Semi-Automatic Rifle Test Mk II - Live Fire Exercise

[Chad Harrison]

Hi all

This is a continuation of a thread I started last week:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=98850

To sum up the last thread:

1. I felt that the fire rate of semi-auto weapons is too slow at very close ranges (under 50m).

2. 'Shooting at dirt' rates are very consistent for semi-auto weapons and tends to be one shot every 2 to 3 seconds.

3. 'Live fire' rates vary more, and others posted that they were seeing them as fast as a shot a second.

4. Phil at BFC was kind enough to take a look under the hood and confirmed that they should be firing fast - thanks again by the way Phil.

As I acknowledged in my first test, it was tested using the 'Area Fire' command, so this appears to limit the speed at which they fire. Which makes sense - they dont want to rock and roll on full auto if they are just shooting at dirt! As a number of posters indicated, they were seeing shots much faster under actual combat - shooting at actual targets.

So I came up with another test to test actual firing conditions under ideal shooter circumstances.

1. Place troops in a secure, safe location - 'heavy' building. There were 8 M1 Garand shooters, and 9 M1 Carbine shooters. Like previous test, they had no grenades, no rifle grenades - nothing to distract them from their rifles.

2. Have troops under no suppression at all - and no previous suppression either: no one has shot at them yet today.

3. Have pretty much unlimited targets - 'Target rich environment' provided by a German full strength company 8 meters away.

4. Enemy was 'Fanatic' and ordered to run directly away from shooters - so no return fire ever occured.

5. Record time until 'First Ping' - in other words, the first shooter to empty his Garand wins - no averages, just the absolute fastest that someone did it. Time for Carbine reload also recorded.

I ran the test for each experience range and got the following results:

Time to M1 Garand First Ping:

CON 16s

GRN 13s

REG 13s

VET 13s

CRK 13s

ELT 12s

Time to M1 Carbine First Reload:

CON 33s

GRN 30s

REG 27s

VET 27s

CRK 25s

ELT 23s

From the above, I draw the following (personal) opinions and conclusions:

1. In game, soldiers *do* fire faster when provided actual targets. So there appears to be a 'shooting at dirt' rate of fire, based on range and experience, and a 'shooting at bad guys' rate of fire based on a million things.

2. The rate of fire does not exceed one shot every one second. From watching the soldiers, they would acquire a target (bring the rifle to bear), fire once or twice at the target, lower the rifle and repeat the entire process.

3. Taking the entire process of firing but not reloading into account, the above rates gives a 'Regular' soldier a firing rate of one shot in 1.6 seconds for the Garand, and 1.8 seconds for the Carbine.

4. Experience does *not* play a huge part. A 'Conscript' is taking a shot every 2 seconds, an 'Elite' is taking one every 1.5 seconds.

and finally,

5. It is my opinion that semi-auto weapons are firing too slow ingame at close ranges. And as such, loose a lot of their punch upclose.

But what do I know? I am a civil engineer. I design highways and subdivisions all day. Atleast I am not a total history geek because I have a Garand in the other room and have been firing one all my life. Not wanting to base everything on opinion, I decided to get some more professional advise from a Veteran - seeing as I am only a conscript

My brother fits the bill. He served in Iraq for just over a year, has been a police officer forever, is one of the firearms instructors for his Deparment, and is an bona-fide Colt Armorer. The M4/M16 is his life. So I gave him the following scenario:

You are on the battlefield. You are not new to combat and you have been trained. You have an M1 Garand and ammo supply is not an issue. You have not been engaged yet. Suddenly, a number of enemies get up, and start running away from you at a range of about 10 meters. There is no immediate danger to you, other than these soldiers who are currently running away.

And I felt like with my 'conscript' status, that I could very accurately put 8 rounds downrage in 8 seconds - so in other words, it would be 8 seconds until my first ping. So I asked him if he felt like that would be a reasonable, realistic firing rate. He said:

Eight shots in eight seconds is a slow rate of fire for a close range fire fight.

He felt like 4 seconds to 'first ping' would be much more realistic for an experienced shooter, and nearly all those would hit at that range. And that was with the Garand. Carbine? Faster based on shooting the M4/M16 in semi-auto. Both the Carbine and M4/M16 are a stable, low recoil weapon that allows you to put the lead out *fast*.

So I also asked him who he thought would shoot faster? Someone with no training, and new to combat, or a seasoned combat veteran? He said hands down a green soldier is going to 'freak out' and shoot as fast as they can pull the trigger where as a veteran is going to engage at a steady pace, but still quickly.

Again, I am not saying the game is broken, it sucks and I want my money back. Quite the contrary. Game is great. It works great and I would have paid 4 times as much for it. What I *am* saying is:

Given the results from this live fire test, and based on my experience with both weapons, semi-auto weapons rate of fire is too slow at close ranges (under 50m)

So again, I am not stating any of this as absolute fact. I am giving this as my opinion. Am I off base? What are your thoughts? And again, we are not talking about accuracy, simply rate of fire. Sure, that green trooper who empties his Garand is not going to hit a single trooper, but a mob? I am not trying to force the game to allow a maximum rate of fire all the time. What I am saying though, is that the current maximum of 12 seconds to empty a Garand is too slow. By a magnitude of 2 or 3 times.

The game already has highly varibale rates of fire in code for full-auto weapons. Just get a MG42 on a bipod real close to the enemy and watch that 75 round bust go flying into the air hitting nothing but birds. Or watch that 32 round mag for the MP40 go out in seconds. The game already increases rate of fire for full auto weapons and reduces accuracy, so why not semi-auto rifles as well?

Your thoughts?

Thanks

Chad

[YankeeDog]

My first impression is that it's an extremely artificial situation you're testing and I'm not sure what conclusions, if any, to draw from it.

From what I've seen in the game, both Garands and M1 Carbines shoot pretty quickly and accurately, and are a significant advantage over bolt action k98s, especially at close range.

But if you want to advocate for a modest change in the average ROF for Garands and M1 Carbines, and/or the occasional Green soldier getting trigger happy and jerking off an entire 8-round clip in 2 seconds (and probably being lucky to get all of the bullets into the broad side of a barn while doing so), I have no objection to that. I don't think either will change the actual combat results in the game much, if at all. But once the first few patches are out and the more significant bugs/issues with the game are dealt with, we might as well move on to the niggly stuff! This is the path to perfection...

[womble]

...ammo supply is not an issue.

My feeling is that the question becomes artificial at this stipulation. For your pTruppen, ammo supply is always going to be an issue. They don't know that they'll be able to put their feet up and have a brew in less than 120 minutes, and they don't know that some more Fanatics aren't going to come charging across that field actually firing at them in 5 minutes' time. Add the aforementioned observations that a good proportion of troops had an aversion to actually shooting at people (there's at least one report says troops would fire way over the enemy's head to at least look like they were giving it some), and I wouldn't be surprised if the fire at their retreating backs was more desultory than might be expected from a pack of stone killers with their blood up, and cases of ammo to take a firing rest on. At least they'd pick their shots to try and drop the runners with least wasted lead.

[Chad Harrison]

My first impression is that it's an extremely artificial situation you're testing and I'm not sure what conclusions, if any, to draw from it.

Simple: soldiers are very conservative with firing semi-auto weapons at close ranges.

From what I've seen in the game, both Garands and M1 Carbines shoot pretty quickly and accurately, and are a significant advantage over bolt action k98s, especially at close range.

Absolutely, they currently beat the Kar98 - no question about it.

But if you want to advocate for a modest change in the average ROF for Garands and M1 Carbines, and/or the occasional Green soldier getting trigger happy and jerking off an entire 8-round clip in 2 seconds (and probably being lucky to get all of the bullets into the broad side of a barn while doing so), I have no objection to that. I don't think either will change the actual combat results in the game much, if at all. But once the first few patches are out and the more significant bugs/issues with the game are dealt with, we might as well move on to the niggly stuff! This is the path to perfection...

There are plenty of more critical things than how fast the Garand/Carbine/G43 shoot up close. But this is the code base for a *long* time to come. If I thought this were a super critical, super broken component of the game, I would have been posting this the day I got the demo, not nearly 2 months after release. When my only current complaint about a game that is not an already known issue is how fast a semi-auto shoots upclose, your game is doing great!

The current setup and rate of fire is fine as far as overall effect goes: fewer shots, more hits instead of more shots, fewer hits.

However, its not realistic in the long run to have everyone trying to make headshots at 15 meters with that 2 second aimed shot I think its something that could use some discussion.

Which is why I want to bring this up and do my best testing it with the limitations that I have without being under the hood.

Thanks

Chad

[YankeeDog]

The current setup and rate of fire is fine as far as overall effect goes: fewer shots, more hits instead of more shots, fewer hits.

However, its not realistic in the long run to have everyone trying to make headshots at 15 meters with that 2 second aimed shot I think its something that could use some discussion.

So basically what you're advocating for is lethality staying about where it is, but soldiers firing more, less accurate shots to achieve this same result. Of course standard caveats about this being the average result, details of the situation matter, etc. apply

Seems like a reasonable position to me. I have noticed that U.S. squads equipped primarily with Garand seem to be very "deep" with their ammo supply...

[Guest]

Thanks Chad. Interesting results.

[StellarRat]

OK, look at it this way, if you see a bunch of guys running around in the open at point blank range or worse yet charging at you, are you going to try and save ammo or shoot like hell and try to get as many as possible (provided you have the courage to even stick you head out)? All the combat footage I've seen and everything I've read tells me that when provided with close visible targets infantry will pour in the maximum number of rounds possible and try to kill them all. Conversing ammo is not on the radar at that point. An examination of police shootings will bear this out too. Nearly all police shootings are at close range and the general tendency is to empty the weapon on the target. That's why people complain that their relative was shot 14 times, etc...

[SelfLoadingRifle]

Chad,

I think that you are already on the right lines by asking your brother who has served.

To me, it seems impossible to separate the rate of fire (rof) used from what is happening on the ground. Fighting in built up areas (FIBUA) sends the rof through the roof as clearing a room usually involves grenades/dems first and then going in firing. 8 rounds in 8 seconds would actually be a tad slow. Covering fire/winning the firefight at any kind of range would probably result in a much slower rof - say one round every two to three seconds with a rifle. Also, whether or not the rifleman can actually see his target will have an effect on the rof as well.

I hope this helps.

SLR

[siffo998]

hm the problem might be that if you change the fire rate for allied semi automatic rifles than you should/must also change the fire rate of all other guns ingame to provide game balance. for example you could also fire much faster with an mg42, if you are in trouble, as it is represented ingame. and for the bolt action kar98k... my granddad was in the french foreign legion in the indochina war/vietnam (dien bien phu) before the amercians were there. they had also a french bolt action rifle this time. he bought one of them when he got home and later he showed me some firing stuff with it. and man...i`ve never expected that you could shoot this fast with a bolt action rifle if you are good with it. i had no watch to stop the time but it was much faster than everything represented ingame. all i want to say in conclusion is that i`ve the feeling the game provides some good balance from what i`ve seen (of course you could fire much faster with every gun when you want to) and if you change only one or two fire rates the balance might be damaged. If you change it than you must change it for all guns ingame.

[Oddball_E8]

hm the problem might be that if you change the fire rate for allied semi automatic rifles than you should/must also change the fire rate of all other guns ingame to provide game balance. for example you could also fire much faster with an mg42, if you are in trouble, as it is represented ingame. and for the bolt action kar98k... my granddad was in the french foreign legion in the indochina war/vietnam (dien bien phu) before the amercians were there. they had also a french bolt action rifle this time. he bought one of them when he got home and later he showed me some firing stuff with it. and man...i`ve never expected that you could shoot this fast with a bolt action rifle if you are good with it. i had no watch to stop the time but it was much faster than everything represented ingame. all i want to say in conclusion is that i`ve the feeling the game provides some good balance from what i`ve seen (of course you could fire much faster with every gun when you want to) and if you change only one or two fire rates the balance might be damaged. If you change it than you must change it for all guns ingame.

its already been declared that automatic weapons DO fire faster when in specific situations (well they dont fire faster, but they fire in longer, uncontrolled bursts, sometimes even full auto)

also, ive fired the mauser alot (the swedish homeguard i was part of only had access to mausers and a few AK4's (H&K G3) since we were low on the priority list) and i too know how to fire it fast, but you cant even compare firing a garand fast to firing the mauser fast.

If you do the "quickfire" trick on the mauser you have absolutely zero accuracy, its only good for suppressive fire and then only if a full squad does it.

TL;DR the only thing you would need to "balance" would be the few semi-auto weapons in the game wich is what this thread is about, its not solely about the Garand.

EDIT: also, there is no such thing as "game balance" in the combat mission series... theres only realistic or not realistic.

[siffo998]

TL;DR the only thing you would need to "balance" would be the few semi-auto weapons in the game wich is what this thread is about, its not solely about the Garand.

EDIT: also, there is no such thing as "game balance" in the combat mission series... theres only realistic or not realistic.

you are right combat mission is all about realism but you said it already in your post... a real human is able to fire faster with bolt action rifles than provided in game (at least in special situations) and i also want to add that in certain cirumstances you can fire much faster with an mg42 or an 30 cal mg than provided ingame. so if you want realistic behaviour you have to change all weapon firing rates and not (to cover all real world conditions) only the semi automatic guns...but the problem is in my perspective that you could not provide 100% real world conditions (even not in a game as cmbn).

the best thing would be to run firing rate tests for all weapons ingame and compare them to real world firing rates (covering all possible conditions). but i will not be the one who run this tests... ;-)

there was allready a thread some time ago covering the matter that mg42 hmg ingame has a too low firing rate in certain circumstances... and as far as i know the thread back then hasnt convinced the designers to change something on the firing rate of hmgs.

I hope you understand what i want to say... to conclude... if you provide real world firing rate for all situations for semi automatic guns you also have to provide real world firing rates for all other guns...otherwise it would be "unbalanced".

[Oddball_E8]

you are right combat mission is all about realism but you said it already in your post... a real human is able to fire faster with bolt action rifles than provided in game (at least in special situations) and i also want to add that in certain cirumstances you can fire much faster with an mg42 or an 30 cal mg than provided ingame. so if you want realistic behaviour you have to change all weapon firing rates and not (to cover all real world conditions) only the semi automatic guns...but the problem is in my perspective that you could not provide 100% real world conditions (even not in a game as cmbn).

the best thing would be to run firing rate tests for all weapons ingame and compare them to real world firing rates (covering all possible conditions). but i will not be the one who run this tests... ;-)

there was allready a thread some time ago covering the matter that mg42 hmg ingame has a too low firing rate in certain circumstances... and as far as i know the thread back then hasnt convinced the designers to change something on the firing rate of hmgs.

I hope you understand what i want to say... to conclude... if you provide real world firing rate for all situations for semi automatic guns you also have to provide real world firing rates for all other guns...otherwise it would be "unbalanced".

like i said, the MG42 (and all other full-auto weapons in the game) can actually fire at their full auto (ie. not in bursts) in certain situations in the game. In those same situations, semi-auto weapons should also be able to fire faster than 1 shot per second.

as for firing "faster" with full auto weapons, thats just not possible, they have a set rate of fire (in real life too) that just isnt possible to fire faster than. But i hope you understand that already.

[siffo998]

like i said, the MG42 (and all other full-auto weapons in the game) can actually fire at their full auto (ie. not in bursts) in certain situations in the game. In those same situations, semi-auto weapons should also be able to fire faster than 1 shot per second.

as for firing "faster" with full auto weapons, thats just not possible, they have a set rate of fire (in real life too) that just isnt possible to fire faster than. But i ope you understand that already.

i know that "faster" is not possible i just mean full auto (not in bursts like provided in game) and as far as i know even when in close quarters mgs fire in short bursts (slightly longer than normally) but never in full "riot" auto. sorry but i`ve never seen that in game.

[Oddball_E8]

I have, but only when in extreme situations (like they are panicked and theyre firing on unknown enemies)

i think the problem in the game is that every shot (or burst) is an aimed shot.

so the problem isnt the rate of fire, its the target aquisition of the game.

in order for a soldier in the game to shoot it has to have a clear and specific target. It never fires on "a group" of enemies, it always fires on a specific target. Even if it has a machinegun and has 20 enemies in a close group infront of him.

what "should" be added is some of the random fire we get when enemies are no longer visible. Add something like that into the mix when there actually are enemies and things would be different.

[siffo998]

yep that would be a nice idea... i also experienced this "aimed fire behaviour".

[Chad Harrison]

Thanks Chad. Interesting results.

Again, thanks Phil for hearing me out. Let me know if you need any other tests or more specific information. I am more than happy to help.

As I am going to be away from the internet for a week again, let me end with this closing point:

If you look at your typical American Rifle Company, not counting the mortars since they are typically not on the line, there are 9 Thompsons, 9 BAR's, 5 Carbines and 113 Garands. So that means that nearly 90% of the American weapons are semi-automatic rilfes.

Jason, I completely agree with you that artillery, especially mortars, was the major killer on the battlefield. But, thats because most of the time was not spent in each others faces. When the battle closed to 50 meters or less, artillery and mortars didnt matter one bit. What mattered was your rifle, your grenade and a knife. Since CM:BN doesnt bring knifes to a gunfight, and you only have a few grenades, your rifle is the killer at close ranges.

And if your talking about 90% of your weapons firing 33 to 50% too slow, thats a *HUGE* difference in a city fight or bocage fight!

As pointed out above, you can be *very* accurate upclose with a semi-auto weapon (G43 included) and fire it much faster than 8 shots in 12 seconds. I am not advocating just having a bunch of green troops pop off 8 seconds in 4 seconds and hit nothing. A single 'Veteran' with a Garand would be downright deadly upclose. Not to mention 113 'Veteran' Garand riflemen upclose.

Currently, there is very little variance in how fast those 113 riflemen will shoot their garands. If you put them all on the firing line and give me a target rich environment, they will all 'ping' within a few seconds of each other. Full-auto weapons already have a huge variety of both burst length and time between bursts, so why not include this for semi-auto weapons?

For CM, its not a matter of balance. Its a matter of *correctly* representing everthing on the battlefield. Currently, it is my opinion that semi-auto weapons are not correctly reprsented upclose.

Thanks again

Chad

[LemuelG]

Yeah, here's the incontrovertible proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBQrtzSdVDo

Fix now

Here's a neat contemporary training vid: http://www.archive.org/details/Rifle_Marksmanship_with_M1_Rifle_Part_1

'Rapid fire' techniques are addressed at 46 min. Most relevant points: taking position and firing the first shot is intended to take 9 seconds, no more, no less; rapid-fire 'cadence' training begins with 5-second intervals between shots, graduating in .5-second increments down to 3 second intervals at maximum.

OP, do your homework. Your assertion that a shooter taking 12 seconds to drain an M1 clip being too long 'by a magnitude of 2-3 times' is utterly bogus, and when faced with primary evidence it falls apart completely.

Case closed, or can we expect another thread about this next week?

[Oddball_E8]

oh sure, thats definately undisputable proof...

now, how do we get the soldiers in the game to use exactly 9 seconds (no more, no less) to aim and take that first shot.

because we all know that in a live combat situation you never just throw yourself to the ground and try to get that shot off as fast as possible...

[YankeeDog]

Yeah, here's the incontrovertible proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBQrtzSdVDo

Fix now

Here's a neat contemporary training vid: http://www.archive.org/details/Rifle_Marksmanship_with_M1_Rifle_Part_1

'Rapid fire' techniques are addressed at 46 min. Most relevant points: taking position and firing the first shot is intended to take 9 seconds, no more, no less; rapid-fire 'cadence' training begins with 5-second intervals between shots, graduating in .5-second increments down to 3 second intervals at maximum.

OP, do your homework. Your assertion that a shooter taking 12 seconds to drain an M1 clip being too long 'by a magnitude of 2-3 times' is utterly bogus, and when faced with primary evidence it falls apart completely.

Case closed, or can we expect another thread about this next week?

Dude, did you actually watch that whole video? That's a training film for firing range cadence exercises; basic training on how to fire a Garand at a stationary target at ranges of a couple hundred meters or so. They have *some* relevance to how a trained rifleman might behave in combat firing on a target at similar ranges (and, interestingly, they back up Chris's earlier tests on Area Target ROF pretty well), but their relevance as to how a rifleman would behave in a very short-range, CQB situation like what Chris is presenting in this thread is marginal, at best.

I mean really, do you think a GI entering a building to clear it, or rounding the corner of a hedgerow, would really take 7-9 seconds to drop down to a proper firing position and attain proper sight picture before firing his first shot on a German that pops up less than 20m in front of him, and then take another 3-5 seconds to fire off his next shot?

I'm not necessarily advocating for Chris' point of view; I am undecided as to whether ROF for Garands and Carbines really needs to be adjusted in the game. But I do think that he's run some interesting tests and presented some reasonable points. I welcome additional *relevant* information.

[StellarRat]

I mean really, do you think a GI entering a building to clear it, or rounding the corner of a hedgerow, would really take 7-9 seconds to drop down to a proper firing position and attain proper sight picture before firing his first shot on a German that pops up less than 20m in front of him, and then take another 3-5 seconds to fire off his next shot?

You've nailed it.

[Nidan1]

Chad,

I think that you are already on the right lines by asking your brother who has served.

To me, it seems impossible to separate the rate of fire (rof) used from what is happening on the ground. Fighting in built up areas (FIBUA) sends the rof through the roof as clearing a room usually involves grenades/dems first and then going in firing. 8 rounds in 8 seconds would actually be a tad slow. Covering fire/winning the firefight at any kind of range would probably result in a much slower rof - say one round every two to three seconds with a rifle. Also, whether or not the rifleman can actually see his target will have an effect on the rof as well.

I hope this helps.

SLR

Is it valid to try to compare rate of fire between weapons from WW2 with modern ones, which are usually able to select fire options,have 20-30 round magazines, have combat optics, lasers, and grips which stabilize the weapon while firing.

Does expertise with modern weapons and tactics give one special insight as to how fast a 20 year old private in 1944 would fire his M-1?

The basic fact is, with semi-automatic weapons, you can fire as fast as you can pull the trigger, and as long as the weapon functions as advertised, that can be pretty quick.

I don't notice anything in the game with rate of fire that ruins the experience for me. If the little guys are not firing at all, that bothers me. If Germans are out in the open, and the range is decent the GI's and their M-1s usually score hits.

[YankeeDog]

You've nailed it.

To be clear, this is not what happens in the game right now; while there may be an argument for increasing short range semi-auto rifle ROF, the short-range ROF in the game right now is most definitely faster than 1 round/3-5 seconds, with 7-9 seconds of prep time prior to the first shot (As Chris' tests clearly show).

I was simply pointing out that if BFC took that 1942 training film as the one and only true gospel on how the Garand was used in combat, this is what we would see in the game.

[LemuelG]

Dude, did you actually watch that whole video? That's a training film for firing range cadence exercises; basic training on how to fire a Garand at a stationary target at ranges of a couple hundred meters or so. They have *some* relevance to how a trained rifleman might behave in combat firing on a target at similar ranges (and, interestingly, they back up Chris's earlier tests on Area Target ROF pretty well), but their relevance as to how a rifleman would behave in a very short-range, CQB situation like what Chris is presenting in this thread is marginal, at best.

Heh, marginal at best huh? Whatever, maybe I should have just hit up my cousin in Afghanistan? No loss, it only took like, ten seconds to Google.

And yeah, I watched it. I watched all of it, possibly one of the best 'marksmanship for dummies' I have ever encountered. I saw plenty of very good reasons as to why the general ROF of the weapon could never hope to be more than a round every couple of seconds, it simply takes a certain amount of time for the gun to settle post-shot, for the target to be re-acquired (arguably the primary advantage of the SA over the BA is the maintenance of one's position between shots instead of working a bolt), and to use the correct technique for firing a shot - if you're not doing this you're not hitting crap.

Is it not interesting that there was no drill for standing-position rapid-fire, as it was considered to be impractical due to balance issues? At over 4kg and firing a meaty round, shooting that sucker is gonna be laborious as well (something to ponder when we ask why soldiers may have been unwilling to fire their weapons).

So, we see in the game soldiers using double-taps, and firing at over a round a second on occasion - there is 'emergency-fire' which healthily exceeds recommended (trained) rates, it's present in the game. OP has what he wants, but is too ignorant to see it.

[Sgt Joch]

We have to remember that CMBN is a game. You can never program a TacAi that will replicate all the unpredictable behavior of human beings. The best you can do is get some sort of average. BFC generally takes the approach that a soldier will fight like he trains and that lower experienced soldiers are the ones more likely to panic and start firing wildly.

Looking at the M1 Garand, yes it was semi-auto, but it is still based on a heavy, long hunting rifle designed more for long range accuracy than high stable ROF, unlike the M4/16. It also fires a round with 2x the recoil energy of the 5.56 ammo used in the M4/16 rifles.

A semi-auto is also inherently less accurate and reliable than a bolt-action design, so you always to worry about jamming.

If you look at the example Chad posted, firing at a mass of soldiers at 30 feet and running away, yes, some soldiers may fire very quickly, but because of the design of the M1, there is a good chance most of the shots would miss. Taking the time to aim each shot, which may take 2-3 seconds per shot may actually result in more hits.

[Chad Harrison]

. . .

OP, do your homework

. . .

Case closed, or can we expect another thread about this next week?

. . .

OP has what he wants, but is too ignorant to see it

. . .

Had a quick moment to get online and this is what I am welcomed with? With posts like these I can never tell for sure if it was:

1. An attempt at humor

2. Plain and simple rudeness

3. Language barrier

Unfortunately, it appears to be #2 in this case given the consistent tone of all his posts. And I care? Not one bit.

So anyways, just wanted to throw in that the M1 Carbine and M4/M16 are very similar in recoil and the ability to control the weapon. No, you dont have all the modern aiming tools (red dot, laser, ect.), but the ability to fire the weapon quickly in semi-auto and remain ontarget is unchanged by that technology.

But the original point of both of these threads has already been accomplished: bring the current semi-auto rate of fire to BFC's attention. If its working how they intended it, then great - no worries since I see it as such a small piece of a much bigger picture. If they intended it to be faster -especially with high experience troops at close ranges - but some bug in the code is preventing it from doing so, then I have done my part to bring it to their attention with in a way that is more useful than "Your game sucks, Garand is firing too slow".

Or maybe its just my "ignorant" self who has spent a lifetime firing both weapons, and is too "ignorant" to watch a training video on how to fire the weapon, because we all know how much those effect training practices had on civilian soldiers during WWII when they were 20 meters from the enemy . . .

Thanks again Phil and the other posters who actually contributed to the thread.

Chad