Heavy machine guns and suppressive fire

[argie]

That is correct. I remember reading a lot on Marshall numbers, mostly on the web, so with Google at hand the debate could be followed.

But the best I read on the GIs behavior in general, not only WWII, was 'The Rifleman's Dilemma', which looks exactly on which JasonC has just posted: the factors that made an infantryman to keep his head down or actually firing.

It was done for some special forces' guy from the IDF, with psychology background and applying some sort of theory of games to his hypothesis.

He also developed an online game, Chain of Command, to test some of his points.

[Fūrinkazan]

I was playing the Tiger's day scenario today.

I have seen very interesting things.

I 'am sure that the rate of fire, the time between bursts is totally linked with the distance of the objective.

On of my HMG 42 started to shoot at 2 infantry men at less than 80 m.

there was less than 1 second between each burst.

The amount of suppression is linked to incoming fire and casualties.

To take the charging infantry against 4 bunkers exemple.

At long distance, the delay between burst is up to 6 seconds. No problem as long as infantry can't return fire. But when they come too close, they can suppress the mg and that means less burst and panic, casualties etc....

I strongly suggest to allow HMG and MMG to switch to 1/2 second delay bursts at far longer range. If possible in CMSF too.

I think it's worth the work for it since the problem will appear in every module.

If BFC can solve it, think it will never rise again.

I'm not asking for ultra realistic features for HMG.

We will agree that assaulting a position of HMG should need strong support, smoke etc... If it can be done with wrong tactics, byr just running, i think something is wrong.

I believe also that, the more bursts, the more suppression, the more guys will crawl and the situation will be more realistic.

Few things bother me in the game :

- trees to strong against AP rounds : they are working on it

- snipers, like in CMSF the escort team opens fire and shows the position

- too accurate tanks on the move

- Hmg not efficient enough

I really think that there is a solution without the need of new feature.

Can they, for exemple limit the fire of the escort team of snipers, less than 100m or target light only sniper shooting, and target every team member.

I think it's more a question of the behaviour of the troops than a game engine problem. I really hope they will tweak it.

[Runyan99]

I think the heavy MGs are stingy with the ammo. They are only firing like three or four 4-round bursts per minute give or take, in the scenarios I play.

[Zonks54]

The Machineguns definitly need looking at, I had a squad of Vet Germans firing on a US mortar team in the middle of the road, at 100m, the two squad MG42 fired at the Mortar team for just under a minute, no kills, no suppression, the mortar team setup, aimed and landed about 3 rounds wipping out my entire squad, I quit the battle in disgust.

[gunnergoz]

The Machineguns definitly need looking at, I had a squad of Vet Germans firing on a US mortar team in the middle of the road, at 100m, the two squad MG42 fired at the Mortar team for just under a minute, no kills, no suppression, the mortar team setup, aimed and landed about 3 rounds wipping out my entire squad, I quit the battle in disgust.

Do you have a save for the developers to look at? Might be useful to BFC if you did and there was something wrong. Otherwise, anecdotes just don't carry much weight here...it happened, but we'll never know why without that further research.

[SlapHappy]

Has anyone noticed that the gunners tend to fire very high above the heads of their targets? At 400m or less the bullet trajectory of the 8mm Mauser round was fairly flat, so I don't get this.

[Baneman]

Has anyone noticed that the gunners tend to fire very high above the heads of their targets? At 400m or less the bullet trajectory of the 8mm Mauser round was fairly flat, so I don't get this.

Yes, this does seem to be a bit of a problem - probably one of the reasons a squad prone in the open can massacre a squad in a building nearby - they guys in the building spend all their time shooting over the prone guys' heads, but they are standing up at windows and get gunned down in droves.

[Michael Emrys]

Has anyone noticed that the gunners tend to fire very high above the heads of their targets?

I'm seeing this with vehicle MGs as well. But I am also seeing undershoots, so I don't know if this is a bug or a feature. Since some of these are coax MGs on stationary tanks, I would have assumed that after the first burst they would have been sighted in well enough to at least be consistent.

Michael

[Zonks54]

Do you have a save for the developers to look at? Might be useful to BFC if you did and there was something wrong. Otherwise, anecdotes just don't carry much weight here...it happened, but we'll never know why without that further research.

"anecdotes", I figure it's the same as "screenshot or it didn't happen" ?

Checked for a save, no go, No autosave and don't save during a battle, the game is pretty stable and I don't reload a save if I make a mistake.

[gunnergoz]

"anecdotes", I figure it's the same as "screenshot or it didn't happen" ?

Checked for a save, no go, No autosave and don't save during a battle, the game is pretty stable and I don't reload a save if I make a mistake.

Its not a matter of doubting your word but the BFC guys have been working on this game for about 5-6 years (on top of the 5-6 the spent on its predecessor, CM1) and have done a bunch of research, programming and testing for authenticity of results. They get tons of questions and complaints about this and that and over time they have more or less adopted an informal policy that gives more weight to people who can, with save files or other data (like test scenarios), show that a problem exists and is replicable. The game does simulate some of the randomness on the real life battlefield and because of that some weird things are going to happen, interspersed with many realistic events. Saves and test scenarios help them figure out if its a fluke or not.

[Zonks54]

Its not a matter of doubting your word but the BFC guys have been working on this game for about 5-6 years (on top of the 5-6 the spent on its predecessor, CM1) and have done a bunch of research, programming and testing for authenticity of results. They get tons of questions and complaints about this and that and over time they have more or less adopted an informal policy that gives more weight to people who can, with save files or other data (like test scenarios), show that a problem exists and is replicable. The game does simulate some of the randomness on the real life battlefield and because of that some weird things are going to happen, interspersed with many realistic events. Saves and test scenarios help them figure out if its a fluke or not.

I can understand the reasoning behind that, you can't checkout every complaint nor do I expect them to, but if we at least make it known that these problems are occurring, or at least what one might consider a problem, and enough people experience that problem, then the need for a saved game should not be necessary, although I agree, much more helpful, but this thread is up to 34 pages, so it's obviously a hotly debated topic.

[gunnergoz]

Sure, zonks40, the BFC developers do follow the forums closely and if they see a pattern, they respond. I can't speak for them, obviously, all I can tell you is what I've seen and what they posted that I know about. So no one is saying don't post your issues, by all means feel free to do so - just know that there are ways to bring things to them in a really useful form which may help get things fixed sooner if there is a problem. I was simply responding to your pretty extreme experience and thinking, if there's something behind that that's a bug, it would sure be worth replicating.

For a lot of these issues, it turns out that the player wasn't seeing something that was a bug but simply that the game's performance reflected factors that were reasonable, expected and accounted for, but simply opaque to the player and thus seemed arbitrary. There can be issues with line of sight, line of fire, morale, and so on and so on that are not always obvious. I'm still learning a lot every time I play the game. It is a work that took them a half dozen years to field and it really shows it.

I hope this helps. I in now way want to dissuade you from contributing and sharing your concerns or experiences. We're all here to enjoy the game and have a good time and maybe learn a thing or two and I feel very lucky to have found this lot.

[FFE]

Its not a matter of doubting your word but the BFC guys have been working on this game for about 5-6 years (on top of the 5-6 the spent on its predecessor, CM1) and have done a bunch of research, programming and testing for authenticity of results. They get tons of questions and complaints about this and that and over time they have more or less adopted an informal policy that gives more weight to people who can, with save files or other data (like test scenarios), show that a problem exists and is replicable. The game does simulate some of the randomness on the real life battlefield and because of that some weird things are going to happen, interspersed with many realistic events. Saves and test scenarios help them figure out if its a fluke or not.

This reminds me of the time I spent testing a bunch of odd configurations in CM1. I made 10-20 rows and placed opposing forces at the end of each row. Run the game. Watch the results. Rinse and repeat.

For example, how well did 20 Panther A's fair up against 20 T-34/85s in solo lane configuration. I loved testing all sorts of things. First hit calculations. KO ratios.

Well, that was a long time ago!