Snipers

[cabal23]

So after the events of the past few days in world news, maybe we should add Navy Sniper to our list of wants(hilarious ticker on FOX news this morning...Navy Snipers take down pirates). I can see it now, module Somalia, follow the Navy as they track down and hunt Somalian pirates. I see $$$ in BF's future for this hypothetical game.

[meade95]

Funny -

But a side note: Snipers in general (especially Crack/Elite level) U.S. snipers need a big tweak up in performance....(IMO).

[MikeyD]

I thought they did get a tweak up in performance in 1.11. Sniper rarely misses with his first shot, from what I can see if the target isn't moving. Perhaps his subsequent shots aren't so lucky, but subsequent shot's would be harder, wouldn't they? Its been months since I've tested that out. Admittedly the CM sniper's not Tom Berringer in the Hollywood movie of the same name, but he's still pretty good. He's killed off more than a few Red HMG gunners on me.

[Bigduke6]

There are varying opinions out there, but as for me I am of the school that snipers are pretty much right in CMSF. What they do not do is define the results of battles, which is frequently the case in movies or if you listen to the sniper Mafia.

But in the real deal, historically what happens is that if you have say a company of non-sniper infantry out there somewhere, and a sniper takes them on, pretty quickly the grunts get the general idea of where the sniper is and the grunts then just plaster the area with fire. This has been the way organized infantry has dealt with snipers, wow, for at least a century.

A sniper can hide all he wants, but when he takes his shot it's not civilians out there but soldiers and if they're not looking after the first shot, they sure are afterwards, and you get enough eyes looking and the sniper is going to get busted. A ghillie suit is not a cloak of invisibility, etc. Just because you have a sniper on one side, doesn't mean every one on the other side is going to go to ground and have no idea how to deal with a sniper.

I think CMSF replicates all this very well. The sniper pings away until the other side figures out roughly where he is, and then it's massed automatic area fire vs. single shots fired when the sniper isn't supressed, which he usually is. If the infantry is any good, the sniper gets busted and usually killed pretty fast. If the infantry sucks, sure the sniper can shoot away for a while, but sooner or later he's going to attract fire, and once that happens he's a guy with a semi-automatic whose position no longer is a secret.

So I think snipers are ok, heck, I think the fire values for elite infantry are ok by the same logic - if elite infantry was the key to winning infantry battles the world's militaries would have taken to fielding armies of Seals and Rangers long ago. But realistically massed firepower seems to be the real solution, and again I think CMSF does a fairly good job replicating that.

Now, if you want to complain about CMSF, let's talk the nerve gas in the HE rounds...nah, let's not.

[acrashb]

I just watched an unsuppressed sniper, from a roof, miss five shots at under 400 meters against a three-man team in open ground, light wind. That's head-shot distance. Weird. At most, one shot for ranging (but that's what the spotter is for, and really 400 yards is nearly point-blank), then bang-bang-bang.

[Clavicula_Nox]

Last night I had to restart my Marines campaign due to patching (1.11) and I watched one of my sniper teams eliminate 2 squads over a period of about 7 minutes. The Syrians were running for a trench-line, got into my guy's sights and POW, started falling one after the other. They went to ground and tried to crawl out, but were still in line of sight and died one by one.

After that, that same team moved towards the trenchline they were running for,which had been occupied by a platoon or so, and started plinking away. By the time the CAS hit, most of that platoon had been hit and my sniper was out of ammo.

I don't know if the snipers need a boost or not, but I was largely impressed. I remember when they didn't hit anything.

[Meach]

A bit off topic but do the troops have hit boxes or is it a random allocation for damage?

I seen folks get hit in the head and chest with snipers and die almost every shot but legs and arms tend to cause wounds. Does the pixel of impact count down to even soldiers? It seems like it but I could be wrong.

Further to this leg wounded soldiers lag behind squads and take a while to catch up if they move off. Can Steve or a tester put some more light on the damage model for infantry?

[stikkypixie]

A bit off topic but do the troops have hit boxes or is it a random allocation for damage?

I seen folks get hit in the head and chest with snipers and die almost every shot but legs and arms tend to cause wounds. Does the pixel of impact count down to even soldiers? It seems like it but I could be wrong.

Further to this leg wounded soldiers lag behind squads and take a while to catch up if they move off. Can Steve or a tester put some more light on the damage model for infantry?

I remember Steve say that hits occur when polygons are intersected by the flight path of the bullets. But I don't know whether they take into account which polygon. Also there is some leniency because the abstractions in terrain etc... so your guys can only get killed/wounded if the get hit, but not necessarily the other way around. But it would make sense to have it taken into account especially if the guys are wearing body armour.

[MikeyD]

Does the pixel of impact count down to even soldiers?

While watching a moving unit I've seen an incoming tracer round hit the center of mass and the guy goes down. I've seen an incoming tracer round clip a shoulder or leg and the Blue circle changes to yellow and the moving man's pace slows. Plus I've seen body armor absorb a shot. So it seems individual soldiers do have 'hit boxes'.

But remember, the difference between a game and real world is you can have hit boxes AND random allocation if they start with the casualty allocation and work backwards. Soldier X is selected to get yellow-base wounded so the wound point is picked and a trajectory computed. I don't have a clue if that's how its done in-game. Its the only way I can think of for them to have some control over hit probabilities.

[akd]

(hilarious ticker on FOX news this morning...Navy Snipers take down pirates).

I guess I don't get the joke. Navy SEALs using sniper rifles are Navy snipers.

[Other Means]

AIUI it's at pixel level. Each round is tracked to impact.

CBB.

[Chops]

You thought snipers were accurate now, just wait for CM:SF 2

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/04/super-snipers.html

And info on the M107

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/16-03/ps_sniper

[akd]

Man, that Wired article was chock full of nonsense. Keep those geeks away from guns.

[cabal23]

I guess I don't get the joke. Navy SEALs using sniper rifles are Navy snipers.

Having spent most of my life in the Navy we never called them snipers. They were just SEALS. They are not defined by their weapons like the other branches. The whole conversation was funny beacuse you can tell Greg Kilborne has no idea what he was talking about. Us squids thought it was funny also because how often do you hear about Navy and the words sniper in the same sentence, I mean how can you not crack a smile at that. We all agreed though it was about time the Navy got some positive attention for once. It is rare you ever hear about SEALS in a realistic light.

[akd]

Having spent most of my life in the Navy we never called them snipers. They were just SEALS. They are not defined by their weapons like the other branches. The whole conversation was funny beacuse you can tell Greg Kilborne has no idea what he was talking about. Us squids thought it was funny also because how often do you hear about Navy and the words sniper in the same sentence, I mean how can you not crack a smile at that. We all agreed though it was about time the Navy got some positive attention for once. It is rare you ever hear about SEALS in a realistic light.

Well, since they got the branch right and the "snipers" were actually using sniper rifles, that ticker represents a stellar performance by typical MSM standards. Remember, for the MSM, anyone with a long gun is a soldier, and if they are shooting in the general direction of the reporter, they are also a sniper.

[Meach]

Thanks for the replies to my questions.

[Dietrich]

There are varying opinions out there, but as for me I am of the school that snipers are pretty much right in CMSF. What they do not do is define the results of battles, which is frequently the case in movies or if you listen to the sniper Mafia.

But in the real deal, historically what happens is that if you have say a company of non-sniper infantry out there somewhere, and a sniper takes them on, pretty quickly the grunts get the general idea of where the sniper is and the grunts then just plaster the area with fire. This has been the way organized infantry has dealt with snipers, wow, for at least a century.

A sniper can hide all he wants, but when he takes his shot it's not civilians out there but soldiers and if they're not looking after the first shot, they sure are afterwards, and you get enough eyes looking and the sniper is going to get busted. A ghillie suit is not a cloak of invisibility, etc. Just because you have a sniper on one side, doesn't mean every one on the other side is going to go to ground and have no idea how to deal with a sniper.

I think CMSF replicates all this very well. The sniper pings away until the other side figures out roughly where he is, and then it's massed automatic area fire vs. single shots fired when the sniper isn't supressed, which he usually is. If the infantry is any good, the sniper gets busted and usually killed pretty fast. If the infantry sucks, sure the sniper can shoot away for a while, but sooner or later he's going to attract fire, and once that happens he's a guy with a semi-automatic whose position no longer is a secret.

So I think snipers are ok, heck, I think the fire values for elite infantry are ok by the same logic - if elite infantry was the key to winning infantry battles the world's militaries would have taken to fielding armies of Seals and Rangers long ago. But realistically massed firepower seems to be the real solution, and again I think CMSF does a fairly good job replicating that.

Now, if you want to complain about CMSF, let's talk the nerve gas in the HE rounds...nah, let's not.

I'm sure you know this, Bigduke, but I'd like to reiterate.

The vast majority of movies misrepresent what makes a sniper as effective as he is. (Note that I didn't say "what makes a sniper so effective".)

As far as I understand it, it's not that a sniper is a one-shot-at-a-time killing machine, taking down dozens of enemy soldiers. In reality, the dangerousness of a sniper is that he can engage individual targets at ranges beyond the enemy's capability to counter-engage (not unlike the classic Tiger-versus-T-34/76 scenario) and can remain virtually invisible while doing so.

The more exposed the sniper's position, the more readily his position can be identified and massed small-arms fire (or worse) brought to bear on it. Thus a cunning sniper will choose a position which affords a balance between a good field of fire and good cover and concealment.

Recently I saw in a book (at Borders) a diagram that showed a sniper's position in an inner room of a building. Rather than standing at or near one of the two windows on that side of the building (as the typical movie would show) or even positioning himself in the same room, he sets himself up (with a chair and a table to support his rifle on) two rooms back from the windows, making holes in the intermediate walls for LOS. This affords a reasonable field of fire while providing good cover and good concealment. Also, being fairly deep within the building (on that floor), his muzzle flash is more effectively hiden, the sound of his firing is better dampened, and he can more effectively displace after firing and be more or less invisible to the enemy as he moves to a different position.

____....._____.....____ (outside wall)

______...___...______ (intermediate wall)

_________X________ (interior room; X = sniper's position)

The more a sniper "pings away" from the same position, the more he's just waiting to be deluged in rifle and SAW fire.

As far as this applying to CM:SF, this is one reason I like playing real-time. I have a sniper team in position with a under-20-meter cover arc so they don't fire at will. When a choice enemy target comes into the sniper's LOS, I undo the cover arc, the sniper takes aim and fires, and I then re-apply the cover arc and order the team to displace (perhaps even if he missed his shot) while remaining in cover. It's one thing if a sniper takes out a squad leader from 800 meters thus breaks the morale of the late leader's squad, but I find that letting anything less a veteran or crack sniper fire at will from anything but beyond medium range (medium for a sniper, that is) is just asking for getting my sniper (and the rest of his team) killed.

Do y'all think it might be reasonable to code the TacAI of snipers and sniper teams so that they are more inclined to displace when they start coming under fire?

Does CM:SF indeed simulate the quieter-ness of the M110 on account of its suppressor?

Also, I find that snipers don't remain prone enough. Even when positioned on a crest, nestled amongst some conveniently concealing grass, or on a roof with a low parapet, snipers too readily switch to a kneeling position. Wouldn't this limit their ability to deliver sufficiently accurate fire at sniperly ranges?

[Secondbrooks]

Do y'all think it might be reasonable to code the TacAI of snipers and sniper teams so that they are more inclined to displace when they start coming under fire?

Same evasive behaviour should be applied to pretty much everyone, like AT-teams. But they don't get requests of it because they are not as hot and sexy guys as snipers with their ripped clothes... Err... ghillie suits are.

Which is wrong as they are just as lovable pixeltruppen as pixelsnipers are, heck even more as they are the hard pixelmen who go up against tens of tons of steel. They are so courageous and yet demand so little. My little heroes.

[meade95]

Is Sniper accuracy (or elite level in general) going to be tweaked higher with patch 1.12 coming out? I still contend it needs to be. In all my play testing accuracy level of elite snipers just doesn't fit......

I also agree with the need for snipers to stay prone more often......and for more evasive behavior once contact has been made (especially incoming rounds).

[cabal23]

I read Shooter earlier this year and it talks about the move from traditional sniper roles to the new mobile sniper units that can move around a battlefield to support larger operations more effectively. Interestingly enough Sgt. Coughlin was often right ther not a block or two from the platoon. From what the books says, that was never the intention of snipers, but brass saw the results in Staff Sergeant Jack Coughlin's mobile strategies and now there is a move to change the way snipers operate. Sgt Coughlin was ridiculously successful and to explain it here would be silly. Read the book for more details. I think this new way to field snipers is quite pertinent to a fictional conflict like Syria. The question I raise is if anyone uses their snipers like this. For example hiding a jeep close to the sniper and then quickly moving him(the team) around the battlefield as the heat is turned up on the shooter.

[Clavicula_Nox]

Yeah, actually, that is what I do with mine when there is an available transport. It is generally pretty successful, though I have suffered the occasional loss of transport and passengers to RPGs or something.