Uber Sniper?

[elementalwarre]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JoePrivate:

I remember reading, not sure where now, of a British Rifleman in WWI who fired 35 shots(IIRC) into the bullseye of a target at 600yds in one minute. That was using a Lee-Enfield.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

dunno about 35 a minute, but try watching a champion rifleman with a bolt-action. they're -fast-

in WW1 the brits started with long service soldiers who often had years, even -decades- of bolt-action rifle experience. supposedly when german units first ran into british units' murderously accurate rifle fire at 1000 meter ranges they reported they were facing massed machine guns

[Chupacabra]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jshandorf:

I think I am right in saying that in the game itself, the guts, the engine, that a unit is considered to be "firing" when that little tracer rounds goes out. And it is only at that time damage is done to the target unit. Have you ever seen an infantry squad take casualties when NO tracer round hits them? I think not.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, as far as my understanding of the engine goes, the tracer graphic has nothing at all to do with the unit firing. As BTS has explained, the graphical representation of the battle is an abstraction of the actual action, rather than a gospel play-by-play of the action. Which is why, for example, you'll get weird situations which don't seem to jibe with reality. I think we've all seen those tanks which get nailed by units which don't seem to have LOS to the tank. But to the engine, the units DO have LOS to each other, and it's a hit, and to the engine it doesn't really matter what the graphical representation is, except to make it easier for us to understand.

And, incidentally, I've seen plenty of units take casualties when tracers don't hit them.

I think you have to be a little bit more accepting that CM is a game of abstractions rather than absolutes.

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Soy super bien, soy super super bien, soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super.

[Scorpion]

Not only that, but the game is abstracting 'casualties' from other factors, such as turning tail and running away.

Your shots may have completely missed, but Joe and Bob G.I. may have decided that the Army just wasn't worth getting shot up by snipers, and deserted.

-Scorp

[Vanir]

Ok, let me see if I can add something here. Unless my understanding of the way CM works is way off, when a unit, any unit, fires at infantry and registers a "hit" the number of causualties caused is a function of the FP rating of the firing unit compaired to the cover of the infantry. A StuG42s' 105mm gun has a FP rating of 77 vs. infantry and the American M1 rifle has a rating of 3 per rifle at 250 meters. Therefore a unit firing at infantry with 26 M1 rifles at 250 meters would be the same as one 105 shell for the purposes of causualties. Also, I'm fairly certain that jshandorf is correct and that as far as the game engine is concerned infanty do indeed fire in "volleys" rather than a continous stream. It is during these volleys that the game checks for a hit and applies the FP rating for casualies.

Sharpshooters work the same way. They fire a volley (which can be more than one shot) and if they hit the FP rating is compaired to the targets cover, and causualties are applied if appropriate. This is why it is possible to have multiple causualties from a single sharpshooter volley. In order for what jshardorf is suggesting to be implemented, each individual sharpshooter bullet would have to be assigned a FP rating as if it were a very small cannon.

Keep in mind that, as others have pointed out, these are sharpshooters, not trained snipers using special sniper rifles. Steve has pointed out this important difference in other posts. They are regular soldiers who happen to be excellent shots and are detached from their units to do their stuff. That means they are likely to be using a standard semi-auto infanty rifle rather than a bolt action, or perhaps a semi-auto with a scope. This means it is not at all unrealistic that they may occasionally hit 2 guys in a 1-2 second span. I once had a sniper take out 3 guys in one volley, but the unit was running over open terrain less than 100 meters from the sniper and the sniper was veteran, so I don't think this was very unrealistic.

This being the case, I don't think there would be any significant increase in realism for each individual sharpshooter bullet to be modeled. I have used sharpshooters and had them used against me and they are quite effective of used properly as they were historicly, but I have not noticed them being unrealisticly powerful.

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No, there will be no sequels. Charles and Steve have given up wargame design in disgust and have gone off to Jamaica to invest their new-found wealth in the drug trade. -Michael emrys

[This message has been edited by Vanir (edited 09-05-2000).]

[Ataru *~]

Remember guys, the very fact that your men fire in bursts is an abstraction. We all know a squad equipped with assorted weapons such as rifles, SMGs, LMG... would not all fire, wait a couple seconds, all fire, etc. These bursts must represent the fire brought to bear during the periods of no fire, as well as that which is obvious. It is no stretch to apply the same logic to sharpshooters, although in their case the capability to model individual shots *should* exist. (but is definitely not modeled)

Ataru

[Shandorf]

Okay.. i ran a sniper test and found something very interesting.

At 100 meters or less snipers will NOT engage a target. Is that intentional? or a bug?

Here is a the test.. I took 6 German snipers and lined them up in trenches on the edge of a forest. I then took 1 squad of German 45 soldiers which consists of 6xk98,1xSMG,1xLMG and did the same on the other side of the map.

I placed a squad of US 45 soldiers at 100 meters from both of them.

The result after 1 turn was that the squad shot at by the snipers routed after about 30 seconds with 2 KIAs.

The squad across from the german 45 soldiers held out and returned fire after only taking 1 KIA.

I also ran a few other tests with FOs and bazooka teams as the target. The snipers consistently eliminated the FO or bazzoka team on the first volly at 100 meters, 150 meters, and 200 meters.

The German rifle '45 squad wsa barely able to rack up 1 KIA after a full turn of firing.

The american units were always in the open with NO cover.

Not really sure what to say other that a I expected the results to be fairly equal at 100-200 meters but since they were so differnt with the boozak teams and the FOs I decided not to go out any further since the German Rifle '45 squad would just get worse after that.

So what do you guys think?

Jeff

[This message has been edited by Shandorf (edited 09-05-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Shandorf (edited 09-05-2000).]

[Guest *Captain Foobar*]

jshandorf,

The sharpshooter abstraction does not seem to affect gameplay negatively. Sharpshooters, in my opinion are not that powerful. Perhaps you could show an example of how this abstraction, or their current firepower can be used in an unfair way?

(I am not being sarcastic, just trying to see if I can figure out where you are coming from.)

[Shandorf]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by *Captain Foobar*:

jshandorf,

The sharpshooter abstraction does not seem to affect gameplay negatively. Sharpshooters, in my opinion are not that powerful. Perhaps you could show an example of how this abstraction, or their current firepower can be used in an unfair way?

(I am not being sarcastic, just trying to see if I can figure out where you are coming from.) <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Possibly... The fact that they won't engaged infantry at 100 meters or less seems to prevent you from using them in an infantry defense role.

I am just waiting to see what everyone else thinks.

Jeff

[Vanir]

Shandorf:

Snipers will refuse to fire if they think they are likely to be spotted as a result. It is intentional, not a bug. As I posted above, I have seen a sniper fire at less than 100 meters, but this is rare.

As far as your test goes, I don't see a problem here. 6 sharpshooters firing at a single target with scoped semi-auto rifles can take out a small group of men very fast because of their uncanny accuracy. 100-250 meters is easy pickings for a sharpshooter. I can tell you from personal experience from target shooting and hunting that hitting a stationary or slowly moving man sized or even smaller target at that range with a scoped rifle is not hard. I once shot a small deer through the heart a 700 yards with my own rifle and I'm not even that good of a shot. Also, sharpshooters cause a lot of suppression. Historicly, when a unit knew it was under fire from a sniper or sharpshooter, it got real nervous real fast. This is modeled in CM.

People who think snipers are too powerful should do a search on the subject, as there have been several other lenthy discussions on the subject. The general consensus of these discussions seemes to be that the sharpshooter as it is modeled in CM is not overly powerful compared to what it was historicly.

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No, there will be no sequels. Charles and Steve have given up wargame design in disgust and have gone off to Jamaica to invest their new-found wealth in the drug trade. -Michael emrys