Markman's Super Human abilities

[Blah Blah Blah]

Surely the marksmen are over modelled?

They can consistently take out my tank & halftrack crew at 300+ metres with ease. It appears to me that they have an 80% success rate.

This over modelling is made worse by the tank & halftrack crew's insistence of not staying buttoned.

[dugfromthearth]

time?

they take out your tank crew in 1 shot?

or over a couple of turns they take out your tank crew?

remember a marksman is not a soldier split off from a squad and told to go shoot things. They are expertly trained marksman. They should be good at picking people off.

You don't counter a marksman with a tank, you counter them with infantry.

Do you order your tanks to button up, or are you just relying upon them doing it on their own?

[SgtMuhammed]

For perspective, modern snipers have the following SOP for dealing with armor colums; first they shoot the TCs in their hatches then they shoot off the radio antennas. This is expected to be accomplished from several hundred meters to keep from giving away their positions.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Remember that there is a bit of a fudge in CM about what the sharpshooter does when he fires. While it is clearly portrayed that as he fires it is a single shot, a look at his ammo load out indicates that indeed he too has his firepower abstracted. A sniper carrying only 10 or so rounds (as they do in CM) would be a wimp indeed. You'd expect him to carry about 50 rounds. Thus a single shot represents not a single round being fired but represents an effort to kill a target with 5 or so rounds. The time that CM allows for this to take place is clearly too short.

I'm told it's even possible to kill more than one person with each 'shot' but I've never seen it.

[30ot6]

Speaking from my knowledge of firearms...300 meters would be no problem for a trained marksmen. In high power competition shooting, the ranges go out to 600 yards; even at that distance shooters hit bullseye frequently, and the good ones consistently. I don't have the figures in front of me, but the largest the bullseye could be on those things is 1 foot in diameter(I think it's more like 6 inches, but am not sure), which is smaller target than a human.

So anyway, 80% sounds to me about right, definitely not superhuman(shooting is not nearly as hard as some people imagine). Of course, how accurate a shooter is varies from individual to individual.

[ January 01, 2004, 11:47 PM: Message edited by: 30ot6 ]

[Blah Blah Blah]

dugfromthearth, I am playing 'The Creek' and I have seen consitantly the marksman take out my commander when at the start of the turn he was buttoned up, pops his head up during the turn and 15 seconds later he is dead. At distances from 350+ to 500+ in this game.

I am not countering infantry with my tanks etc, I have had the infantry 100 metres in front of the tanks etc

I order the tanks etc to button, but as described above, they keep unbottoning in turn.

sgtgoody (esq), yes but scopes and rifles are better now.

Elmar Bijlsma, that being the case the commander should button up after the 1st shot.

30ot6, that is in a very controlled invironment, with modern weapons.

Either the commander needs to stay buttoned when ordered or the commander AI needs to react better when marksmen are known to be in the area. How dows he know, maybe the single shot, a dead commander in the tank next to him....

[Treeburst155]

Yeah, I could plug a human head/torso target at 350 meters with an M-16 in the prone position with just a little range time and basic instruction. I had no prior experience with any firearms. The key to success was properly adjusted sights and the very steady prone position.

[dugfromthearth]

okay so the real problem seems to be that they unbutton when faced with the threat.

[JonS]

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

The key to success was properly adjusted sights and the very steady prone position.

... and a steady target.

[dragonwagon]

I have found that a Crack Marksman nailing crews out to 500m. But a Regular or lesser marksman usually only ends up buttoning the crew up instead of a casualty.

Crews not staying buttoned can be somewhat annoying even when there are no snipers about.But we cannot control eveything on the battlefield now can we.

[Treeburst155]

Originally posted by JonS:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Treeburst155:

The key to success was properly adjusted sights and the very steady prone position.

... and a steady target. </font>

[SFJaykey]

AFAIK a sharpshooter in CM can't kill an entire crew, only the TC or the halftrack gunner.

For some good anecdotes of what WWII snipers could do, read the memoir of the female Russian sniper at the Russian Battlefield website. Can't get into the site right now, but from memory: she was routinely engaging targets at ranges of hundreds of meters. Longest ranged engagement was vs a German HMG at a range of close to 1km (!). This was with the standard-issue Russian infantry rifle, fitted with a scope. I bet the American 1903 sniper rifle, and whatever the Brits and Germans used was at least as good, maybe better.

[Treeburst155]

I think what we need is the ability to keep the TCs buttoned up. I get good results if I routinely unbutton and button every vehicle during the orders phase. If I forget to do this, they will often unbutton.

[30ot6]

Originally posted by Blah Blah Blah:

30ot6, that is in a very controlled invironment, with modern weapons.

Controlled in what sense?

As for it being modern weaponry, not necessarily. At standard issue competitions, the most modern weapon you'll find is an AR15(civilian equivelant of the M16). WWII weapons were more accurate than that. Also, standard issue rifles of WWII were as accurate as pretty much anything today, with the exception of course of the super high powered high tech sniper guns. The gun that is issued to US Army competition shooters, however, is the M14; basically an updated M1. If I were to decide to get into high power competition shooting myself, I would probably start looking for a K98.

I'm pretty much with Treeburst. Given a prone position and properly adjusted sights, hitting moving targets at that range isn't in any sense of the word impossible. It would take a skilled shooter, yes, but those aren't that rare.

[Redwolf]

I have no problem with taking out single men at these ranges.

The only game problem here is, as said, that the several abstracted shots for each sniper shot as fired without pause. If we assume it is an abstraction of 3 actual shots then the CM model punps out all three in a millisecond.

In reality the TC would have a chance to button up after the first, if he recognize she is being shot at (which he might or might not, but the round could hit the armor or a tree in hearing distance and then he would).

[Madmatt]

One of the many changes in the forthcoming CMAK 1.01 patch is that when you order a TC to button it will STAY buttoned for at least 1 minute. It supposed to be that way now, but we noticed that some TC's were popping a little early but not any more.

If you want them to STAY buttoned (with the patch), simply give them the order again in the next turn. That means to issue the order twice, once to have them unbutton and then "Z" again to have them button up again. That will reset their internal timer to wait at least another 60 seconds.

Madmatt

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Madmatt:

If you want them to STAY buttoned (with the patch), simply give them the order again in the next turn. That means to issue the order twice, once to have them unbutton and then "Z" again to have them button up again. That will reset their internal timer to wait at least another 60 seconds.

Btw. what Madmatt says is the way it works in CMBB, too.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Madmatt:

...the forthcoming CMAK 1.01 patch...

Everybody catch that? Official confirmation that there will be at least one patch.

Michael

[Determinant]

Originally posted by Sergei:

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

If you want them to STAY buttoned (with the patch), simply give them the order again in the next turn. That means to issue the order twice, once to have them unbutton and then "Z" again to have them button up again. That will reset their internal timer to wait at least another 60 seconds.

Btw. what Madmatt says is the way it works in CMBB, too. </font>

[s3333cr333tz]

Dont think anyone doubts Oswald could have shot at Kennedy. The question is could he have fired off the 5 or so shots many ballistic experts now believe were fired, from different positions ;p

Not knowing your belief on the whole thing. Not sure I can beleive that there is anyone who actually believes the single bullet theory ;p

How many wounds did this one immaculately preserved bullet cause? From how many angles? How many times did this "smart bullet" adjust its trajectory?

So ya, it was Oswald, off the lamp post off the mailbox nothing but net /nod

[Blah Blah Blah]

Whilst I do not question the ability of a marksman to take out a target at 600 metres, I question the CMAK high success rate to do so under the conditions of battle, and the battle field conditions, which in this case are WINDY and blowing from left to right (NNW) as he faces the target.

In this scenario ‘The Creek’, two regular sharpshooters were attacking the armour, one each side of the battlefield. The armour was generally 400 to 600 metres away, and generally 30 to 80 metres apart.

Under one specific example, I had a halftrack buttoned up, the unit unbuttoned and within 15 seconds he was dead/wounded. This has been generally my experience with sharpshooters.

Every one here is quick to point out the fact that it can be done, which I do not counter. Though I may not have worded the original post to reflect this. As I did state, the 80% success rate is in my opinion too high, especially when being in less than ideal locations with variable estimated ranges as well as variable winds.

To all that site the firing range as an example, if the firing range were an indication of the battlefield, then I would have expected far more infantry to infantry casualties.

I played ‘The Creek’ against a human player who in hindsight knew better than I in regards to using the marksman to target such vehicles as a SDKF2 7/2 Flack Truck. At 550m the marksman destroyed the vehicle causing one casualty.

30ot6,

With regard to your example of the shooting competitions. Controlled as in the range is exactly 600 yards, Controlled as in the target is directly in front of you. Controlled as in you take the shot at your time, within the allotted time window.

SFJaykey,

Whilst I do not counter her tales or her bravery and would take what she says as true, especially having not read them, they do need to be put into prospective. They would firstly be biased and the memory of such events may be affected by time. That aside, does she recount the many failures she would have experienced?

Treeburst155,

Yes properly adjusted sights to the EXACT distance to the target, no chance of getting killed etc. In a battle, and especially this one, the distances vary by 200 to 300 metres from 400 metres upwards. The distances can only be generally estimated to within 20 metres (to much scope, too generous), and as mentioned above, the wind is across the shot.

dragonwagon,

The two marksmen in question are only regular.

SFJaykey,

He may not be able to kill an entire crew but as mentioned above he can easily take out a SDKF2 7/2 Flack Truck.