MG poll at Combat Opinion - interesting results

[ASL Veteran]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

We were very surprised to see them walking, we had never seen that before. I could see them everywhere; there were hundreds.

Wow, it is Michael hour tonight!

I just want to draw your attention to this portion of your own quote - especially the part where they say "we had never seen that before". Now I know how ... how shall I say ... proud you are of the army of the commonwealth. However, there was another army attacking on the Somme. The French army. Their attack looked nothing like the British attack - and faired much better. You see, the French and Germans were using fire and movement long before the British figured it out.

The Germans were amazed by the attack formation used by the leading British troops. "The behaviour of the Highlanders seemed to us rather strange, for these came forward very slowly...without taking the least cover. (emphasis added) (Schneyer, 170th Regiment)

Another interesting quote for what it says about the English types. You will note that the Germans thought the British were daft.

(The) sophistication of traditional 'fire and movement' was known to the British but was thought by the staff to be too difficult to be taught to the Kitchener divisions. They may well have been right.

Wow, this really is a ... rather revealing remark wouldn't you say? Apparently the British saw how the French and Germans were fighting and decided that it was too complicated for their troops (I would be feeling rather insulted by that if I was British). I guess one could draw the inference that the British, far from being an army of tactical innovators, were really behind the curve - and by 1917 they were probably on the level of the Germans and French in 1915.

Far from proving your point, that infantry in WW1 advanced by walking and ignoring cover, it only serves to highlight the incompetence of the British Army during WW1. :eek:

[Michael Dorosh]

Incidentally, JasonC may have stumbled on to something. While, the CEF were NOT a hand picked elite (my words, not Jason's), they were in the end raw troops too - Kitcheners Wood was their first real action.

Perhaps I am underemphasizing the fact that all these examples are of green troops. If anyone can present an example of solid evidence indicating that British soldiers went into an attack between 1914 and 1916 using sound fire and movement tactics, purposefully, I would be most interested in reading about it. JasonC has suggested a book I unfortunately don't have access to. Can you present a snippet for our perusal, Jason?

I don't claim any particular expertise in First World War history, but I do take the comments that "any body in their right mind would go to ground when being shot at by a machinegun" as a red flag. There have been many instances on this board of currently serving US Army soldiers using their own experiences to warp perceptions of history. I honestly feel this is such a case, and why I feel so strongly about discussing it.

Thanks to all who have participated thus far.

[Michael Dorosh]

ASLVeteran, what does any of that have to do with the discussion at hand? I am not going to debate the competency of the British Army as it is not the issue. I don't care what the French did, and I am proud of the troops of all nations who fought in WW I - they were all equally brave. If I was truly biased about the British I would not have posted any of this.

Either contribute something meaningful, or don't try and stir the pot. I'm not biting. I've respected your work and your contributions to this forum, as well as counting you as one of my favourite PBEM partners, but to be blunt, your post really isn't worthy of you.

Since you obviously don't get it, the point of this all was to respond to the assertation that no one would ever willingly walk into machinegun fire, or that anyone under machinegun fire would automatically seek cover. Now, was that proven false or not?

[ February 04, 2002, 09:59 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[killmore]

Most of the theoretical discussion here is pointless.

Get Fully auto paintball gun. Their ROF is about 5/sec.

Make a twin/quad to simulate WWII MG.

Get people to run at you and graze them.

If I am not suppressed I can take out 3 of them while they run toward me (with semi-auto).

If I had Auto and grazed them I would take out more.

Just do it.

[jwxspoon]

You must know what you're talking about, Mr. Dorosh. After all, you have read some books about it. Therefore, CM HMG's must not be undermodeled (that was what this thread was about, wasn't it? It certainly was what I was posting about).

No further comment.

JW

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by jwxspoon:

You must know what you're talking about, Mr. Dorosh. After all, you have read some books about it. Therefore, CM HMG's must not be undermodeled (that was what this thread was about, wasn't it? It certainly was what I was posting about).

No further comment.

JW

You must know all about machineguns. After all, you got shot at by one once in Panama.

No further comment.

[jwxspoon]

LOL OK I guess I deserved that. My apologies for my smart mouth. We are both entitled to our opinions, however different their basis.

Jeff

[Bullethead]

I said: Um, ain't "going to ground" the same as "taking cover"?

MD said: No, it isn't.

LOL, now you're arguing the semantics of hiding from fire If "going to ground" in the military context doesn't mean "taking cover", then what DOES it mean, pray tell? Does it describe the soldiers ridding themselves of excess static electricity, perhaps?

I said: Also, can you say for sure these guys weren't bounding from cover to cover in their advance?

MD said: Yes, I can, without a doubt.

How so? Were you there? Is there an actual movie of this action that you've see? Have you even been in a similar situation yourself, from which you may infer how things happened in this action?

No, all you can do is cite romanticized accounts that were written in a standardized, stylized form, and intended at least partially to lionize the participants, their leaders, and the cause they fought for. If you think they portray anything like an accurate picture of what the individual grunts were doing at the time, you're sadly mistaken.

I'm not saying such accounts are inaccurate. They do tell you who was there, what they did in general, and what the results and costs were. But they utterly fail to provide accurate details of what was happening at the lower levels. Nothing about the small unit tactics and drills, just the fact that battalions as a whole advanced or not. But what we are after here is precisely those low-level details, because we are dealing with a game played out at those levels.

I strongly recommend you read at least the introductory sections of John Keegan's The Face of Battle. Specifically, the part about such "battle pieces" as you've quoted all over here and why they're pap at worst and simply inaccurate at lower levels at best.

You don't know what you're talking about. Check Dancocks' books - either GALLANT CANADIANS or WELCOME TO FLANDERS FIELDS.

I think I know rather more about this subject than you do. What we're talking about here is the effect of fear on individual troops, or in groups no bigger than squads. Where in all the sources you cite do you find a reference to that? So far as I can see, the smallest units you've mentioned are companies. In WW1, that was like 200 men. Big difference in scale.

Sure, WW1 battalions were deployed as a column of companies on line. Guess what? Sometimes they do today as well. Yes, that formation had been used by Napolean. But that's as far as the similarity goes. Taking the analogy further, or assuming that identy with Napolean's day continued down to lower levels, is simply incorrect.

In WW1, the companies were in open order. In WW1, they advanced by squad rushes when under fire, often degenerating into individual rushes as men lost sight of each other among the craters and smoke and leaders fell. No Napoleanic troops did this.

Seriously, how can it have been otherwise? Remember the environment this was happening in. The ground was all torn up, the air was so thick with smoke and dust that the attacking troops were soon invisible from the trenches they'd just left. So how could any group of men maintain Napoleanic dress and cover even assuming they'd been trying to? How could anybody claim to know what all of them were doing when they often couldn't see from flank to flank of their own company? Not to mention, if the troops always kept going, why was there any need of sergeants and junior officers to make them move?

I said: What normally happened ...

MD said: Are you talking about Daly, or British troops from 1915-1917?

I'm talking about all soldiers in all wars from no later than 1860 onwards. When attacks went in despite insufficient suppression of defenses, the troops routinely hit the deck and sought what shelter they could find in folds in the ground, shell holes, or scrapes dug with mess kits. This is a situation where you do not have any real combined arms attack. It's effectively just infantry going it alone due to the failure of supporting arms to do their job.

perhaps the point in dispute between us was often this happened?

It's certainly a main point of dispute.

Successful attacks, especially when they are pressed home against seemingly overwhelming adversity, get all the press. Successful attacks are, after all, what win battles and advance careers. So you often see stuff like "The regiment's unwavering lines advanced bravely through the smoke, each man unflinchingly charging forward through the intense fire to carry the enemy trench at bayonet-point." OTOH, unsuccessful attacks are often glossed over to avoid the stigma of failure and fruitless loss of life. For example, stuff like "The regiment launched its attack at zero-hour but could make no progress, and so returned to its starting positions after 3 hours of heavy fighting." But this could well mean the regiment never more than a dozen yards into no-mans-land, where it was pinned down and pounded unmercifully until darkness.

I am telling you, full scale attacks were not common from 1914-1916, and when they were launched, the men were so laden with gear - as much as 80 pounds - many couldn't go to ground, or they would never get up. I am talking not just large pack, but spools of barbed wire, entrenching tools, the works. There was always the belief that the arty would smash the enemy flat.

Of course they could get up again. If they couldn't, how did they get out of their own trench in the first place?

The real question is, how did they remain standing? Put such a load on your back and try to get across a morass of muddy craters and debris as quickly as possible and see how often you slip, trip, and fall.

This without even the added incentive of heavy fire to make you want to hit the deck. Put in all the chaos of battle, add the survival instinct and HUGE amounts of barely controlled fear, and there's no way such troops could maintain their footing to the extent often seen in "battle pieces".

I said: All I can say is, you must not have been shot at very much.

MD said: Irrelevant - you were trained to drop at the first sign of effective enemy fire. Early war British infantry were not. I stated this twice now - big difference.

I can't help but snicker at this. You just don't get it at all and are making ivory tower judgements without any clue of what it's like to be under fire

Training has nothing to do with it. The default condition is that troops will seek cover under fire and only the most rigid discipline, instilled under real martinets of the old school, long-service professional armies of the 17-1800s could override that on a regular basis. Sometimes, under unusual situations, other troops would stand just as well, but not often.

I submit that the training of Kitchener's Army was not of this old-school type. They were trained in the use of their weapons and minor tactics, but as their continued civilian-type indiscipline showed, they certainly were not up to the unwavering standards of, say, the Old Guard.

Look at the wars of the mid-late 1800s. In those days, the approved method of fighting at first was still as in Napolean's day: shoulder-to-shoulder masses firing into each other at short range. Seeking cover was definitely against the rules. But when such formations met rifles instead of muskets, the troops hit the deck and manuever was halted just as effectively as it was by wire and MGs in WW1. So they had to revise their tactics, accept open order, and the use of cover during the advance, in order to get things going again.

So what modern training does is just go with the flow. The troops are going to seek cover anyway so you have to turn this to your advantage by making it part of maneuver.

Also, I wasn't trained to seek cover when at the 1st sign of effective fire. I was trained to do whatever it takes to accomplish my mission. Sometimes preservation of force is more important than gaining ground immediately, but sometimes it isn't. Maybe this is more of a Marine thing, because if we immediately sought cover in our traditional role, we'd stay pinned down behind the amtracks on the beach .

I said: You will drop into the 1st hole you find, regardless of training.

MD said: Prove it.

OK, meet me at the West Feliciana Sheriff's Department firing range. Any day, any time. We'll put you out by the targets and have a SWAT deputy fire his SMG at you as you advance towards the firing line

And if there are no holes?

Your options are all bad. There are 3 choices: press on, stay put, or run away. Which one you pick depends on the situation. But if the fire is very heavy and you've still got a sufficient distance of more of the same to the objective, pressing on usually doesn't happen. Neither does running away, because the enemy has already demonstrated what he can do in the area behind you. So what normally happens is that troops hide behind the corpses of their dead buddies while scraping out shallow holes with whatever tools are at hand, there to await darkness.

I agree with you that taking cover was not uncommon - but you are saying in any and all circumstances. There were also a lot of frontal assaults in the Boer War - and the Civil War. Which was the standard tactic to be employed.

I've repeatedly pointed out that sometimes troops did extraordinary things. But by and large, when faced with an impossible situation, the predictable outcome occurred. The situation was impossible, so the troops couldn't make headway, and as a result were pinned down and annihilated. In every war since the mid-1800s, there have been such impossible situations. There were also certainly quite a few in WW1 (the whole 1st day of the Somme comes to mind ) and WW2 (such as Operation Mars).

Possible situations differ from the impossible only in a matter of degree. As realization of this dawned on the military through the late 1800s, infantry tactics changed accordingly. Open order, squad rushes, etc. Different armies did this at different times but the Brits did so before WW1. These new tactics worked well enough against rifles and a few fieldguns, but not against barbed wire, MGs, and arty on an unprecedented scale.

Fire and movement tactics were well known by 1917. You need to realize that they were not in 1914. Somewhere in between, they learned - or relearned - how to do this.

I disagree with your dates. For the Brits, the change-over seems to have taken place during the 2nd Boer War. The original troops employed there began by using the close order, upright formations that had worked so well on natives armed with swords, spears, and a few muskets. But the Boers didn't come out in the open and had modern, magazine rifles, and so the Brits got shot to pieces. It took numerous disasters to make them devise new tactics.

But by then the government had gotten tired of failure and brought in new troops and commanders. These guys, who belonged to a different "clique" than the old crew, were going to show them "how to do it right". But they came in with the same out-dated tactics and got shot to pieces in their turn, until they, too, learned. Thus, the change-over affected the bulk of the Brit standing army.

[ASL Veteran]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

ASLVeteran, what does any of that have to do with the discussion at hand? I am not going to debate the competency of the British Army as it is not the issue. I don't care what the French did, and I am proud of the troops of all nations who fought in WW I - they were all equally brave. If I was truly biased about the British I would not have posted any of this.

Either contribute something meaningful, or don't try and stir the pot. I'm not biting. I've respected your work and your contributions to this forum, as well as counting you as one of my favourite PBEM partners, but to be blunt, your post really isn't worthy of you.

Since you obviously don't get it, the point of this all was to respond to the assertation that no one would ever willingly walk into machinegun fire, or that anyone under machinegun fire would automatically seek cover. Now, was that proven false or not?

Actually Michael, I was not trying to say that you were biased about the British, and I am not trying to bait you into a flame war. I am simply pointing out that the examples you are using to prove your point - whatever that may be right now - can easily be turned around to show that what they are doing was not considered normal by the participants themselves. If the participants are stating that the behavior is not normal, how can you use that to prove that something is normal behavior? No, it must be extraordinary behavior. If the behavior is extraordinary, then why is it extraordinary? The reason it was extraordinary is that the British didn't seek cover, but just walked along.

If your point is that all WW1 infantry were trained to walk into MG fire and did so willingly because they had never seen a MG before - then that statement would clearly be false because the Germans thought the British actions to be extraordinary. Clearly if the Germans thought it extraordinary they certainly wouldn't be doing things like that themselves.

If you wanted to say that British Infantry in specific walked into MG fire willingly - then that might be true. However, since that was extraordinary behavior - as amazed Germans said - then I'm not sure it proves anything other than the British soldiers were brave and trained poorly at that specific point in time. Or possibly that they weren't smart enough to seek cover. (although I hate to put it that way). Obviously even the British themselves must not have attacked in that manner prior to the Somme if the Germans were saying that they had never seen something like that before.

If the whole purpose of your series of posts is to show that a human being can willingly walk around under heavy fire - okay, I can accept that. But that proves what exactly? It doesn't prove that Infantry of all nations in WW1 walked around like they were on a Sunday stroll through no man's land. No, you might be able to make that case for the British infantry in certain specific instances, but to draw from your examples that whole armies of human beings will ignore the chance of being visited by death and just loll about in front of MGs - well that's a bit of a stretch I should think. Most normal human beings will think of self preservation - don't you agree? So what you are actually proving is that, under extraordinary circumstances , men can walk around while under heavy fire like a Sunday stroll.

There was even an Italian Company during WW1 where the company commander kept his troops standing at attention while being blasted by artillery. Very impressive. But what does it prove? Does it prove that troops will ignore heavy artillery bombardments on a regular basis? No, it just shows that some men do some brave and foolish things sometimes.

So, getting back to your MGs. If your point is that infantry can regularly ignore MG fire and walk around no mans land like a Sunday stroll - False. If you want to say: Under extraordinary circumstances infantry can do some brave and stupid things - sure, I can buy that. That's how heroes are made. I believe that I am right on point in your discussion - if not, then I really haven't got the foggiest idea of what you are trying to prove - if anything.

[Michael Dorosh]

ASL Vet - thanks for the clarification, didn't mean to be so touchy - it just seemed kind of out of character for you to be pushing buttons; I believe you when you say that wasn't your intent. I apologize to you for my tone.

It's best for me to withdraw now, probably; I haven't read the last half dozen posts before yours.

Simply put, I saw yet another "current" US soldier using his experience to comment in an uninformed manner on matters of history, specifically, he related his experience in Panama to that of World War One infantry. He told us that when a MG opens fire on you, you go to ground and, apparently, stay there. That is the inference I drew from his comments, anyway. If that is a misrepresentation, shame one me.

Bullethead further commented that British infantry used fire and movement in World War One as the basic tactic, and scoffed at the idea that anyone would refuse to take cover when under MG fire.

I pointed out that this was false before 1917 - at least some of the time - and that British and Empire troops were specifically trained NOT to go to ground or seek cover - at the very least during full scale attacks (which were rare).

Whether or not this is true only of the Somme, or of green troops in general, I should think it fairly obvious that my main point - that the experience of a US soldier in Panama in the 1990s is pretty much irrelevant to understanding the experiences of British soldiers in World War One - is borne out.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by jwxspoon:

LOL OK I guess I deserved that. My apologies for my smart mouth. We are both entitled to our opinions, however different their basis.

Jeff

You're right, and on that we agree. I didn't mean to cast disrespect on your service - or the personal sacrifices you have made - just your ability to comment on matters of history using that experience. I hope it wasn't taken that way.

I've never been shot at, personally - mostly thanks to guys like you who have been, because you're brave enough to go in harm's way for "us". So for that, I give you my thanks.

We can leave it there.

[MajorBooBoo]

Was that a Canadian apology? It's a mysterious language, that Canadian is.

[Londoner]

This has evolved into quite an amusing thread. Mr Panama vet, (sorry, to lazy to check back, no slur intended) your argument is just what I'd expect from someone who is ex-military. (Again no slur intended) You simply cannot divorce the soldier from society. Historians have made this error for a long time, only recently have acedemics (such as Keegan) made an issue of this. Men are men and bullets are bullets doesn't hold much weight IMO. From the work I've done on WW1 Mr Doresh is pretty much on the money.

I've listened to a sizable number of WW1 vets accounts. These can be found in huge numbers at the National Army Museum London. Their archive is huge and its free for students, academics or anyone who has a good reason for wanting to

browse them. I'd love to contribute more but time is short....

[jwxspoon]

Ahh, Mr. Londoner, believe it or not, I can agree with a lot of what Mr. Dorosh is saying and has said on other threads in the past. I think his arguments are well researched and no doubt he believes what he is saying. This all started when I responded to JasonC's thread in which he talks about the changes he believed necessary to make the MG's more effective in the game. In responding I cited my first experience under fire as a young soldier (which, incidentally was not in Panama, but Grenada. Panama came 7 years and a whole lot of experience later) to perhaps help provide some "on the ground" insight as to what we did when under fire, and what is different about being fired upon by an HMG versus small arms.

Obviously the actions of a company of US Army Rangers attempting to seize an airfield are quite different from the tactics used in WWI or, for that matter WWII as well. I am no expert on WWI tactics and my only knowledge is from general history accounts and talking with my paternal grandfather (a private in Pershing's AEF) before he passed away.

However, that doesn't change the feeling I have, based upon personal experiences in 9 years of US Army special operations experience, that the HMG's in Combat Mission are undermodeled in their suppressive effect and their damage effect at medium to long ranges. Personally I believe that few people understand how powerful a weapon a properly used HMG is. I tried to communicate this in my previous posts, got my back up at some of Mr. Dorosh's comments, and things went downhill from there.

JW

[Michael Dorosh]

[ July 24, 2002, 09:09 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[MajorBooBoo]

If I call you, will you tell me all about the books you read? Well, no thanks, I would rather listen to one vets story than a lifetime of reading if you know what I mean. And yes, someones fired MGs over my head too.

What this supposeded discussion lacks is context. The context being an assault. In the game, an assault can be summoned up at any time (with some variable delays) but non-the-less its going to happen. Men assaulting a position will then face firepower because they are acting in unison (and perhaps a little too readily in the case of real life WWI). In real life, Units moving but NOT assaulting, being fired upon, are much more likely to get prone toot-sweet and take some action like finding cover and returning fire (like the Panama vet said). The fact that the game DOES undermodel MG firepower (yes it does indeed), is sort of made worse because the units in the game can so readily assault in concert. So if CMBB does make MGs deadlier, even perhaps a little beyond reality, then it somewhat offsets the borg control thing. If CMBB models the new Assault order as being limited (either the amount of units capable or if several assaulting units all share the same delay etc) or something along those lines, then all the better. If CMBB models units reactions to fire while NOT assaulting as being more self-protective (ie get down!), then, oh-boy-oh-boy, maybe some of these boring threads will go away.

Now back to the Dorosh show..

[Triumvir]

Incidentally, ASL Veteran, the reason that the French advanced in rushes in 1915-1916 was that they went through their equivalent of the Somme in Lorraine in 1914. Plan XVII called for exactly the same thing that Dorosh is talking about -- massed close-order charges over open territory, using 75s as direct support, just like Napoleon's armies did. The result?

According to this source,Battle of the Frontiers 300,000 casualties, with the men mowed down in droves

The Old Contemptibles did the same to the Germans in 1914, during the Kindermord bei Ypern; and they did that with Lee-Enfields, not Vickers. (Though the Kindermord may have been a bit overplayed -- see MHQ for details.

I have no problems believing that WWI soldiers would initially advance blindly into machine gun fire; the bravest are also the first to fall. By the time the Americans came into the war, there had been enough proof of how deadly the MGs were that they were able to avoid the ghastly learning curve that Europe had; and therefore didn't suffer the same winnowing of their best and brightest.

Dorosh is perfectly right when he says that we are all conditioned by society's imagery of the machine gunner as conductor of a modern Todestanz; even when I knew that the MGs in basic were firing 5 feet above my head and that even if I jumped up and down they wouldn't hit me, I still kept my head down. But to someone who'd never been exposed to that... that's a different story.

But as for men taking cover in rushes... that I can also believe; these men are called _survivors_. Having survived their first brush with an MG and having seen what it could do, they certainly weren't about to repeat what their absent friends had done.

As for a rolling of 1 or 6 and walking, that's a bit of hyperbole but not too far off. Looking at Casualties, we can see that for the worst off country, Austria-Hungary, you had a 10% chance of surviving unhurt. You might as well be playing Russian Roulette with an automatic.

Incidentally, this is why the French unjustly earned their nickname of surrender monkeys -- if 76% of your class was killed or wounded in war, you might not be quite so sanguine about going to war again. It's also why they're still leery of the British; the British never bore as heavy a burden as the French.

Let's not talk about the Americans' contribution to WWI. It only invites trolls.

The short of it is that CMBO is not going to provide as accurate an assessment of the first day of the Somme as we might like to see. Nor will it mimic Ypers or Lorraine; but just about any other battle in WWI can be reasonably well modelled (i.e. gives the expected result) given the current state of HMGs.

[JasonC]

On issues raised by Mr. Dorosh about British doctrine in WW I, whether the men in the first day of the Somme were just following drill or were exceptionally green, etc - I have made a couple of large posts on the subject over in the general forum - rather than the CM forum. Because I think the issues are interesting, but frankly tangential to the MGs-in-CM question that start it off.

Those interested are invited to read them, and to reply in the first (the second is really just a seperate place to put a very long quoted document). The first article is called - WW I - what did the Brits know and when did they know it? The second is called WW I - sample orders for a small operation.

The latter might be of some independent interest, since it shows how involved trench warfare was. The cartoon picture of its futile simplicity (if you attack, you die, unless the arty already killed him) many get from the journalism level accounts of the war, was not at all the way it was experienced by the officers who had to conduct it. It was not a simple thing to learn how to do, and the penalties for technical imcompetence were exceptionally high.

In part, this is simply responding to Mr. Dorosh's request for a sample of what is in the source I cited earlier (Military Operations In France and Belgium) - which is the standard British staff history.

[Londoner]

Points taken Mr Jwxspoon, and thanks for sharing your personal experiences with us, very interesting mate.

No probs Micheal, as our friend said, well researched m8, good read too.

Cheers for heads up Jason...

[ February 06, 2002, 07:57 AM: Message edited by: Londoner ]

[Barticus]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

decidedly off topic, but of interest to me.

Gee whiz Michael, we would never have guessed!

B

[jshandorf]

Holly Geehossafats! You guys are still prattling on about how the WWI doctrine resulted in men being stacked like cord wood? For the love of God, Micheal, JasonC's posts are painfully too long to read anyway, please quit egging him on.

Oh, and BTW, Micheal, you must have been one of those kids that poked the caged monkeys until they flung their crap at you, because that is what you are doing here but only in a more grown up way. Good job.

Jeff

[The_Capt]

Originally posted by jwxspoon:

Ahh, Mr. Londoner, believe it or not, I can agree with a lot of what Mr. Dorosh is saying and has said on other threads in the past. I think his arguments are well researched and no doubt he believes what he is saying. This all started when I responded to JasonC's thread in which he talks about the changes he believed necessary to make the MG's more effective in the game. In responding I cited my first experience under fire as a young soldier (which, incidentally was not in Panama, but Grenada. Panama came 7 years and a whole lot of experience later) to perhaps help provide some "on the ground" insight as to what we did when under fire, and what is different about being fired upon by an HMG versus small arms.

Obviously the actions of a company of US Army Rangers attempting to seize an airfield are quite different from the tactics used in WWI or, for that matter WWII as well. I am no expert on WWI tactics and my only knowledge is from general history accounts and talking with my paternal grandfather (a private in Pershing's AEF) before he passed away.

However, that doesn't change the feeling I have, based upon personal experiences in 9 years of US Army special operations experience, that the HMG's in Combat Mission are undermodeled in their suppressive effect and their damage effect at medium to long ranges. Personally I believe that few people understand how powerful a weapon a properly used HMG is. I tried to communicate this in my previous posts, got my back up at some of Mr. Dorosh's comments, and things went downhill from there.

JW

As another individual who has had the unfortunate experience of being under MG fire I totally agree with you. BTS has even admitted the short-comings of MGs in CMBO and has promised to try and address them in CMBB.

I am no historian but I do no the mindset of the WWI soldier was probably different from the WWII or modern soldier. From experience, Green soldiers are the ones who show no fear on incoming fire, because they really don't know what it is.

I did a test in CMBO in which I ran a Coy over open ground between 2 Pillbox MGs, the results were laughable. I was getting up to 30% cas and most of the company got thru. In reality, I doubt if 5% would have made it and they would be those too stupid or brave for their own good.

One additional point, CMBO does not model sub-unit morale. For example individual squad react to fire but not the platoon as a whole. In RL, if a sect comes under fire the rest of the platoon does not merrily skip along and ignore it. We get into a flock mentality and watch "mother-bird" in these situations. This is compounded by the "needle-thin" beaten zone of MGs in the game. And MG can supress a large area at quite a long range, it is what they are designed to do. In CM they tend to only target one squad at a time.

This is a critical short-coming from a reality POV but not from a gameplay POV. One has to adjust tactics to fit this by either placing more MGs or combining them with squads.

The weakness of MGs (and arty to a lesser extent) have made CM a very Infantry orientated game..and there is nothing wrong with that..so long as we all remember that it is a game.

[Michael Dorosh]

[ July 24, 2002, 09:09 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[MajorBooBoo]

Plus I received a few emails - including from Bullethead who sparred with me a bit here, so that was worth it too, even if you didn't get to see it.[/QB]

Did you get any phone calls?

[nijis]

Re green/conscript troops under fire, about a year ago I'm fairly sure that my wife and I were shot at a fellow firing a semi-automatic rifle from a hundred yards away or so. At the same time there was machinegun fire from an armored vehicle passing over our heads, which we knew was not aimed at us and which we'd gotten used to. When we realised someone was actually shooting at us we both stood around stupidly for quite a number of seconds before walking, not running, to the other side of the street, and the adrenaline didn't kick in until some time later. Neither of us had any military training, needless to say. Hitting the pavement I think would have seemed to us more dangerous - the risk of bruised elbows and what - than staying standing up. I wouldn't think that humans have any sort of instinctive reaction to gunfire. I know that one guy with one rifle isn't anything like a machinegun, but the stories of WWI troops walking blithely into gunfire because they can't think of anything else to do I find believable.

[ February 06, 2002, 06:34 PM: Message edited by: nijis ]