I wish the AI would pick up SMGs : /

[SDG]

As the title says.

SMGs are an extremely important part of a squad's firepower (even for non-SMG centric squads), therefore if the person with the weapon gets nailed, I would very much prefer if his comrades would trade their crappy bolt action rifles for the SMG that was dropped.

But they seem to be ignoring it.

The only thing the AI is willing to pick up is machine guns.

[PEB14]

2 hours ago, SDG said:

As the title says.

SMGs are an extremely important part of a squad's firepower (even for non-SMG centric squads), therefore if the person with the weapon gets nailed, I would very much prefer if his comrades would trade their crappy bolt action rifles for the SMG that was dropped.

But they seem to be ignoring it.

The only thing the AI is willing to pick up is machine guns.

Indeed. Some of the AI choices are sometimes surprising, as far as picking up weapons goes.

[Brille]

Well I am quite split in my opinion regarding the pick up of smg. 

At one hand it would be cool to add the extra firepower to the squad again. On the other hand however I guess it would not be done that much in real life. (don't nail me on that) 

The mp is more of a self protection weapon for the squad leader so in ideal situations he shouldn't be using it that much to begin with because he should be doing more leading stuff. 

But ideal situations are non existant in the battle I know. 

However I guess in most cases I would deny to pick up the smg if bfc would make it a choosable. Most of the time you are in short supply with the ammo anyway (if no trucks or halftracks are available) and you cannot use the ammo for other small arms of the squad. Plus the soldier will throw away it's weapon and ammo if he equips another weapon with another caliber, reducing your ammo pool for the squad even further. 

But in general I agree that the weapons and ammo pick up needs a bit of tweaking. I had a situation where a combatant threw away his AKM with 200 rounds for a Dragunov with 10(!!!) shots left.  And if he is not Vassili Saitzev kind of skill than I'd rather had my Kalaschnikov back.

 

By the way:

The only way to get an Smg back at the moment is to buddy aid the soldier with a guy that is only armed with a pistol. So mainly vehicle/tank crews. 

Otherwise Sniper rifles and machine guns are on high priority to recover. 

Edited June 26, 2023 by Brille

[chuckdyke]

Picking up a sniper-rifle doesn't make a trooper a sniper. However it is no problem in CM.

[ALBY]

Rifle ballistics would appeal to me much more than a SMG were I a pixeltruppen. Personally, I would rather be farther away plinking with mosin than fighting Germans house to house with my pistol caliber sub gun. 
 

[A Canadian Cat]

5 hours ago, Brille said:

I guess it would not be done that much in real life

^This

39 minutes ago, ALBY said:

Rifle ballistics would appeal to me much more than a SMG were I a pixeltruppen.

and this is why.

[SDG]

3 hours ago, ALBY said:

Rifle ballistics would appeal to me much more than a SMG were I a pixeltruppen. Personally, I would rather be farther away plinking with mosin than fighting Germans house to house with my pistol caliber sub gun. 
 

My personal experience is that SMGs greatly outperform rifles in almost any concievable scenario. 

If you take a German squad, the main "damage dealers" are the two machine guns and the squad leader's MP40. The dudes with the bolt action rifles are just glorified ammo bearers and meat shields for the rest of the squad. 

Funny thing is, that one would think that medium to long ranges, rifles outperform SMGs, while in close ranges (<50m) SMGs should dominate. In reality however (at least according to CM's reality) SMG squads are still extremely deadly within 200 meters (pixeltruppen are happily firing deadly burst), and a full smg squad can wipe the floor with dudes carrying only rifles.

As I have said, this is my subjective take on the inner workings of the game after hundreds and hundreds of hours of gameplay. Rifles just dont cut it. They are (obviously) outmatched at close range, but they also suck at long range cause the shooter cant a hit damn thing. 500 meter effective range my ***..

Btw, this is why I dont like the Brits. A single anemic machine gun, one sten gun and loads of useless dudes with Mk. IV rifles. 

 

Edited June 26, 2023 by SDG

[Chibot Mk IX]

22 hours ago, SDG said:

My personal experience is that SMGs greatly outperform rifles in almost any concievable scenario. 

If you take a German squad, the main "damage dealers" are the two machine guns and the squad leader's MP40. The dudes with the bolt action rifles are just glorified ammo bearers and meat shields for the rest of the squad. 

Funny thing is, that one would think that medium to long ranges, rifles outperform SMGs, while in close ranges (<50m) SMGs should dominate. In reality however (at least according to CM's reality) SMG squads are still extremely deadly within 200 meters (pixeltruppen are happily firing deadly burst), and a full smg squad can wipe the floor with dudes carrying only rifles.

+1

And..... 

I even suspected the SMG squad will outperform the Stg44 squad at 150m distance. I thought about doing a test before, but haven't got a chance to do one.

 

************************************************************************************************ 

 

Regarding pickup SMG through first aid, here is my post, hopefully that helps. Only those with Pistol will pickup SMG

 

 

 

[Chibot Mk IX]

On 6/27/2023 at 10:50 AM, Chibot Mk IX said:

+1

And..... 

I even suspected the SMG squad will outperform the Stg44 squad at 150m distance. I thought about doing a test before, but haven't got a chance to do one.

FYI, I did a test compare a 3 men StG 44 team with a 3 men MP40 team at 180m distance. I would say, MP40 is twice deadly as StG44

180m test, 5 min		test 1	test 2	test 3	test 4	test 5	test 6	test 7	test 8	test 9	test 10
3 men StG44 team kills		5	5	4	7	7	8	2	5	7	7
expended ammo		225	237	226	229	229	235	224	227	236	228
3 men MP40 team kills		10	12	10	7	9	11	10	8	10	10
expended ammo		551	533	576	582	581	609	575	582	589	587

And then in a different test, I put a platoon of PPSh in front of a platoon of StG 44 at 180m distance. The StG 44 platoon is decimated in less than 3 minutes

Will send a report in general discussion later this week. 

 

[Vacillator]

1 hour ago, Chibot Mk IX said:

compare a 3 men StG 44 team with a 3 men MP40 team at 180m distance

Are the results just down to the more than double the rounds the MP40 guys get flying (not sure why that is?)?  Of course it could also include a 9mm versus 7.92mm factor?

Either way, at that distance it seems questionable.

[Chibot Mk IX]

That is likely to be the reason based on current information I have.

StG guy are just using single shot at 180m while MP40 guy fire short bursts.

 

The first test I did is to have a StG, MP40 and PPSh team area fire the buildings at 180m distance. I only did this test one time so maybe I need to retest it couple times, anyway the table below records how many bullets are fired 

	0min	1 min	2 min	3 min	4 min	5 min
StG44	0	53	97	151	194	251
MP40	0	126	248	379	492	624
PPSh	0	77	167	227	308	392

 

PPSh also seems to love single shot when area targeting the building. But I noticed them were using full auto/ short burst when facing the sturmgrenadier platoon (need more test to confirm that).

 

[Bulletpoint]

On 7/25/2023 at 8:50 PM, Vacillator said:

Are the results just down to the more than double the rounds the MP40 guys get flying (not sure why that is?)?  Of course it could also include a 9mm versus 7.92mm factor?

Either way, at that distance it seems questionable.

I think the issue is that SMGs in general are much more effective at longer ranges in this game than they should be. This has been tested out extensively. SMG lethality even increases at the end of their range, instead of dropping off very sharply as one might expect.

 

 

[chuckdyke]

Veterans preferred the K98 over the MP40 as the K98 was more reliable and more accurate. That they pick up the weapon they are most familiar with makes sense. The open bolt feature of the MP 40 made it prone to malfunction especially in winter time.

[Vacillator]

6 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

Veterans preferred the K98 over the MP40 as the K98

The thread was however comparing the MP40 and the Stg44?

[chuckdyke]

4 hours ago, Vacillator said:

The thread was however comparing the MP40 and the Stg44?

I wish the AI would pick up SMGs : / It is written above.

[Vacillator]

In the recent posts it was comparing MP40s and Stg44s.  Whatever.

[chuckdyke]

18 minutes ago, Vacillator said:

In the recent posts it was comparing MP40s and Stg44s.  Whatever.

They didn't like the open bolt nature of the MP40 as it caused malfunctions and also the 9mm was found wanting. Suprise the StG44 fired from a closed bolt and the ammo was a lot more powerful. After favorable reports it was realized that it was a weapon in its own right. I am puzzled why the Soviet Submachine gun is more effective in the game.

[Brille]

On 8/8/2023 at 12:28 AM, chuckdyke said:

They didn't like the open bolt nature of the MP40 as it caused malfunctions and also the 9mm was found wanting. Suprise the StG44 fired from a closed bolt and the ammo was a lot more powerful. After favorable reports it was realized that it was a weapon in its own right. I am puzzled why the Soviet Submachine gun is more effective in the game.

Considering the small arms tests of drifter man, everything that has a high rate of fire tends to kill more and faster. 

And soviet smg have the highest rate of fire in their category so that is one point. 

I also read that the rounds of these smg, though not very powerful, were more aerodynamic than the 9mm, the western nations used. So in theory they may be even more accurate at a certain distance at least. 

Though I don't know how "accurate" that would be and especially on the edge of its effective range. I lost too many halftracks gunners myself to these things that I wouldn't call it realistic. But that is just me. 

 

The StG44 however should do everything that a Submachine gun already could do but also would have an extended range like a rifle. 

So the tests are pretty surprising. 

Still it beats the MP40 in range though. But considering you don't have much ammo for it and even resupply trucks/halftracks don't have an enormous ammount: Who really wants to shoot it over 200m? 

 

 

[chuckdyke]

2 minutes ago, Brille said:

Still it beats the MP40 in range though. But considering you don't have much ammo for it and even resupply trucks/halftracks don't have an enormous ammount: Who really wants to shoot it over 200m? 

The MP 40 malfunctioned a lot especially in wintertime. Like the AK47 not praised because it is accurate but because it is reliable. 

[Brille]

On 8/9/2023 at 12:00 PM, chuckdyke said:

The MP 40 malfunctioned a lot especially in wintertime. Like the AK47 not praised because it is accurate but because it is reliable. 

Well yeah there were some factors the military wanted the introduction of the Sturmgewehr in a larger scale.

You would have a weapon that is good for close but also good for long range. Also you would have an easy to use and easy to produce weapon. Plus you would concentrate on one ammo type (excluding the MG), that would also streamline the logistics and production in that matter.

 

 

And by the way: While SMG can not be picked up by most soldiers (only the ones with pistols equipped), the Sturmgewehr 44 will be happily picked up by any rifleman.

[chuckdyke]

In the game I think the TacAI makes the decision to pick up weapons. Say the code for a pixel trooper is to engage on full contact at 300 meters he will only pick up 7.62 ammo. It makes sense that a pistol toting trooper will pick up a sub machine gun. 

[Brille]

10 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

In the game I think the TacAI makes the decision to pick up weapons. Say the code for a pixel trooper is to engage on full contact at 300 meters he will only pick up 7.62 ammo. It makes sense that a pistol toting trooper will pick up a sub machine gun. 

While in general you may be right I doubt it depends on the ammo alone. Though there seem to be internal algorithms that checks how much (potential) firepower the soldier has on their effective range. Or it is as simple as: if you have "weapon X", then always take "weapon Y" or "weapon >X".

I made a few simple tests and it seems that sniper rifles stand above all else, so it seems accuracy over distance is a factor too. I´ve seen a squad leader dumbs down his Stg44 to get an scoped G43 scoped or an combatant (CMSF2) throwing away his PKM for a Dragunov.

Machine gunners on the other hand are a special case: They seem to be the only ones to be able to carry 2 main weapons, which would make sense because they have a pistol with them that they could "swap" to a better weapon. But even if a normal trooper, who normally has no pistol, loots one MG42 of a comrade, he keeps his rifle or smg in addition to the machine gun.

So sometimes I have a machine gunner, who also has a sniper rifle as his secondary. Which makes it even more hilarious when seeing him swap back and forth through his weapons. "Now I want to spray and pray and now I´m a super stealthy sniper."

 

But one might be careful on what to pick up because the tac ai only chooses the weapon it may pick up. But it will not check how much ammo for this weapon it still can gather. So you could end up with a sniper rifle with only 8 shots left. This was the case with the picked up Dragunov.

 

 

Edited August 13, 2023 by Brille

[chuckdyke]

10 minutes ago, Brille said:

So sometimes I have a machine gunner,

There is always the curious example why a Bren Gunner chooses his Webley Revolver .38 which is roughly equal to the .38 S&W not even a .38 special in the middle of a fire fight. I must add it was during an inside the forest engagement. 

[Brille]

13 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

There is always the curious example why a Bren Gunner chooses his Webley Revolver .38 which is roughly equal to the .38 S&W not even a .38 special in the middle of a fire fight. I must add it was during an inside the forest engagement. 

In my experience this occurs often when the soldier has to reload his main weapon. If he has a secondary that can reach the target, he rather switch over to this one than to reload.

This happens also with panzerfausts and other equipment: In some games my smg gunner emptied his full magazine at close range and then directly fired a faust into the enemies face before reloading.

Occasional this happens also when there is no reload needed, that´s right. The last time I had a soviet battalion commander, who fired his PPSH41, switched to his Nagant revolver, fired 2-3 shots and switched to his smg again and fired some more.

I don´t know if there is a deeper reason behind it or just a bug but in my immersive thinking I would just assume that the PPSh maybe had a malfunction of some sort or he needed a free hand to slap one of his cowering subordinates.

 

[chuckdyke]

1 hour ago, Brille said:

In my experience this occurs often when the soldier has to reload his main weapon. If he has a secondary that can reach the target, he rather switch over to this one than to reload.

I think in the game the secondary weapon clicks when the range is very short. Like hand grenades at two or three action squares.