nobody would want them firing, because the hits per burst would have already fallen to levels where the players would rather save their ammo and use them in closer.  To me, the issue only arises in the first place because the fall off is *not steep enough* right now, and therefore the SMGs appear too effective at 150 to 200 yards.  That leads players to *want* them to fire at those ranges and longer, and to feel "gyped" if they can't fire the PPsH at 250, say.  If firing at 250 just missed and blew the ammo, nobody would feel gyped about not being able to do it - the cut off would be acting as the designers intend, and would be a feature, and everyone would be all for it (most already are, no doubt).  I think it is a feature regardless, because bolt rifles and LMGs *should* be dominating firefights at ranges of 200 to 400 yards, and "turning off" SMGs at 200 is a step in that correct direction.

Yes, this is what I meant when I said that the a cut off just above the maximum effective range just exacerbates that problem. By the way, my additional point is that, if the performance of a weapon is correctly modelled in all its other aspects a cutoff would be superfluous, just because, as you said, nobody would have them firing at that range anyway. It is right that longer barrelled weapons with rifle ammo should be dominating firefight at ranges above 200m but, in my opinion, the SMG cutoff is a step in that direction only as a stopgap solution to a perceived effectiveness/accuracy problem waiting for a definitive resolution.

 

To me, this reduces the difference between me and Amedeo to, he would like to see the PPsH significantly more effective than a 9mm or a 45 caliber SMGs in the range window 100 to 200 yards. That'd be fine by me, but it is a much less important issue than the fact that all of the SMGs are performing too well in that range envelope.  Absolutely, and compared to the rifles and LMGs.  Arguably the PPsH should do better than a Sten in that range window, maybe especially in the second half of it.  Bully.  But neither should be matching a bolt rifle at 200, let alone exceeding them, and that is what is happening now.

For what it is worth, reading the official Soviet manuals for the Shpagin machine pistole and the Mosin rifle and carbine, at 200m the PPSh will land 50% of the shots in a 41cm x 41 cm rectangle (single shot) or a 56cm x 54cm (burst). The Mosin, at the same range, will land 50% of the shots in a 13cm x 11cm rectangle (rifle) or 14cm x 13cm rectangle (carbine).

The Mosin will have a dispersion at 600m comparable with that of the PPSh at 200m (but with an almost double time of flight).

 

I see two reasons that is happening.  One, the increase in the difficulty of a shot with an increase in its flight time to that distance is undermodeled.  Range makes a shot harder for all weapons by increasing the impact of aiming misalignment, and of the lighter automatics by increased bullet dispersion from muzzle climb and shake from recoil and all that.  All of which effects all the rounds.  But range also makes shots harder with slower bullets, even with a sight with range graduations, because it increases the flight time, thus the bullet drop, and thus the "golfing" aspect of shooting - the holdover, and the need for an accurate range estimate, and such factors.  All make it so the difficulty of a shot grows as a function of both the range (all weapons) and the flight time (affecting the lower muzzle velocity weapons the most).

Speaking of times of flight: for the PPSh one has:

0.25 s @ 100 m ; 0.54 s @ 200 m ; 0.87 s @ 300 m ; 1.24 s @ 400 m ; 1.68 s @ 500 m

For the Mosin rifle:

0.25 s @ 200 m ; 0.57 s @400 m ; 0.97 s @ 600 m ; 1.47 s @ 800 m

The Mosin carbine has, obviously, longer t.o.f. I only listed some figures, the manuals has the tables in 50m increments for the PPSh and 100m increments for the Mosin.

 

That's all reason one.  The second reason is just that the bolt rifles are firing too slow, too infrequently, and this is exaggerating the benefit of the ROF of the automatics, because their short bursts are being compared to frankly muzzle loader rates of fire for the bolt repeaters.   Bolt rifles in aimed fire shoot 10 to 12 times a minute, not 3 to 5.  What we get as things are now is the SMGs firing 6-9 round bursts with each round 1/3rd the modeled accuracy, for 2-3 times the expected hits per shot, in the 100 to 200 yard range window, and even out near the far end of it.  At 100 with the PPsH I'd buy that relationship, and at maybe 70 for the 9mm SMGs.  But by 180-200 they should have a lower chance of hitting with a whole burst than the bolt rifle does of hitting with a single (supported, aimed) shot, while using 6-9 times the ammo to do it.  And to keep from running dry almost immediately, they aren't going to fire 6-9 round bursts 10-12 times a minute, where a bolt rifle readily can fire single rounds that often.  The bolt rifle will thus be getting more hits per minute at those ranges, while also being able to keep it up for far longer, because it is getting not around 3 but around 10 times the hits per round, at those ranges.

It's interesting to see that in the trial the British Army conduced to investigate the desiderability of a hight ROF for bolt action armed riflemen, the average minimum rate of fires  were 12.7 rnd/min for the Guards and 13.2 rnd/min for the Canadian (see the WO 291/479 report in the file you linked above). Yes, they were obtained by what were, probably, above the average (considering WW2 as a whole) trained troops with a rifle that was designed to allow high ROF (bolt, 10 round magazine) but it's possibly a testimony to the fact that in combat a rifleman was expected to mantain at least a ROF of 10 rnd/min or so.

 

I don't think there is any reason for BTS to change the 200 meter range limit.  I do think they could look at adjusting the rate of fire of the bolt rifles upward, and the rate of drop off of weapon accuracy with range more generally, and of the slowest muzzle velocity weapons especially.

 A uniform formula could do the latter objectively, if it has the form, per round accuracy is a function of three variables (actual range, flight time, inherent weapon dispersion).

All automatics have higher inherent weapon dispersion, and the lighter SMGs the largest, and in unsupported fire especially so.  But basically this can be taken from weapon specs as 1 MOA sniper rifles, 2 MOA single shot rifles, up to 10 MOA SMGs, and a middling figure between the last 2 for full LMGs.

The lowest muzzle velocities have the longest flight times, and the difficulty of a shot grows slowly for flight times over 0.25 seconds and rapidly for shots longer than 0.5 seconds.

Range causes a linear increase in the importance of any error in the angle for all weapons.  The initial error in the angle is determined by firing stance (prone and supported best, standing upsupported worst e.g.), some quality and morale state adjustments perhaps.

After a back of the envelope calculation (using in input some figures from the aforementioned manuals I may venture to say that the ratio between the PPSh MOA and the Mosin MOA should be between 3 and 4.

Sounds like you're making a much stronger case for lowering the max range for some weapons rather than increasing the range of the PPSh.  I'll take that into consideration.

I'm sure you'll draw the right conclusions from this (and similar) threads.

 

Sorry if you disagree with the game's logic of restricting range.  As I've said, we've wrestled with this very issue before.  We do not make design decisions based on customer perceptions or complaints.  If we did, we'd have to change the game every single day.  Including today   However, since the game system is an artificial construct we are focused on doing our best to make sure the outcomes are favorable.  If customers are blowing through their ammo at unrealistic rates, what does it matter if we have the PPSh set for 200m or 2000m if the game outcome is horribly flawed due to extremely unrealistic ammo wastage?

Wait, are you saying that you at BFC do not educate your customers to avoid useless ammo wastage?

 

As game designers we have to keep an eye on the whole forest, not just a specific branch of one tree.  You said it best yourself when you said "perhaps I'm not in the best position to judge."  Game/sim design requires a skill set that is rather specialized that has nothing to do with a grasp of the subject matter.  I could design a better Napoleonic warfare game than probably any Napoleonic warfare experts, but I'd get my arse handed to me in any debate about the subject matter even against someone with a moderate interest in it

Well, I'm waiting for your napoleonic game, then. It's a pity that, after more than 30 years of wargaming, I still have to say that cardboard/miniatures wargames give more realistic results than computer ones in an alarming number of cases. Combat Mission is, in my opinion, one of the few exceptions. If you will be able to repeat the CMBO revolution with a napoleonic game I could think about discontinuing my beloved 25mm miniatures rules (1.5 min moves, 1/1000 scale terrain, single man casualties: they were intended for brigade/division level combat but we refought Quatre Bras with them!).

The comparison to a .22 round is a major point of consideration.  Once a military round's performance begins to look like a .22, it's in a bad place   I don't have the math skills to figure out what the velocity and kinetic properties are of a 7.62x25 is at 200m, 300m, and beyond, but I'm sure it's not very impressive.  If it was, then assault rifles would have been invented 20 years earlier and modern firearms would be using pistol rounds to this day.

Just out of curiosity, after using a ballistic calculation spreadsheet to interpolate some data gathered from the usual manuals I got terminal velocities for a 7.62mm Tokarev fired by a PPSh of about 230m/s at 200m and 200m/s at 300m. Not that bad!

 

To be clear the opening poster was not complaining about hard coded SMG range limits.  I was sharing this knowledge in an effort to spark discussion about the TACSOPs that could be created with the knowledge of the range limits. I even offered a TACSOP along with a partial counter TACSOP.   I am not a grog and have no interest in changing range limits or arguing about xyz weapons manual stating 123 that contradicts abc weapons manual.  I am a fanboi and trust BFC to produce the best game they can with the resources they have.  

I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I was accusing you of complaining. Mine was only a joke to answer Steve's pun about whiners. I apologize if I seemed to be putting words in your mouth.

Regards,

    Amedeo

[Bulletpoint]

The benchmark we need to focus on is how effective is it?  It's going to be a very difficult argument to make that a PPSh, with it's crude (but effective) manufacturing, open sights, recoil, wind, etc. has a consistent ability to place lead on target beyond about 200m even in the hands of a very experienced and competent soldier.

But isn't that what people are noticing? That submachineguns are quite effective in the game even at the 200 metre range? Or am I reading the thread wrong?

Edited September 24, 2015 by Bulletpoint

[Baneman]

Well, PPSh's seem to be quite effective at 200m ranges.

Other SMG's ... not so much.

[WinOrLose]

I'm no expert but I am finding SMG's in RT so ridiculous that I'm probably going to just stick with BN until they fix it.

My observation is they are far too accurate and spoils the fun of any infantry combat. With a semi useful knowledge of terrain its fairly easy to get within 200m at which point the firefight is only ever going to go one way.

PS not a German fanboy

[A Canadian Cat]

I'm no expert but I am finding SMG's in RT so ridiculous that I'm probably going to just stick with BN until they fix it.

??? Did I miss something here.  My impression from reading this thread and the other one that there is nothing to fix?

[Muzzleflash1990]

My understanding of this thread is roughly something like this. The hardcoded range should be relaxed/removed so we can fire at more than 200m. The counterargument is that submachine guns are not that accurate. This is then countered by some, saying that ingame they are accurate enough that people want the restriction removed such that they can fire at say 250m. The implied argument being that submachine guns modelled ingame are too effective at range (e.g. the ppsh at 200m), and they would also be "too effective" at 250m, enough to warrant shooting at that range. Instead the problem is that the SMG hit probability/range curve is too high. By lowering the hit probability, players would not want to fire beyond 200m anyway, and the TacAI would calculate the probability of hitting at 250m too low anyway, and therefore rarely fire SMGs at that range - even when the squad is forced to with a target order.

On a personal note, I often find units with SMGs, like MP40 or Thompson (not entire ppsh squads, but still a bit), to run out of ammo very quickly. Often they would have spent it all very fast on targets at about 80-150m where I sometimes would have preferred to have some left for when closing with the enemy.

Edited September 24, 2015 by Muzzleflash1990

[WinOrLose]

??? Did I miss something here.  My impression from reading this thread and the other one that there is nothing to fix?

Mine was the 200m hardcode was unrealistic and that SMG's are too accurate in the 100m plus range......

[ASL Veteran]

Mine was the 200m hardcode was unrealistic and that SMG's are too accurate in the 100m plus range......

So you feel that even the 200m range hardcode is too generous and that the hardcode should be even shorter.  I am actually in this camp, although I have to admit that I find the Soviet manuals indicating that SMGs can be effective against aircraft to be a very compelling counterargument (not).

[BletchleyGeek]

Amedeo, just an observation on the data, informed by my experience dealing with that kind of data while working on another game

For what it is worth, reading the official Soviet manuals for the Shpagin machine pistole and the Mosin rifle and carbine, at 200m the PPSh will land 50% of the shots in a 41cm x 41 cm rectangle (single shot) or a 56cm x 54cm (burst). The Mosin, at the same range, will land 50% of the shots in a 13cm x 11cm rectangle (rifle) or 14cm x 13cm rectangle (carbine).

Always take that kind of figures as the "best that weapon can do". Full stop. These figures were collected from field trials, with the weapons being operated by technicians or marksmen on perfect conditions (a firing range with props that allow to measure exactly dispersion). The British Army Ordnance Service conducted a more "realistic" testing using recruits and the differences one can see between the technical specs and the actual outcomes achieved with highly reputed weapons as the Sten or the Enfield, well, let's say that the technical specs of the weapon predict very badly how they will actually perform in the hands of your average recruit, under psychological stress and against targets that try to close the range quickly or are using cover in an intelligent way.

From a more "operational" point of view: when you feed this data, taking it as the baseline probability of killing or maiming, on any reasonable model of infantry combat by fire, you'll get massive casualty rates. Massive as in totally ahistorical. The data is "wrong" in the sense that either it needs to be toned down to set the "any given Sunday" to a more reasonable level, which is difficult, since the definition of "any given Sunday" is a moving target, or the combat model (and the AI if it is empowered to manage ammunition) has to provide with the elements to "modulate" these figures, starting from the assumption that it is an absolute upper bound on what that weapon can do. That data integration and curation job is very hard. BFC call seems to be to have the AI to disregard the PPSh as something that can be fired above certain ranges... and I think it makes all the sense in the world.

Yet as ASL Veteran and others point out, there seems to be something a bit off with the lethality of these weapons on the latest versions of the engine. I do tend to agree with those observations. But I don't think the data BFC is using is wrong, their models are buggy or the AI is being unreasonable: I think it is more a question of design of effects and interactions with other aspects of the design of the CMx2 engine. Regarding design, I - personally and subjectively - would like to see the volume of fire these things can put out at ranges beyond 60 meters to result in more suppression over a larger area, rather than generating killing or incapacitating hits. As for interactions with other parts of the CMx2 design, the tighter-than-in-real-life packing of our pixel truppen due to action spots constraining their deployment that increases lethality. If you have five guys standing in a 8 square meters area and something like 100 rounds of ordnance shot fly through the volume encompassing the action spot and the men, chances that all of them are hit will be quite high, as they will be physically occupying a significant proportion of that volume. And that assuming that the rounds trajectories are uniformly and randomly distributed, for even loosely aimed fire, those chances can become almost a certainty.

Observations about action spots and burst fire extreme lethality have been made in the past, I am not sure what is BFC opinion on that.

Edited September 25, 2015 by BletchleyGeek

[MOS:96B2P]

I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I was accusing you of complaining. Mine was only a joke to answer Steve's pun about whiners. I apologize if I seemed to be putting words in your mouth.

Regards,

    Amedeo

Thanks, Amedeo my friend.  No problem, we're good.  

Speaking of TACSOPs .......... IIRC you came up with (or had some role in) the  Khrizantema / BMP-3s with IR blocking smoke screen tactic against US tanks.  That one was very clever.      

[Battlefront.com]

Yes, this is what I meant when I said that the a cut off just above the maximum effective range just exacerbates that problem. By the way, my additional point is that, if the performance of a weapon is correctly modelled in all its other aspects a cutoff would be superfluous, just because, as you said, nobody would have them firing at that range anyway. It is right that longer barrelled weapons with rifle ammo should be dominating firefight at ranges above 200m but, in my opinion, the SMG cutoff is a step in that direction only as a stopgap solution to a perceived effectiveness/accuracy problem waiting for a definitive resolution.

I've seen this come up a few times in this discussion so far and it appears we should take another look at SMGs, including PPSh, perhaps being disproportionally more effective at longer ranges than they should be.  As a possible secondary factor to examine is either lowering the other SMG ranges by a little (to 150m, for example) or increasing the PPSh by a little (to 250m, for example).

For what it is worth, reading the official Soviet manuals for the Shpagin machine pistole and the Mosin rifle and carbine, at 200m the PPSh will land 50% of the shots in a 41cm x 41 cm rectangle (single shot) or a 56cm x 54cm (burst). The Mosin, at the same range, will land 50% of the shots in a 13cm x 11cm rectangle (rifle) or 14cm x 13cm rectangle (carbine).

I'd have to brush up on real world results, but as someone who has fired a bunch of these guns for real, hitting a 41cm square at 200m with a PPSh 50% of the time with a single shot seems rather optimistic.  Burst seems even less likely to get that result.  Even in a controlled environment.  And now is the time to remind everybody that those conditions exist in exactly zero CM battle and therefore actual accuracy should be far lower.

Wait, are you saying that you at BFC do not educate your customers to avoid useless ammo wastage?

Yup   Tried, failed.  And to be fair the TacAI needs to be "educated" as well, which is what the range limitation is in part designed for.  Now to address your first point last:

I agree that they should be not firing above 200m but I think that, in the very peculiar situation depicted by the OP and some similar other, that 200m cap could give way to gamey tactics. You know, one thing is avoiding to fire at ranges in excess of 200m because you know that nine times out of ten you'll only waste your scarce ammo supply, another thing is having your enemy dancing in the open just exactly over the 200m mark because he knows that no single bullet will ever hit, ever, and he has the equivalent of a laser rangefinder to assess the range with the required precision.

A valid concern, however not something that has apparently come up very often over the years of gameplay.  If it was common, I'm pretty certain we'd have an endless thread complaining about it.

It's not too difficult to see why this sort of theoretical problem doesn't rear its ugly head very often.  CM is a combined arms game and therefore it isn't normal for a single SMG squad to run up against a situation where it's rendered inoperable at 201m.  More likely it is either nailed hard before it gets that close or, even more likely, at ranges less than 200m.  In other words the isolated SMG unit's fate doesn't hinge on being just a few meters over the cutoff.

We've had long discussions about unrealistic unit isolation going back to the CMBO Beta days.  Players take a unit, isolate it from all the usual battlefield factors, and then compare the results with historical accounts which had the usual battlefield factors.  Likewise, there are some combat factors "baked into" the game and that means nobody can ever fully mimic a clinical test done at the time (such as the British SMG report).  This is simple logic when you think about it.  CM is designed to be a historically based simulation of combat, not ahistoric combat or controlled test ranges.  Therefore, it isn't too surprising to find out that CM does better simulating historical combat than ahistoric combat or controlled test range results.

Steve

[WinOrLose]

So you feel that even the 200m range hardcode is too generous and that the hardcode should be even shorter.  I am actually in this camp, although I have to admit that I find the Soviet manuals indicating that SMGs can be effective against aircraft to be a very compelling counterargument (not).

My view is that if accuracy was erm, more accurately portrayed, you wouldn't need an artificial max range.........