flamingknives Posted June 4, 2003 Share Posted June 4, 2003 I suppose you could introduce a ready rack of ammo that needs to be replenished every so often. This would also feature in tanks, AIUI, only a small portion of the ammo load is available for use immediately, the rest being slightly less accessible. This way you could model linking up fresh belt, filling magazines etc. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
offtaskagain Posted June 4, 2003 Share Posted June 4, 2003 Originally posted by flamingknives: More than cool, I think this would be necessary in future versions, as the abstraction doesn't really work. Rifles and MGs have a common ammo type, but you can't exactly load belt into a rifle or clips into an MG.Actually this is possible in the U.S. Army right now. The M249 SAW can accept 30 round box magazines from an M-16 without modification but obviously that would be in an emergency only. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SgtMuhammed Posted June 4, 2003 Share Posted June 4, 2003 Especially as it has a tendency to jam quite frequently when used that way. The ammo loads in CMBB represent all the ammo stored in the tank. If BFC really wanted to be accurate they would force the tank to fire at a drastically reduced rate after the first few rounds. This would simulate moving rounds around the tank after the ready rack is spent. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted June 5, 2003 Share Posted June 5, 2003 Originally posted by coe: ...ammunition bearers running forward or somethign like that.Trouble is, generally speaking (John's exception noted) that only happened after the shooting stopped. Since the ammunition bearers most often were men deputized out of the squad, and since in a fight the squad leader was reluctant to send any of his men away, and since soldiers are reluctant to run around a battlefield lugging 20 or 30 lbs. of ammo while the bullets are flying, it just wasn't standard procedure. Instead, squads carried the amount of ammo they expected to need and practiced fire discipline so they didn't shoot it all away before the fire fight was over, a practice I highly recommend to players of CM. I think there is far too great a temptation in the game to blaze away at everything in sight. I consider it one more good reason to hold back a reserve of fresh troops that can be thrown into the fight when the critical point has been identified and my first wave begins to flag. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted June 5, 2003 Share Posted June 5, 2003 Originally posted by sgtgoody (esq): The ammo loads in CMBB represent all the ammo stored in the tank. If BFC really wanted to be accurate they would force the tank to fire at a drastically reduced rate after the first few rounds. This would simulate moving rounds around the tank after the ready rack is spent. Not a bad idea. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SgtMuhammed Posted June 5, 2003 Share Posted June 5, 2003 Micheal, Just looked at your profile, my wife is from Olympia. Small world. Instead of resupply CMBB needs what you mentioned, fire discipline. I recently watched as one of my platoons fired a quarter of its ammo at one enemy squad. Generally the rates of fire are too high and the effect of casualties are too low. You will not see a 1 man squad running around in RL, nor does everyone take every target under fire at their maximum rate. Most fire is suppressive fire, which after the innitial rapid volley slows down dramatically. As a machine gunner we were trained to establish fire superiority during the initial contact and then to just fire enough to keep their attention once the enemy had been suppressed. It was the manuever force that was expected to close and destroy the enemy not the fire support. As a team and later squad leader, I often became kind of a walking ammo supply as I was often too busy actually leading the squad to fire very much. What I didn't use went to my guys as soon as we had a chance to reorganize. We didn't expect resupply in the middle of a fight and used what we had accordingly. On the flip side of firing, the effects of fire are flawed. Troops will not break and run at the first sign of hostile fire but you don't have to kill an entire squad to stop it either. One or two casualties will usually stop a squad in its tracks as men are detailed to evacuate them. To properly model this I would suggest rating squads by effectivness. Casualties would cause a hit to this rating with a randomness factor built in. This would allow for things like walking wounded or the ability to quickly get the casualty to a position of relative safety. Squads could be seen as getting lucky and having casualties that they can take care of quickly, or can do nothing about, or having to focus their efforts to try to save a squadmate in a particularly bad situation. Another effect of this would be that between battles "destroyed" squads could return, sometimes even at full strenght, as men come back from the aid station or from evac detail. All this could be modified by a variety of factors, enemy presence, proximity to HQ units, etc. Just a though to make infantry a little more like the real thing. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stoffel Posted June 5, 2003 Share Posted June 5, 2003 sgtgoody: What gun did you have in the army, the SAW? I like to know what malfunctions/problems the gun can give in various conditions i.e. like in snow/heavy dirt/mud and so on. I also like to know everything about safety issues,like is it possible to accidentally fire the gun,or if its possible that a bullet can get in the chamber by accident. The SAW will be introduced in my unit around octobre. The instructors do not always tell everything. Henk 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted June 5, 2003 Share Posted June 5, 2003 Originally posted by sgtgoody (esq): Micheal, Just looked at your profile, my wife is from Olympia. Small world.Truth. Also, there are several CMers in the Puget Sound/Portland area. Do you have any plans to come back to this part of the world? Instead of resupply CMBB needs what you mentioned, fire discipline. I recently watched as one of my platoons fired a quarter of its ammo at one enemy squad. Generally the rates of fire are too high and the effect of casualties are too low. You will not see a 1 man squad running around in RL, nor does everyone take every target under fire at their maximum rate.Good points. I don't know how that could be addressed with the current game engine, and can scarcely speculate how it might be done in the rewrite either. On the flip side of firing, the effects of fire are flawed. Troops will not break and run at the first sign of hostile fire but you don't have to kill an entire squad to stop it either. This has been on my mind as I played many times too. One or two casualties will usually stop a squad in its tracks as men are detailed to evacuate them.Generally true. But I wouldn't try to apply this to the Japanese army nor the Red Army in all circumstances. To properly model this I would suggest rating squads by effectivness. Casualties would cause a hit to this rating with a randomness factor built in. This would allow for things like walking wounded or the ability to quickly get the casualty to a position of relative safety. Squads could be seen as getting lucky and having casualties that they can take care of quickly, or can do nothing about, or having to focus their efforts to try to save a squadmate in a particularly bad situation. Another effect of this would be that between battles "destroyed" squads could return, sometimes even at full strenght, as men come back from the aid station or from evac detail. All this could be modified by a variety of factors, enemy presence, proximity to HQ units, etc. Just a though to make infantry a little more like the real thing. Something to wish for when we get to gamers' heaven. But I'm afraid I see this as another example of how difficult it is to accurately model behavior at this level of combat. One of the reasons I'm always kind of leery of tactical level games. There's just too much detail that you have to consider or the whole model tends to go off the tracks into unrealistic behavior. If you go up a level or two, these details tend to average out so that a lot of them can be abstracted without it harming the predictive ability of the model. That said, I think BTS has done a better job than most at keeping things under control. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SgtMuhammed Posted June 5, 2003 Share Posted June 5, 2003 Yes I will probably be back there in 6 months to a year. Like they say, the best simulations are done at 1 to 1 scale. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flamingknives Posted June 5, 2003 Share Posted June 5, 2003 Posted by: panzerwerfer42 quote: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by flamingknives: More than cool, I think this would be necessary in future versions, as the abstraction doesn't really work. Rifles and MGs have a common ammo type, but you can't exactly load belt into a rifle or clips into an MG. Actually this is possible in the U.S. Army right now. The M249 SAW can accept 30 round box magazines from an M-16 without modification but obviously that would be in an emergency only. </font> 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted June 5, 2003 Share Posted June 5, 2003 Originally posted by sgtgoody (esq): Yes I will probably be back there in 6 months to a year.Coming to Lewis or as a private citizen? Either way, there's lots of nice scenery. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted June 5, 2003 Share Posted June 5, 2003 Originally posted by flamingknives: WRT fire efficiencies, ISTR that in 1939 the Germans used 10 to 100 times the amount of small arms ammo than the Poles took casualties, and most casualties were from artillery and air attack. By far, most of the metal flying around on a battlefield goes harmlessly (depending on your definition of 'harmlessly') into the ground or tree trunks, etc. If they were only firing 10 to 100 rounds for every casualty, they were doing pretty good back then. I hear it's up to something like 5,000:1 now. But of course armies have many more automatic weapons now as well as better ways of protecting themselves from them. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flamingknives Posted June 5, 2003 Share Posted June 5, 2003 Maybe higher. I've heard 10,000:1 given. Bear in mind that around about 10% of casualties are caused by small arms in typical symmetric warfare. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SgtMuhammed Posted June 5, 2003 Share Posted June 5, 2003 The latest figure I heard was from the Korean War. The ratio was 70,000 to 1. Mike, I'll be a civilian this time. Spent two tours at Lewis already. Yes it is very beautiful, it's even better when you don't have to sleep in the rain for weeks at a time. [ June 05, 2003, 05:03 PM: Message edited by: sgtgoody (esq) ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted June 5, 2003 Share Posted June 5, 2003 Originally posted by sgtgoody (esq): Mike, I'll be a civilian this time. Spent two tours at Lewis already. Yes it is very beautiful, it's even better when you don't have to sleep in the rain for weeks at a time. Well, if you find yourself tooling up to P.T. way, give me a holler and we'll have a quaff or two. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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