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Why do infantry fire small arms against armour - only in some scenarios?


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OK so I discovered this weird thing that only happens in some missions: Infantry will fire rifles and other small arms against enemy light armour such as halftracks and armoured cars.

This happens in CMFB Probing around Potau for example. I've seeen infantry happily fire rifles against light armour from as far as 250 metres, to no effect apart from getting spotted and killed of course.

BUT when I make a test scenario, they don't do it. I tried to make the infantry conscript (to make them stupid and maybe make mistakes), make it really dark (to make it possible for them to think they might be shooting at a truck maybe), tried various ranges and various light armour vehicles as targets... In all test cases, infantry don't open fire unless the vehicles get into Panzerfaust range or grenade range, and even then, they only fire the appropriate weapons.

Yes, in the Probing around Potau scenario, they open up with all small arms against targets they have no chance of damaging.

What am I overlooking here?

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59 minutes ago, Redwolf said:

Halftracks are vulnerable to smallarms fire. They penetrate easily, it just takes a lot of penetrations to disable them.

Yes, but this is not about halftracks but armoured cars like the Greyhound, and also the M8 Gun Carriage...

Normally, troops will only fire small arms against such open-topped vehicles if the commander sticks his head out, or if there's a big elevation difference so that it's possible to shoot down into the open hatch. But neither is the case here... So I'm pretty puzzled.

Edited by Bulletpoint
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3 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

the Greyhound, and also the M8 Gun Carriage...

Normally, troops will only fire small arms against such open-topped vehicles if the commander sticks his head out

In a recent scenario (CMFB Rollbahn D campaign) inf definitely did fire at and then assault a Greyhound.    It seemed like there were a lot of penetrations with little effect - but there is probably a cumulative effect of damage.

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Open topped and unbuttoned vehicles usually get the small arms treatment. Closed-in and closed vehicles usually don't, unless the armor's particularly thin. For Greyhound, if the TC doesn't dare peer over the top he's functionally blind.

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Just to recap, these are open-topped but buttoned vehicles.

The scenario has a convoy of US light armour crash head first into the player's German forces. Visibility is 200m max and usually I only spot enemy vehicles at 60m. Some US vehicles are unbuttoned, others buttoned due to taking fire earlier up the road.

Of course, at close range, my guys will throw grenades and fire Fausts, but the weird thing is that they also fire away with MGs, rifles, MP40 and StG44. I understand they try to shoot the commander of unbuttoned vehicles, but they also fire at the buttoned ones.

When I test it in the editor, I can drive my vehicles right in front of the Germans and they will only throw grenades, not fire a single shot.

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10 hours ago, c3k said:

Check the ammo? Some of the German 7.92 is SmK, armor piercing. (I think I got it the abbreviation...right.)

Yeah, it might be this if in one scenario you've had the truppen nab AP from somewhere and in the test they've only got normal rounds. Their assessment of the level of danger they represent to the target might be increased if they have specialist tools. Combined with soft factors... might be difficult to pinpoint the parameters of the combination...

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I remember a battle I played some long time ago, where I had a company of Vickers MGs on a ridge. At long range (over 500m), I targeted a series of armoured cars and gun-halftracks, concentrating all the MG fire at each vehicle in turn.

I lost some MG teams, but the results were spectacular - light armour is definitely highly vulnerable to bullets.

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40 minutes ago, Freyberg said:

I remember a battle I played some long time ago, where I had a company of Vickers MGs on a ridge. At long range (over 500m), I targeted a series of armoured cars and gun-halftracks, concentrating all the MG fire at each vehicle in turn.

I lost some MG teams, but the results were spectacular - light armour is definitely highly vulnerable to bullets.

Yep, this can work if you're on a ridge so you can fire down into the open crew compartments. Especially if the range is long enough to get some plunging fire effect too.

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2 hours ago, womble said:

Yeah, it might be this if in one scenario you've had the truppen nab AP from somewhere and in the test they've only got normal rounds. Their assessment of the level of danger they represent to the target might be increased if they have specialist tools. Combined with soft factors... might be difficult to pinpoint the parameters of the combination...

Good to see you back Womble :)

 

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I set up a quick test scenario, a greyhound and some german infantry and HMGs.

The infantry fires on the M8 without hesitation. They get penetrations but no knockouts.

The Greyhounds see them just fine buttoned up. No vision problems there. They engage the infantry with the gun and MG. Opening them up instantly gets a casualty, so the .50cal doesn't go into action.

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16 hours ago, Redwolf said:

I set up a quick test scenario, a greyhound and some german infantry and HMGs.

The infantry fires on the M8 without hesitation. They get penetrations but no knockouts.

Thanks for helping out.

This is with the Greyhounds buttoned?

What is the range? Firing from front or side?

Edited by Bulletpoint
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45 minutes ago, Glubokii Boy said:

Could perhaps the differnt AI order settings play a part in this ?

- causious vs active for example

- Max  assult or assult vs quick 

etc...

 

 


Hmmm... you mean the AI order settings selected for the Germans would still affect them even when the Germans are controlled by a human player?

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7 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:


Hmmm... you mean the AI order settings selected for the Germans would still affect them even when the Germans are controlled by a human player?

ahha...🙃

No ! That would only affect the AI side i'm guessing...Not the AI behaviour of the player troops...

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4 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Thanks for helping out.

This is with the Greyhounds buttoned?

What is the range? Firing from front or side?

Buttoned. Range very close, 20-100m. M8 sitting in between the squads, MHGs from the rear.

All looked good to me.

Edited by Redwolf
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2 minutes ago, Redwolf said:

Buttoned. Range very close, 20-100m. M8 sitting in between the squads, MHGs from the rear.

All looked good to me.

This is so strange, because I can't reproduce it here.

Just to be clear, you didn't order the infantry to fire on the vehicles, they did it by themselves?

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1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

This is so strange, because I can't reproduce it here.

Just to be clear, you didn't order the infantry to fire on the vehicles, they did it by themselves?

Yeah. I just placed them as the editor did. Let me see whether I can find the test scenario I used.

Which game are you using? I use CMFB. I switched to HMG34 as the smallarms, cuts down on the panzerfaust shots.

Edited by Redwolf
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39 minutes ago, Redwolf said:

Yeah. I just placed them as the editor did. Let me see whether I can find the test scenario I used.

Which game are you using? I use CMFB. I switched to HMG34 as the smallarms, cuts down on the panzerfaust shots.

I'm also using CMFB, latest version.

If you can find the test scenario, I'd like to try it out and see what happens here.

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