How to Target Briefly then Move a deployed HMG?

[gnarly]

Hi all,

 

BS Demo, playing the Crossed Gauntlets mission from the Russian side.

I have an already deployed rooftop HMG, whom I want to engage a US squad for 30 seconds, then move off the roof to a new perch elsewhere before they get suppressed by return fire.

I put the team on a 30 second pause, with a Target Briefly command also for 30 seconds on the US target. Then I add various move commands off the roof.

Tried this a few times, and the team merely stays in place for 30 seconds, then leaves the roof, without engaging the enemy. They have LOS on the enemy; if all commands removed, they engage the enemy immediately.

 

Or do I first need to give them a move command to their same (already deployed location), with pause/target briefly on that move 'node', followed by the 'leave-roof' move commands? This seems very contorted?

 

Any hints? Tx

 

[docbrown]

I believe it's because it may take more than 30s to deploy the weapon. So put a longer target briefly time and equally longer pause at that waypoint. I'm not 100% sure but someone will hopefully chime in and correct me. I'm interested in the real answer as well.

[gnarly]

Thanks doc, I think its actually medium MG, with deploy/undeploy times of only 10-ish seconds. 

[womble]

I think you might have highlighted something I have seen and brushed off a couple of times. So I went and did some close observation of an unmolested US infantry M1919 MMG team in BN (v3) and here are a few things, some of which are just observations about how things work that I hadn't realised before, some of which are just background for completeness.

• Machine guns no longer fire while packing up.
• If you have a deployed team and give them a long movement order without interfering with the Deploy Weapon button, they will automatically spend the normal Pack Up time dismantling their weapon and will not redeploy it when they arrive at their destination.
• If you have a deployed team, and give them a short movement order (4AS or less on flat open ground; I didn't test to see whether heavier terrain reduces the allowed displacement) without untoggling "Deploy Weapon", the weapon becomes "instantly" undeployed, and only takes 2-3 seconds to redeploy once they've settled down. This is, I believe, simulating the crew shifting their piece without dismounting it from the tripod and all the other formalities.
• If this short displacement is interrupted short of the objective, the same 2-3s Deploying phase occurs.
• A Pause order without a movement order does not inhibit firing at all. Doesn't achieve very much either though
• Machine guns given a Pause and a movement order might fire one short burst at the very beginning of their Pause, but will otherwise not fire during their Pause. If the movement order is long (over 4AS) they will not commence Packing Up until the Pause has completed. If the movement order is short (4AS or less), they will "instantly" undeploy. Redeployment on arrival at the terminal waypoint is not affected by the Pause.

So yeah, you can't usefully give complicated combination fire and movement orders to crew-served weapons in WeGo mode. While that may, on one level, be appropriate, it's a bit inconsistent and could probably do with some tweaking at some stage. Especially if it's actually not the way it's supposed to work; it has shades of the "tanks with Pause orders counting as firing on the move when they're stopped for the Pause" oversight that got fixed a while back.

[gnarly]

Many thanks for the testing/research @Womble!  Glad to know it ain't just me!

 

I'll have to think of another way of dealing with that pesky US team......

[RockinHarry]

What Womble said, but I´d likely try to not use target briefly at all, but rather just a small covered arc on that enemy unit, or alternatively an area target in front of it. Just in case the enemy unit can´t be effectively engaged or spotted during the 30 sec pause before movement. Just an (untested) idea...

[Sublime]

@Womble yes the less than 4 AS is the team picking up the piece setup and literally shifting it without unpacking.

I cant think of anything besides a bug but perhaps its because the normal setup/deploy times are usually quite longer in structures. For example most MGs jump to 2.3 minutes for deploy in a bldg versus say 30-45 seconds in the open.

[gnarly]

@Womble yes the less than 4 AS is the team picking up the piece setup and literally shifting it without unpacking.

I cant think of anything besides a bug but perhaps its because the normal setup/deploy times are usually quite longer in structures. For example most MGs jump to 2.3 minutes for deploy in a bldg versus say 30-45 seconds in the open.

Good point @Sublime, I had forgotten about the longer than standard deploy times in buildings, though I don't recall if undeploy is similarly affected.

[RockinHarry]

Made a quick test in CMBN-MG, with the only flat roof topped building and a german HMG. Any targeting orders at the beginning of a turn will not be executed, when a paused movement order is set in the same turn. The HMG crew appears to make nothing, not even show packing up, but the second it starts to move off, it gets undeployed and takes its usual time (2-3 minutes) to deploy again in same building. I assume that even when no "packing up" is shown, internally off course the soldiers prepare the move off (collecting ammo boxes, unbelting and securing the gun ect.), but it´s not shown in status as usual. Special case for buildings maybe.

[MOS:96B2P]

• If you have a deployed team, and give them a short movement order (4AS or less on flat open ground; I didn't test to see whether heavier terrain reduces the allowed displacement) without untoggling "Deploy Weapon", the weapon becomes "instantly" undeployed, and only takes 2-3 seconds to redeploy once they've settled down. This is, I believe, simulating the crew shifting their piece without dismounting it from the tripod and all the other formalities.

Very interesting and useful information womble!  When I have time I will have to put this on my list of TACSOPs to make a drill for.  

As gnarly indicated, it is expected behavior that the OpFor will direct suppression fire at the HMG as soon as possible.  It was always a PITA to pack it up and move it and repeat the process (didn't work out very well most times either).  This 4AS sidestep move (behind bocage or a low wall) may be the answer.  I wonder if it would work as well between floors of a building or even adjacent buildings?

Back to the TACSOP testing and development .......................   

[womble]

Made a quick test in CMBN-MG, with the only flat roof topped building and a german HMG. Any targeting orders at the beginning of a turn will not be executed, when a paused movement order is set in the same turn. The HMG crew appears to make nothing, not even show packing up, but the second it starts to move off, it gets undeployed and takes its usual time (2-3 minutes) to deploy again in same building. I assume that even when no "packing up" is shown, internally off course the soldiers prepare the move off (collecting ammo boxes, unbelting and securing the gun ect.), but it´s not shown in status as usual. Special case for buildings maybe.

I think that's just the usual "2-3s" short move setup time being extended by the same amount as the setup time for a long move into place would be. 

As I note above, if they have a Packing Up time (because they're moving more than 4AS), they don't start on that until the Pause order has been completed. A move in the same building will count as less than 4AS I imagine, so they don't have a Packing Up time. Since they'd immediately leap to their feet if they didn't have the Pause order, we can conclude that they're not doing anything useful while they're delaying their move. As it stands, delaying a crewed-weapon move isn't going to let them spray a few rounds off at the start of the turn, and is only useful for allowing a situation to develop (maybe someone's meant to be lobbing a smoke grenade to cover their movement and you want to give the smoke chance to form).

The take-home here is that if you give a crew-served weapon a move order and then a Pause, they don't do any shooting while they're waiting to move off.

RockinHarry has shown that the "short move bonus" of keeping the weapon deployed isn't as useful inside buildings, because, quite understandably, all you're saving is the time to attach the pieces together, not the time needed to provide a stable firing platform at the right height to fire out of the desired aperture, which is what the extra setup time is meant to account for... Though how necessary that was, I don't know. I just started watching Band of Brothers (yes, I know, I'm a slacker) and wonder whether the frequency of them using M1919s just rested on a convenient windowledge or bough or log is an artefact of telly or a reflection of detailed research including accounts of survivors. Heavier MGs (Maxim-based water-cooled, M2s), I can see such expedient "mounts" being untenable, and the German HMG has a bipod and can be "Semi-Deployed" (something I've started doing more when using them for overwatch in urban environments, to keep the speed of advance up). The M1919A4 had its LMG variant (A6), though, and perhaps it (the A4) should, in an ideal simulation, be permitted to operate "Semi-Deployed" at a penalty to stability.

The "doesn't have to pack up for short moves" thing is something that came in with v3, IIRC, and applies to all crew-served gear, up to ATGs. Makes ATG potentially more useful in Bocage country than they were immediately beforehand (in v1, the deploy times weren't working properly, so you could roll an ATG up behind a hedge and it'd be ready to fire immediately, which was handy. Now you have to unlimber it short of the hedge and roll it up onto the firing step for snapshots).

 

 

[Sublime]

I doubt the 4AS rule of not packing up I SEVERELY doubt will apply to different floors of buildings. It makes no sense that a team would be able to move a fully setup MG to a different floor of a building and I doubt BFC would overlook something as commonsense as that.

The undeploy times are generally less, but I still think it takes longer to undeploy a ATGM or MG in a bldg than it would in the open, though not as long as setting it up obviously.

As womble noted one of the best expedients if you're the attacker or quicky moving troops around is to use weapons semi deployed - e.g. with the BIPOD instead of tripod. Yes the firing platform isnt as stable nor accurate however the weapons in action 2.5 turns earlier and really the accuracy isnt affected as much as you'd think. Perhaps you wont kill that extra soldier or two, but the suppression is still there, and in most fights the suppression from MGs is what counts, its the HE from D/F weapons or indirect fire arty, or close in soldiers with small arms or grenades that does the real killing.  MGs obviously do some serious killing as well, but more usually this is when theyre already deployed in excellent positions, and are opening up an ambush on the defense, not supporting a quickly moving attack.  Also when MGs do the killing in said ambush they're usually also backed up (if you setup the ambush properly) by TRPs, other infantry, and mortars or artillery, or tanks, or some combination of the above.

[womble]

I doubt the 4AS rule of not packing up...

Just for you I put a building in. And your doubts can absolutely be set aside. A move within the building results in the MG immediately being picked up and the movement of the team beginning. A longer move (necessarily outside the building) initiates the 15s (for that particular element) Packing Up process.

The fact that they overlook any preparation for the move indicates that they're having to make some concessions and abstractions for ease of coding (or whatever) in this case. Even if the thing can be manhandled on its tripod and the belt left in the receiver, it's not going to be as simple to displace with the assembled weapon as it would be if the thing was properly slung, or as easy as if it were just a rifle or BAR. There would be boxes to close, and pick up as well as personal weapons, and the thing's a mule to haul even on the open ground, compared to a properly-packed item. Yet there doesn't appear to be any reduction in speed of movement or fatigue incurred compared to moving a packed weapon.

It's a fast and dirty workaround, so assuming some detail (like the difference between movement indoors and out) has been fully incorporated and accounted for is probably somewhat optimistic.

[Sublime]

Not within a building but between floors as well? I can see it being a workaround but going to another floor without repacking seems a bit much no?

[womble]

It's no more unlikely than a throwable demo pack being able to breach a tank-wide hole in a bocage line. Or tanks always having exactly the right shell up the tube for immediate action. Or .30-06 ammo coming off the truck in exactly the proportions of belt, mag and clip you want to resupply your US Infantry platoon with an attached MMG team in a minute.

And overall the workaround fixes a problem people were clamouring about. Think of the "extra setup time" that's still applied to the "short-moving" MG as partially representing the awkwardness of getting the tripod through doorways, or time taken partially folding the tripod to permit such transit.

[womble]

A little further noodling on the subject shows that most mortars in v3 can't take advantage of the "no need to pack up for a short move" feature. The only one in MG is the Brit 2", and that only gets half the benefit, because it has a packup time of zero anyway. I thought the leGrW36 would too, but it doesn't; requires full packup time for even a 1AS move. I haven't upgraded FI to v3 yet, so I can't test the Brixia, though I would sort of expect that to be a prime candidate for short displacements without disassembly.