Bug or Feature (Warrior Crews)

[Wiggum]

Hi,

it looks like that in a platoon of warriors (4 vehicles) only the crew of the leading warrior has the vehicle-crew helmet. The crews of the other warriors in the platoon look like normal soldiers (normal helmets)....

Bug or feature ?

[hcrof]

Also on the subject of Warriors. In the next patch I hope Warriors and LAV-25s will stop firing HE at BMPs, Strykers etc. It makes for some extremely unrealistic engagements. This behaviour was surprisingly common on my firing ranges.

Sorry for slightly derailing the thread!

[hoolaman]

Wasn't there something in one of the patches about firing HE at BMP's?

[hcrof]

I know it has been brought up before but as of v1.21 there has been no fix. Warriors will fire away all their HE ammo on the BMPs before finally destroying them quite quickly with APDS.

30mm HE will cause damage too but it is so rare as to be irrelevant in a normal battle. The crew will sometimes get injured and bail out. (Assuming immobilised BMPs and conscript crews who cant spot the attacker)

But yeah, back onto Wiggums uniform bug...

[Jonny(FGM)]

Wasn't there something in one of the patches about firing HE at BMP's?

If i remember correctly that was for the MBTs and not the IFVs

[Blackcat]

To my mind the Warriors in the game are broken. Battlefront decided upon an ammo load-out that does not reflect the reality of British Army practice and then compounded the problem by introducing a bug which entails the wrong type of ammo being fired at armoured targets.

Whilst here I might add that the British Infantry ammo loads also seem wrong compared to what happens in the field. Maybe the problem stems from Battlefront looking at policy not realising, being Americans, that in the British Army policy and reality are at best only on nodding acquaintance.

[Dietrich]

To my mind the Warriors in the game are broken. Battlefront decided upon an ammo load-out that does not reflect the reality of British Army practice and then compounded the problem by introducing a bug which entails the wrong type of ammo being fired at armoured targets.

Now that you mention it, what is the British Army practice WRT the Warrior's ammo load-out?

The British Infantry ammo loads also seem wrong compared to what happens in the field.

Not to be yet another person semi-derailing this thread, but in what regard do the British infantry ammo loads seem wrong to you? (I ask, not because I think they're correct, but because I'm curious what perception you have of it.)

[flamingknives]

British Army doctrine was applied to the in-game loadouts for all AFVs. Determining practice is a little difficult as the current operations are very different to the projected Syrian campaign.

The loadouts are a little light. AFAICT, the riflemen only count their magazines for the ammo count, whereas in reality they would have at least half as much again in bandoliers and backpacks.

These comments remind me of this thread:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=90921&page=2

By all means make comment, but don't just say "this is wrong" without letting us know what is right

[Blackcat]

Rather a long post, but Flaming Knives wants reasons for my opinion.

With regard to the British infantry ammo loads, I do maintain they are too low. In tests I have run a British infantry (full full load and excellent kit) squad has enough ammunition for three minutes of firing with UGLs and 4 minutes of rifle fire/LMG fire. That doesn't accord with anything I have read about operations since 2006, indeed if this were the load-out British troops would have been over run in Afghanistan on many occasions - they haven't been once.

In game terms a full strength British light infantry squad has two UGL equipped SA80s and there are five bars of UGL ammo. Each bar seems to represent 3 actual grenades (the manual is silent on this point so its hard to be sure) for a total of about 15. This is considerably less than would be carried by the squad in operations (every man carries at least a couple aside from the dedicated "grenadiers", who carry more). For armoured troops with their seven man squads and only one UGL the situation is even worse.

Similarly with the 7.62 GPMG. The game shows a Gimpy team as having 600 rounds, that is no where near realistic. In my time a gunner would carry more than that on his own (I know I was one), his second would have more and every member of the section would also be carrying another belt. Granted that the game models GPMGs as non-section weapons, which was "doctrine" a while ago, but even so the ammo available is far too low.

I don't know what the bars for 5.56 ammo on the display represent, again the manual seems to be silent. My eyes are not what they were but I count the number of bars as about 14 for a fully equipped British squad. That cannot be the number magazines as even on 1970's official scales an 8 man squad would have at least 35 and in those days there were not the minimi's and the ammo was 7.62. So I can't estimate what number of rounds the game says a fully equipped squad will be carrying. I can only repeat that in action after action in Iraq and Afghanistan (2006- 2008, so in the Game period) British squads have been in full-on-get-the-rounds-down combat for more than four minutes, without resupply.

Which brings me on to the issue of resupply in combat. The armored formations seem reasonable but not the light infantry "TUMs". Play the Royal Mud Marines scenario and you will see what I mean.

As for the warriors, I am more than happy to accept that BF did their best and applied doctrine as they were able to find it. The 4:1 ratio of AP to HE may well have been accurate. I also understand that BF couldn't model the fact that the British army is not, and never has been good at following, doctrine, it is always far more pragmatic. However, then having, and apparently, keeping the bug that enables the warriors to fire precious HE when AP is needed does, in my view, make the Warriors broken.

None of this a game killer for me, just a source of irritation and a I reason why I don't enjoy playing the Brits as much as I would have liked.

[c3k]

Blackcat,

Just a quick, uninformed, suggestion. If you ammo-up the British squad (using the ACQUIRE command inside a vehicle with plenty of 5.56/40mm grenades) such that all the ammo bars are full, what effect on firing time does that have? Also, for firing time are you using TARGET or TARGET LIGHT? (I assume it's on a piece of nearby open ground, hence AREA FIRE?)

Thanks,

Ken

[Blackcat]

Ken,

It depends what sort of unit you are talking about. If armoured then, as above, you can load up with 5.56 and 40mm so that you get to the same sort of ammo scales as a US army squad, but without the possibility of re-supply later on. Ig you are playng Brit light Infantry the the resupply trucks do not have waht is needed in the first place.

Now, I know the UK is basically broke and I know that HMG has held the army on insufficient budgets, but I do not believe that in a full scale war a British infantry squad will go into combat with less ammo than its US counterparts.

[flamingknives]

Blackcat, thanks for the info. I've been looking at the British equipment and ammo scales and the issue is, AFAICT, this:

Ammunition not readily available is not modelled. This means that loose rounds in bandoliers or daysacks are not included, nor is ammunition carried by other section members. On the basis of 6 magazines per soldier, that's 180 rounds. If the bandolier was counted, it would be over 300. Counting the additional ammo carried by section members, a British rifle section should have:

2000 rounds 5.56mm link

1000 rounds 5.56mm in magazines

1000 rounds 5.56mm in bandoliers

44 rounds 40mm UGL

[Wiggum]

Someone can answer my question please ?

Hi,

it looks like that in a platoon of warriors (4 vehicles) only the crew of the leading warrior has the vehicle-crew helmet. The crews of the other warriors in the platoon look like normal soldiers (normal helmets)....

Bug or feature ?

[Blackcat]

Wiggum,

I do apologise for having sort of hijacked your thread, vary bad manners on my part.

My answer to your original question is that it is a bug - or at any rate an error in modeling.

[Wiggum]

Wiggum,

I do apologise for having sort of hijacked your thread, vary bad manners on my part.

My answer to your original question is that it is a bug - or at any rate an error in modeling.

I forgive you...

So it looks like that it is a Bug, something to fix with the NATO Module or the next Patch !

[Webwing]

Yep, it is a bug. We are looking into it.

-

[vincere]

So is there any word about whether Brits will get un-nerfed...