Fighting In Villages 1979 (UK Army)

[Halmbarte]

 More period goodness. 

H

[LuckyDog]

Thanks for sharing @Halmbarte. Was that a Chieftan dressed up as a T series at the 12-minute mark? 

In another thread, someone asked about the volume of fire from an SLR vs an M16. If this is to be taken as representative, then single, controlled shots will be the norm! It would be handy to be able to shoot through floors when house clearing. 

[Centurian52]

22 minutes ago, LuckyDog said:

Thanks for sharing @Halmbarte. Was that a Chieftan dressed up as a T series at the 12-minute mark? 

In another thread, someone asked about the volume of fire from an SLR vs an M16. If this is to be taken as representative, then single, controlled shots will be the norm! It would be handy to be able to shoot through floors when house clearing. 

Well, British SLRs are only capable of single shots. So yes, it's completely representative of how British infantry fought. But it's not because they place a tactical emphasis on single shots. It's because their weapons are physically limited to single shots. The full auto capability of the original FAL has been completely removed on the British version of the FAL, the L1A1. So even if these soldiers wanted to fire in full auto, they couldn't. But, since it's firing a full power cartridge, not an intermediate cartridge, I'm not sure how controllable full auto from a FAL would be anyway. I imagine it would be bucking around pretty wildly, so much that you would be depending on more luck than skill to actually hit anything. Which is probably why a lot of armies that used a full powered cartridge in their rifles disabled any full-auto capability.

The question of how the SLR will perform compared to the M16 is one I've been very interested in. I've been going back and forth, but my thinking right now is that British and Canadian infantry should mostly be fine against the assault rifle armed Soviets (probably). They'll be at a theoretical disadvantage at short range, but I think the situation and positioning should be more important than the weapon most of the time. Obviously a British infantry squad with SLRs and a GPMG will have a massive amount of firepower by WW2 standards. But having a massive amount of firepower by WW2 standards doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be able to compete with the fully assault rifle armed US and Soviet infantry in the late Cold War. Whether or not British infantry will be able to hold their own in this era is part of what I'm really curious about, and a big part of why I can hardly wait for the BAOR module to be released. Again, my current thinking is that they should do fine, but I'll lay out in a moment why that's in question.

Unlike the British, both the US and Soviets are armed with assault rifles. The core principle of an assault rifle like the American M16 or Soviet AK74 is that it is a sort of universal small arm. With an assault rifle, there is no need to choose between a semi-automatic rifle or a submachinegun. An assault rifle fully combines the features of both a semi-automatic rifle and a submachinegun. You no longer have a tradeoff between long range firepower and short range firepower like you did in WW2, in which every submachinegun on the squad meant one less rifle and every rifle meant one less submachinegun. An assault rifle can smoothly transition from functioning like a WW2-era semi-automatic rifle at long range, to functioning like a WW2 submachinegun at short range. 

It does this by firing an intermediate cartridge. It is "intermediate" between a pistol cartridge, and what would have been considered a normal rifle cartridge in WW2. What was found in WW1, WW2, and Korea was that almost all fighting took place at ranges far shorter than what was envisioned when the rifles that were in service in WW2 were first designed. The intermediate cartridge of an assault rifle retains the ballistic properties of a full power cartridge out to the edge of normal combat ranges (about 500 meters), but not beyond. Instead of wasting power on achieving a maximum range that will never be utilized in real combat, you can have a smaller and lighter bullet (so you can carry more of them) with a much softer recoil. The soft recoil of the smaller cartridge makes an assault rifle about as controllable in full auto as a submachinegun (we are talking about aimed automatic fire, not random spraying). But because it is still as accurate as a full power cartridge out to the maximum range that you are likely to encounter in real combat you can, with the flick of a selector switch, have a weapon that is optimized for long range fighting or a weapon that is optimized for short range fighting all in a single package.

The theoretical advantage that a full power cartridge, such as the cartridge fired by the SLR, has in range and accuracy only starts to matter at ranges far exceeding normal combat ranges. You would need superhuman eyesight (or optics (which have become more or less universal in the modern day, which is part of why we are looking at going back to something like the SLR (look up the XM7 rifle for more details on that))) in order to take advantage of the theoretically superior ballistics of an SLR. 

At long range M16s and SLRs should perform pretty similarly. The M16 may have a slight edge, since the softer recoil makes follow up shots a bit faster (your sight picture isn't thrown off as much by the previous shot). But at those ranges they are both functioning as if they were WW2-era semi-automatic rifles (with higher magazine capacities). But as the fighting moves from those longer ranges into close quarters the M16 can, with the flick of a selector switch, give you firepower equal to a submachinegun, while the SLR is still only giving you the firepower of a semi-automatic rifle. Unlike assault rifles, SLRs aren't universal small arms. They are just really good semi-automatic rifles.

If you don't think that having a squad made up entirely of submachine gunners gives you a tremendous advantage in close quarters fighting, them I'm guessing that you haven't played CMRT (there's a reason that everyone has switched to assault rifles). Again though, I've been going back and forth myself on how much of a difference this will actually make. One day I'll find myself thinking that the British infantry are screwed, and the next day I find myself thinking that they should prove more or less equal to US and Soviet infantry. So I'm really curious to see how they actually perform when the BAOR module is released.

[Erwin]

My recollection from decades ago was being told that the Brits focused on training for carefully aimed shots rather than mass auto fire.  Partly a money-saving strategy due to budget issues and also an attempt to reduce the logistical tail of ammo resupply.  In WW2 it seems that in order to reduce  casualties since Britain was literally running out of men, the Brit way of fighting depended on HMG's and lots of artillery.  Not sure about today, but is this the same for Cold War era?  In the CM game, the original limitations on map sizes means that most scenarios featured short range combat which gave everyone the impression that the SMG was the best weapon.  These days, we are seeing much larger maps so perhaps rifles will regain their RL dominance.  But, this still depends on designers creating situations for longer range firefights, and most CM designers still create situations where one is fighting with shorter range LOS - where the mass fire of SMG's are most useful. 

Edited November 22, 2023 by Erwin

[LuckyDog]

@Centurian52 Thanks for the detailed response! To clarify, I knew that the SLR/L1A1 is single shot, more that the film showed a much more deliberate rate of fire than repeated trigger pulls - you make a good point about the recoil being a limiting factor for maintaining target/sight alignment. While the round is, as you said, essentially overpowered, it will be interesting to see if the greater penetration is modelled - turning cover into concealment. And yes, in a CQB, I'd prefer my section to be armed with Sterlings (L2) - I saw what the Russian squads did in CMBB... 

[Centurian52]

19 minutes ago, LuckyDog said:

@Centurian52 Thanks for the detailed response! To clarify, I knew that the SLR/L1A1 is single shot, more that the film showed a much more deliberate rate of fire than repeated trigger pulls - you make a good point about the recoil being a limiting factor for maintaining target/sight alignment. While the round is, as you said, essentially overpowered, it will be interesting to see if the greater penetration is modelled - turning cover into concealment. And yes, in a CQB, I'd prefer my section to be armed with Sterlings (L2) - I saw what the Russian squads did in CMBB... 

I haven't comprehensively tested it. But my impression is that that kind of penetration is modeled in Combat Mission. At least it feels like heavier rounds are more likely to penetrate walls and foliage than lighter rounds. SMGs will quickly clear out infantry in nearby buildings because of the sheer volume of fire they are putting out, but it looks like a lower proportion of that fire is getting through the walls than rifle or machine gun fire. And 0.50 cals seem to deal with infantry in buildings much faster than anything short of an autocannon. So I'm guessing the SLR should see the benefits in barrier penetration that come with firing a more powerful round in game. That's something I'll need to start paying closer attention to.

[Brille]

12 hours ago, Centurian52 said:

I haven't comprehensively tested it. But my impression is that that kind of penetration is modeled in Combat Mission. At least it feels like heavier rounds are more likely to penetrate walls and foliage than lighter rounds. SMGs will quickly clear out infantry in nearby buildings because of the sheer volume of fire they are putting out, but it looks like a lower proportion of that fire is getting through the walls than rifle or machine gun fire. And 0.50 cals seem to deal with infantry in buildings much faster than anything short of an autocannon. So I'm guessing the SLR should see the benefits in barrier penetration that come with firing a more powerful round in game. That's something I'll need to start paying closer attention to.

It is definetely the case.

Smg rounds often are deflected or absorbed by building walls. It is comparable the same with 5.56 or 5.45mm rounds. They still pin the infantry inside but usually not much damage is done.

 

If the enemy infantry is prone inside a house you usually need a lot of bullets to get rid of them if you want to fight it out from a distance. But usually (If No heavier weapons are available) you want to pin them from a far and get in for the kill from up close.

Larger and heavier rounds have it easier there.

Thats why .50cal snipers or machine guns are sometimes a godsend in urban environment. With those it seems that the walls aren't even there.

But even 7,62mm Sniper or machinegun rounds are an important factor here.

[Halmbarte]

I suspect the SLRs for the Brits are going to be a detriment. 

The only place where I see having a full power rifle cartridge (AKA battle rifles) having a real advantage is in a fight where you & the enemy are both bringing pure infantry forces w/o any supporting mortars or direct fire heavy weapons. That kind of fighting pretty much became obsolete in WWI after the invention of the mortar. 

I totally agree that being able to outrange your opponent before they can hit back is great*. The problem is you have to go back to early WWI to get conditions where the majority of your firepower is coming from the infantry rifles & machine guns. 

Once you have mortars, direct fire heavy weapons (typically AFV mounted), and responsive artillery fires available opening fire with infantry in that dead zone** is just going to give a signature to the enemy. They are then going to blast your troops into dog meat; Not with infantry, but with those mortars, direct fire heavy weapons, and artillery. 

On defense, I typically set my engagement ranges based around the AT fires I have available. I don't want that infantry squad opening up at 800m (because they are very unlikely to hit anything) and blowing my AT ambush from outside the range my AT assets can respond to. 

In short range firefights, I don't think it's controversial to say the battle rifles are a detriment. The low rate of fire hurts as does the weight of the rifle & ammo, meaning you can carry fewer shots than assault rifle armed troops. 

H

*Let's be generous and say assault rifles max out at 300m and battle rifles max out at 800m. 

**From 300-800m

[LuckyDog]

I was playing scenario four today in the American campaign - Dollbach Heights. There were a number of Russian units my M16 armed troops would not open fire on, as the range was over 400m...  An unusual case where I didn't need to hit them, more to stop them, and an SLR would have been perfect.

[Anthony P.]

On 11/21/2023 at 9:15 PM, LuckyDog said:

It would be handy to be able to shoot through floors when house clearing. 

That's absolutely possible to achieve. It's just a bit fiddly, but you can area fire through floors/roofs if you're inside/adjacent to a building.

[Halmbarte]

16 hours ago, LuckyDog said:

I was playing scenario four today in the American campaign - Dollbach Heights. There were a number of Russian units my M16 armed troops would not open fire on, as the range was over 400m...  An unusual case where I didn't need to hit them, more to stop them, and an SLR would have been perfect.

What other resources did you have? Depending on infantry w/rifles to have much of an effect on troops at 400m+ isn't going to work well. 

You can set up a firing range using a WWII title with Americans w/Garands to try it out. I expect that they won't be able to prevent movement at 400m out. 

H

[Chibot Mk IX]

On 11/25/2023 at 9:52 PM, LuckyDog said:

I was playing scenario four today in the American campaign - Dollbach Heights. There were a number of Russian units my M16 armed troops would not open fire on, as the range was over 400m...  An unusual case where I didn't need to hit them, more to stop them, and an SLR would have been perfect.

IMHO, in most of CMCW scenario it is not worthy to have a riflemen to open fire for target >400m. In that particular scenario, you will receive a warm welcome from a hail of 14.5mm + 7.62mm x 54R. Let your .50cal on the M113 , ATGM and ICM do the dirt work. Let the infantry focus on the recon and observation. 

 

That is the philosophy of assault rifle, to adapt to the Mechanized warfare.     In mechanized warfare age the IFV/APC is the backbone of the mech. infantry squad.       A 30mm autocannon's firepower equal to 2-3 infantry squads' FP. 

 

And that also goes to the question if L1A1 is a better rifle compare to M16 > 400m? The answer is No, >400m it is the work of Grenade launcher, HMG and Mortar, etc

 

In an ideal situation, after the duel between Artillery, mortar, tank gun, autocannon, HMG,  dismount infantry just needs to mop up the remaining enemy hiding in difficulty terrain, engagement range is <200m.

 

In that Dollbach Heights scenario (I was playing the 1979 campaign), the only time I wish my scout team would have a battle rifle is that I have identified an RCL and an ATGM team in the treeline. Fear the loss of the M113 I don’t want to bring them forward, and ICM is busy with the bombardment of the targets on the road. The distance is about 700m , I wish I have a M60 MMG team in a deploy mode but I don't. Guess what, I let the scout team share the information with the commander of ATGM plt. Bring my M150 forward, area fire a TOW on the contact icon , reverse back to the woods and,  job done.

 

That is also the theme of most of the CMCW scenario. Engagement between infantry weapon is a side show. I am in my US 79 campaign mission 6 right now, engagement between infantry only happens in Mission 2. The other missions my infantry never got a chance to fire their M16….

Edited November 28, 2023 by Chibot Mk IX

[Halmbarte]

22 minutes ago, Chibot Mk IX said:

That is also the theme of most of the CMCW scenario. Engagement between infantry weapon is a side show. I am in my US 79 campaign mission 6 right now, engagement between infantry only happens in Mission 2. The other missions my infantry never got a chance to fire their M16….

The big exception in fighting in built up areas. And even then if you can arrange fire support from the IFVs it's going to go a lot better for your guys. 

H

[Centurian52]

We've seen battle rifles in Combat Mission before (FG-42s in the hands of Fallschirmjaeger, and FALs and G3s in the hands of Mujahedeen). But we've never seen full squads completely equipped with battle rifles before, making it difficult to visualize how they will perform when used en-masse. The closest thing we have to squads fully equipped with battle rifles are squads fully equipped with semi-automatic rifles in the form of US WW2 infantry. The biggest difference between a battle rifle and a semi-automatic rifle is that battle rifles have twice the magazine capacity (and some battle rifles can fire in full auto, but that won't matter until we get West German forces), so looking at squads equipped with semi-automatic rifles should give us a pretty good impression of what sections equipped with battle rifles should be like. I figure a Normandy-era US infantry squad with two BARs should have approximately the same firepower as a Canadian Cold War-era infantry section (semi-auto rifles backed up by two automatic rifles). And I figure a Normandy-era US airborne infantry squad should have approximately the same firepower as a British Cold War-era infantry section (semi-auto rifles backed up by a belt-fed MG).

I have gone back to the WW2 titles while I wait for the BAOR module, since I want to be mentally comparing the Cold War equipment to WW2 equipment, not to modern equipment, when I get back to CMCW. So I have been seeing a lot of how US WW2 infantry firepower compares with US Cold War infantry firepower (CMCW was the game I was playing the most before backtracking to WW2, so Cold War US infantry firepower is still fresh in my head). And it became apparent pretty quickly that US WW2 infantry have a lot less firepower than US Cold War infantry. On the one hand, I should hope so (otherwise the M16 wouldn't have been much of a step up from the Garand). On the other hand, that probably doesn't bode well for British and Canadian Cold War infantry. But I should add the caveat that I have been seeing Sicily-era US infantry in action, not Normandy-era US infantry. I am playing my CM2 games in chronological order, starting with Sicily, so I still have another year to go until I get to Normandy (I was playing CM1 as well, but I got antsy for the more visually spectacular CM2 games). So none of my regular US squads have picked up a second BAR, like some of them will have done by Normandy, and my US airborne infantry are still making do with the tripod-mounted M1919 (none of my airborne squads have a bipod-mounted M1919 yet). 

Before the last year or so it had been several years since I was able to play Combat Mission on a regular basis. And since I started playing regularly again I spent most of my time in CMBS, CMA, and CMCW. So as far as recent WW2 experience I only have the 30 or so scenarios that I've played in the last month or so. I want to get a few dozen more WW2 scenarios under my belt before I try to draw too many inferences about the tactical consequences of having semi-automatic rifles instead of assault rifles (despite the reduced firepower, infantry vs infantry combat in WW2 seems to be mostly the same as modern infantry combat, at least from the perspective of tactics, with most of the differences having to do with supporting or opposing armored vehicles). But there is one tactical consequence that I have already noticed with a pretty high degree of confidence. In the Cold War and modern titles the tac-AI's decision to stop and shoot if caught out by the enemy while in the middle of a movement order often seemed like the right move. Their assault rifles provided each man with enough firepower to have a realistic chance of killing or suppressing the enemy, allowing them to then finish their movement order in relative safety. In WW2, the tac-AI's same decision to stop and shoot when it sees the enemy in the middle of a movement order usually seems like the wrong move. While their Garands provide a lot of firepower by the standards of a WW2 rifle, it isn't quite enough firepower to have a realistic chance of killing or suppressing the enemy. It usually seems like it would be much safer for them to just complete the movement order as quickly as possible, rather than stopping in the middle of a kill zone to shoot. The other end of that coin is that the enemy infantry also have less firepower in WW2. So while I think it's a mistake for my infantry to stop in the open to shoot back, the enemy's ability to punish that mistake is limited. The British and Canadian infantry in the Cold War may end up with the worst of both of those worlds. Their SLRs won't provide them with enough firepower to make stopping in the open to shoot a good idea, while the Soviets will have enough firepower to heavily punish that mistake.