Heavy machine guns and suppressive fire

[Tarquelne]

Joch,

i believe it's exactly what most of us would like to see and what we have been talking about for months. i'll requote your quote:

I dunno. The quote gives 2 HMGs + 5 LMGs to pin. But in this case I doubt "pin" means stop indefinitely or turn back. I get the impression that's what the mortars were for, and that alone the MGs wouldn't cut it.

2 heavy + 5 light vs. a Company seems a better ratio than 1 HMG vs. a platoon. But I think the MGs would be better able to combine effect.

Anyway, I'd love to see that diagram tested even sans mortars. Send in the Company and see what sort of results the game gives. If every thing is kosher I'm guessing the Company should be slowed considerably but still win.

A Company just advancing on Quick or Assault with the mortars included, OTOH, (4 81mm tubes?) would be bloody convincing, IMO, that there's a significant problem with CMBO MGs.

[Fūrinkazan]

I did a little test with 0.50 HMG's

map 250 x 700 m flat map with regular troops

4 Machine guns in foxholes.

18 dead and 13 wounded for the Germans but they were able to reach the Mg's

and they destroyed one after a 5 mn battle.

In CMBO, there was long time between each burst allowing squads to advance and finally destroy the HMG. I think it's the same here.

The delay can be of 5 seconds or more between each shot and in the case of my last test sometimes only 3 bullets were shots.

Question :

1 can a company of infantry charging 700 m in the open reach the mg position (4 Mg 34/42 in bunker or 4 M1 in foxholes) ?

It's not a question of casualties but more of stopping the infantry.

2 If it's unrealistic could it be possible to make them fire more bullets with less time between each shot and make them switch target to the nearest squad to solve the problem ? Once one squad is pinned then change to the nearest one.

Having them fire in line is a great idea but certainly more time consuming in computer programmation and test i think.

I also tried to shoot behind and through the charging troops and no targeting a squad.

Effects at long range were not that bad but at shorter range mg decided to choose their targets themselves.

[Bastables]

It's not just the suppression effect though, it is also the fact that walking into a firing MG lemming/Somme like is not resulting in massive casualties.

People are pinned becuause not doing so would result in being killed/wounded. When troops disregarded (through adherence to orders) this danger, they where then hit by automatic fire.

Hell the Russo Japanese war has instances where Russian units would form up and try to march and shoot in ranks and then get shot to bits from bolt action rifles from prone and relatively dispursed Japanese units. you also get the massacre of Japanese battalions assaulting dug in and bunker emplaced Russian units at port arthur.

Cm seems to have it that a section of men is better at killing people than belted tripod stedied, MG's. That a MMG/HMG is not much more effective than a BAR or bipod mg42

[undead reindeer cavalry]

But in this case I doubt "pin" means stop indefinitely or turn back. I get the impression that's what the mortars were for, and that alone the MGs wouldn't cut it.

yeah, like the source states the MGs are there just to make the attackers a juicy target for the mortars.

i don't think anyone is asking for making HMGs super weapons. they were routinely taken out by elements a lot smaller than platoons. it's just that they didn't do it by first running/walking 1 km in truly open flat ground while constantly taking HMG fire. JasonC drew the Omaha card but the test scenarios give the attackers a lot worse scenario than Omaha.

2 heavy + 5 light vs. a Company seems a better ratio than 1 HMG vs. a platoon. But I think the MGs would be better able to combine effect.

yes, especially considering the crossfire situation.

though i guess in game terms the only real difference between 1 or 3 HMGs is the greater volume of fire (which could be achieved with 1 HMG if it just fired 3 times more).

Send in the Company and see what sort of results the game gives. If every thing is kosher I'm guessing the Company should be slowed considerably but still win.

the field is 200x200 to 400x400 yards. i haven't tested it, but i wouldn't be surprised if the attackers could just shoot the defenders. i think this is a bit of apples & oranges thing anyway.

[Wengart]

The numbers are the number of enemy killed at that range so a 1 by the 600 meter mark would mean one American was killed between 600-699 meters.

Result: Destroyed is what happened to the HMG team.

---> represents when the HMGs small arms component began to fire.

DNE did not engage

[undead reindeer cavalry]

It's not just the suppression effect though, it is also the fact that walking into a firing MG lemming/Somme like is not resulting in massive casualties.

i agree, but i didn't want to get the thread sidetracked.

Hell the Russo Japanese war has instances where Russian units would form up and try to march and shoot in ranks and then get shot to bits from bolt action rifles from prone and relatively dispursed Japanese units.

Winter War is full of instances of Soviets making regiment/battalion sized assaults across ice. frozen sea/lake/river is probably closest to the flat open ground we have in the game (though deep snow would of course offer concealment once you are pinned). i probably don't need to tell what happened to the Soviet assaults. some Finnish machinegunners became deeply traumatized by the slaughter, though, and required special treatment after the battles.

[Sgt Joch]

I dunno. The quote gives 2 HMGs + 5 LMGs to pin. But in this case I doubt "pin" means stop indefinitely or turn back. I get the impression that's what the mortars were for, and that alone the MGs wouldn't cut it.

2 heavy + 5 light vs. a Company seems a better ratio than 1 HMG vs. a platoon. But I think the MGs would be better able to combine effect.

Anyway, I'd love to see that diagram tested even sans mortars. Send in the Company and see what sort of results the game gives. If every thing is kosher I'm guessing the Company should be slowed considerably but still win.

A Company just advancing on Quick or Assault with the mortars included, OTOH, (4 81mm tubes?) would be bloody convincing, IMO, that there's a significant problem with CMBO MGs.

I will make a scenario and test it out later. It should give us a better indication of RL conditions.

[Vark]

Do any of the scenarios have that German defensive plan? I realise that it might represent an ideal but I remember an account of a British regimental attack in Italy being halted by 4-6 HMG's. The lead battalions found themselves pinned and unable to locate the firing positions so just huddled there for eight hours, losing the occasional man.

This thread is so long I don't know if anyone has mentioned the effect of beaten zones versus the deployment of soldiers. Years ago we had a book that went into painful detail of the correct deployment and use of WWII weapons, most of it went over my boyish head, as it reminded me of my physics and maths lessons, but I do remember a series of diagrams showing how lethal flanking fire was on advancing troops, as their formation fitted perfectly under the eliptical beaten zone at 6-800 yards (British book).

[Wengart]

One thing that stood out to me in my tests was the ability for an Elite HMG42 team to be overrun by infantry platoons that had suffered 23-25 casualties. This means that there were anywhere from 5-7 men left.

Also, probably my final stats update.

[JasonC]

Blackcat wanted an example of troops successfully assaulting across open ground under MG fire. As I said previously, it is the sort of thing special forces badasses or veterans with their blood up occasionally pulled off, for the morale reasons I've stated. But the physical possibility is shown by those occasions. Here is one, in some detail -

Waal River, September 20 1944. The river was 400 yards wide. 2 companies from 3rd battalion, 504 parachute infantry crossed in 26 canvas boats (subsequent waves from another battalion came in the 11 that survived).

8-10 British Shermans provided covering fire for several minutes before the crossing, but took hits from German AT guns and pulled out before the crossing itself commenced. There was a 5 minute HE prep by artillery, followed by WP smoke to create a screen. However, due to erratic and rising wind, the planned smoke screen cleared by the time the last boat entered the water. The artillery returned to HE during the first part of the crossing, joined by battalion 81mm mortars, for another 5 minutes. The men carried the boats across 50 yards of open ground to put them in the water.

Fire began about halfway across, and included 20mm Flak in concrete towers, at least 2 heavy AT guns in direct lay (described as 88mm Flak in the American statement, but may have been 75mm PAK), 81mm mortars, HMGs especially, and infantry rifle fire.

From the official US history "It was primarily fire from machine guns on the north bank and machine guns and 20-mm. antiaircraft guns on and near the railway bridge, (with) occasionally artillery fire..." 50 German defenders were on the shore where the paras were to touch down and were wiped out as they landed, more with the bulk of the heavy weapons were on a dike farther back, which was up to 800 yards away across a flat open field, at the level of the river. In between they faced grazing fire and a compete absence of cover.

"there wasn't a Goddamed bit of cover anywhere else (besides the dike ahead) or anything"

"So we finally got over to the dike. The Krauts on the other side. The dike must have been maybe ten yards or so wide at the top and they were on the backside. We spent a little time tossing grenades from one side or the other...The Krauts tried to come across (the dike) a couple times and we discouraged them enough with what lead we gave them. They stayed there."

This created a mutual reverse slope stand off and kept fire off of subsequent waves landing after crossing the river. The follow on waves report the fire was down to just a few snipers by the time the 3rd wave crossed, so the first men reaching the dike were effective in stopping outgoing German fire from the dike, forcing them to transition to hiding behind it rather than using it as a fire platform.

Another participant's story (with the engineers that brought the boats and crossed with the 3/504 PIR) - "When we hit the shore we were elated! Intoxicated! We had somehow made it across that "broadside" of fire without a scratch. We scampered out of the boats and up the beach to higher ground and took off gradually east where we knew the highway bridge to be. We didn't find any mines -- we just ran and ran. We were eight young men, 19 to 23 years old, who had just won a new life and we dashed like a cavalry squadron. Nothing could stop us now! I think there were eight of us - me and seven of the squad -- we didn't wait for the 504. Forward we ran. There was a pillbox in front of us -- who knows if there were any defenders. We tossed in grenades and shot ahead..."

The forces conducting the assault lost 25% of their strength crossing the river itself (with 13 out of 26 boats disabled on the first crossing and 2 more on the first return trip to the original bank - none were lost thereafter) and another 25% on the open field beyond - a total of 134 killed wounded and missing (including 48 KIA - losses from the 2 companies of 3/504 alone were 107, including 29 KIA). But they were nowhere stopped.

[JasonC]

Here is another - the causeway to Caretan behind Utah beach. From the official history -

(Terrain description) - "a big gap had been blown in the railway embankment, thus making the causeway the only practicable approach to Carentan. Straight and narrow, the causeway rises some six to nine feet above the marshes and spans the Douve and Madeleine Rivers and the two Douve canals. Any attack would thus be canalized and expose the infantry to fire from the front and both flanks. On either side the marshes extend out of rifle range...

The battalion deployed along both sides of the highway. The center of the enemy's positions appeared to be a large farmhouse, flanked by hedgerows, on the higher ground which rises out of the marshes on the right-hand side of the road. (From accompanying maps, these positions are about 300-400 yards from the causeway exit on the German side, and extend back to a depth of about 200 meters additional).

When the leading scouts on the right approached the farmhouse, they were fired on by rifles, machine guns, and mortars. In an attempt to neutralize the position, an artillery concentration was placed on the area but had no perceptible effect. Colonel Cole then ordered a bayonet charge on the farmhouse and called across the road to Maj. John P. Stopka, the battalion executive officer, to have the order passed along. Artillery put down smoke in a wide arc around the objective. At 0615, as the artillery fire was lifted, Colonel Cole blew his whistle and led the charge. Of the 250 men who should have followed him only 20 got up to go; another 50 followed Major Stopka. In the confusion and excitement, with the men widely distributed and hugging the ground, the order had not been passed around. Some of the men never received it; others had only a vague idea by hearing a word or two. In addition, parts of Company G, in the meadow east of the road to Carentan, became involved with enemy troops, armed with machine pistols. The commanding officer of the company was hit by an artillery short during the action. Most of the men of Company G did not hear the whistle at all, but when they saw the attack they ran after the others, trying to catch up.

Despite the initial disorder, the men charged across a ditch into the fire-swept field east of the farmhouse. The men, closely bunched, followed Colonel Cole and Major Stopka, and Colonel Cole stopped several times to get them to fan out. Two men of Company H reached the farmhouse first and found it abandoned, but to the west on higher ground the enemy still occupied rifle pits and machine-gun emplacements along a hedgerow running at right angles to the road. Under the momentum of the charge the men also secured this objective and eliminated the Germans with grenades and bayonets. The enemy's main defense was thus broken, but he still held ground to the south from which he continued to fire on the American positions. Colonel Cole wished to take advantage of the enemy's disorganization and keep the attack moving, but the 3d Battalion was in no condition to push on. All of the men in the battalion managed to cross the causeway and assemble near the farmhouse, but units were badly mixed and had suffered heavy casualties."

In that case there were preliminary artillery fire in support and another attempted smoke screen, which may have been somewhat more effective than at Nijmegen. But it was by all accounts mostly a straight up charge over a narrow strip of open ground, with large areas of marsh on either side, into machinegun and mortar fire. And it succeeded completely. (Colonel Cole was awarded the medal of honor for leading that attack; he died in Market-Garden before it could be presented to him).

[PanzerMiller]

Good stuff as always, JasonC.

So how much of the success of a particular assault such as the ones above can we ascribe to superior offensive tactics, and how much to inferior suppressive fire capability of the defensive positions? Can we make an educated guess? You yourself, JasonC, helped teach us to use good tactics in assaulting a fixed HMG position in the early days of CMBB (I believe that thread is still archived on the Interweb to this day!)...

Another question: Reading these accounts makes me think about the ways in which we can perhaps plot a sort of time series of a unit's morale during a given action, and what that plot would look like. Is it a continuous decreasing function over time, with a gradual erosion of morale and unit cohesion, or could it instead be more of a "step function" where morale declines more precipitously onoy after the unit encounters a given threshold level of incoming fire? Which would be more realistic? And how is it simulated in CM?

[Bastables]

Here is another - the causeway to Caretan behind Utah beach. From the official history -

(Terrain description) - "a big gap had been blown in the railway embankment, thus making the causeway the only practicable approach to Carentan. Straight and narrow, the causeway rises some six to nine feet above the marshes and spans the Douve and Madeleine Rivers and the two Douve canals. Any attack would thus be canalized and expose the infantry to fire from the front and both flanks. On either side the marshes extend out of rifle range...

The battalion deployed along both sides of the highway. The center of the enemy's positions appeared to be a large farmhouse, flanked by hedgerows, on the higher ground which rises out of the marshes on the right-hand side of the road. (From accompanying maps, these positions are about 300-400 yards from the causeway exit on the German side, and extend back to a depth of about 200 meters additional).

When the leading scouts on the right approached the farmhouse, they were fired on by rifles, machine guns, and mortars. In an attempt to neutralize the position, an artillery concentration was placed on the area but had no perceptible effect. Colonel Cole then ordered a bayonet charge on the farmhouse and called across the road to Maj. John P. Stopka, the battalion executive officer, to have the order passed along. Artillery put down smoke in a wide arc around the objective. At 0615, as the artillery fire was lifted, Colonel Cole blew his whistle and led the charge. Of the 250 men who should have followed him only 20 got up to go; another 50 followed Major Stopka. In the confusion and excitement, with the men widely distributed and hugging the ground, the order had not been passed around. Some of the men never received it; others had only a vague idea by hearing a word or two. In addition, parts of Company G, in the meadow east of the road to Carentan, became involved with enemy troops, armed with machine pistols. The commanding officer of the company was hit by an artillery short during the action. Most of the men of Company G did not hear the whistle at all, but when they saw the attack they ran after the others, trying to catch up.

Despite the initial disorder, the men charged across a ditch into the fire-swept field east of the farmhouse. The men, closely bunched, followed Colonel Cole and Major Stopka, and Colonel Cole stopped several times to get them to fan out. Two men of Company H reached the farmhouse first and found it abandoned, but to the west on higher ground the enemy still occupied rifle pits and machine-gun emplacements along a hedgerow running at right angles to the road. Under the momentum of the charge the men also secured this objective and eliminated the Germans with grenades and bayonets. The enemy's main defense was thus broken, but he still held ground to the south from which he continued to fire on the American positions. Colonel Cole wished to take advantage of the enemy's disorganization and keep the attack moving, but the 3d Battalion was in no condition to push on. All of the men in the battalion managed to cross the causeway and assemble near the farmhouse, but units were badly mixed and had suffered heavy casualties."

In that case there were preliminary artillery fire in support and another attempted smoke screen, which may have been somewhat more effective than at Nijmegen. But it was by all accounts mostly a straight up charge over a narrow strip of open ground, with large areas of marsh on either side, into machinegun and mortar fire. And it succeeded completely. (Colonel Cole was awarded the medal of honor for leading that attack; he died in Market-Garden before it could be presented to him).

So with 50% casualties "elite" paratroopers managed to drive off elements of static division (C grade) emplaced in poor positions lacking pill boxs and proper trench lines and defence behind the beach based on flooded plains mostly made up of ostliegion volunteers (georgians, russian pow's and elderly german gentle men too old to be taken to the eastern front to replace losses there). many who would not have spoken German well enough to fully understand orders from their German officers.

Well hell that's damming proof that HMG are worthless at killing infantry walking/running right at them. . .

The problem is the game is showing such out comes with out all the advantages of Cole's charge. Even with all the advantages what he did was so amazing they did give him a medal for it.

[SlapHappy]

Waal River, September 20 1944. The river was 400 yards wide. 2 companies from 3rd battalion, 504 parachute infantry crossed in 26 canvas boats (subsequent waves from another battalion came in the 11 that survived).

8-10 British Shermans provided covering fire for several minutes before the crossing, but took hits from German AT guns and pulled out before the crossing itself commenced. There was a 5 minute HE prep by artillery, followed by WP smoke to create a screen. However, due to erratic and rising wind, the planned smoke screen cleared by the time the last boat entered the water. The artillery returned to HE during the first part of the crossing, joined by battalion 81mm mortars, for another 5 minutes. The men carried the boats across 50 yards of open ground to put them in the water.

Hail Mary...full of grace......Hail Mary.....full of grace.

heh heh.

[pamak_1970]

ok,

I have many studies related to calculation of suppression (quantified as probablity related to various factors), lethality of machine guns, mortar rounds and artillery and how all the above affect "stall point" for a company (stop movement) and "break point" (abandon attack and reorganize)

In addition i have validation studies comparing actual smal fire engagements in Vietnam related to casualties, suppression and so on, with predicted results of scientific models.

One reminder. No model is going to give the "truth" or final answer. However, it is interesting to study them and see if the assumptions used there (coming from military consultants) are comparable to the ones you see in the game.

Again, even military experts do not have a unified opinion related to various assumsions used by these models. Still it gives a very interesting picture of the situation you try to analyze here. Just read the 120 page study about a single small arms engagement calculating the probabilities of all the things you talk about as a function of things like "received machine gun rounds"

These studies are accompanied with the text of taped interviews of the participants.

I am not going to put them in a particular order. Most of the links are about the Fast Val model, but there are a few which describe others and give a better picture of the scientific effort to quantify small arms effects in simulations during the 1970s.

Enjoy (all download for free)

Do not dismiss the first link because of the title (air support). It actually gives results for ground fire engagements and is a summary of comparisons between FAST Val predicted outcomes and real engagement outcomes

http://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R811.html

http://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R821.html

http://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R818.html

http://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R819.html

http://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R823.html

The next document goes in depth about the Fast Val equations for the secodary effects of fire

http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=AD0875820

The following link gives some examples of how scientists designed live field experiements to calculate probability of suppression as a function of radial miss

http://sill-www.army.mil/famag/1980/MAY_JUN_1980/MAY_JUN_1980_PAGES_48_51.pdf

And the last link shows different models all related to the effort of quantifying small arms (and mortar artillery) effects

http://www.dtic.mil/srch/doc?collection=t3&id=ADA081134

[Blackcat]

"Blackcat wanted an example of troops successfully assaulting across open ground under MG fire. "

No, Jason that isn't what I said, please read my post again. I can also think of many examples of succesful assaults in 20th century wars, some under very difficult circumstances. However, examples of successful attacks against an intergrated defence tells us nothing about how effective HMGs were as a weapon and how they are modelled in the game compares to real life. That is the question under discussion.

[JasonC]

Panzer Miller - "In war, the moral is to the physical as 3 is to 1." - Napoleon

That is my basic thesis about what was unusual about those occasions.

It helped that the men were picked and their leaders were veterans. In the case of Nijmegen, I think it helped that they were confined to vehicles for a portion of the crossing (not that it helped the men in human terms, but it contributed to the outlier outcome). It helped that when they touched down, there was no obvious cover or means of escaping the income fire other than to make it to the dike ahead. In the case of Caretan, I think tactical surprise was a factor, the defenders simply not expecting a "balls to the wall", straight ahead rush. As was being close behind a lifting barrage - which clearly mattered enourmously on other occasions, in both world wars.

But we need to remember what is and isn't being argued and I think established by the examples. It is, that defending MGs typically do not physically stop attacks on their positions simply because there is open ground to cross. Such attacks typically *do* stall and fail - the cases I cite are not typical, they are success outliers. But it isn't because the MGs physically shoot every man attempting the movement, or such outliers would not be seen, and they are.

The typical infantry attack through MG fire in the open breaks up in failure because the MGs physically shoot roughly a quarter of the men attempting the movement and the rest think better of it and stop trying. See Napoleon's rough estimate above. But sometimes, men just do not come apart and stop when they take 25% casualties. If they push on instead, it isn't going to make them resistent to bullets, and their casualties are going to double - but they aren't going to be physically stopped.

Now obviously there are cases where the defending firepower is overwhelming and any forward movement is physically prevented. When there is a man every yard in trenchs opposite with a magazine rifle, the attackers can be as reckless as you please and they are just going to recreate Gallipoli and get shot to rags 50 yards out of the trench. Bravely rushing through a concentrated 150mm artillery barrage will result in a butcher shop, not a won position.

But these are not the usual level of defender coverage and thus attacker danger seen in tactical positions. Those typical levels are set by what battlefield experience has recently shown to be sufficient, and "sufficient" was measured against the usual morale behavior of the men opposite, which is not usually the outlier reckless bravery shown in the above examples.

I do not want to romanticize any of it. A sixth of the men involved dying outright in half an hour, with another third wounded, is a humanly appalling price, and it is completely unsurprising and rational that most units in most armies stop behavior that dangerous well before that happens to them. But the difference between the outlier successes and the usual failures is not primarily a physical difference of tactical circumstances, or a greater skill in application of combined arms techniques, or a flaw in a defender's scheme. Those things can happen too, and do, but the cases described above worked despite all of them being lacking - as the huge casualty bill shows.

In CMx2 terms, the "motivation" field set to "extreme" is what causes such results (and or the leadership was +2 in the Caretan case). That is my thesis.

And I am not saying that MGs in CMx2 shouldn't do more to typical targets in the open - I am saying that "more" is on the morale side and not the physical side. A typical unit should behave with a lower "motivation" score, in game terms.

As I put it in my first comment, I think the physical effect is correct, because the physical losses seen in the worst battlefield cases are comparable - around 50% of the attackers get hit if the defense is as dense as they were designed to be (BTW, that is emphatically not 1 HMG) - which is appalling, and reason enough to avoid doing it. But the morale effect of a small unit taking losses that high in that short a period of time, *for the average unit*, should be higher than we see now, in my opinion.

The test I'd like to see the testbed folks try is not varying the skill level of the HMG team, but varying the motivation level of the attacking infantry platoon, and the plus or minus rating of their leadership. Do greens with poor motivation and a -1 platoon leader cross a field covered by 2 HMGs and KO both?

2, because half the point of interlocking MG defenses is to ensure knocking out or pinning one shooter doesn't let the attackers inside the defense. Close approach to each gun should be blocked by ranged fire from a different one, without requiring the gun being thus defended to be "heads up" and vulnerable, to accomplish that. But that is a secondary issue.

To pak1970 - interesting, a lot to look over, I haven't had time to form an opinion on it yet but thanks for posting it.

To blackcat - I just call the formal fallacy "moving the goalposts".

[JasonC]

To pak1970 - OK, now I've reviewed the RAND model. It is pretty sensible and fits my own impressions, though obviously many of the key factors are parameters they let a user input, to try to "tune" the model to match real outcomes seen.

I summarize for those who haven't read it.

Basically at low levels of casualties, for every man actual hit another is made ineffective by non physical factors. As the level of casualties so far rises, that factor increases beyond 1, and this accounts for an attacking unit becoming completely ineffective well short of 100% losses - in their estimate, at about 1/3rd for attackers and 1/2 for defenders. That is the level that makes it a virtual certainty that the average unit breaks and stops trying to perform its mission as a unit. Similar considerations predict a stall level of losses around 1/4 for attackers (with half the men still effective, but that isn't enough to keep trying most of the time), with a typical reorganization time around an hour (not a few minutes) if they hit that level of loss. Last, for pinning effects, they estimate a 1% chance of becoming a casualty per minute is sufficient to force an average unit to lower its exposure posture - to go to ground or go deep in holes etc - with a reduction in its outgoing fire by a factor of 3 to 10 resulting.

A reason I find this plausible is the levels of loss sufficient to cause forces to stop continuing the mission or at which tactical forces break, has remained remarkably stable over long periods, through huge changes in the nature of weapons, physical scale, time scale of battles, etc. Break levels for a company in modern combat and for forces in a Napoleonic battle are right around the same level. Russian Roulette with 2 chambers real is more than men will stand for, pretty much ever. One chamber, greens will run but vets will not. Just rough, all these things are, but the right order of magnitude to within a small factor is seen over large spans of time and different weapons, armies etc.

The first thing to ask about the game, then, is the level of danger at which the men go to ground. If they are taking a hit a minute on a squad they have no business still being upright, for example - they are 10 times the RAND estimated danger level that causes any available danger reduction by the men (without abandoning the mission, mind).

The second question is about the stall level, does a platoon that has taken 25% losses typically have roughly as many again in red morale states or tied up giving buddy aid and the like? And are the remaining half typically pinned?

Beyond that, the main point of the rest of their model is they believe the break level isn't far beyond the stall point for attackers. The rise in ineffectives gets very steep between 20 and 30% losses. They allow it to happen a bit later for defenders, but it is still going "more than linear" in losses at that point. This fits my own old advice when attacking to "listen to the men" and not push them into the danger zone so hard they come apart. Any felt tendency to stall should instead be indulged and the men given time to rally while all available fire reduces the defenders. This can stave off a forced stall. And trying to push through one, for an average morale unit at least, is just going to arrive at "broken" instead, a much worse result, in short order.

How I read it. FWIW...

[Blackcat]

To blackcat - I just call the formal fallacy "moving the goalposts".

Yup, and I wonder why you did. What was your motivation in giving me examples of successful assaults? Do you think I am so ignorant that I didn't know of any?

For the third and final time I'll say this. The issue I would like to get to resolved is whether the game models the real world capabilities of HMGs. I, and others, have run some tests that indicate that perhaps it doesn't or at least doesn't do so with sufficient fidelity. You are not offering anything that adds one way or anyother to the question in hand. Examples of assaults involving other weapons doesn't move the debate on because those other weapons will be making their own contribution.

In the game I have been able on repeated tests to walk, walk, infantry from 1000 yards out to with 200 yards of an in-cover, in-command HMG with so few casualties (and hence supression) that they could put down such fire as to overwhelm that machine gun position. Is that a reasonable representation of the effectiveness of WWII HMGs? I don't think it is. If you have some counter examples from the real word of WWII combat, then please tell me about them. Folklore about the Somme or examples of combined arms attacks against an intergrated defence, don't help.

I think you have some valid points about what levels of casaulties cause infantry to break, and, maybe, some on the duration of supression. However since an HMG seems to cause so few casualties in the first place (2 to 6 out of thirty odd men running over 800 metres in my tests and a similar level in other players tests) it is all a bit academic, ain't it.

[Blackcat]

C3K,

I tried to look at your public profile in order to get an email address to send you my test gubbins. However, I just get Error 403, file not found. I am a bit stuck.

[JasonC]

Blackcat - asked and answered. The hits are right, the resulting suppression is too low. In the examples I gave, units did cross such areas of open ground and eliminate HMGs firing at them the whole way, without being shot down. Not without causalties, but there are casualties in the game examples too (about 10 per firing HMG in the examples, for non Elite shooters). 25% losses to an approaching infantry platoon are not low casualties. In the game, losses on that scale may result in insufficient suppression, but it is losses on that scale that are correct, and the suppression resulting that is too low.

In the RAND model, an average rate of loss to an approaching platoon of a man every 2 minutes would suffice to send them to ground. Not stalled or broken, but seeking the cover of being prone, while continuing the mission. That rate of loss is seen in the firing tests; that degree of suppression is not. The rate of loss is correct, the average suppression resulting (to average troops) is not.

In the RAND model, an average infantry company is expected to stall if it sustained 25% casualties, with about as many men again rendered ineffective as were actually hit, and the remainder driven to ground, with any outgoing or reply fire cut by a third to a tenth of nominal capabilities, for the half remaining effective. They estimate the reorganization time after such a stall before trying to attack again, again for a typical formation, at about an hour.

For a typical US infantry platoon, that "stall" level of losses is around 10 men. Which a single MG is routinely seen, in the tests, as being able to inflict. Real defenses do not rely on a single MG position, and are not nearly as vulnerable to reply fire delivered straight ahead by rifles, as such a lone shooter directly ahead of the attack, is. If they did they'd be a lot more porous and easily dismantled by attacking firepower than real defenses are.

Again the firepower is correct, the defensive scheme in the test is incorrect on the ineffective side (with 2 MGs, the infantry platoon takes 50% losses, which is catastrophe territory in real life), and the morale effect of the firepower on the attacking infantry is low for a typical unit (though it was actually achieved in the outlier morale cases I cited, which featured up to 50% losses but a successfully continued attack anyway, just like your 2 MG example). And I stated already in my first post in the thread that I believe the physical firepower is right but the morale effect of that fire is low. Stop mischaracterizing the position I've maintained.

[Blackcat]

Thanks, Jason. Let us leave aside the fact that you haven't ansered ny questions or provided counter examples.

I think we have to differ on the casualty rate. You are quoting figures I don't recognise. For example, where does this ten per firing HMG come from? If I were seeing that sort of figure I might go along with your analysis. But I ain't. Using the blunt rush over open ground with no pretence at fire and movement the worst I have seen a single HMG do is 6 casualties. 6 out of thirty odd men over several minutes and 800 metres.

Anyway its 03:40 here and its time for bed. In the morning I hope you'll give me some serious in game figures that would allow me to conclude that HMGs are Ok after all.

[Battlefront.com]

One difficulty in comparing game results with real life is real life tends not to have a wealth of isolated, documented incidents like HMG vs. Rifle Platoon to draw information from. While logic might say "x weapon could probably do y damage against z target", perhaps that's not the case. We all know rifles in WW2 were capable of taking out individual targets at 800m+ without optical aids. But how often did this happen in a combat situation? Very rarely. So we know that sometimes weapons capabilities, in action, are lower than on a firing range for whatever reason.

Greater suppression might be called for. However, I would like to see a Rifle Company assault a Rifle Platoon with a single HMG first. That's a more-or-less fair way to see what HMG fire does in a more-or-less realistic combined arms setting.

Steve

[guachi]

I'd be interested in seeing tests (and I could conduct them myself) of a platoon of infantry assaulting a single (x) over the same terrain.

platoon vs. squad

platoon vs. BAR team

platoon vs. MG 34/42 LMG

platoon vs. other MGs (anyone test the M1917 or M1919?)

[SlapHappy]

I did the US Platoon vs. HMG 42 myself using Regular quality gun crew and Elite gun crew. The Regular crew was not able to break up the platoon's advance. The Elite crew did repeatedly.

This was from a starting distance of 550 meters.