BTS & Troops, Losing weapons while under fire, etc.

[John Kettler]

I'm well aware that the game presently tries to preserve important weapons as casualties are taken, but I suspect that a couple of strange things may be happening which aren't

necessarily realistic.

First, are key weapons being instantly switched to another man as soon as the first carrier is disabled or killed? If so, then I believe there ought to be some sort of delay applied to the process and a test on whether the item survived the incap/demise of the owner, perhaps dependent on what the hit was from. It might also be worthwhile to have some sort of simple logic to see whether the weapon can be found, either right away or after some search.

Those of you who played Avalon Hill's Up Front know the kinds of things I'm suggesting. We've all groped about for LMGs and demo charges, not to mention having to swiftly decide whether to stay exposed and hunt for the LMG or go to ground and lose it. Then there's the dread gunner killed outcome right at the worst time.

Obviously, putting a weapon back into play following a crew casualty is going to be much easier if the unit is static than if it's moving or worse, running or crossing a water obstacle.

In war movies the crew gets blown up by a mortar round, yet the gun sits there on the lip of the smoking fighting position and is immediately taken up by some stalwart soldier who blazes away unfazed. In reality, that same gun could be blown many feet away, be damaged or even ruined outright.

Similarly, in the present game it takes lots of casualties to put a crewed weapon like an HMG or AT gun into a pinned or suppressed state, let alone out of business. Let's use a sharpshooter. Who does the sharpshooter go after in the real world, given the choice? The gunner. This imposes an unavoidable delay while the victim is dragged off the gun and should cause morale to waver a bit too. This is why Sgt. York was so effective. As quickly as the Germans cleared the corpse and remanned the MG, he shot the next man in the head, inducing further dismay, temporarily knocking out the MG again, and forcing the Germans to reorganize, bring up additional men, and deal with the spreading panic which ultimately led to his huge bag of prisoners. And in CM there is no trench crowded with would be gunners. The supply of future gunners is decidedly finite.

Is there any way to model such preferential targeting and the impacts of it I've outlined?

Of course, this wouldn't necessarily apply to standard firing unless some test were to be made to see whether the gunner bought it in the event of a casualty.

I'd be most interested to see what combat veterans have to say about picking up weapons after the primary operator is WIA/KIA.

I'd love to be able to see men pick up the rifles and SMGs of fallen friends, while retaining their own individual weapons. I've seen pictures from the Eastern Front where a Landser in combat had his own Kar 98K plus two more slung on his shoulder. I've also read that the Germans used PPSh 41 SMGs as throwaway weapons. It would be great to be able to do something like that.

While I'm wishing, I'd like to ask that at least some troops be treated as able to use enemy weapons equivalent to their own, especially small arms, and that gun and mortar crews could use weapons appropriate to their skills. This would open up some juicy scenario and op possibilities. The U.S. and the British trained commandos, Rangers, etc. on standard German weapons, the Germans did the same for certain formations like the Brandenburg Regiment, and the Russians had all kinds of captured stuff in operation. I've got a great picture of a partisan carrying an MG-34, for example.

I'd appreciate a response on my proposals from

BTS and interested observers, particularly members of the society of the shot at.

Regards,

John Kettler

[engy]

I was interested enough by your assumption that I ran two tests.

First test:

-->Sharpshooters: 15 US Crack Sharpshooters in 3 Tall Heavy Buildings, no leaders.

-->Target: 3 PzGren Motorized Squads (to see the effect on LMG's in the squad), stationary, open ground, 125m away from sharpshooters; +2 Morale bonus leader to keep them in place.

I tabulated the results by which weapon was killed in the order it was killed (eg, I tracked which weapon was killed first, then second, etc, in each squad). Test was stopped when any squad reached 5 casualties.

Results of 1st test: 147 shots, 41 kills (27.9% kill/shot ratio)

Weapon #Deaths as 1st/2nd/3rd/4th/5th Causualty

SMG 3/0/0/0/0 Total: 3 (7.3%)

K98 8/5/5/4/3 Total: 25 (61.0%)

MP44 1/7/1/2/0 Total: 11 (26.8%)

LMG 0/1/1/0/0 Total: 2 (4.9%)

Second Test:

Same as first test, but all three squads are given "Move" orders to march back and forth in front of the sharpshooters at 125m like ducks in a shooting gallery.

Results: 99 shots, 41 kills (41.4% kill/shot ratio)

Weapon #Deaths as 1st/2nd/3rd/4th/5th Causualty

SMG 0/0/2/0/0 Total: 2 (4.8%)

K98 10/4/6/3/2 Total: 25 (61.0%)

MP44 1/6/1/2/1 Total: 11 (26.8%)

LMG 1/1/1/0/0 Total: 3 (7.3%)

Starting Composition of squad:

SMG 1 (10%)

K98 5 (50%)

MP44 2 (20%)

LMG 2 (20%)

I'm going to let someone else draw the conclusion out of this (however, I will draw your attention to the extreme similarity of the percentages between the moving and non-moving cases) if they'd like to--my point was to do the grunt work if this helps the argument at all.

Edit: Forgot to include some data.

Edit #2: Forgot to include percentages. Bad day.

[ 07-19-2001: Message edited by: engy ]

[ 07-19-2001: Message edited by: engy ]

[Juardis]

Illuminating test engy.

The conclusion is that whichever man is killed is roughly based on percentage of squad composition. i.e., the sharp is not specifically targetting anybody.

In a HQ unit (represented by 4, 6, or 8 men), there is only one leader. Yet you can kill 3/4 or 5/6 or 7/8 and yet still have the leader bonuses applied even though the actual leader was killed. Think about that.

One last thing, how can moving targets be killed easier than stationary targets? Makes no sense to me.

[Kingfish]

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

One last thing, how can moving targets be killed easier than stationary targets? Makes no sense to me.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Just guessing here, but I would assume that the stationary units would go to ground at the first shot, therby gaining some benefit of cover.

[engy]

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

Just guessing here, but I would assume that the stationary units would go to ground at the first shot, therby gaining some benefit of cover.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think you're right. The exposure numbers for moving/non-moving in open were both identical (67%), but in the "Moving squad" test, the only squads that went to ground for cover were the ones that panicked, IIRC.

[dumrox]

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

The conclusion is that whichever man is killed is roughly based on percentage of squad composition. i.e., the sharp is not specifically targetting anybody. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

While I suspect you are correct, all that can be determined from this test is that scavenging of better weapons is taking place. The rest of the way, I am combining the SMG and LMG, even though they didn't suffer the same loss rate as each other in the tests. While the SMG and LMG together make up 30% of the weapons in the squad, only 12% of the casualties result in those weapons being lost. It could be that 30% of the casualties were to holders of those weapons (sharpshooter not gunning for any particular soldier), but those weapons were scavenged 2/3 of the times or so, resulting in the 12% loss. Maybe the sharpshooter hits the LMG/SMG guys 100% of the time (just an example, I don't think this is true), and the better weapon is scavenged 88% of the time. Net result is the same, and is all that matters for the game anyway. 12% of the caaualties in this test resulted in the loss of an SMG/LMG.

It does appear that the scavenging % is unchanged whether the squads were stationary or doing the shooting gallery shuffle.

Kevin

btw, this is my first attempt at quoting and bolding text, so don't worry if the quoted section looks butchered.

[Jeff Duquette]

I just wish my boys would stop abandoning their mortars every time the wind blows.

[John Kettler]

Thanks for the feedback, troops. Am still looking to see what the serving soldiers and veterans know about the matters posed and am still hoping for a response from BTS.

engy's analysis was quite eye opening and semiconfirms what I thought was the case. I'm surprised so few people have responded to my initial post.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ 07-21-2001: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[John Kettler]

Sproing!

Surely others must have something to say on what would seem to be a substantive issue?

Regards,

John Kettler