CM feature idea : "abandon heavy weapon" order

[von Paulus]

What do you think of that idea. I could be useful to save life of surrounded machineguns, AT guns, mortar crews or even tanks.

Seeing a MG crew retreating with his heavy weapon, promised to a certain death, is quite disturbing in a game as far as historically crews often abandonned their heavy weapon to retreat in safety ...

If you don't think it's a good idea then expline it to me here.

Thanks

Paulus

[Thin Red Line]

Abandon and recrew heavy weapons would be indeed necessary.

[TheCrow]

I´m agree with the idea of "abandon heavy waepon" order, but not "recrew" one, because i think than it will be used in a gamey manner.

[Snarker]

I don't favor a recrew option either. If you feel it necessary to abandon the equipment to save your crew your enemy would feel it obligatory to render it inoperable to save themselves.

[IntelWeenie]

Originally posted by TheCrow:

I´m agree with the idea of "abandon heavy waepon" order, but not "recrew" one, because i think than it will be used in a gamey manner.

Easy fix. Any "recrewed" weapon could only be used at great disadvantage (say -2 experience level for friendly weapons and -3 for enemy). Some specialized weapons (such as Recoilless rifles) would not be allowed to be "recrewed".

Edit: Also no use of special ammo!

[ September 25, 2003, 03:02 PM: Message edited by: IntelWeenie ]

[TheCrow]

Originally posted by Snarker:

I don't favor a recrew option either. If you feel it necessary to abandon the equipment to save your crew your enemy would feel it obligatory to render it inoperable to save themselves.

I´m agree absolutely

[von Nev]

I agree that some sort of limits should be put on recrewing a heavy weapon, but I like the idea of it being an option. For example, heavy weapons like MG and AT guns were the cornerstone of a defense usually. Barring them being physically damaged or destroyed, if the crew was killed or was routed, they were the first weapons I assume the commander would want to recrew at the earliest opportunity with anybody. I would trade anyday half a sqaud employing rifles for a MG team with some limits. The firepower difference is considerable. There are numerous historical examples of one or two soldiers crewing captured or organic MG and AT guns and saving the day.

My two cents.

v. Nev

[IntelWeenie]

If you think about it, there is already a form of "recrewing" in the game. Squad LMGers are one of the least likely men in a squad to be a casualty. IIRC, that was done intentionally to portray the fact that when the gunner was hit in real life, all effort would be made to pick that LMG up since it was such a big part of the squad's firepower.

I think folks might be overreacting to the thought of recrewing weapons. I like the way it was handled in good 'ol ASL. The only problem was crews could basically man anything they wanted without penalty. That would have to go. I think having regular squads or half squads manning anything other than MGs would have to go, too. Otherwise, while the rules were there if you had to re-man a gun you could, but it was almost not worth it to the point it was almost impossible to use it in a gamey fashion.

[von Paulus]

Yup a recrew option would be too complicated to be implemented in CM but abandoning would be easy to add and useful to save the life of some men.

Paulus

[chashm]

If it were me, I would want all effort to be made to recrew a valuable weapon. I think a way can be found to handle this without being gamey. In any event, if my opponent chose to abandon a gun when I fire at them and go back to it when I am done, I don't know if I would refuse him the right to do so. Any gun not shooting back at me, is fine

[Blanar]

Well, abandoning would be fine. I'd often like to save my mortar crews who tend to get slaughtered as they drag their empty mortars across that open field. But, recrewing would open up a whole world of complications. The health status of the abandoned equipment would have to be calculated and tracked. If you abandoned in that artillary barrage, did the machine gun survive or is a twisted piece of rubbish now? If I over run an abandoned site, can I target that mortar sitting there? My Stug's just taken a pot shot at the crew running away and as usual the shot lands short, did it take out the gun they just left? And what if a lefty machine gunner tries to recrew a righty machinegun?

Oops, ignore that last one, it's been a long week...

Carl

[WineCape]

Good idea, to abandon a heavy weapon or HMG nest if things hot up too much for said crew. Painful to watch them get decimated just because they're too slow to move/withdraw with their equipment, more so when you know in advance that your carefully prepared defensive HMG's are about to be slaughtered and all that is left is to fight 'till death do us part."

I'll settle and hope for the above in future CM's; programming CM for the "re-crewing" of such weapons will be a bonus too, but as stated in above posts, MIGHT be problematic to succesfully implement into CM's engine (extra man-hours needed to do/verify all possible programming paths/possible side issues)

Yes, a neat idea for the heavy weapons/HMG crews to get lost before hell breaks loose; it seems to be a cleaner coding path?

Sincerely,

Charl Theron

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On 22 December 1944 General Heinrich von Lüttwitz, commander of the German XLVII Armoured Corps, sent a message to General McAuliffe, commander of 101st Airborne Division* demanding he surrender the surrounded town of Bastogne. McAuliffe’s reply, “NUTS!” is probably unequalled in the annals of military history, both for its brevity and the amount of confusion it caused in the German camp before it was deciphered.

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[ September 27, 2003, 03:22 AM: Message edited by: WineCape ]

[Steiner14]

If abandoning would be made possible, hopefully only at the cost of destruction of the weapon.

Everything else would be unrealistically IMO.

[Sgt AA]

I have experienced that a gun crew that had abandoned their gun, but been left attached to the gun will operating thu gun in the next battle. So it sometimes works at least in Operations. But I like the idée presented above.

[Michael Emrys]

IMO people are fretting a bit too much about the recrewing issue. Think about it: under what circumstances will a crew abandon their weapon? When they need to cut and run, right? That is usually going to mean that enemy troops are close at hand and have them under fire. So, under those circumstances, what is the likelihood that this crew (which has by now probably taken some casualties anyway) is going to be able to make it back to their weapon and reman it?

Take another case. An undamaged weapon has lost all its crew through casuaties or a mix of casualties and cut and run. A nearby squad is more or less intact. Should it be able to give up some men to take over and operate the weapon? I'd say that depends. If it were an MG or some other weapon with which they had trained and had some familiarity (bazooka? light mortar?), then maybe yes with reduced efficiency. But if it were, say, an AT gun, then I'm not buying it. Using an AT gun took training and practice, or a truly extraordinary amount of luck.

Michael

[Ant]

The only potential pitfall I can see here is the AI issue. You'd need to make crews robust enough to stick to their weapons under a certain amount of fire but able to decide when incoming fire/enemy presence is sufficient to warrant an abandon order. And it would be a fine line to get right for everybody's taste.

[xerxes]

When ordered to abandon a heavy weapons it was standard practice to disable the weapon (for obvious reasons).

I certainly agree that an abandon weapon order would be very useful and realistic.

[Baron von Beergut]

While I understand the programming difficulties and I am content to let things stay as they are, I would prefer an option to uncrew and recrew weapons and vehicles.

As a longwinded example: In April '92 while in Budapest I talked to veterans of the 44/45 battle. This Hungarian unit traded food with an adjacent SS unit to get weapons. They got numerous MG's and two 75mm AT guns with Danish speaking crews. The guns were set up in the street adjacent to houses and sandbagged with a limited amount of ammo left by the guns. The crews would stay in the house until needed to help stop a Russian attack. Then they'd run out and crew their guns, sometimes due to heavy fire, not being able to. This could not be simulated in a game with out being allowed to recrew. In the case of these guns, one was eventually taken out by a direct hit and the other by a near miss hitting it's ammo.

Another example: in Mar '45 Aschaffenburg Germany, at night a US tank column was attacked with rocks and grenades as the German defenders didn't have Pzfausts at this one location. The Americans panicked, abandoned their tanks and ran for the rear. The Germans hopped in the tanks and drove them away. So for the rest of the battle, the only German armor support was those three Shermans and one BergPanther (tank recovery vehicle). This could not be simulated either, but it is admittedly a rare/unusual thing and not necessary to expend programming effort on... BvB

[David Chapuis]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

IMO people are fretting a bit too much about the recrewing issue. Think about it: under what circumstances will a crew abandon their weapon?

In CM, crews abandon their mortars/HTs/Jeeps pretty quickly under art fire - oftern without a casaulty. I would think that it would be harder to damage a mortar tube with art than damage a human with art, so I always take it to mean they just got scared and ran away. And that being the case, they should realitically be able go get their weapon when the bombing stops.

Of course, whether it would be worth the coding time needs to be considered - but art causing mortar/hts/jeeps to abandon seems common enough to justify the consideration.

[Juju]

You're all forgetting one important thing: If we, the players, would be able to order a weapon to be abandoned, the AI (by itsself) would have this ability too (like when the AI decides if a vehicle crew bails, when there is no real damage to the vehicle or weapon other than the 'damage' done to the crew's morale)?

IOW, if this feature was to be implemented, would we really like it if, in some cases, the AI decides for us that a particular weapon is to be abandonded?

IIRC this was the exact reason why BFC didn't include this feature in the first place. The wailing and gnashing of teeth would have no end.

[BeauCoupDinkyDau]

I have to agree with Juju here. I sometimes want to reach in a kill a gun crew myself when they abandon their weapon because one damn 81mm mortar round landed 30m away from them! :mad:

The AI having more ability to abandon it's equipment would suck. Now if the AI was forbidden to have it, then yes, I see some limited use in the player being able to tell an isolated unit to bail and run like hell. Makes for a more realistc game for those that play as though their men are real (as I try too), but the recrew option would be a 100% no-no.

I still wish heavy weapon crews had rifles so they could fight like ad-hoc infantry units. This could be done by keeping them easy to panic even when in command.

[IntelWeenie]

Originally posted by Juju:

You're all forgetting one important thing: If we, the players, would be able to order a weapon to be abandoned, the AI (by itsself) would have this ability too (like when the AI decides if a vehicle crew bails, when there is no real damage to the vehicle or weapon other than the 'damage' done to the crew's morale)?

IOW, if this feature was to be implemented, would we really like it if, in some cases, the AI decides for us that a particular weapon is to be abandonded?

IIRC this was the exact reason why BFC didn't include this feature in the first place. The wailing and gnashing of teeth would have no end.

Juju, I think you're contradicting yourself here. You give examples of how the AI right now willfully abandons weapons and vehicles, but then say BFC didn't implement it?? :confused:

What's being being proposed is that an order be made available to the human player to abandon a weapon that (for whatever reason) the AI has decided on not giving up on. To me, it's in the same category of the AI and human player both being able to give targeting orders.

I still think a (very) limited "recrew" option would be good, too.

[Juju]

Originally posted by IntelWeenie:

Juju, I think you're contradicting yourself here. You give examples of how the AI right now willfully abandons weapons and vehicles, but then say BFC didn't implement it?? :confused:

Ah, yes. I meant in addition to what's there now; i.e. mortars and MG's.

What I also meant was that any order given by the human player (for instance the ability to recrew weapons) should also be available to the AI, which is what makes this one tricky, I think. But that's just my opinion

[von Paulus]

What I want too see in a CM game is exactly what Juju said.

Any BFC programmer to talk about that here ?

Paulus

[Siege]

Speaking of crews having other weapons, It still does irk me to see a gun/tank/mortar crew (post weapon abandonment) listed with just pistols.

I'm sure the horse was well dead and beaten by

the time I got into the game, but it's such a major break from reality. Just about every model of a German SP gun I've built as a couple MP-40's and an MG-34 inside, or at least the racks for them. In the book "PanzerJager", the author goes into detail about how much he hated his MG-34....and he was part of an AT gun crew. I can agree with always being at "Low" ammo, but at least give them something close to what they really would have carried.

-Hans