One Shot - One Kill : Snipers/Sharpshooters

[Chad Harrison]

i never buy them, but more and more im getting shot at by them. it seems to be another one of those popular things to buy, and i like the idea of them, but was never quite ready to put up the about 20 points for one.

okay, from my understanding, snipers/sharpshooters have a much better chance of not being spotted, and once they are spotted, they have a better chance of "disapearing". ive heard it many times that a lot of people will use them in conjunction with tanks so the snipers/sharpshooter can button/shock the enemy tank/vehicle. i also know from experience that they can do a doosie on mortars/MG and other support weapons moving in the open.

but are they worth the 22 points (veteran)? do they win their point worth? yes if you shock a tank with one, and then your tank comes along and gets him, you could say that the snipers/sharpshooter helped buy his weight.

but what are the chances of shocking a tank/vehicle? does veteran make a big difference? do they get combat bonus' from HQs?

oh, i also hear that using them as scouts is considered gamey. is that one persons opinion, or is that right up there with flak trucks?

i do see their potential, but i could buy a veteran zook for the same price. which one would you take?

[Gen-x87H]

I guess you could consider it gamey. But who would use them for scouting when you could buy a truck for just a few more points and scout so much faster?

Anywho I have not encountered many sharpshooters yet. But I usually have troops in front of my tanks so they would probably take the shot from the sharpshooter and then open up on him.

Gen

[Doug Williams]

I once had a sharpshooter score a hit on an unbuttoned tank on turn one. The tank never moved for the rest of the game.

[Michael Emrys]

I get sharpshooters most of the time and don't consider them gamey at all. I nearly always play the Americans, and they had one per platoon as standard TO&E, though I suspect that in practice they were more rare than that. Since CM has no other provision for scouts, other than split squads (which I don't like), I consider using sharpshooters in that capacity as fair game. I don't think mine generally inflict many casualties, but if they manage to harass a pesky crew or two, that's fine with me.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Gen-x87H:

But who would use them for scouting when you could buy a truck for just a few more points and scout so much faster?<hr></blockquote>

Now that's gamey! :eek:

Michael

[Chad Harrison]

has anyone ever done tests on how often they can shock a crew? i found out who the grog of points was, and i know there has to be a grog of snipers/sharpshooters out there!

one snipers/sharpshooter per platoon michael? thats interesting. was that one person taken out of the platoon (best shot), or was that someone attached to the platoon from company/battalion or something?

[The Commissar]

Chad,

From what I've read, the "sharpshooters" most of the Western Allies employed were quite different from "snipers" which were used by Germany, USSR, and a number of other countries.

A sharpshooter was just like you said, a good shot given a scoped rifle. It is not gamey to use them as scouts, because thats what they were used for. The scope on their rifle made them especially effective of sneaking into a positions and getting a good look at the ground ahead. Of course, since I doubt they also carried bulky radios, they would have had to get back and report. In CM this does not happen, so I suppose people who feel this is a gamey tactic are somewhat justified in their opinion.

[CMplayer]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Michael emrys:

CM has no other provision for scouts, other than split squads (which I don't like)<hr></blockquote>

Why don't you like that?

One reason I can think of is that by splitting up a squad, you are already mutilating your platoon. But you can always just purchase a 'recon' platoon, split all the squads and hand them out piecemeal to the rest of your troops. That way the half squads can trigger ambushes, and you've got a complete platoon coming right up behind.

Then you can give the spare HQ to some support weapons.

Scouting with a sharpshooter seems like a waste of his capabilities to me, but I'd be interested in hearing arguments pro and con.

[Pvt. Ryan]

Fire from a sharpshooter will almost always button up a vehicle with one shot, and can do it at long range as well. This extremely important against the AI since the AI never unbuttons a vehicle once it is buttoned. It is obviously less effective against a human opponent, but even buttoning a tank for one turn can give your own armor ar AT weapons a better chance. I don't know how often a sharpshooter will shock a crew, but in my experience it is about 10% of the time. If you do use sharpshooters don't let them get too close to the fighting as they are useless up close.

[Redwolf]

Gamey? This opinion must come from someone who wants to play the headlone-attack-big-clash game and nothing else. No thanks.

And think of it point-wise. One casuality and you loose 18 points. I don't think there is any other way in the game to get that many points from a single smallarms burst or a single mortars shell. The risk sounds appropriate in exchange for the gain. The spotting ability is not great, IMHO.

As for tank/sharpshooter teams. besides buttoning the tank, there is the very basic issue of spotting the enemy tank in time. You need infantry in front of your armour to get that, and a sharpshooter is quite a good choice. It probably has a better chance than a half-squad to chase away an AT team approching your tank.

I prefer the half-squad version, though, since I don't want to take the risk and in a long game (30 turns for a ME is long) I might be grateful to have an extra half platoon that I can reassemble.

[Chad Harrison]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by redwolf:

I prefer the half-squad version, though, since I don't want to take the risk and in a long game (30 turns for a ME is long) I might be grateful to have an extra half platoon that I can reassemble.<hr></blockquote>

i have to agree with you on that redwolf. thats why i was curious to know what others experience had been with sharpshooters as recon or whatever. they just die to easily, all it takes is one lucky shot and your gone. and you only have ten "shots". i would rather have the platoon that has more men in most situations; esp a longer battle where you can pick up the Broken! pieces over time.

[Michael Emrys]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Chad Harrison:

one snipers/sharpshooter per platoon michael? thats interesting. was that one person taken out of the platoon (best shot), or was that someone attached to the platoon from company/battalion or something?<hr></blockquote>

Actually, one member of the headquarters group was armed with a Springfield. I assume he is the one who would be detached for sniping (interpreted loosely) duties. At any event, this is how the Army planners drew it up. I strongly suspect that what happened in practice was that the Springfield was handed over to the best shot in the platoon or simply tossed away and replaced with a Garand or something else. The Lieutenant probably preferred to keep his immediate command group handy to serve as runners than have them possum hunting. My own hunch is that in the ETO the actual number of true sharpshooters (notice I did not say 'snipers') was probably closer to one per company. This would be an average. Some would have more, some less depending on circumstances and the preferences of the local commander.

The most realistic solution to the scouting problem consistent with historical practice would be to split off a pair of men from a squad rather than dividing it in half. That would make your scouting team a bit more survivable and leave the firepower and morale of the remaining squad relatively intact.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by CMplayer:

Why don't you like that?

One reason I can think of is that by splitting up a squad, you are already mutilating your platoon.<hr></blockquote>

That's it in a nutshell.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>But you can always just purchase a 'recon' platoon, split all the squads and hand them out piecemeal to the rest of your troops.<hr></blockquote>

That works fine if you are designing a scenario. If you, like I, play QBs you are on a point budget and buying an extra platoon might not fit too well into it. For instance, if you are playing the Americans, six veteran sharpshooters will cost you 132 points. A veteran platoon (which yields six half-squads) will cost 148 points. Sure, you get an HQ thrown into that deal, but you lose the stealth and other good qualities of the sharpshooter.

I guess in the end it may come down to a judgement call, but for me, the sharpshooter most closely replicates what I take to be the behavior of the scout.

Michael

[Fuerte]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Chad Harrison:

has anyone ever done tests on how often they can shock a crew?<hr></blockquote>

I buy often one crack sniper, and I have noticed that they very frequently shock enemy tanks with the first shot. It is nice to see the tank stop for a turn or two.

[Chad Harrison]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Fuerte:

I buy often one crack sniper, and I have noticed that they very frequently shock enemy tanks with the first shot. It is nice to see the tank stop for a turn or two.<hr></blockquote>

i messed around with some veteran snipers/sharpshooters last night and from about 100-200m they seemed to shock a tank/vehicle more than half the time.

so if you shock it or button it right before your tank comes around the corner, that could be very effective. or you could just buy a veteran zook for that much and try it on your own (as long as its only 5m away so you can actually hit it! i had a veteran zook miss all 8 times at a stationary StuG at 110m! :mad: )

[CMplayer]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Michael emrys:

I guess in the end it may come down to a judgement call, but for me, the sharpshooter most closely replicates what I take to be the behavior of the scout.

<hr></blockquote>

So you mean they work pretty well at infiltrating forward and spotting enemy positions before being spotted themselves? I've never tried that with those units. Do you use 'sneak'?

[Foobar]

I like to hide them in a patch of woods that is likely to be bypassed by enemies that are attacking me. They are very hard to spot if they remain stationary, and can do a great job of disrupting the enemy once the frontline force has passed by.

They wont cause massive casualties, but they can rout platoon leaders, mortars, or suppress an at gun for the entire game.

And yes, they often kill Tank Commanders.

But dont use them as point men in front line combat situations. It just doesnt make any sense.

[xerxes]

Sneak is the key. Sharpies can get very close in cover without being seen. They are particularly useful in defence to provide early warning of a wide flank. As a bonus they can wait till armor or other useful targets pass them by and then backshoot them with much less chance of being detected. The upgraded (veteran/crack) are particulalry good at detecting enemies and remaining hidden (in addition to shocking).

In practice, I've had mixed luck with them.

-marc

[DevilDog]

When I was active duty our STA platoon was our battalion internal scout / recon force. Our battalion CO used them to tremendous effect in several force on force encounters with other marine and foreign units. The Koreans we went up against in particular couldn't figure out how we kept hitting them where they had minimal defenses. Only one 2 man team was ever seen, and that was at long range. Well, I guess our battalion CO was gamey, what did he know......

[Patgod]

what a gamey llama your CO was.

[Bullethead]

Chad Harrison said:

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>i was curious to know what others experience had been with sharpshooters as recon or whatever.<hr></blockquote>

My experience with sharpshooters:

These are one of my favorite units but they have to be used carefully both to be effective and not be gamey.

Use of sharpshooters by the attacker (or either side in a meeting engagement) is either very gamey, very ineffective, or both.

The reason for their ineffectiveness in these situations is their AI. They are hard-wired to try to avoid giving away their position, to the extent that they often won't fire if any enemies are within 150m, because odds are they'll die from return fire. Put opposing sharpshooters inside the same building and they'll never shoot at each other. So basically, they suck at closing with the enemy.

OK, so they won't shoot--that just makes them harder to spot, right? Thus, they could be good scouts. However, scouting per se is gamey in battles of CM's scale. Having your main body wait while a few expendables systematically scour the map looking for the enemy is by definition taking unrealistic advantage of CM's universal spotting system and the unlimited realtime available between turns of gametime. In real life, the time necessary for the scouting info to come back to the commander, the commander to make plans based on that info, and then get the word to his troops, is far longer than CM battles last. So doing this sort of recon is inescapably and completely gamey, whether you do it with an armored car or a sharpshooter.

That said, sharpshooters are very effective and realistic on the defense, provided you use them properly. Otherwise, you can slip into gameyness this way as well. The best way to use sharpshooters is to position them in advance of your MLR with a good LOS over a likely enemy AOA. Then just leave them alone--never give them orders. Their AI was designed for this role and does a better job picking targets for maximum damage while staying alive than you can do for it.

Sharpshooters have 2 purposes on the defense. First, they spot the enemy in advance of your MLR. This enables you to shift reserves with foreknowledge to shore up threatened areas or set up counterattacks. You can also call in arty on the advancing enemy to do heavy damage without revealing your MLR (a sharpshooter-TRP combo was EXTREMELY effective before TRPs got all hosed up). The second purpose of defensive sharpshooters is dislocating the enemy attack by killing, shocking, and/or panicking key enemy units before they reach your MLR. This is nice but often the early spotting of enemy units is worth more to you. But either way, a few sharpshooters are a great investment--they might not do much damage themselves, but they allow you to use your main force more effectively.

But you have to be careful here because the Borg spotting system works on defense as well as offense. On the defense, however, it's a lot easier to accept that the sharpshooter can give real-time intelligence reports. His main job, after all, is manning an OP, the whole purpose of which is to deliver just such reports, and which can safely be assumed to contain a telephone wired to the command post. But such means of communications aren't mobile. Thus, it would still be very gamey to rely on a sharpshooter's spotting reports if you're making him use shoot-and-scoot tactics. This is yet another reason for not giving any orders to sharpshooters.

Anyway, that's my $0.02 on the subject. In a nutshell, sharpshooters are best used as static defenses. Moving them around quickly becomes a matter of gamesmanship and also takes them out of their most effective shooting situations.

[Michael Emrys]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by CMplayer:

So you mean they work pretty well at infiltrating forward and spotting enemy positions before being spotted themselves?<hr></blockquote>

Very much so. The only times I've had one get popped is when he was moving in the open within a couple hundred meters or less of enemy units. Once one ran into an unspotted minefield and discovered it the hard way. I steered my squads around that field.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Do you use 'sneak'?<hr></blockquote>

When I think the occasion demands it. Mostly I dont bother with it. I usually halt them deeply enough within the tree line that they won't get spotted with a normal Move comand. One guy is really hard to spot apparently. If so, it doesn't surprise me.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Bullethead:

However, scouting per se is gamey in battles of CM's scale.<hr></blockquote>

Well now, that's debateable. But read on.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Having your main body wait while a few expendables systematically scour the map looking for the enemy is by definition taking unrealistic advantage of CM's universal spotting system and the unlimited realtime available between turns of gametime. In real life, the time necessary for the scouting info to come back to the commander, the commander to make plans based on that info, and then get the word to his troops, is far longer than CM battles last. So doing this sort of recon is inescapably and completely gamey, whether you do it with an armored car or a sharpshooter.<hr></blockquote>

That is true so far as it goes. As has been stated many times on this forum, in a typical CM battle, either attack or assault, all the preliminary reconnaissance would have been done. If that were the case, the attacker would have a pretty good notion (within some margin of error) of what kind of forces he was facing and their distribution on the battlefield. In CM, the attacking player knows little of this aside from (perhaps) which service the enemy troops are drawn from and by looking at the map and noting the location of the victory flags and tactical effects of terrain. This counter-balances the effects of borg spotting to some extent. Therefore, the attacking player must to some degree take matters into his own hands to restore the balance of battlefield intelligence.

All this applies to the case of deliberate attacks against planned defenses, but there is another case that needs looking into with increasing urgency as the release of CM:BB approaches. That is the case of a pursuing force running up more or less unexpectedly on a hastily organized defense, a roadblock, a defended village, or temporary stop line. In this case, there has been little or no preliminary reconnaissance. Indeed, the player may using a reconnaisance force. This type of battle was common on the East Front, especially during the expoitation phase of a breakthrough, but it also occurred during the post-Cobra pursuit across France and to some extent after the crossing of the Rhine.

Michael

[ 10-27-2001: Message edited by: Michael emrys ]</p>

[Vanir Ausf B]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Bullethead:

However, scouting per se is gamey in battles of CM's scale. Having your main body wait while a few expendables systematically scour the map looking for the enemy is by definition taking unrealistic advantage of CM's universal spotting system and the unlimited realtime available between turns of gametime.<hr></blockquote>

Would you also say that using half-squads as scouts on the attack is also gamey? The reason I ask is that they are at least as expendable as sharpshooters (18 pts for a sharpshooter vs. ~16 for a half-squad), and Steve has stated that half-squads were put into the game specifically to be used as semi-expendable scouts.

Does BTS promote gamey behavior? Next time on Oprah...

[Roach]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Michael emrys:

Therefore, the attacking player must to some degree take matters into his own hands to restore the balance of battlefield intelligence.

<hr></blockquote>

I agree. Whereas the universal CM big picture is that the reconnaisance has been done, my own personal big picture is that I don't have a clue what is behind the next hedgerow and I want to sneak a look at it before I send all my boys for a walk in the sun...