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Should Marder IIIM crew have a MG?


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Was just reading a bit about the Marder III M, and the Wiki says it removed the hull machine gun, but instead gave the crew an MG42 or MG34 for infantry defence.

However, it seems in Combat Mission, the crew are only armed with pistols.

I think it would be nice if they had (at least a chance of having) a machinegun, and even better if they could fire it from standing inside the vehicle as they were supposed to do in case of infantry attack.

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14 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Was just reading a bit about the Marder III M, and the Wiki says it removed the hull machine gun, but instead gave the crew an MG42 or MG34 for infantry defence.

However, it seems in Combat Mission, the crew are only armed with pistols.

I think it would be nice if they had (at least a chance of having) a machinegun, and even better if they could fire it from standing inside the vehicle as they were supposed to do in case of infantry attack.

Argh, this old chestnut - yes they should have an MG. It was mountable/dismountable, could be mounted on a bracket on the cross bar over the crew compartment for AA, close defence, or dismounted for general use, defence, etc. Why BF decided not to include ??? Who knows. This was discussed a loooonnnggg time back and ... nothing happened.

Anyway, I doubt the old thread still has images so here they are again to prove a point, the last one is the ammo rack - drums were used.

I kept them for all these years ... file info says nine years ago ...

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My theory is that it was too hard to include for some reason, so we never got it, despite the obvious. This goes along with my other pet peeve of why do gunners (PAK, AT and artillery crews) stay with their guns when being shelled/shot to buggery instead of retreating to a safe position and then returning when it's a bit quieter (like what would happen in RL) this was discussed, excused and never properly addressed. There are things in these games that have nothing to do with extrapolation (a favourite excuse) and more to do with can't so won't, ho hum ...

 

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7 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

 

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My theory is that it was too hard to include for some reason, so we never got it, despite the obvious.

It does seem, to the uninitiated with the code, that giving the crew an LMG to use when dismounted (at least) would be as straightforward as changing the data element of the unit that determines their personal weapons when the disembark.

I would hope you could see that giving them a "personal weapon" that they can fire while still controlling their vehicle may be more complicated, since crew get treated differently to passengers in the code. Rewriting how the code treats crews, simply to accommodate how a very few vehicles handled their infantry-defense weapons seems like a lot of work in coding, testing its interactions with the rest of the game and recoding for very small gain in terms of how the whole simulation plays out. How many battles hinge on whether the Marder crew had an LMG to use once they dismounted? 

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This goes along with my other pet peeve of why do gunners (PAK, AT and artillery crews) stay with their guns when being shelled/shot to buggery instead of retreating to a safe position and then returning when it's a bit quieter (like what would happen in RL) this was discussed, excused and never properly addressed. There are things in these games that have nothing to do with extrapolation (a favourite excuse) and more to do with can't so won't, ho hum ...

I'm afraid that looks like a coding limitation. Guns are not treated like vehicles, so they can't be "dismounted" and recrewed. Maybe that's an unfortunate architectural choice, but you haven't seen the code and don't know whether the alternative was even halfway reasonable. And I don't think anyone has used "extrapolation" as an excuse for this, only offered that it's an abstraction (as is nearly everything in the game to some degree). There is certainly a point at which a gun crew will abandon their weapon, with no intention of returning to it, and SOP at that point is to permanently disable the weapon. This would be an additional wrinkle to deal with in coding a "leave it to hide for a bit" behaviour: how do you determine whether a given "duck out" evolution is the "we ain't coming back to the gun", especially when conditions can change while the crew is away from their piece? When you draw that line in code, it will appear to be wrong to some and wrong in a different way to others. Call it an excuse if you want to be aggressive about it. I call it a reasonable explanation as to why it's not going to happen in CMx2. There are many fruits which hang much lower that are not being addressed and aren't likely to be.

Also, you do understand that "Can't so won't" is entirely reasonable, don't you? If you can't do something, it's pretty dishonest to say you will. But in both these cases, it's an accurate description of the situation. They can't do it (for a reasonable investment of coding time) so they won't. And they've never said they will. They may've said "We'll look at it", but these two features are either minor edge cases (dismounted Marder LMG) or buried in the core of the way units interact (gun crews) so the cost-benefit doesn't stack up favourably.

Edited by womble
Failure to use the code markup correctly
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4 minutes ago, womble said:

(PAK, AT and artillery crews) stay with their guns when being shelled/shot to buggery instead of retreating to a safe position and then returning when it's a bit quieter (like what would happen in RL) this was discussed,

This could be solved by the 'Hide Command'. It would mean the crew temporarily leaves the immediate vicinity of their gun to seek shelter. They would return by 'Unhiding'. Needs a slight change in the coding. Or the developers could look at dispersing, the intention would be to rejoin. 

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11 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Argh, this old chestnut - yes they should have an MG. It was mountable/dismountable, could be mounted on a bracket on the cross bar over the crew compartment for AA, close defence, or dismounted for general use, defence, etc. Why BF decided not to include ??? Who knows. This was discussed a loooonnnggg time back and ... nothing happened.

Anyway, I doubt the old thread still has images so here they are again to prove a point, the last one is the ammo rack - drums were used.

I kept them for all these years ... file info says nine years ago ...

Thanks, I was not aware it had been discussed before. Nine years ago must have been just around the time before I started playing Combat Mission.

3 hours ago, womble said:

I would hope you could see that giving them a "personal weapon" that they can fire while still controlling their vehicle may be more complicated, since crew get treated differently to passengers in the code. Rewriting how the code treats crews, simply to accommodate how a very few vehicles handled their infantry-defense weapons seems like a lot of work in coding, testing its interactions with the rest of the game and recoding for very small gain in terms of how the whole simulation plays out.

Yes, could be. And I agree it's not some huge game breaking thing. But we already have odd weapon ararngements that do work. Such as the rear-mounted .50 on the US tank destroyer. Crew members can step up and use that gun - I don't see how this would be any different from having a front-facing MG on the Marder.

When the crew bails, one of them should then just have the MG. There would still be a graphical MG attached to the Marder, but that's a small detail. Just like there's always a 81mm mortar shown graphically in the mortar halftrack, even when the mortar team dismounts and takes the mortar with them.

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3 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

This could be solved by the 'Hide Command'. It would mean the crew temporarily leaves the immediate vicinity of their gun to seek shelter. They would return by 'Unhiding'. Needs a slight change in the coding. Or the developers could look at dispersing, the intention would be to rejoin. 

Unfortunately, units are tied to be in one, and only one, action spot. A team can't spread out over two AS. Neither can a gun-and-its-crew. And given that the "Hide" behaviour would be limited to the same AS, the cover the gun is sited in is almost certainly the best available, when combined with any gun shield that's present. It's an engine architecture limitation, and one that is already considered in the simulation of HE blast, AIUI: pTruppen are prevented from spreading out as much as real meatTruppen can, so blast effects have been toned down "a bit" to compensate.

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3 minutes ago, womble said:

. It's an engine architecture limitation,

Something to put on the wish list. Once an ATG has fired you can't hide it, so the 'Hide Option' is meaningless. Say a limit of 25 meters would be reasonable before it is considered that the gun is abandoned. 

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25 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

Something to put on the wish list. Once an ATG has fired you can't hide it, so the 'Hide Option' is meaningless. Say a limit of 25 meters would be reasonable before it is considered that the gun is abandoned. 

Aye, the wishlist for CMx3 or maybe 4... Being able to spread your teams out a bit more should definitely be there, IMO.

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13 hours ago, womble said:

Also, you do understand that "Can't so won't" is entirely reasonable, don't you? If you can't do something, it's pretty dishonest to say you will. But in both these cases, it's an accurate description of the situation. They can't do it (for a reasonable investment of coding time) so they won't. And they've never said they will. They may've said "We'll look at it", but these two features are either minor edge cases (dismounted Marder LMG) or buried in the core of the way units interact (gun crews) so the cost-benefit doesn't stack up favourably.

Of course, which is why I suggested it might be an answer to the question. BF have limited resource, these choices were made. None of this stuff is impossible it's just not always doable or significant enough to worry about.

Re the Marder M, I always felt that the MG could have been included as a mounted weapon, much in the same way as other AFVs have a secondary MG eg Greyhounds. This was afterall it's primary purpose. If I were a crew member of a stricken Marder, last thing on my mind when evacuating would be to unmount the MG, so that part doesn't bother me quite so much. There might be some situations where it could be taken when abandoning ship, bogged vehicle springs to mind, but these are even more rare than the need to defend against localised enemy infantry or to shoot up the poor crew of the Sherman one just shot to pieces.

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