Specialist weapon selection - possible problem?

[Mad Mike]

Hi,

I noticed some odd behaviour of my MG42 gunner specialists in a Pioneer squad in my current PBEM:

For the whole turn, the squad was fighting against two to three US squads in buidlings between 75m to appr. 150 meters away. The gunners did not use their MG42s, instead they choose to use their P38s.

This seems wrong to me, they should be using their MG42s instead, as this is a much more suitable weapon, especially at these ranges (hoping to hit anything with the P38 is quite optimistic, to say the least).

Similar behaviour for a sharpshooter has been reported by RockinHarry in the following post / thread, but it somehow has not been picked up during the discussion:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1299992&postcount=111

Is this intented behaviour or could it be a problem with the weapon selection logic for specialists? Save game would be available.

Cheers,

Mad Mike

[RockinHarry]

Just a quick guess, after I watched my short video again:

Maybe the shooters have just one or few bullets left in individual weapons and in order to keep up shooting at what they think is currently a good "target", they avoid reloading (...fully exposed btw.) and grab a fully loaded weapon alternatively instead.

Maybe it´s also sort of "emergency" routine going on, if a soldier thinks of beeing "threatened" at close ranges (...below X meters???). That would also explain some of the odd shooting from AT, HMG and other teams.

Anybody has a better explanation?

[c3k]

No explanation (or excuse ). If the nearest known enemy is at least 75m away, and he's a squad of buddies already sending rounds downrange, that MG'er should be setting it up and firing.

I would excuse it only if the enemy were MUCH closer. C'mon, pistols at over 75m? (You only do that when those 9mm are getting too heavy and you need an excuse to dump 'em.)

I can explain that for a bolt-action sharpshooter far more readily than someone with a belt-fed, 2,000 round per minute, machinegun. For the boltie, maybe he needs rapid fire downrange. Then the pistol could make sense at longer then optimal pistol range.

This is odd.

Ken

[Blackcat]

Could this behaviour be caused by something to do with deployment and deployment times? If memory serves it takes quite a while longer to set up MGs in buildings, though I am not sure that this applies to bipod mounted weapons. Maybe the TacAI thinks it better to get as many rounds down range than take the time to set up. I note the squad in question is rattled and therefore maybe not thinking too clearly, though it is veteran and, therefore, should know better.

Strange stuff. What happened in the next turn?

[Mad Mike]

OK, some correction:

The squad started the turn engaging an US squad 48 meters away, in a building. This US squad subsequently retreated out of the buidling, at which point the squad was left with two other opposing US squads, being 69 meters and 96 meters away, respectively. So the ranges I guessed in my earlier post are actually a little bit lower, but this does not (in my opinion) invalidate my point.

Having some experience shooting the P38s successor, the P1, I wouldn't really use a pistol at ranges greater than 20 meters. And then only if I didn't have anything mor adequate, like a SMG. But for this case, I would still expect the two main infantry weapons of the squad to be employed. It would make their life so much easier .

Strange stuff. What happened in the next turn?

Don't know yet, but I will keep you posted.

[RockinHarry]

Usually the MG34/42 (bipod version) would be readied IN COVER and within very short time, dependent on soldier training and THEN pushed to fighting position. Something that obviously isn´t modelled in CMN. But in the game, the LMG´s are more or less handled like a lightweight "assault rifle". A MG34/42 with a 50 ammo drum & bipod weights what?

[Mad Mike]

OK, even in the next turn, the gunners did not switch back to their MG42s. They just stuck to their P38s.

This just seems wrong.

I couldn't keep track of this any further, as the squad died horribly at the hands of a mighty Sherman, the bane of my PBEM existence.

Overall, I'm currently not satisfied with infantry behaviour, be it weapon selection, choosing when to open fire at armoured targets, stupidly staying exposed when reloading etc. It just doesn't feel like a lot of thought went into this (which I'm sure it did), and this is disappointing.

When things are discussed here, it usually comes down to pure guesswork: The squad might have thought this, that & the other. They were scared, shocked, bored, thinking about their girlfriends at home, trying to work out a proof of Fermats last theorem in their heads .. everything, just not behaving like soldiers should.

With abstracted 3 men squads, this was all fine, with 1:1 representation, I can't suspend my disbelief so easily.

Btw, this is not meant as criticism of other posters (in this thread or elsewhere), just an expression of my frustration with the current status.

I sincerely hope infantry behaviour can be improved in the future.

[Mad Mike]

Usually the MG34/42 (bipod version) would be readied IN COVER and within very short time, dependent on soldier training and THEN pushed to fighting position. Something that obviously isn´t modelled in CMN. But in the game, the LMG´s are more or less handled like a lightweight "assault rifle". A MG34/42 with a 50 ammo drum & bipod weights what?

It's weight should be around 12 to 13 kilogramms. It should be ready to use in about 5 seconds, depending on availability of a good firing position. Normally, there is also an assistant (for the belt-fed version), something which isn't shown in CMBN, as far as I'm aware.

[YankeeDog]

There's something in error here. Soldiers will definitely fire the bipod version of the MG42/34 at close range; I've seen them use it in engagements under 20m and I've actually never seen this pistol behavior, so it must be uncommon. The game graphically shows using the MG42/34 at times like this firing from the shoulder, though from what I understand firing from the hip, holding bipod with the forward hand is more historically accurate (I suspect this is a compromise so that the same animation can be used as for other long guns). It's extremely inaccurate fire, but at 20m and 1200rpm, it doesn't have to be very accurate to be effective...

So the soldiers definitely should not be going to their backup pistols in most situations, and they don't, usually... I suspect this is a bug of some kind. There might be specific times at extremely close range when the MG gunner runs a belt/drum dry that it makes sense for him to whip out the pistol rather than take the time to re-load a drum, but this would be a rare situation. Perhaps the game is programmed to have a behavior like this, but it's "misfiring", and causing MG gunners to use their back up sidearm in situations where they shouldn't.

[Mad Mike]

There's something in error here.

YD, thanks for backing me up.

Maybe this could be looked into. I'm not sure how to reproduce these conditions. It happened after blasting through a wall into a buidling with this squad. Nothing too unusual, in my eyes.

[argie]

I've seen a similar behavior on a Sniper team. But the marksman was actually firing his rifle in one turn, in the next, he switched to his pistol. At the time, I guessed his magazine went empty and with a lot of targets below 50 m, it was intentional, instead of reloading.

[sonar]

I've seen this before, both squad mg's shoulder slung and thinking what are you two doing, not seen it too much but now and again yes.

[Sgt Schultz]

Could this particular instance be caused by crowding? That seems like quite a few troops in a confined space.

How large was the building?

How many troops total on that floor?

I have no clue as to whether or not this is modeled, but they may not have felt there was room to properly deploy without swinging around and hitting a buddy with a hot barrel, along with the other infinity-minus-one variables ofc.

I try not to put more than a team in any building that takes up less than two full tiles.