M Hofbauer Posted July 30, 2000 Share Posted July 30, 2000 Q: what has happened here? : A: this is what happens when 2cm and 3.7cm weapons engage moving infantry targets. I am sure many of you have seen this happen to themselves before, But the sheer frustration to see infantry run before your 2cm weapons virtually untouched made me post and investigate this. First, here is a series of shots to show what happens: american crew running in open, targetted by german light AA piece. the shell impacted just far enough behind the moving soldier so that he isn't affected by the blast. I jumped ahead several of these impacts which always occur right behind the soldier. he is about to enter the woods, when another round impacts right behind him. final pic in this series: with another round impacting behind him, the american soldier finally reaches the safety of woods with blocked LOS/LOF. and this then is the result of this, a chain of craters tracing the path of the unharmed target, at a distance of 80m to 100m from the firing gun: Now, of course, this isn't an isolated incident. This problem was the main problem of a battle I created where american infantry tries to attack an AD site which is meant to engage allied aircraft and shield the light german tanks which in turn engage the americans. The AirDefense site has several 2cm, 3.7cm and quad2cm guns pieces. The whole area in front of the AD site is criscrossed with such paths of inconsequential craters. It is also not limited to 2cm gun pieces, but the same effect takes place when 2cm-equipped AFV's like the Pz II Luchs (I don't understand why CM calls it Lynx while it keeps all the other german Raubkatzen armor names in german??). I have thought about it, and it seems they just don't lead the target, and the blast is not big enough to compensate for that. Machine Guns seem to suffer less from this. I am not saying they (2+cm) dont work at all, but they have noticeably little effect IMO, making the quad-2cm (on SdKfz 7 and in the Wirbelwind) anything but the infantry-duster it is often said to have been. I _am_ aware that 2+cm guns have a lower ROF than machine guns. Machine guns are probably indeed more effective vs. infantry, especially at closer ranges. So the first result, that machine guns are more effective than 2cm guns against infantry, might very well be ok, but the second result in CM, namely that it is much better for infantry to be moving or even running than staying in one place taking cover, I am not so sure about. The 2cm/3.7cm seem to be leading alright against moving vehicles and aircraft; they don't seem to lead vs. infantry. What do you think? A little bit puzzled, yours sincerely, M.Hofbauer picture: FlaK pieces seem to do better against aircraft at 350mph at 1km than against soldier walking at 10mph at 100m... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KiwiJoe Posted July 30, 2000 Share Posted July 30, 2000 Yeah Ive noticed that these weapons arnt as effective as I thought they would be vs infantry in the open. But I've never used 1 in real life, so maybe its set about right. They were never designed to shoot at people I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dienekes Posted July 30, 2000 Share Posted July 30, 2000 I have noticed that they don't kill enough soldiers. Now if someone is shot with a 20mm explosive round wouldn't the limb hit be destroyed. Even if it didn't hit you in a vital area, having your arm or leg turned to hamburger would probably make you bleed to death. I feel that virtually any hit by a 20mm or higher should be a kill. Actually I find the lethality of CM rather low. I set up a scenario with a town with a battalion of German infantry and unleashed 8 batteries of 14 inch guns on it. Almost every building was destroyed. The totals were 400+ casualties with just over 100 wounded. Shouldn't there be more dead? Wouldn't half the guys been turned to jam. I think at least 200+ should have been killed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dienekes Posted July 30, 2000 Share Posted July 30, 2000 I meant killed not wounded. Someday I will make a post that doesn't have a mistake in it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikeydz Posted July 30, 2000 Share Posted July 30, 2000 well, I was insipred to run a test on the effectiveness of the 20mm flak vs an infantry squad running across an open field at a range of 150m from the flak gun. I ran the test 140 times using conscript, regular, crack, and elite flak guns total fire time for each test was approx 30 seconds worth of fire. On average, the Conscripts/Regulars caused a 1.04 man casualty rate over the 30 seconds of fire. The Crack/Elite crews managed a 1.32 rate. On the surface, you this may seem to be a low amount. One thing that people are leaving out is the morale effects. Of the 140 sprints into the LOS of the flak gun, only 5 "squads" made it to the end of the turn (after being under fire for 30 seconds) with an ok morale. A large amount of the time, the squads panicked, with a handfull of squads breaking. This after only 30 seconds under fire. So while it does not appear that AA guns don't cause a huge amount of casualties, infantry in CM is terrified by them in the game. I don't know how CM's flak guns compare to real life encounters, but the morale effects sure look terrifying. Mikey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMC Posted August 1, 2000 Share Posted August 1, 2000 These guns seem to do better suppressing stationary infantry in cover than mowing them down. As far the lethality of 2cm rounds... A friend's father was a B-24 crewman. When I knew him, he still had a 20mm round in his right leg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M Hofbauer Posted August 1, 2000 Author Share Posted August 1, 2000 Mikeydz, I am impressed. You ran it 140 times? wow. Interesting results, too. I think the result of hitting 1 to 1.3 men at 150m distance when running under fire for 30secs seems a little bit too low. But maybe it seems so low because we only see three men running through the open with no cover, while actually cm might account for spread, firing-line hunched running from spot to spot etc. and small opportunities for cover in an abstracted way? RMC, but that 2cm had probably already travelled quite a few kilometruv, eh? Unless a german capture party entered the Liberator in-flight (KG200??) with hand-held MG151/20 and shot the crewmembers at poit-blank...but seriously, even if fired from a fighter, I would guess that the projectile fortunately must've had spent most of it's inertia before it hit that man. A 2cm in full flight, even if it does get stuck in the limb (which is unlikely at anything near Vo/Eo) carries enough momentum/inertia to tear the limb off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andre76 Posted August 1, 2000 Share Posted August 1, 2000 It (AA) seems to be a great deflection shooter when the target is not modelled (Aircraft) and a lousy one when it is(inf). This reminds me, is deflection shooting modelled in CM? André Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Offwhite Posted August 1, 2000 Share Posted August 1, 2000 LOL Hofbauer, that KG200 reference made my morning complete! Too bad strategic bombing is so far outside CM's scope, or we could lobby for the inclusion of nervous B-17 gunners shooting each other down Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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