Routing HMG's

[James]

Just a quick question to pass the time of day: Why dont routing HMG crews just ditch their heavy weapon & ammo and make a proper run for it? In the Yelnia senario I had some HMG crews routing chased by T34's and hordes of infantry, but they still hung onto their HMG moving slowly - as a result they didnt make it. Another case was a HMG team reduced to 1 man routed but was "immobile". The crews are not chained to their weapons, and routing is meant to be the state where their running for their lives every man for himself.

[WWB]

IRL crews are not chained to their weapons, but due to engine restrictions infantry type weapons like HMGs are. The alternative would make HMG teams fragile like mortars. I will take more dead HMG crews over more KOed HMGs.

WWB

[James]

The alternative would make HMG teams fragile like mortars. I will take more dead HMG crews over more KOed HMGs.

So its reality vs gameplay. I would go for reality and make HMG's fragile.

[Liebchen]

Which begs the question, "Why are mortar crews so damned fragile, anyways?"

[Renaud]

Regular squads can become 'unarmed' after escaping from a capture status, right? Couldn't a similiar process be used to have routing/broken heavy weapon teams lose their weapons, rather than changing them into mortar-crew-like units? Personally I think heavy MG's should be fragile like mortar teams, if there is no other alternative. Then again, if you can abandon MG's you open up the legitimate question of 'why can't we re-man them'. For such a critical weapon this is an important question.

More likely this was one more thing they lacked the time to do, rather than an impossible feature due to engine restrictions. It's a great idea though. Kind of silly to see all those routed or broken Maxim crews dragging around ammo, a heavy water cooled MG, Tripod, water cans, tools, etc.

Ren

[Shep]

Seems like your cyber-soldiers should be able to both abandon and re-crew their crew-served weapons.

[Pvt. Ryan]

Yes, a crew should be able to walk up to an abandoned weapon and ask, "Are you being served?"

[Priest]

Maybe just maybe BFC is preserving reality by not making them fragile like mortar crews. Ever think of that? MG crews are used to being closer to the front lines, expected to be, and possibly form the centerpieces to many defensive emplacements. Mortar crews on the other hand are not used to be on the very front line per say and for larger mortars possibly very far from the front. So while the fact that they run with their gun is not maybe the most realistic, the fact that they stay fighting longer and operate under different principles than mortars may be more realistic.

Do you want your units to fight realistically or run realistically if given the choice between the two? Don't know about you but I will go with fight realistically.

[Thin Red Line]

Maybe not as fragile as mortars, but i agree it is unrealistic to see HMG crews with no ammo standing to the last man to preserve a useless weapon. Same with towed-guns.

[CMplayer]

The question is whether it's worth cluttering the orders menu with a new command: 'Spike weapon & boogie' , or whatever it would be called.

[Pud]

This sounds like years ago when CMBO came out and everyone wanted an "abandon" command in the menu for tanks (eg immobile SP).

Perhaps its something for the rewrite? An abandon command would certainly be handy, specially for units which refuse to relinquish eupiment.

[Gyrene]

It would be great to get your crews to ditch their weapons when they are empty and at the risk of being overrun.

Gyrene