mg on tanks and veh in CMBB

[WEAPON42]

Will the mgs on tanks and veh be just as enhanced as the inf mgs?

[Pzman]

What do you mean by enhanced? Do you mean the killing power / ability to suppress?

[ July 11, 2002, 11:40 PM: Message edited by: Panzerman ]

[Sir Uber General]

How about having the bow and coax MG's be able to fire independantly with seperated ammo loadouts for starters...

[Sgt. Beavis]

And make sure the vehicle MGs will jam too, just like the manhandled ones.

[Patgod]

Originally posted by Sir Uber General:

How about having the bow and coax MG's be able to fire independantly with seperated ammo loadouts for starters...

they already do fire independantly. though iirc they do share ammo.

[Redwolf]

My take on the issue is at the end of the

"Anti-Infantry with Stuarts and PSW-75mm" thread on the tips-and-tricks forum.

http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=7;t=001140

In summary, I don't expect dramatic improvements for multi-MG tanks, but even if the primary MG gets the tuning that infantry teams are supposed to get it will be a lot more realstic. But I expect the hull MG to continue to be a true second-class citizen.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Sir Uber General:

How about having the bow and coax MG's be able to fire independantly with seperated ammo loadouts for starters...

Why would you want seperate ammunition stocks for bow and co-ax MGs? For the AAMG, maybe, if it's a different calibre, but I know of no case where hull and turret MGs can't fire the same ammunition.

All the best,

John.

[Madmatt]

All MG's across the board, regardless of where and how they are mounted, have benefitted from the new enhancements.

Ammo for vehicle MG's is tracked together unless the calibers differ as is the case with a 12.7mm DShk AAMG for example.

When MG's are the same calibure it makes sense to track the ammo together since its all coming from ammo boxes inside the vehicle itself and would be shared amongst the various weapons as needed for the most part.

Vehicle MG's do not jam. We have to leave some stuff for the next version after all!

Madmatt

[Liebchen]

I think that their talking about having a coax run out of ammo before the bow MG (for a typical example)...

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Sir Uber General:

How about having the bow and coax MG's be able to fire independantly with seperated ammo loadouts for starters...

I have observed bow and coax MGs engaging different targets several times in CM:BO.

As far as seperate ammo loadouts, why would you do that? In most vehicles it is possible to pass ammo from one position to another as needed. AA ammo of a different caliber already has a seperate loadout.

Michael

[Sir Uber General]

Well, I must admit that I have not seen the coax and bow MG's engage seperate targets. I also believe the ROF for MG's in vehicles, especially fully fledged tanks with high ammo loadouts, is too low. When both the co-ax and bow MG's fire on the one target I never see the suppressive effectives you would expect, particularly when being fired from 250m and under.

I might quickly set up an experiment where a tank with no HE but 2 MG's fires on an infy unit from 250m, and compare that to the same unit being fired on by 2 crew served MG teams and see which one is more effective.

[Silvio Manuel]

Originally posted by Sir Uber General:

Well, I must admit that I have not seen the coax and bow MG's engage seperate targets.

Its very neat...the main example I've seen is my Sherman's bow MG shooting at the MG42 I was targeting, but the coax, flexible, and 75mm were shooting at a 'Shreck nearly 180 degrees to the hull.

[Sir Uber General]

I wish it happenned more then... especially when engaging multiple infies, ie a whole platoon, an MG being fired on each squad.

[Redwolf]

Is there a movie of the hull MG firing to the back available?

EDIT: never mind, just saw Silvio didn't say hull MG

So far I got the impression the hull MG only fires when an enemy unit accidentially comes right in front of the hull MG, either by moving or by the tank turning.

[ July 15, 2002, 10:00 PM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by redwolf:

So far I got the impression the hull MG only fires when an enemy unit accidentially comes right in front of the hull MG, either by moving or by the tank turning.

It does have a pretty limited field of fire, but I'm pretty sure that I saw one firing at 30-45° off to the side a few weeks ago. I'd want to see it a few more times before I'd swear to it though.

Michael

[Sir Uber General]

Which sorta makes me wonder - how do you know when the coax or bow MG is doing the firing? And why dont you see twice or 3 times the amount of outgoing fire when both or all (bow, coax, flex) the guns are blazing? I'm not military in any way so Ive never seen it first hand, but I can imagine a tank in mad-minute mode with its MG's would seriously hose the target.

BTW, I did a bit of testing with HEless shermans V regular infantry in scattered trees and it appears from 200+ meters the MG's really only suppress. Under that range casualties start to mount. At 100-150m the MG's really suppress and do nice damage, on average 1 casualty per round per squad. Squads out of c&c will break after a couple of rounds at that range. Squads in c&c are unlikely to break even at 100m with just MG's.

[Stalin's Organ]

Something from CMBB - IIRC the 4 .50's on the M17 MGMC used 4 shots per turn.

But each MG on a "normal" tank has it's own ammo load and uses 1 of its own shots per turn and stops shooting whn it runs out - even if there's another MG of the same calibre with ammo left over at the time.

[gibsonm]

Originally posted by Sir Uber General:

Which sorta makes me wonder - how do you know when the coax or bow MG is doing the firing? And why dont you see twice or 3 times the amount of outgoing fire when both or all (bow, coax, flex) the guns are blazing? I'm not military in any way so Ive never seen it first hand, but I can imagine a tank in mad-minute mode with its MG's would seriously hose the target.

The gunner normally has a switch to select either main armament or coax mg when he fires, so you will only have one gun or the other firing from the turret. If you needed that much close range firepower then the c/c would be buttoned up inside directing the crew rather than exposed behind the pintle.

[Sir Uber General]

But my tests used tanks with no HE at all and started with the tanks back at range. The gunner would have always been using the MG when firing. The tank was pointing at the enemy, so the bow MG could fire. The tanks were also at range and unbuttonned, yet you can still not see any difference in terms of weight of fire between 1 MG (the coax) and all 3 being used.

I'll repeat my tests shortly using 1, 2, then 3 standard crew served MG's v same infantry to see how well that goes.

edit - hmm started doing some testing... dunno what to say except the possibility of MG's being undergunned all around is really apparent when under the microscope. I have 4 MG's (1919's)shooting at infantry in scattered trees over 200m. After 10 rounds of shooting, the MG's have inflicted the princly sum of 2 casualties. No units with bad morale, including the one that is out of c&c... wow, I expected a lot more than that.

[ July 16, 2002, 02:20 AM: Message edited by: Sir Uber General ]

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Sir Uber General:

...how do you know when the coax or bow MG is doing the firing?

In the cases I was citing it was easy. Some fire was proceeding in the direction the turret was pointed and some in a completely different direction. The latter I took to represent the hull MG.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Sir Uber General:

But my tests used tanks with no HE at all and started with the tanks back at range. The gunner would have always been using the MG when firing. The tank was pointing at the enemy, so the bow MG could fire. The tanks were also at range and unbuttonned, yet you can still not see any difference in terms of weight of fire between 1 MG (the coax) and all 3 being used.

Just as check, why not run the same test with the tanks in hull down positions so that the hull MGs are masked and cannot fire? See if they deplete ammo at the same rate and if they produce the same effects as quickly on enemy troops.

Michael

[Sir Uber General]

Eureka, by golly thats the answer

I'll have a play with this a bit later, good idea I must say!

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Sir Uber General:

Which sorta makes me wonder - how do you know when the coax or bow MG is doing the firing?

They have different sounds. If not by default, then at least with the mods. My hull MG defintivly sounds liked locked in a cage, and the coax one has a more direct sound.

And why dont you see twice or 3 times the amount of outgoing fire when both or all (bow, coax, flex) the guns are blazing?

Flex is usually a .50cal with seperate ammo, except on the Stuart.

The reason you don't see the Hull MG draw much ammo is that it fires rarely. As I said earlier in the thread, it is an opportuinuty fire weapon only, if something happens to get in front of it, it fires, but there is no active engagements of targets for CMBO hull MGs.

I'm not military in any way so Ive never seen it first hand, but I can imagine a tank in mad-minute mode with its MG's would seriously hose the target.

Not only that. Much more decisive is that tanks, especially US tanks in the bocage would go into some terrain, wildly blazing with all MGs and main gun (cox MG during reload of main gun). You cannot do that in CMBO since you have no targetting command for the hull or flex MGs.

BTW, I did a bit of testing with HEless shermans V regular infantry in scattered trees and it appears from 200+ meters the MG's really only suppress. Under that range casualties start to mount. At 100-150m the MG's really suppress and do nice damage, on average 1 casualty per round per squad. Squads out of c&c will break after a couple of rounds at that range. Squads in c&c are unlikely to break even at 100m with just MG's.

That sounds only slightly off. What is corrected in CMBB is that what happens if this platoon is running at you. The low number of shots per turn and the non-existint supressing effect on squads not directly targetted is what made CMBO MGs so useless. The casulties that CMBO MGs caused to the directly targetted squad were nether that far off. Many people don't understand this more subtle aspect when discussing CMBO MGs.