Close combat (or lack of it)

[John1966]

The lack of HtH fighting has never really bothered me. They fight with their weapons at close quarters. SMGs and grenades are the killer weapons.

But what happens if they're out of ammo?

In RL they'd fix bayonets. Is that modelled at all (even if it's invisible)? Or are they doomed?

[Bulletpoint]

They are doomed.

[Warts 'n' all]

[A Canadian Cat]

3 hours ago, John1966 said:

In RL they'd fix bayonets. Is that modelled at all (even if it's invisible)?

No it is not. So, if one squad is out of ammo the enemy squad will gun them down one or two at a time until they run for it. If they are both out of ammo - well its kinda funny in a #sad kinda way. Thankfully I have only ever created that second scenario as an experiment.

[StieliAlpha]

14 hours ago, John1966 said:

The lack of HtH fighting has never really bothered me. They fight with their weapons at close quarters. SMGs and grenades are the killer weapons.

But what happens if they're out of ammo?

In RL they'd fix bayonets. Is that modelled at all (even if it's invisible)? Or are they doomed?

Hm, I am not quite sure how often HtH fighting a la „Private Ryan“ really occurred, I.e. how relevant it would be in most CM scenarios.

At least for Napoleonic battles it is said, that bayonet charges rarely came to contact. Usually one side broke and ran.

Else, I believe to remember that the bayonet attack at Goose Green during the Falkland War 1982 was fairly „unbloody“. 

[Bulletpoint]

9 hours ago, StieliAlpha said:

Hm, I am not quite sure how often HtH fighting a la „Private Ryan“ really occurred, I.e. how relevant it would be in most CM scenarios.

At least for Napoleonic battles it is said, that bayonet charges rarely came to contact. Usually one side broke and ran.

Problem is, in CM, troops do break, but they don't run. You can still order them right back into battle.

And while they are not as good as fresh troops, they can still fight. I've completed some Normandy beach scenarios where all my teams were broken at the end, but I could still storm enemy trenches.

Had to keep ordering them back, of course, but it could be done. I don't think any shouting from Napoleon would have won his final battle.

[John1966]

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

You can still order them right back into battle.

I tend to give up on broken troops as first whiff of gunfire and they're off again.

But they can do buddy aid (although not much advantage in them picking up any weapons) and they can occupy victory locations that the fighting has moved on from.

[John1966]

I recently got a squad who were out of ammo to join in on the endgame charge into the enemy trenches. They still had plenty of grenades so thought they'd make a useful contribution. But they didn't throw a single one despite my other guys' willingness to do so and the enemy survivors' willingness to do the same.

[MikeyD]

On another post Steve had mentioned the probable budget for some new console game that recently came out. There were LOT of zeroes, like the budget for a franchise superhero movie. There's no competing with games like that when it comes to flash & dazzle. One can only imagine what would appear in CM if someone were to dump a wheelbarrow full of cash of BFC's doorstep. Motion-capture animations would be high on the list, I'd wager. 

[Bulletpoint]

12 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

One can only imagine what would appear in CM if someone were to dump a wheelbarrow full of cash of BFC's doorstep. Motion-capture animations would be high on the list, I'd wager. 

They could buy ready-made animations for a whole lot less than a wheelbarrow of cash. It's not 1990's anymore.

 

"A set of 53 motion capture animations of crouching and proning for a character with rifle."

Price: €13.40

https://assetstore.unity.com/3d/animations?category=3d%2Fanimations&q=soldier&orderBy=1

[Erwin]

Let's hope a greatly increased customer base via STEAM will provide those extra funds (but without that same greatly increased customer base putting pressure on BF to change the CM game into something the original customers no longer like or want).  That is the danger when going after a larger common denominator/customer base.

*******

And BTW:  Why has the EDIT button been moved from the convenient and easy to access position next to the QUOTE button (below) and hidden in the top right so now we have to click on another button just to access the EDIT button?  What genius decided to make things MORE complex and LESS intuitive?

Edited September 22, 2020 by Erwin

[MikeyD]

CM's not a Unity product. Its not as easy for them as simply plugging in 3rd party stuff (though I'll admit I don't have a clue how its done). That's why them coming up with a 3rd generation game engine is on their to-do list. CMx2 game engine is like a sculpture sculpted from a single block of marble. Units is like a sculpture made out of Lego building blocks

[Sgt Joch]

12 hours ago, StieliAlpha said:

At least for Napoleonic battles it is said, that bayonet charges rarely came to contact. Usually one side broke and ran.

yes, even as early as the Seven Year's War, bayonet charges were obsolete and musket fire would break up any attack or defence before the troops came into contact. In 1756-57, Frederick The Great ordered his troops to attack by bayonet charge alone thinking that by not stopping to fire, battles would be decided more quickly. The only result was 2-3 bloody battles were Prussian frontal attacks were repulsed with heavy losses. After that, everyone went back to standard stand and shoot tactics until one side breaks and run.

[Lucky_Strike]

5 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

They could buy ready-made animations for a whole lot less than a wheelbarrow of cash. It's not 1990's anymore.

 

"A set of 53 motion capture animations of crouching and proning for a character with rifle."

Price: €13.40

https://assetstore.unity.com/3d/animations?category=3d%2Fanimations&q=soldier&orderBy=1

This is also true of terrain elements. There are masses of excellent quality 3D stock art objects to be had for relatively very little money.

[StieliAlpha]

14 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Problem is, in CM, troops do break, but they don't run. You can still order them right back into battle.

And while they are not as good as fresh troops, they can still fight. I've completed some Normandy beach scenarios where all my teams were broken at the end, but I could still storm enemy trenches.

Had to keep ordering them back, of course, but it could be done. I don't think any shouting from Napoleon would have won his final battle.

The original question was about the lack of hand-to-hand fighting when one or both sides are out of ammo. My assumption was that this probably did not happen too often, as the troops without ammo would probably rather choose to run or at least not try to close in.

The effectiveness of broken teams in CM is yet another question...

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, StieliAlpha said:

hand-to-hand fighting when one or both sides are out of ammo. My assumption was that this probably did not happen too often, as the troops without ammo would probably rather choose to run

I think it was rare but probably happened more often than we think... both in urban fighting and when assaulting, sometimes soldiers could suddenly find themselves head to head with enemies at extreme close range, in a room of a building or when jumping into an enemy trench and being caught between reloads for example.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Bulletpoint

[Gumboots]

I'm sure I've heard, on the odd occasion, my lads shout 'bang!'

[StieliAlpha]

44 minutes ago, Gumboots said:

I'm sure I've heard, on the odd occasion, my lads shout 'bang!'

That‘s what we did in the Bundeswehr, when we had an exercise near and in a natural reserve and were not allowed to use training ammo...

[StieliAlpha]

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

I think it was rare but probably happened more often than we think... both in urban fighting and when assaulting, sometimes soldiers could suddenly find themselves head to head with enemies at extreme close range, in a room of a building or when jumping into an enemy trench and being caught between reloads for example.

That‘s why I said „I don‘t think it is relevant in the scope of CM“. How often do you have indoor fighting with prolonged firefights (so that the guys would need to reload) or one side without ammo?

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, StieliAlpha said:

That‘s why I said „I don‘t think it is relevant in the scope of CM“. How often do you have indoor fighting with prolonged firefights (so that the guys would need to reload) or one side without ammo?

It happens sometimes in confused city or forest fighting. Happened in my bout with Josey Wales for example. Doesn't need to be prolonged either - sometimes they will only notice they need to reload once they enter the building and fire off a couple of shots.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Bulletpoint

[chi-chi]

4 hours ago, StieliAlpha said:

How often do you have indoor fighting with prolonged firefights (so that the guys would need to reload) or one side without ammo?

It depends a lot on what maps and what games you are playing.

CM:RT, for example, is very open but once Fire and Rubble releases players will likely be running into more prolonged indoor and close combat. Continuing that if someone mainly plays QBs in dense terrain they are going to see the lack of close combat crop up far more often than if you do rural areas.


Edit:

It doesn;t help that your guys refuse to do tactical reloads. I'm sure we've all seen a soldier turn the corner and spot a pack of enemies only to fire a single round and then need to reload.

Overall I think is one of the weak points we get into with CM. It is doing 1:1 which is cool but also brings about a slew of issues that you might not otherwise have.

Edited September 23, 2020 by chi-chi
e

[StieliAlpha]

1 hour ago, chi-chi said:

It depends a lot on what maps and what games you are playing.

CM:RT, for example, is very open but once Fire and Rubble releases players will likely be running into more prolonged indoor and close combat. Continuing that if someone mainly plays QBs in dense terrain they are going to see the lack of close combat crop up far more often than if you do rural areas.


Edit:

It doesn;t help that your guys refuse to do tactical reloads. I'm sure we've all seen a soldier turn the corner and spot a pack of enemies only to fire a single round and then need to reload.

Overall I think is one of the weak points we get into with CM. It is doing 1:1 which is cool but also brings about a slew of issues that you might not otherwise have.

Yeah, good points.

What do you think? Considering the scale of CM, how should this indoor, hand-to-hand fighting look like? What do you think would the outcome and result of such fighting be?

[Bulletpoint]

55 minutes ago, StieliAlpha said:

Yeah, good points.

What do you think? Considering the scale of CM, how should this indoor, hand-to-hand fighting look like? What do you think would the outcome and result of such fighting be?

It's not really anything I'd prefer them to spend their time working on, since apparently they literally have a list of 10,000 other issues that could be fixed or improved.

But a basic animation of stabbing with bayonets or the stock of a rifle and the outcome being determined by experience, fatigue, and morale + a random element could work.

[SimpleSimon]

On 9/22/2020 at 3:13 AM, StieliAlpha said:

Hm, I am not quite sure how often HtH fighting a la „Private Ryan“ really occurred, I.e. how relevant it would be in most CM scenarios.

At least for Napoleonic battles it is said, that bayonet charges rarely came to contact. Usually one side broke and ran.

Else, I believe to remember that the bayonet attack at Goose Green during the Falkland War 1982 was fairly „unbloody“. 

It's all relative. It might happen quite a bit if opposing troops are very close to each other, the visibility is limited and the terrain is favorable, ie: urban, jungles, trenches, night time, etc. 

Overall though it was a fairly uncommon event due to being a sort of niche emerging from a situation that was already pretty circumstantial, ie: infantry close assault. 

Edited September 23, 2020 by SimpleSimon

[Howler]

3 hours ago, chi-chi said:

It doesn;t help that your guys refuse to do tactical reloads. I'm sure we've all seen a soldier turn the corner and spot a pack of enemies only to fire a single round and then need to reload.

It doesn't hurt either and avoids endless threads complaining about the waste of already precious rounds. You have six 30 round mags. You'll quickly find yourself cycling back to partially spent mags because... we all know every mag is retained...