Why I like playing the underdogs (Commonwealth, Free French, etc.)

[chuckdyke]

3 minutes ago, womble said:

Not so much lugging heavy ammo around,

You forget the spare barrels too. In the game they should have some in their trucks and APC's. 

[womble]

5 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

You forget the spare barrels too. In the game they should have some in their trucks and APC's. 

I think the barrels are abstracted out as "part of the ammo". Barrel changes were par for the course for vickers MGs too, though not at the same frequency as the buzz saw german L/MMMGs, naturally, and I presume this was true across the sustained-fire MG piece.

[chuckdyke]

2 minutes ago, womble said:

part of the ammo

You are right probably but it is the sort of thing which gives the enemy an opportunity to pin them down. 

[womble]

1 minute ago, chuckdyke said:

You are right probably but it is the sort of thing which gives the enemy an opportunity to pin them down. 

I've certainly had elements do ammo supply runs in my games. Usually I've been very careful to make them via covered routes; absent that option, the effectiveness of the system I'm supplying is limited by its carried ammo, and in any case, the system is "pinned" to some extent by the maximum practical distance to travel to the resupply point.

On the other side of the coin, IIRC, a barrel changed "on schedule" is timed for the prevention of lasting damage to the tube, and will cool down sufficiently to be reused, in time, so the number of "boxfresh" barrels the ammo guys would have to bring forward from their truck has a ceiling, as the ones in the position already can be cycled through.

[Warts 'n' all]

When it comes to discussing underdogs, never argue with a womble. As Dickie Guy once said to Peter Lorimer.

[holoween]

12 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

On MG 3 machine guns, two types of bolts are available, with standard weight (about 650 g (22.93 oz)) for the standard 1,000–1,300 rounds per minute cyclic rate of fire and with extra weight (about 900 g (31.75 oz)) for a slower 800–950 rounds per minute cyclic rate of fire. Those bolts also are used along with different return springs.

In german army service which is currently the only ore relevant to cm there is only one bolt weight and spring with a cyclic rate of fire of 1150+-50rpm.

12 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

Not completely right not completely wrong the machine gunner has the final word of how many rounds he shoots. After 150 rounds of rapid fire the gunner changes the barrel.

Note that only applied when the gunner has a break to change the barrel. The barrel can absorb quite a few more rounds through it but that is starting to degrate its lifetime. Also after 1000 rounds youre supposed to swap bolt but that is never actually adhered to. Its usually simply switch bolt at the end of the day or when stoppages occur that could be atributed to the bolt.

12 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

 In the tripod mounted medium machine gun role MG 3 users are trained to fire short bursts and bursts of 20 to 30 rounds and strive to optimize their aim between bursts fired in succession. After around 150 rounds of rapid fire, the gun operator will replace the hot barrel with a new, cooler one. In practical terms the estimate of 600 rpm is not unreasonable. 

How long a burst you fire depends entirely on the situation.

If youre trying to keep the oponents heads down youll fire multiple 3-5 round bursts shifting aim point between each.

If you have a squad in the open multiple 20-30 round bursts are called for.

And for final protective fires cyclic until the gunner until the gunner runs out of ammo or has to readjust aim.