Stoffel Posted November 16, 2000 Share Posted November 16, 2000 Not long ago someone mentioned that he lost many games as a defender. Lately I looked at the kill stats for my units. And something odd is going on if you look at a HMG 42 team they have lot of ammo. In my previous pbem I had three teams they had fired almost all their ammo at many different infantrysquads and vehicles. I looked at the kill stats in the 26th turn and to my suprise they had caused.... 3 infantrycasualties? So I was curious to the other units results and setup a testrange. Used two 150mm guns and 8 mg42 teams against unprotected infantry with a maximum range of 400 meters,no hills no trees no other cover. After 4 turns they had caused ...zero casualties,how am I supposed to win a fight if my crews can't kill anybody? ANd yes they all had veteran quality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Croda Posted November 16, 2000 Share Posted November 16, 2000 Can I assume that you checked the enemy squads for casualties? If you checked the unit's kill stats, then you can chalk it up to Fog of War. I've had battles end, where there is hardly a living enemy soldier on the board. When I check my units at the end, I don't get a total of 2 squads killed. Does that mean I didn't kill them? Naw, just FOW. ------------------ "Nuts!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigmac@work Posted November 16, 2000 Share Posted November 16, 2000 MG's are typically more used for suppression than actually killing within CM. Rarely will you see a MG actually killing the enemy and stacking them like cordwood in front of their emplacements. They suppress, get the enemy shaken and heading the wrong way. Your infantry and HE will usually get the credit for the finish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
conor13 Posted November 16, 2000 Share Posted November 16, 2000 ya know, bigmac's right about mg's.i was playing ***** ********* as the germans and i just used 'em to make the allied player's troops keep there heads down. as for kill counts, well, lets just say you're not alone . conor s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Pattison Posted November 17, 2000 Share Posted November 17, 2000 Although it doesn't appear that the HMG's and Gun's are killing anything, the casualty count doesn't tell the whole story. The unit casualty stats that are reported to you are the causalities that the unit knows it caused and that apparently depends are the visibility and range of the target. If you tabulate those unit stats with the stats presented at the end of the scenario, you'll see that the numbers don't agree. In fact, they usually are under reporting enemy losses. The other principle that needs to be taken into account when talking about weapons effectiveness is suppression. A lot of fire that does not cause causalities causes suppression. Units can get pinned, broken, panicked, and routed on both sides by incoming fire without taking apparent causalities. Although these units appear to be at full strength in manpower, they are essentially combat ineffective until they have rallied. Your test range wouldn't show these effects, because you gave the infantry no cover in which to take refuge. The only thing you would see the infantry do is go prone which reduces the effectiveness of your weapons by making themselves smaller targets. From another perspective, although seems that it seems extremely odd that you can fire a lot of ammo in the direction of the target not appear to cause any casualties, it actually matches real experiences. Both the British Army and the US Army conducted experiments into firepower effectiveness after WWII. What they found was that a man who could hit the target 9 times out of 10 on a firing range in a training situation could only hit the target 1 times out of 4 in a stressful situation. Further tests also revealed that in infantry squads only a small portion of the squad was firing its weapons at all. So, when you couple the lack of accuracy with a target that is doing its best not to get killed by hiding in every depression in open ground and behind every tussock of grass four football fields away, it's not hard to see how you could dump a lot of lead in that targets direction and not hit anything. So, how to win a fight when you apparently can't kill anything. THE SECRET. Engaging in prolonged firefights with the enemy will only make you low on ammo. To kill him, you must close with him to the most effective range of your weapons. For infantry, that's hand to hand combat. Therefore, to win you must close effectively. To close effectively when on the attack, you must do the following four things. 1. Choose a line of attack that maximizes the cover of the attacking force. 2. Suppress the units that can fire on your approach by locating("scouting the route") and keeping them under fire("called establishing a base of fire") or isolating them by place smoke between the attacking force and them. 3. Outnumber the units that you intend to kill by at least 3 to 1 with units that are not engaged in step 2. 4. Attack them all at the same time. If your defending, you want to prevent or at least delay your opponent from taking those four steps against you. The following are a few suggestions also in list form and corresponding to the steps above. 1. Set up your forces covering the most obvious lines of attack and engage him during the approach march. 2. Plan to hide some of your units and leave them hidden until the enemy is well within your effective range. Learn also how to use the ambush command. Plan to retreat units under fire to alternate defensive positions. 3. Move units not engaged into the area of his intended assault. 4. If the above three steps have succeeded in disrupting his advance, execute a counterattack to prevent him from reorganizing. [This message has been edited by Jeff Pattison (edited 11-16-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadow 1st Hussars Posted November 17, 2000 Share Posted November 17, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Stoffel: Not long ago someone mentioned that he lost many games as a defender. Lately I looked at the kill stats for my units. And something odd is going on if you look at a HMG 42 team they have lot of ammo. In my previous pbem I had three teams they had fired almost all their ammo at many different infantrysquads and vehicles. I looked at the kill stats in the 26th turn and to my suprise they had caused.... 3 infantrycasualties? So I was curious to the other units results and setup a testrange. Used two 150mm guns and 8 mg42 teams against unprotected infantry with a maximum range of 400 meters,no hills no trees no other cover. After 4 turns they had caused ...zero casualties,how am I supposed to win a fight if my crews can't kill anybody? ANd yes they all had veteran quality.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> mb it's the fog of war. You can kill a whole battalion of infantry, they can all be lying infront of you dead and dying and you wouldn't even know it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coralsaw Posted November 17, 2000 Share Posted November 17, 2000 HMGs are great for suppression, but check out the following use as well. Try to ambush with a hidden HMG at a distance of <30 meters, preferably setting the ambush in the open. Now the first squad that runs into this ambush is dead meat. Can you say all kaput in <5 seconds? ------------------ My squads are regular, must be the fibre in the musli... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stoffel Posted November 17, 2000 Author Share Posted November 17, 2000 thanks guys I will try this out. I have been a machinegunner myself and I have to say a very good one on a targetrange. Fortunate I never had to shoot at another human being nor does someone ever shoot at me. So I can't tell weather or not this would apply to me(stresseffect) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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