Ammo consumption tweak for CMx2

[JasonC]

I have a suggestion for an ammo consumption tweak for CMx2, as the subject line says. The issue is the rate of ammo used against small units, units in heavy cover, and already broken units. I think it would be more realistic to have a function that reduces ammo consumption against these targets, without reducing the rate of fire resolutions. I will first explain the proposal, then the realism motivation, and the likely play effects and why I think they are positive.

All shots are delivered normally, both for how often a unit shoots and for the fire effect on the target. No changes from current code.

If the target unit has 6 or more men, is above "pinned" morale, and is 50% or more exposed, ammo consumption is just like it is now, one ammo point expended when the burst it resolved.

If the target unit has less than 6 men, a scaling factor of (men/6)^.5 applies.

If the target unit is less than 50% exposed, a scaling factor of (exposure/.5)^.5 applies.

Apply only the relevant one of the following -

If the target is pinned, 0.90

If the target is panic, 0.85

If the target is broken, 0.80

If the target is routed, 0.75

These three factors combined with one another multiplicatively.

The resulting factor is the chance that resolution of the shot reduces the shooter's ammo by one point.

Shells are not effected, from vehicles or guns, but vehicle MGs and small arms are.

What is the effect?

Fire into very heavy cover consumes less ammo than it does now - significantly less for the best cover (12.5% exposed implies a 50% chance of use of an ammo point). Fire at small teams or the last few men in a unit consumes less ammo. Fire at men with few places left to go on the morale downside uses slightly less ammo.

Why is the effect realistic? Because much of the benefit of low exposure is to reduce the enemy's chances to fire, not simply to intercept his bullets while he fires as fast as he can. In addition, casualties are currently inflicted in a way that reduces the men hit in smaller targets, for the same firepower delivered. But in reality, there would be fewer visible marks to shoot at in these cases as well. Infantry firepower mostly inflicts morale "pain" rather than losses. Men already broken cannot receive it, and in addition some portion of them are realistically cowering etc.

There is also a macro point here. Right now, the total damage inflicted over a whole ammo load is extremely sensitive to whether the shots are taken at small teams or full squads, already red morale troops or ones that can still be broken, and obviously also (rightly) by the average cover fired into.

In the case of the last, there should be an effect certainly. But it is not obvious it should vary by a factor of 8. Per unit time spent firing, sure. But this reduction in impact per unit time should be divided between a reduction in overall damage on the one hand, and a reduction in the rate it is received on the other.

Some of that reduction is bullets fired at cover that hit said cover. And some of it is bullets not fired because there is clearly cover in the way. The former should reduce fp per unit time and also fp over whole ammo load. The latter should only reduce fp per unit time. The square root reduction divides the effect between the two.

The tactical effect would also be a noticably higher rate of ammo consumption during portions of the engagement in which significant numbers of units are exposed, in open ground or "approach" cover. After almost everyone is in cover, and particularly if both sides stop trying to move around, ammo consumption would fall off.

The reductions are probabilistic and incorporated several effects in the same way. This should mask any information the result seen gives to the shooting player. He just sees some ammo counters drop and some don't. He can't infer "oh, that must be a 2 man team that is pinned". The result will be too noisy for that, particularly when shooting into cover (whatever else applies).

This should also reduce somewhat the use of tactics that rely unrealistically on just running the enemy out of ammo entirely. Especially ones that game the present system to get the other guy to "waste" ammo on small remnants.

For what it is worth...

[danielh]

Bump !

[Juju]

I'm no expert but it seems a perfectly good idea to me. I wonder why nobody came up with it before. It seems kinda obvious when you put it like that.

No doubt somebody will come along shortly to explain why it wouldn't work, though.

[YankeeDog]

I wholeheartedly agree that some refinements of the small arms firepower and ammo consumption model would be welcome.

I also think that what Jason has laid out is a very good starting point for dicussing possible mechanisms to affect this refinement, though it's difficult get into too much detail wihout really knowing anything about how the CMX2 infantry model is going to work on a more fundamental level.

In addition to the above issue that Jason raises, as a related issue I would like to see some kind of firing SOP orders protocol that would allow the player to have some limited control over the level of outgoing fire from infantry units. For example, I'd like to be able to order a squad to use ammo conservatively and maintain a low profile, just taking shots at attractive targets, all the way up to full-out "Rock and Roll" for providing final supressive fire just before a close assault.

Fire SOP orders would obviously interconnect with the kind of refinements to ammo consumption Jason is talking out, and I think such refinements would dramatically improve the infantry model in CM.

Cheers,

YD

[Kwazydog]

Guys, as weve mentioned CMX2 is going to be a huge jump over the current engine in every respect, including the tracking of ammo.

As such, although we appreciate the effort very much, the above suggestion is based on the old engine and thus really isnt relevant to CMX2. Needless to say as soon as we are ready to give you guys solid info we will.

Dan

[Tim The Enchanter]

CMX2 sounds like it is going to be the best war game made to date!

Out with the old and in with the new! Great news indeed on the direction the new game egnine is going!

Thanks for posting that KwazyDog, you just invigorated my interest in the next title!

[YankeeDog]

Point well taken Kwazy. Hence my comment about how it's it's difficult to go into much detail right now.

Let's put it this way:

In some way, shape, or form, I would love it if the new model took into account the nature of the target, including factors such as number of men, amount of cover, level of supression, etc., when modeling ammo consumption.

I would also love it if I had some way of setting fire discipline settings for my infantry units in CMX2.

Cheers,

YD

[birdstrike]

Originally posted by YankeeDog:

I would like to see some kind of firing SOP orders protocol that would allow the player to have some limited control over the level of outgoing fire from infantry units.

Never thought of this, but seems like an extremely good idea.

I second that (and anything that will improve the current ammo calculation ).

[Other Means]

it's possible that come the rapture, the FP model will be on an individual basis. if a soldier can see an attractive target he will fire. therefore this level of abstraction is not needed.

this would mean then giving them orders about suppressive fire etc, which i'm in agreement with YD about.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Juju:

I'm no expert but it seems a perfectly good idea to me. I wonder why nobody came up with it before. It seems kinda obvious when you put it like that.

No doubt somebody will come along shortly to explain why it wouldn't work, though.

It's not that such a scheme couldn't work -- it obviously could. However, ISTM that Jason's idea is predicated on the assumption that most small-arms fire is aimed fire at visible targets. For the case where men are taking aimed shots at targets as they expose themselves, the proposal seems reasonable. However, I suspect that a lot of firing, even at notionally detected targets, is not of that type.

Advancing infantrymen doing what infantrymen are supposed to do, that is, bound forward in short dashes, are probably only fully exposed for 5 to 7 seconds [see "Small arms and asymmetric threats", Captain Stephen C Small, US Army retd., in: "Military Review", Nov-Dec 2000, page 38] and it is going to be more useful to shoot at the area where they have been seen to go to ground than to hold fire until they are visible again. Defending infantry are even harder targets, but there again it will make sense to shoot at places where movement or firing signatures have been seen, or places that seem like good individual cover. Evidently, with a dispersed target array like a rifle section, the question of whether a target is clearly "detected" or "identified" changes from instant to instant.

The Project "Salvo" report recommended the development of mutiple-projectile weapons precisely because the effectiveness of infantry fire was believed to depend on number of projectiles rather than precision of aim.

Of course there will be times when precisely-aimed fire is used; a British Colonel in Jac Weller's "Weapons and tactics: Hastings to Berlin" says that this is seen as the rifleman's main job, and the rest of the time he is merely standing by. However, I suspect that such moments are rare.

S. L. A. Marshall's "Infantry Operations and Weapons Usage in Korea", mentioned in another thread, gives the proportions of aimed, area and wild fire for each of the main US small-arms (although, as is customary with Marshall, how these figures were arrived at is unclear).

The British Army recognises three modes of small-arms fire (and has done, AFAIK, since time immemorial). These are "rapid", "deliberate", and "snap". Rapid fire is typically used to win the firefight, in the phase where, as Rommel put it, the winner is the first to plaster the enemy with fire. Sydney Jary ("18 Platoon") reports getting good results "plastering" enemy that were not precisely detected. Once the firefight is won, "deliberate" fire can be used to keep an enemy's heads down while other elements maneouvre against him. It is my belief that the gap between "firing" and "suppressed" is not big enough in CM; I think once an element has stopped firing, put its heads down and lost the firefight, it takes a very considerable effort to get them firing again. I also believe that once it has put its heads down, if it is in any sort of bulletproof cover, it should be practically invulnerable to further bullet fire regardless of intensity.

"Snap" shooting is the kind ordered with the command "Watch and shoot", and corresponds to what wargamers call "opportunity fire". This type, I think, is the kind most likely to be carefully aimed at visible individuals.

The intensity of fire delivered by small-arms obviously varies over a very wide range. On the one hand, if one considers the typical ammunition loads dictated by the capacity of WW2 webbing, most sections only carry enough ammo for about five minutes of rooty-toot (depending on what one takes to be the "rapid" rate). On the other, Marshall indicates that riflemen in Korea did not generally run out of ammunition even after fights lasting for several hours.

I suspect that one of the main determinants of rate of expenditure is how much you've got left. I hope the new CM engine makes players worry about questions of ammunition resupply. It would be a treat to see all the Carriers in a British infantry battalion actually used, as nature intended, for carrying a replen forward under fire. One of the real advantages of mecahnized infantry would also become apparent, viz. not having to hump all your ammo with you the whole time. Dare I hope for panje wagons for the Sovs to carry their resupply in?

All the best,

John.

[jep]

How much control player should have over invidual squads? Reduce ammo consumption -function sounds sensible but decision to use it should be made by (improved)TacAI squad leader.

[K_Tiger]

Since my first minutes of cm playing, i wished that the defender gets more Ammo as the attacker. Can`t life with the 50 rounds equipet 3,7cm or comparable at-guns.

[JasonC]

John,

With respect, no it is not predicated on the idea that area fire never happens. It is about what cover does and does not do for you.

But you yourself say that a head's down unit "should be practically invulnerable to further bullet fire regardless of intensity". Well, if the shooters continue to shoot at their ROF they will be dry inside of 10 minutes, and then the supposedly beaten heads down guys have nothing to worry about. If you deliberately don't model the reduction in ROF against men in cover, this is what will happen.

You say that their heads can be kept down by "deliberate fire". But what is deliberate fire, if all fire is area fire? What is deliberate fire in CM? The best approximation, which I actually use, is to shorten the arcs of squad infantry while letting HMGs continue to fire. I do this because they have the ammo load for it in CM. In reality, rifles are even better at this than HMGs are.

In reality, deliberate fire is fire that has slowed because there are fewer visible targets, which present themselves only occasionally. Which is a result of target cover.

Incidentally I think the difficulty of getting men to fire again once first suppressed is overstated. Suppression is not a morale breakage but a positioning effect.

Men get themselves in low and back positions that are not exposed even to area fire hits. From those positions, their LOS is limited, at least at range and in the direction the initial fire came from. They are still happy to shoot people who come farther forward and in doing so "re-expose" themselves.

Some of this occurs in CM correctly when decent humans are involved, without passing through the fp model at all. The side under heavier fire makes short rearward movements that break LOS. That keeps the men intact, and able to defend their immediate neighborhood. But it conceeds long range areas to enemy movement.

Defense schemes are meant to handle this, by interlocking multiple distant shooters. That is meant to prevent local suppression from creating local freedom of movement. So the guys in front of element B are suppressed. Fine, but the people in front of A and C can also see the area between B and the positions they want to reach.

Why do rifles still have ammo hours into an engagement? Because while it is true that early intense fire is mostly area fire (intense aimed fire quickly runs out of targets by hitting them all), it is not true that all fire is area fire. The contribution of rifles to the early intense stuff is pretty minor. MGs do most of it. The period is too short for rifles to expend a meaningful part of their ammo load during a single "mad minute". They fire off a mag, that's it.

After that they fire at targets they can actually see. Which are pretty rare. They fire 2-3 shots at one window while they see somebody at it, or 1 shot at a time at a run and drop, or after a small repositioning by them or the enemy leaves someone steadily in sight for 10 seconds (in the last case, they also actually hit a fair portion of the time).

What these have in common is a visible target and a small expenditure of rounds. And compared to the sort of firing automatics are doing, that means the hit chance per bullet is dramatically higher. While bullets fired per unit time is dramatically lower.

The focus on suppression is a focus on the development of the engagement and who is going to be able to move, and who is likely to keep terrain afterward. All maneuverist goals.

But from an attritionist perspective, there is an entirely different equation at work, and one that may well be just as important in the long run. To wit, how many rounds get fired, at what hit chance each? Lots at a low rate may suppress out the wazoo, but can't be kept up. Even a few at a decent rate will rack up expected kills over time. (Remember, from an attritionist perspective, any weapon system that takes out *one* enemy of the same type is a successful, above average weapon system).

The real assumption my recommendation is based on is that fp represents danger to the enemy unit, not flying metal. Reduced exposure reduces danger in two distinct ways - by intercepting flying metal, and by metal not flying.

When John speaks of the difference between suppression fire and "deliberate fire", he is acknowledging that ammo expenditure declines against men in good cover. In CM right now it only does so if the player deliberately turns off the shooting with a covered arc. And by doing so, he removes the danger along with saving the ammo.

But a man with a rifle trained on a window is a danger to anybody in that house. If he doesn't pull the trigger because the guy in the house does not look out the window, then he remains a danger. He does not however expend gobs of ammo maintaining dangerousness by firing off a clip every minute through the clearly empty window frame. If he sees anybody, he shoots, the danger is realized, and ammo is expended - but at a much lower rate than a mag a minute.

In CM terms, a rifleman looking at a unit in a heavy building at 100m deserves his 5 fp, times .12 or whatever. He does not deserve running dry in 8 minutes to get it. Because he is not firing mag after mag as fast as he can at the window, and missing because there isn't anybody there - that is not what the "12% exposed" actually does. Instead he shoots rarely, and misses somewhat more often than he would if he were shooting at lesser cover to be sure. But he also just shoots a lot less often.

Exp fp/time ammo/time fp/ammo

75 .75 1 .75

50 .50 1 .50

25 .25 .75 .33

12 .12 .50 .25

The efficiency per round is dropping, but it just isn't dropping as fast as the efficiency per unit time.

As for revised stuff for CMx2, I am sure we will all be wowed. I do hope some attention is given to these "per round" vs "per minute" relationships, and the way cover interacts with each of them. If the way that varies across weapon type were also taken into account (rifles vs. MGs etc), that'd be gravy.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by JasonC:

[snips]

With respect, no it is not predicated on the idea that area fire never happens.

Possibly not, but I notice that you continue to discuss only the case of aimed fire against visible targets. If you're not making "the assumption that most small-arms fire is aimed fire at visible targets", it doesn't show.

Originally posted by JasonC:

But you yourself say that a head's down unit "should be practically invulnerable to further bullet fire regardless of intensity". Well, if the shooters continue to shoot at their ROF they will be dry inside of 10 minutes, and then the supposedly beaten heads down guys have nothing to worry about. If you deliberately don't model the reduction in ROF against men in cover, this is what will happen.

I think that the step down from "rapid" to "deliberate" occurs because the enemy's fire has slackened, not because of the kind of cover he occupies, which is not going to change in the case of a static defender. Should the enemy start shooting again from that area, I'm sure the attackers' fire would intensify again to suppress it. Impressions such as this are impossible to back up scientifically because the basic data simply does not exist, but it is my impression that in most infantry engagements these events will occur with nine out of ten participants never seeing hide not hair of a live enemy; that's what "the empty battlefield" means, and S. L. A. Marshall comments on how disorienting this is in "Men Against Fire".

Originally posted by JasonC:

You say that their heads can be kept down by "deliberate fire". But what is deliberate fire, if all fire is area fire?

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. I've never said "all fire is area fire", nor anything that could be interpreted as meaning that. I suspect it is about as rare as rocking-horse manure, but I've read of it happening (and for some reason most often in the Far East). Deliberate fire I would expect typically to be a steady plinking at an area where the enemy has recently been seen and suppressed, probably without there being any visible targets.

Originally posted by JasonC:

What is deliberate fire in CM?

I don't believe it's modelled in CM.

Originally posted by JasonC:

In reality, deliberate fire is fire that has slowed because there are fewer visible targets, which present themselves only occasionally. Which is a result of target cover.

I'd like to know on what you base this appeal to "reality". As already stated, I think the question of whether rapid or deliberate fire is thought best is most likely to depend on whether or not the target is suppressed.

Originally posted by JasonC:

Incidentally I think the difficulty of getting men to fire again once first suppressed is overstated. Suppression is not a morale breakage but a positioning effect.

The "Suppression Experimentation Data Analysis Report", April 1976, quoted in the Fort Sill Fire Suppression study, makes the distinction between "reasoned" and "unreasoned" suppression. What you mention here seems to me to be "reasoned" suppression; but to deny the existence of "unreasoned" (i.e., fear-induced) suppression would, I think, be to profoundly misunderstand the nature of infantry combat.

Originally posted by JasonC:

Men get themselves in low and back positions that are not exposed even to area fire hits. From those positions, their LOS is limited, at least at range and in the direction the initial fire came from. They are still happy to shoot people who come farther forward and in doing so "re-expose" themselves.

Anyone who is happy to shoot at any target he can see is, by definition, not suppressed (the relevant definition in this case not being to hand but from memory I think STANAG 5413).

Originally posted by JasonC:

[snips]

Why do rifles still have ammo hours into an engagement?

The "five minutes of rooty-toot" in a soldier's webbing will last something more like 20 minutes at deliberate rates. So there must be some pretty extensive lulls in the firing, for one reason or another. If you believe Marshall (and I think he talks a lot of sense even if his pretence at scientific method is a great big put-on) the fraction of riflemen who do not themselves fire constitute a walking ammunition reserve for those who do.

Originally posted by JasonC:

Because while it is true that early intense fire is mostly area fire (intense aimed fire quickly runs out of targets by hitting them all), it is not true that all fire is area fire. The contribution of rifles to the early intense stuff is pretty minor. MGs do most of it. The period is too short for rifles to expend a meaningful part of their ammo load during a single "mad minute". They fire off a mag, that's it.

Oh, I dunno. PRO doc WO 291/479, "Optimum rate of aimed rifle fire", has Canadians and Guardsmen gettin nigh on 20 rds/min out of their Lee-Enfields, which is not half bad considering it was the official "rapid" rate for the SLR.

Originally posted by JasonC:

After that they fire at targets they can actually see. Which are pretty rare. [snips] What these have in common is a visible target and a small expenditure of rounds.

I simply don't believe this. Even with bolt-action rifles, I think most shots were fired without having a clearly-visible target.

Originally posted by JasonC:

The focus on suppression is a focus on the development of the engagement and who is going to be able to move, and who is likely to keep terrain afterward. All maneuverist goals.

But from an attritionist perspective, there is an entirely different equation at work, and one that may well be just as important in the long run.

I've not previously heard anyone attempt to contrast "maneouvrist" and "attritionist" approaches at this level of minor tactics. For my money, the only approach worth a damn is fire and movement, and fire alone can never be decisive because you need to get close to your enemy to be sure you've accounted for him. Paddy Griffith's "Forward into Battle" gives many examples of where trying to reach a decision by fire alone results in prolonged stalemate. There is good reason for "winning the firefight" being quite an early stage in section and platoon battle drills.

Originally posted by JasonC:

The real assumption my recommendation is based on is that fp represents danger to the enemy unit, not flying metal. Reduced exposure reduces danger in two distinct ways - by intercepting flying metal, and by metal not flying.

I don't think the world is yet ready for subjunctive firepower.

Another point that might be worth raising here for possible consideration in some future CM is the distinction between "cover" and "concealment".

Concealment ("cover from view", "soft cover") prevents metal flying as long as you avoid detection, you hope, as long as the enemy is not laying down prophylactic fire which includes you in its beaten zone. Once it has been established that you are in that [spinney|hedge|clump of ferns] I think it most unlikely that it will reduce the amount of flying metal, it wil merely improve your lottery odds over the case of standing up and thumbing your nose in the enemy's sight-picture.

Cover ("cover from fire", "hard cover"), on the other hand, physically stops projectiles. Against a full-powered military cartridge, this may need something pretty substantial (perhaps more than a house wall, depending on the construction method). Even in hard cover, I think a few rounds whistling overhead every so often will keep suppressed people suppressed.

Originally posted by JasonC:

When John speaks of the difference between suppression fire and "deliberate fire", he is acknowledging that ammo expenditure declines against men in good cover.

Nope; I'm saying that, independent of cover, unsuppressed infantry with adequate ammunition will tend to shoot back at an enemy firing at them at a more rapid rate than they will use to keep a suppressed enemy's heads down. And I don't think that is a very controversial statement, either.

I would expect the weight of fire required to produce or maintain a given degree of suppression to be heavier, not lighter, as cover gets better. Some of the findings in the Fort Sill Suppression study support this, at least as far as achieving suppression is concerned.

All the best,

John.

[JasonC]

"you continue to discuss only the case of aimed fire against visible targets."

Simply false. I discuss that case because I insist it exists, in addition to other cases we both acknowledge. You don't seem to.

"If you're not making "the assumption that most small-arms fire is aimed fire at visible targets", it doesn't show."

You have no reason to say this. I've said direct that early area fire suppressing one side is a common feature of firefights, there is no disagreement there. Moreover, I have in the past insisted on the impossibility of most rounds being aimed fire at visible targets, based on attrition factors. (Thousands of rounds expended per man hit etc). There is a difference between most fire and most hits, but that is an additional point.

"I think that the step down from "rapid" to "deliberate" occurs because the enemy's fire has slackened"

Sure. But his fire has slackened largely because he isn't up and looking for targets or opportunities to shoot anymore. He is away from the window, well behind a wall, below ground level in a foxhole, in defilade, etc. He can't see things from those positions, and isn't firing because of it. He also can't be hit.

Here is what does not happen - side A randomly throws bullets at max ROF at unseen enemies, randomly clocking a few. Those enemies stop firing back, while remaining in exactly the same positions, as exposed as before. First side slows its fire because they aren't receiving any, but each bullet remains just as dangerous as before, being randomly tossed at the same exposed area of human flesh.

Early in an engagement both sides see each other. They aren't firing at moving branches or foreign voices. They are also up and moving about, seeking positions, and readily firing their weapons (often in panic - nothing particularly braver about it). Then a bunch of people get hit, and one side gets more scared than the other.

They go heads down. That means increasing their protection at the expense of their ability to see. Suppression removes eyeballs from the enemy side. Both sides receive the benefits of hiding, one side because they are hiding and the other because the hiding people can't see a bleeding thing. This "separates" the combatants, in visibility terms.

But the side that didn't go heads down can still see any movements that do occur. They are up, at least a portion of them are. They see the pieces of cover the enemy was in. They are covering those pieces of cover - perhaps plinking at them if they are soft, sure. Not needing to plink at them if they aren't soft, but still covering them.

Their targets are dramatically less exposed than they were in the prior period - and as a result, continued fire without a visible target is not going to hit anybody. The rate is a tenth what it was in the suppression period, right? The cover is better for the other side. So the hits per unit time, if firing at people really still heads down, are going to go way down.

Notice, I am not talking about what maintains suppression because I don't care about suppression. It is simply not the variable I am tracking. I am not saying it doesn't matter, only that it is not the only thing. I am not thinking about winning battles by fire alone, I am not thinking about winning, I am not thinking about battle. I am thinking about bullets hitting bodies, as a matter of pure accounting. Regardless of who wins the fight, or takes any ground, or decides anything, or is scared, or what have you.

I am thinking about how thin the ranks will be after a month of this, not about who will keep the village 4 hours from now. All the transients are another matter and not what I am focusing on. I just want to see how many bullets are fired under what conditions, integrated into what overall chances of hits.

Many fired area fire at up men implies decent hits per unit time, but low hits per bullet. Why? Because many bullets are thrown, and it is area fire. A small portion of the area is occupied by still exposed human flesh, and the period of time involved is quite short.

If even a few percent exposure continued indefinitely it would be trivial to annihilate the enemy. Everyone would area fire 50-100 rounds. The less numerous side would be obliterated in a matter of days. This does not happen.

Ergo, many bullets are fired with no chance whatever of hitting the enemy. But at the same time, we have the data point that heavy weapons run dry in a couple of hours of combat - not a couple of minutes - and riflemen typically still have ammo after twelve hours in contact and repeated waves of attack. The average standard combat load lasted a typical infantryman a week - perhaps only a few days in reasonably serious action, but not 20 minutes.

Ergo, we know to a certainty most of the time was not spent firing. At anything, covered or not. The average soldier came out of a CM length firefight with ammo remaining. This does not typically happen in CM, except after one side is wiped out. They are holding their fire most of the time, and most shots are missing. Both.

If all cover did was make shots miss, battles would last 20 minutes. (The ammo would be gone). If all cover did was make men hold their fire until they saw somebody, battles might take a long time but sides would be annihilated for modest expenditure of ammunition. (A few percent chance to hit would kill or wound everyone present by the time they expended their ammo).

Instead, both happen.

You say at once point that the world is not ready for subjunctive firepower. Firepower is already a subjunctive. Fire might not be, but power is potentia is not yet actualized is "able to" is conditional future. Power is what gets people to do things by the threat of its employment, by a real possibility hanging over them. When it has to fall to do anything it is not called power it is called force.

When firepower - demonstrated as much as applied in a mad minute - makes men duck, that is power. They are reacting to a potential, the potential of being wiped out to a man before the other guy runs out of ammo if they remain exposed to even a few percent-chance hits. When the spread or give ground or assume back positions, likewise. No doubt they are scared; it is a highly rational fear in pure accounting terms. The enemy is not going to run out of bullets before you run out of blood, if you remain exposed even a small amount.

You say at once point that anyone still willing to fire at targets he can see isn't suppressed. I deny it. A man at the bottom of a 5 foot deep foxhole unwilling to show a finger above ground level is suppressed. His willingness to shoot any face that appears over his parapet does not change this. A man hiding in a cellar of a brick building during a firefight is suppressed. His willingness to shoot at anybody who comes through the door does not change this. What neither is willing to do, is not "fire", but expose themselves in order to see the enemy better.

In reality it is rarely either-or. Some are willing to expose themselves but only by small amounts from good cover for brief periods. They peek, they look briefly, if they see anything they'd shoot. But their view being brief, unless there are a lot of enemy in the open they won't see anything in that split second, more often than not.

On the other hand a man - even one unwilling to leave cover - standing upright in his hole or with head and weapon over a window sill, is constantly surveying the battlefield. He will often see even briefly exposed, small and fleeting targets. When he does he will fire at them, or at the cover the target disappear into. That is what causes deliberate fire. If the target has disappeared again, it will still almost certainly miss. But it is dramatically more likely to hit something that shooting at random into whole bodies of cover occupied by men who are already head's down.

How can we tell deliberate fire isn't shooting steadily at previous sight locations? Because the ammo wouldn't last as long as it does, if men taking their time about it and taking all the time in the world to aim, were firing steadily. A basic load wouldn't last an hour. Not blazing away, just firing in a leisurely fashion.

"Should the enemy start shooting again from that area, I'm sure the attackers' fire would intensify again to suppress it."

I agree - if they take fire or if they see something. Outgoing fire is a way of seeing something, in fact. It is a clear indication an enemy is there. All those up watchers will start pulling triggers instead of just watching, if they see movement or hear shots. Will they hit anything? If they see something, yes. If they don't but somebody is exposed, then a tiny fraction of the time.

"in most infantry engagements these events will occur with nine out of ten participants never seeing hide not hair of a live enemy"

Not borne out by my tactical reading. Some go through combat without seeing the enemy, certainly. Units not actually engaged, or that only take arty fire, certainly. But when rifles are being used it is because sides have seen each other. Not everyone is using theirs because not everybody sees anything - certainly. Those who spend most of their combat time in the bottom of foxholes or otherwise in full defilade see very little. But the ones up and firing do see things, and they are the ones who hit things.

"that's what "the empty battlefield" means"

It also means isolation from one's comrades. It especially applies to the isolating effect of seeking cover - it is when everyone goes heads down that it sets in. Anyone who has done a MILES op knows this effect - though it is obviously much stronger in real combat, where the incentive to stay heads down is obviously immeasurably stronger. In just tall grass, you can't see anything beyond about 20 feet if you are fully prone. To see anything you must "prairie dog", and that is very dangerous. Objectively, not just subjective intimidation.

The point is that men in combat face one overwhelming trade off - protection for vision. Personal self preservation counsels as much as possible of the first. But collectively, the whole unit will be destroyed if it does not produce enough of the second. Fire without vision does little - it is wild and high and veterans learn to discount it. To produce fire with vision, men must expose themselves.

"I've never said "all fire is area fire""

Some of it is aimed fire at visible targets then, right? All I need. The opposite of area is aimed, right?

"Deliberate fire I would expect typically to be a steady plinking at an area where the enemy has recently been seen"

Well it isn't "steady" if that "recently" is rigorously meant, unless the enemy is exposing himself regularly. If you fire steadily at the last place you saw somebody, you will run out of ammo very rapidly. You have to stop soon, discounting the sighting as no longer recent. Then you won't produce ongoing, deliberate fire, unless you catch intermittent views of the enemy.

How do you catch those intermittent views, over and over? Because you are heads up, scanning the battlefield, scanning enemy held cover. You see occasional movement, or occasional fire. You fire at each instance of it, a few shots, and scan some more. That is deliberate fire.

I call this a cover effect because the men delivering it need to be up, and the men it is delivered against need to be in good cover. If they weren't in good cover, men who were up and scanning would not fire at them slowly, they would fire at them rapidly - and annilihate them, too. The shots put out over any sustained period by even appreciable fractions of large units, would suffice to hit every man on the other side, unless the guys on the receiving end have good cover. (They have it because they traded visibility for it. They reverse that trade off here and there occasionally, producing deliberate fire directed at their "pop ups" in response).

I asked "What is deliberate fire in CM?" You said "I don't believe it's modelled in CM." That would appear to be a problem, no?

Right now, if somebody is in a trench or a stone building, you shoot at him as fast as possible until you are dry, and his cover intercepts 9 out of 10 bullets, and you run dry before he gets hit. In reality, he gets the cover benefit only by reducing his exposure, you reduce your ROF in response, to "deliberate fire". The cover reduces his rate of losses. It reduces the chance of each bullet hitting somebody, too - but it reduces the rate by more than the per bullet chance, because some of its usefulness comes from reducing your rate of firing.

"I think the question of whether rapid or deliberate fire is thought best is most likely to depend on whether or not the target is suppressed."

Who cares whether it is "thought best"? If it will annihilate the enemy in short order, clearly it is better to fire rapidly and annihilate him quickly. If it won't, then firing rapidly might suppress him but can't be sustained and won't annihilate him, and will run the shooters out of ammo instead. Which applies, is not a function of motive. It is an objective function of the hit chance per round.

Suppose there are some well suppressed infantry unwilling to fire back, lying in an open field, under the gaze of 4 heavy machineguns. Are you saying the MGs will slowly fire occasional bursts at any rifleman in the suppressed group who dares to fire back, but otherwise leave them alone?

Of course not. If the target is that exposed, the MGs just fire as rapidly as is feasible, and unless the suppressed infantry find better cover fast, just wipe them out to a man.

The need to slow fire only arises because rapid fire will exhaust friendly ammo before it wipes out the enemy.

The need to slow fire is a function of enemy cover. If he didn't have cover, even a few percent chance per bullet would be adequate to annihilate him long before ammo ran dry.

Enemy cover is in a personal trade off relationship with enemy sighting ability - it can be increased by "becoming suppressed" - by getting one's head below ground level e.g.

"makes the distinction between "reasoned" and "unreasoned" suppression. What you mention here seems to me to be "reasoned" suppression;"

No, the motive has nothing to do with it. I am distinguishing between suppression that reduces the objective ability of the enemy to hit, and the ability of the suppressed to see, from suppression that only reduces outgoing fire, without moving either of those variables. If a man is up and sighting down his rifle as exposed as ever, but won't pull the trigger (rationally or irrationally), then he is suppressed in a sense other than what I am talking about. If a man has shifted to less exposed positions, is therefore in less objective danger from enemy fire, but also less able to see the enemy or to deliver fire himself, then he is suppressed in the sense I am discussing. Motive has nothing to do with this distinction. Men may rationally or irrationally do either one.

"Anyone who is happy to shoot at any target he can see is, by definition, not suppressed"

Just horsefeathers. If he has deliberately reduced what he can see out of concern for self preservation (rational or irrational, physical fear or because he knows an arty barrage is on the way and he needn't expose himself, whatever), he is suppressed. He may be happy to see 20 feet around him and to shoot anybody there, and unwilling to stand up enough to see (and receive fire from) everything within 200 yards, instead. That is clearly suppression.

"there must be some pretty extensive lulls in the firing"

Correct. Meaning, the troops are exercising fire discipline and not simply firing away at areas where they suspect the enemy until dry. They need a better reason than that to fire.

Understand, Marshall was a quack precisely because he pretended the whole point in combat was to fire a lot, as rapidly as possible, and this just isn't remotely so. Men should not fire when the chances of doing any good thereby are low. They should fire at targets they can see, or for brief periods to attain fire ascendency or support important movements by others. A rifleman may very well need the bullets in his last clip 12 hours into a fight, in the middle of the night, where the last clips in the rifles are the only thing between holding out and being overrun.

It was irresponsible horsefeathers to tell men to just pull triggers as fast as possible, based on a complete misunderstanding of what matters in combat. The men were better tacticians than Marshall was. Power retained can often exceed in tactical effect force expended. There are any number of WW II night AARs where the less disciplined side lost badly because they acted that way, firing wildly to keep the enemy off and running dry before dawn.

"Optimum rate of aimed rifle fire", has Canadians and Guardsmen gettin nigh on 20 rds/min out of their Lee-Enfields, which is not half bad"

Yes it is half bad, because it means "dry in 5 minutes" and battles last hours. The best rate of fire is not "as high as possible". Why is this so hard to grok? Maximum rate of fire helps suppression but unless confined exclusively to periods of the highest enemy exposure, is in a trade off with maximum hits by the ammo available. The way to maximize hits attained by the ammo available is to take shots only when the enemy is most exposed. After you'd suppressed the hell out of him is not when he is most exposed. You pick up the outliers of exposure by waiting over long periods of time and taking the best shots that present themselves over such extended periods. If you can see somebody, it is an outlier good opportunity. If you can see somebody who is stationary and visible for 5-10 seconds, it is the best possible shot. You won't get those trying to fire 20 times a minute. You may well get a number of them by spreading your shots over 4 hours of terrain scanning.

"Even with bolt-action rifles, I think most shots were fired without having a clearly-visible target."

But surely you are not so daft as to think, that most *hits* with bolt action rifles were achieved against invisible targets.

20 rounds rapid random area fire at relatively exposed people each 0.1%

40 rounds suppression area fire at unseen enemy

each not a chance in heck

20 rounds deliberate fire at recent locations without seeing anybody at the time of trigger pull each 0.15% chance

15 rounds deliberate fire at targets actually seen, but briefly or moving, each 0.33%

5 rounds aimed fire at visible targets, each 2%

2+0+3+5+10 => 2 out of 1000 hit

Fired at target not seen - 80% of shots

Target seen - 75-90% of hits

"I've not previously heard anyone attempt to contrast "maneouvrist" and "attritionist" approaches at this level of minor tactics."

Not tactics, analysis. Separating actual hits from concern about suppression or winning the engagement. Maneuver thinking is based on the idea that winning the engagement is what counts. Attrition thinking focuses instead on the long term process of physically disabling the enemy force, and views the tactical battle as an opportunity to take shots under a variety of conditions (along with suffering exposure to the same from the enemy).

One wants to win this fight, take this hill, stop that attack. The other just wants to obtain opportunities to shoot at exposed enemies while minimizing enemy chances to shoot at exposed friendlies. One might view a fire mission as a way to clear a hill. The other views an infantry demonstration as a way to force the enemy to man his defenses, creating a target for a sizeable fire mission, under conditions that make it likely that mission will hit say 25 enemy. Without giving a damn about the bleeding hill.

"Nope; I'm saying that, independent of cover, unsuppressed infantry with adequate ammunition will tend to shoot back at an enemy firing at them at a more rapid rate than they will use to keep a suppressed enemy's heads down."

It is either not independent of cover, or it is false. I think you just don't notice its dependence on cover, perhaps because you are assuming both sides have lots of it, but maybe one has slightly better than the other or something. Consider my HMGs vs. men in the open example above. If you prefer to make them rifles with a few SAWs thrown in, fine. If they can just murder exposed men they do so, as fast as the triggers can be pulled, and they don't give a tuppenny darn whether the rabbits they are murdering are too scared to fire back or not. Men modulate their rate of fire only against men protected enough against that fire, that it is a real possibility the ammo will give out before the enemy does. Which takes cover, and quite a bit of it.

"the weight of fire required to produce or maintain a given degree of suppression"

Not the subject under discussion. Of course fp received per unit time is lower in cover than out of it, and of course suppression declines when fp received per unit time declines.

But nobody cares about suppression against men they can simply murder. Suppression matters more only when men are protected enough that you can't just shoot them all. And then it matters more for the individual battle. Then it is a matter of ROF, yes, but precisely because even the maximum ROF won't kill the enemy. Meanwhile, when the enemy is that protected, cherry picking shots at the most exposed occasions over extended period of time, is the way to maximize enemy men hit over the available ammo load.

Per unit time and over whole ammo load, suppression and hits, are not the same thing. Regardless of which you think is "more important", they vary independently, and strategies can be based on or directed at either set of variables. A good combat model will separate them, not conflate them.

[ September 20, 2004, 08:12 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[John D Salt]

Apologies for the delay in replying, and the length of the response, which is dictated largely by the prolixity of the original.

Executive summary:

1. I disagree with Jason.

2. Jason should quote some sources.

It would also have been nice if he could have used quote tags.

Originally posted by JasonC:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by John D Salt:

you continue to discuss only the case of aimed fire against visible targets.

Simply false. I discuss that case because I insist it exists, in addition to other cases we both acknowledge. You don't seem to.

</font>