Proposed Cover-based MG firepower modifier

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by wwb_99:

I really cannot understand why you have not figured this out by now, but games of CM are not played in the kind of artificial lab environment you propose and seem addicted to. It does not matter if a single component works perfectly on its own, because in a real game there will be other components which might well effect how that component works. The interaction of advancing troops and incoming fire is not at all the simple equation which you precieve it is, but a huge series of complex interactions which you apparently cannot fathom.

Basically, you are trying to make sure if the widget device works in the clean room, not on the street where it is to be used. Leave the lab tests to the academics.

I think you didn't get the point: we are in the clean room, whether we like it or not. Given the current limitations in computers and computer (programming) models, a game like CM, which tries to simulate smallarms combat with whole battalions, has to fall back to some crappy statistical model of smallarms fire. All we can do is coming up with more or less clever ideas to make the result reward the same tactics that were successful in reality. Steve and Charles make a living out of it, other people do it for the interllectual challenge or to help getting a better tool for history exploration.

Both is better than activly denying the need for something that is obviously required.

[Wreck]

WWB:

You really ought to read what the man is saying. He explains in perfect detail the why and how of testing he is doing. The why is, because it is broken now and it matter even more in Russia. The how is scientific testing -- one variable at a time. HMGs at long range against squads.

Maybe it is the case that CMBB is fixed; maybe not. But your bizarre notion that CMBO is too complex to ever test is not only empirically false, it is offensive to the very spirit of interchange on these boards. Why bother to discuss and argue about any aspect of the game at all, if in "a real game there will be other components which might well effect [sic] how that component works", thereby somehow rendering any analysis useless?

It is also offensive for you to tell Jason what he knows about the interaction of advancing troops and incoming fire; unless you have some hotline to his brain you can't know what he knows. But I shall leave off.

[Smiler]

A simulation is good if it models the individual components well enough so that the big picture looks like reality without the need for any fudging. In this case, that means that isolated MGs should be able to suppress large numbers of non-charging exposed enemy troops by themselves IF they could in real life. Regardless of whether it happened in real life often.

I think this is the appeal of CMBO in general. It gives you the toolkit of realistically modelled individual units, and when you combine them together they generally perform like they would have IRL.

Note that I'm not enough of a grog to say how MGs would perform in this situation, just that I hope it "does the right thing".

Now, sometimes it's just not possible to model all the components properly due to computer limitations, and you have to settle for abstractions. So the trick is to create the proper abstraction, which is what BTS is trying to do, with, say grazing fire.

[MajorBooBoo]

Originally posted by MajorBooBoo:

These discussions about tests make me wonder if the following would be a way of "booting" up WWII firepower. By booting up, I mean bringing it up through the ages.

Could testing be done first with just rifle armed troops? This would allow a base that other layers of forepower can be built on? Once the rifle models out well (meets a certain design specification for effectiveness, etc), layer on different small arms and then finally MGs of different types? Sort of a Law of Partial Pressures approach. It is difficult to say if MGs are modeled well if there is the prescence of other weapon types in the same test.

These tests, of course, require many runs to be of any use and would take alot of time.

I am reposting this again. I also agree that Jason C does have some validity and reject the notion that CM is not a sum of its parts. That isnt in the spirit of the discussion and is an insult to intelligence.

MGs should be realistic when used alone or in concert with other weapons. Many times, MGs in the game get cut offand are isolated. Would I need to get troops over there to get proper modeling?

[Battlefront.com]

Jason wrote:

This seems to be an inordinately difficult concept to grasp, so I will try to be clear.

If "clear" to you is a 3,127 word post... ohboy. In all honesty, I didn't read it. It is hard enough for me to wade through your more normal 1,500 word posts, but man... that last one was a killer. I don't even know how you can have the time to physically type the thing, even if you were copying right out of a book.

For what it is worth, I do agree that individual components can be isolated and tested individually *IF* the expectations of what they can achieve, or not, is more or less quantifiable. My objection to Jason's initial test is that I simply didn't see the point in it. If I want to see what a lone MG can do against a platoon or company, well... I would do so. But it wouldn't be under Jason's test conditions.

The reason why I followed Charlie Rock's suggestion was that it demonstrated the more dramatic fixes instituted in CMBB vs. CMBO. I am sorry that Jason really doesn't care as much about the bigger problems than the smaller ones, but with only so much time to spend doing tests... I opted for the one that had the most bang for the buck. Sorry if Jason doesn't approve, but I don't need his approval. When the game is released he can do whtever tests he wants to.

I still would like to see him respond to the Nebelwerfer thread though

Steve

[Priest]

So MG's are in CMBB then????

[Dirtweasle]

Originally posted by Priest:

So MG's are in CMBB then????

Wowhoo!! ROTFLO!

[Barrold]

Hey cool machineguns.

My conspiracy theory is that JasonC is angling for a beta copy to check out the efficacy of the machineguns in CM:BB

J'Accuse!

Sorry. So, how about them Nebelwafters or whatever....

BDH

[Battlefront.com]

Well...

I did a single, quick MG test which better answers the question "what can a single HMG do, in theory, vs. a company of advancing Soviet riflemen without support".

For this test I eliminated everything "realistic" so that testing bias was minimized. It is my firm belief, after 3 years of playing this game, that tests either have to have ALL "realism" removed or have as much realism as possible added. One or the other, not a mix (to the degree possible). This was my primary objection to Jason's suggested conditions. Mixing elements makes it harder, not easier, to tell what is what.

Conditions were...

1xSoviet Rifle Company (114 men in 12 Squads and 4 HQs)

Regular Experience

Fit Condition

vs.

1xHMG42 (6 men)

Regular Experience

Fit Condition

Soviets advanced abreast 300m from a range of 650m from the German position. The German HMG was set up at the very edge of Tall Pines in a foxhole. Terrain was 100% level Open Ground in between it and the Soviet units.

The HMG put out an arc 600m deep by 500m in width. Soviets were ordered forward, using the Move command, INTO the German Arc to make sure they were all on the move before taking fire.

The Soviets advanced for 6 turns before attempting to fire upon the German position. During this time the HMG caused 13 casualties and significantly broke up the cohesion of the advancing units. Two were made to Panic, about 1/2 were Pinned and lost their orders at one point or another. Because cancelled orders means the unit has to suffer a C&C penalty to start up again, this caused the Soviet forces to be strung out for 200m deep, roughly 1/3 in the back, 1/3 in the middle, 1/3 in the front. Most were Tiring or some other unfavorable physical state.

And then Lady Luck smiled upon the Soviet buggers The HMG, having expended 1/2 of its ammo, was about to let rip on the vanguard. This probably would have resulted in huge Soviet casualties and prolonged the scenario. But their gun jammed and the Soviet vanguard moved to within strong small arms range, then grenade range, then overran the position killing 5 and capturing 1.

I tried this test again once very quickly, and the results were similar except 18 casualties were caused before the HMG took too much fire and buggered off with only 19 ammo points left. I also found what appears to be a targeting bug which might have caused some slack cut to the Soviets, so Charles is looking into that. At this point things like this have not been seriously tested by anybody, so this is not surprising to me.

Anyhoo... like my previous two tests one can take away whatever one wants to from this. I would have to run this a dozen or two times just to get even a hint of good data, but I neither have the time nor the bug fix to do this any time soon. When the next phase of testing is started I'll have someone spend their time doing a bunch of tests. But for now, my conclusions are:

1. A single HMG can not deny movement a large expanse of open terrain against a large number of well trained, good condition, adequately commanded troops spread out over a long extended line all on its own. This is especially true if the gun jams since there is no "backup".

2. A single HMG can severely retard an large advance over a large expanse of ground all alone.

3. A single HMG can knock out a significant number of men in this situation. 10% casualties all on its own in this situation is pretty good IMHO. Remember, the Soviet troops weren't walking to their death like automatrons, but instead were using skilled combat movements to advance over terrain under fire. So please don't compare these casulties to German accounts of Human Wave attacks from 1941!

4. I could make about 2 dozen different tests like this, repeat each 100 times, and it would yield all sorts of different results. So anybody who thinks that even if I ran this one test 100 times, or ANY one test 100 times, some definative conclusions could be made is just plain daffy. CM is far too complex and variable (dates, experience, ranges, terrain, numbers of units, etc.) to make sweeping statements from simple tests.

Overall, though, I see huge improvements over CMBO. Besides the bug I think I found, I think we have done just about all we can do with this system. And since you will not likely have totally unlikely, unrealistic, overbalanced situations like this in real games... I think whatever shortcomings are inherent in the game engine itself aren't big enough to worry about.

Steve

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by JasonC:

No it doesn't rely on assuming the men are in line. To see this, try arranging 10 dots in any pattern you like, and see whether you can draw a line through the pattern of dots that "skewers" 2 or 3 dots. See if any pattern you can come up with that avoids easy skewering from one particular direction, manages to avoid it from another direction rotated 90 degrees from the first.

[snips]

Which means the only thing that really helps is cover to break the LOS of the MG, before it passes clear through the squad formation. Thus, cover state is the right variable to model how easy it is to get multiplied firepower from grazing fire effects.

And the effect of cover is more pronounced against grazing automatic weapons fire, than against aimed fire at individuals.

[snips]

I confess that I'm a little baffled by this discussion, partly I suspect because of the unfamiliar terminology. "Grazing fire" seems to be being used oddly in this thread; "Fire lanes" I take to mean "fire on fixed lines", and "penetration" to mean "enfilade" (this might be a difference between UK and US terms, but I think it's between MG and SL terms).

Drawing lines through patterns of dots is all very well, but neglects the fact that, under MG fire, I would expect most men in the section to be prone and taking cover, with only (say) two men up and moving at any instant. "Grazing fire", in the sense of fire passing within a metre or so of the ground, may well have no physical effect at all on the men taking cover (although I understand that bullets going over your head always seem much lower than they really are).

A machine-gunner who is really determined to do damage to people will not put them in his gun's dangerous area, but in the gun's beaten zone. Here, rounds are actually hitting the ground, and so everyone in the target section is liable to be hit if they are not protected by bulletproof cover. At the ranges seen in CM:BO, and neglecting variations due to irregular terrain, it is probably fair to assume that the dangerous area of grazing fire extends from the muzzle to the start of the beaten zone. The beaten zone itself will be very long and narrow, and the enfilade effect quite capable of covering more than one section.

All the best,

John.

[Tero]

Originally posted by Big Time Software:

1. A single HMG can not deny movement a large expanse of open terrain against a large number of well trained, good condition, adequately commanded troops spread out over a long extended line all on its own. This is especially true if the gun jams since there is no "backup".

2. A single HMG can severely retard an large advance over a large expanse of ground all alone.

3. A single HMG can knock out a significant number of men in this situation. 10% casualties all on its own in this situation is pretty good IMHO. Remember, the Soviet troops weren't walking to their death like automatrons, but instead were using skilled combat movements to advance over terrain under fire. So please don't compare these casulties to German accounts of Human Wave attacks from 1941!

What about the differences between watercooled and aircooled HMG's ? How would a German HMG team using a captured Maxim manage itself in a test like this ?