US Army Snipers in Normandy

[slysniper]

It is worth remembering that the US population during the 1940s was far more rural than it is today, and so the pool of recruits that hunted routinely before jointing the service was, by modern standards, huge. If you got 100 - 150 American men together from that era there would pretty much always be 5 - 10 who had hunted all their lives. If you talk the infantry then the selection for those units weeded out the educated. And so probably increased the number of men who had 10 years or more experience as hunters.

Heck, the 1903 Springfield not only was quite close to rifles commonly used by US rural hunters of the day, it was a popular civilian hunting rifle. It was entirely possible a US infantry company commander would be able to find a man in his unit who not only had 10 years or more of hunting experience, but had done it with the M1903.

WW2 was a massive war and individual combatants by definition had very little effect on large scale combat. I submit that there was no point for the US to set up a sniper program because they had plenty of infantry recruits (not a majority, but a solid usable minority) that could do the job of company marksman perfectly adequately.

Further, once the US forces got into combat shortages of trained infantry became chronic. So it made good sense not to divert infantry training resources to a sniper program which would suck useful men out of the line units.

As to whether or not snipers are "effective enough" in CMN, I would say as a general thing they certainly are. This is because:

- CM assumes that the targeted troop is aware he is in a war and is trying to stay alive. This means he will seek cover as a matter of course, and that even if you the player don't see the spots where a single man might find cover on the mapboard the pixeltruppen can and what's more they will seek it. Normandy is not a pool table, and the simulation replicates soldiers' being able to get their heads down behind something under most circumstances.

Sure, one might expect a skilled rifleman with about 10 or so enemy some 200 meters away to pick them off in a couple of minutes if the world was a flat place without cover. But in the real world if you take 10 guys, put them in a conventional war, make sure their training and entire military experience (word of mouth) tells them "if you stick your head up you will die, maybe not the first time but sooner or later", and then put them in any terrain on Earth and a good shot 200 meters away, well, those 10 guys are going to find cover like their lives depend on it. Which of of course it does.

- CM does not simulate a firing range, but war. The snipers' targets can shoot back. What's more, in almost all cases the targets have the ability to get their friends to help. This means that a single rifleman in a conventional war, no matter how spiffy his training and ghillie suit, cannot, in most cases, just set up and knock off the bad guys like tenpins. The bad guys might very well retaliate. Pretty much by definition, if the shooter is a sniper, the bad guys have far more firepower than a single rifleman.

Sure, it is possible to find accounts of single riflemen shooting up squads or even platoons during WW2. All I would say ask is, how many times did that probably happen, and how many times did a marksman get off a shot or two, and then the other side pours indirect and direct in the marksman's general direction? My reading of the history is, individual riflemen taking a shot attracted so much fire it was in almost all cases foolhardy to take that shot.

CMN's pixeltruppen are almost certainly far braver than real humans, but still, if you are talking about a single rifleman he also wants to stay alive and he is not just motivated to shoot the enemy. He has to worry about giving away his position, making sure if he does open fire he won't waxed, overcome fear and indeed human instinct to try and kill other people, etc.

So if you're talking a sniper and a buddy taking aim at a squad about 200 meters away, I would say that generally speaking 2-3 hits on the squad over 5 minutes is a reasonable outcome. The thing to keep in mind is, the main thing infantry did, almost all the time, was hide. On both sides. Specifically, hide at the expense of taking a chance and firing a at the enemy. Both sides had far too much capacity to put flying metal into the air for a guy with a rifle to have any other priority than that.

The main point of infantry training was, and for that matter remains, convincing young men that it makes sense to risk death just to have a chance of harming another human being. True young human males are more willing than any other part of humanity to do just that, but unless you can convince them they can kill with impunity, or the sides in the war are really lopsided, even the great majority of young men once they become actual participants of a conventional war will quickly opt for survival not killing.

This behavior pattern is of course reinforced by war itself, which, if conventional, kills off the risk-takers with extreme efficiency.

So, if we return to the example of the CMN "sniper" shooting at a squad 200 meters away, it is of course possible to argue there might well have been marksmen who would have been able to shoot dead the members of that enemy squad pretty much as the members of that squad exposed themselves, in a couple of minutes or maybe even a minute.

However, in WW2, a sniper willing to accept that level of personal risk would probably have lasted an hour, I would say pretty much in all cases a day in combat. For the purposes of CMN, individual soldiers like that do not exist. Either they are dead or personal or acquired experience demonstrated that kind of behavior to be not just moronic, but suicidal.

There is of course a school of thought that snipers have a major influence on battlefields and therefore, it makes sense to commit substantial resources to training skilled snipers.

As a general thing, I do not subscribe to that school. If it is pure infantry on infantry combat, and for whatever reason substantial automatic weapons or indirect fire is not possible, then ok, I can see how snipers would be useful. If for some non-combat reason - you don't want to trash buildings or there is a political restriction on using high explosives - then sure, a sniper can be useful. I call those isolated cases.

The moment HE and automatic weapons fire are possible candidates for an engagement, snipers to my mind become very cost-ineffective. There is very little in a war that a sniper can do, that a machine gun or indirect fire cannot do better, and at lower cost in resources and with far more flexibility.

Excellent points but I also do have to agree with the later comments about how many inner city kids were being thrown into the infantry (or the meat grinder).

As for their limited impact, once heavier weapons are used. Yes , their impact is minimal in comparison at times. But the fact that their lives were of no more value than any other. A commander would know that maybe that one sniper might even get so much enemy attention that large amounts of arty might be used to kill that one sniper and seek him out instead of focusing it on the real objectives of removing the infantry holding the key terrain they next needed to obtain. They can effect the battle, but only when they have the skills to place a fear on the enemy to not want to risk themselves to any type of movement. The treat is more important than the result. But the sniper needs to prove that the result will happen if given it.

If you saw a unit move out in front of you and the first shot takes out one, then they all find cover, then there is a second shot another goes down, but now you have a clue where the shot comes from , so time passes, people start crawling to better safer locations, but from a new direction a shot is fired and another goes down. Lets see you get another squad to expose themselves.

If the sniper is smart he needs not fire another shot, but if he does it will again be from a whole new location at a point where he anticipates they enemy might try to advance from again. That is how they impact the enemy.

Also note: the one thing I did in the test is to elevate the sniper to a height that normal terrain would not aid in cover, yes that test squad would find ways to hide behind pebbles, maybe manage to dig a slit trench with their fingernails in two minutes while laying on their bellies. But with the height advantage given. A likely line of site would still be likely and cover lacking.

The other thing I find funny about this test I did. I improved Tank commanders the same way on a test and their ability improved to very heroic abilities.

I have the snipers at this level and the results are poor, I want to see what the difference is when I set them to different levels at greater ranges to see how this will impact their ability.

But the results were so poor on this test, I have not been motivated to see that results, since I doubt they will hit anything.

[akd]

Nevermind, misread that.

[Bigduke6]

Wow, 10 per cent from NYC? I didn't know that.

Still, for every one of them how many were guys in their teens who came from purely rural backgrounds, hadn't completed high school, and weren't from farming families? You know, the rural poor? People from families in the Virginia backwoods or the Ozarks or upstate NY or somewhere, maybe Dad had some kind of job but the Depression killed it. Farming wasn't the only way to live in rural 1940 America. For starters, there was just being poor.

Guys like that hunted not for fun but to put meat on the table. Heck, there are less of them these days but they still do. Sure in our generic US infantry company you are going to get a strong majority of urban recruits, but still, what with the system weeding out the educated and the guys with some kind of skill that fits the needs of Army support units, it would seem to me the system would necessarily put those guys that hunted regularly in the infantry, even if relatively speaking their type wasn't anywhere near the majority in the unit.

For fun, here's the 1941 US census: http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/1941-02.pdf

Based on that -

1. About 74 million people lived urban, 57 million rural. So all other things being equal the entire military should be have reflected that.

2. Of the rural people, about 30 million people lived on farms, and 27 million "not on farms". So even if the Army is slotting boys from the farm out of the infantry because they know heavy machinery, there is a substantial pool (roughly half of all) of rural recruits who did not live on farms. I contend the poor ones would be as a group relatively uneducated and quite likely to get shoved into the infantry.

3. There were about 13 million people in NY state, and about 1.7 million of them lived rurally, almost all on farms. Therefore, 10.3 million lived in some city or town, and given the size of NYC viz. Albany etc. 7.4 million people lived in NYC which is roughly 5 per cent of the entire US population.

If you figure some guys from Jersey and Connecticut would say they were from NYC as well (which is not for sure, but just for fun) then in any case it's not so surprising to me as it was a little while ago that 10 per cent of the US infantry could arguably be from NYC. At the time NYC was a very significant chunk of the entire US population, and there was a draft.

Nonetheless, I'm still fairly sure that in the generic US infantry company, there would probably be 5-10 guys from backwoods towns and villages who had hunted pretty much their entire youth, and would have had little chance of having the Army send them somewhere else but the infantry. Maybe he hadn't finished elementary school but it's good be they knew concealment, LOS, and riflery.

I very much agree these guys found their way into the infantry pretty much by default, the Army wasn't set up to do anything else with them. But my instinct was that as a group there were enough of them so that in a generic US infantry company there would always be a couple around to get the scoped Springfields.

Call it the Gomer Pyle argument.

As I have noted before, while it is true that the U.S. population was significantly more rural in 1941 than it is now, counterintuitively, the proportion of U.S. Army front-line straight-leg infantry from rural backgrounds was actually significantly lower than in the overall population. And a disproportionately high percentage of the front-line rifle infantry came from urban areas. Something like 10% of front-line riflemen in the U.S. Army came from the greater New York City area alone.

The reason was that, in the 1940s rural draftees were much more likely to have other skills the Army saw as particularly valuable, especially experience driving and maintaining vehicles, and especially heavy vehicles like tractors and trucks. Most lower and middle class urban residents didn't own or even have a driver's license in the 1930s and 40s. A few, like city bus and delivery truck drivers, but not many.

The Army specifically looked for draftees with Internal Combustion Engine experience, so farm boys were much more likely to end driving and/or maintaining tanks, servicing aircraft engines, serving as a mechanic in a division motor pool, etc. And middle to lower class urban draftees, with relatively few skills which the Army saw as high priority, got dumped into the infantry.

In contrast, the Army had very little in the way of programs that evaluated shooting experience in raw recruits. Generally the "sure shots" weren't differentiated until *after* draftees had been put through basic training and shunted into the infantry, at which point the better shooters were tossed a scoped Springfield by their Company commander.

[slysniper]

At what range could you hit the following targets without fail?

A. Head up to 400 meters. Breast up to 600 meters. Standing Man up to 700-800 meters.

B. Head up to 400 meters. Breast up to 400 meters. Standing up to 600 meters.

C. Head up to 400 meters. Breast up to 400 meters. Standing Man up to 600 meters.

5. Do the ranges indicated by you apply only to you, i.e. the best snipers, or also to the majority of snipers?

A. & B. Only to the best snipers.

C. To me personally as well as to the majority of snipers. A few outstanding snipers could hit also at longer ranges.

B added: Absolutely positive hitting is possible only up to about 600 meters.

6. What was the range of the furthest target you ever fired at, and what kind of target, size?

A. About 1,000 meters. Standing soldier. Positive hitting not possible, but necessary under the circumstances in order to show enemy that he is not safe even at that distance! Or superior wanted to satisfy himself about capability.

B. 400 to 700 meters.

C. About 600 meters, rarely more. I usually waited until target approached further for better chance of hitting. Also confirmation of successful hit was easier. Used G43 only to about 500 meters because of poor ballistics.

These quates are great, it shows how far off the game is lacking in this area.

I am not expecting the game to have these abilities, exspecially since in general the infantry shoots poor no matter what your testing in the game.

But it is easy to see, that a man size target is not a challenge for a sniper at 200 yards.

of course these numbers are in meters.

But it would be nice to have a true sniper unit that when it has the highest settings could produce consistant hits up to 300 meters when the enemy is exposed and produce a good threat to 400 meters and then reduce down to poor or no effect past 600 meters.

So when I get some time, maybe that will be my test, 300, 400, 500, 600 meters with different levels of snipers and see at least what they can produce in hits. Then maybe a scout team with normal rifles and see what they produce. Maybe that will be proof enough that these units are not

producing much differance.

[JonS]

And why should it be their decision to say they not allowed.

Lol. Stopped reading right there.

Who's decision do you think it should be? BFC provided a particular sandbox. You want a different sandbox. Some parts of the sandbox BFC provided overlap with the sandbox you wanted, but not fully. So you can sort-of do some of the things you wanted, but not all of them, and not with full fidelity.

This is BFCs fault and problem ... how?

[slysniper]

Lol. Stopped reading right there.

Who's decision do you think it should be? BFC provided a particular sandbox. You want a different sandbox. Some parts of the sandbox BFC provided overlap with the sandbox you wanted, but fully. So you can sort-of do some of the things you wanted, but not all of them, and not with full fidelity.

This is BFCs fault and problem ... how?

You better beleive I want another sand box, and this is the place to get the ear of battlefront . Where as, I have your ear at the moment and you like the sandbox as is. So I think we have made your view clear, you do not want to deal with snipers in the game, is that clear for everyone to understand. Yes, Yes, Yes.

[Erwin]

It's not just snipers but AFAIK engineers, recon etc would have also received extra training so should function better than they do in any of the CM2 series games.

I read that it's a deliberate design choice by BF to not depict superior training. But, I don't understand the reasoning.

Maybe it reflects the mil mindset we saw in CMSF that tends to dislike any particular units standing out from the crowd, hence the reason it took so long to get the numbers of crack/elite Special Ops forces we have now in RL.

[Dietrich]

I don't really know just what I happen to do right (happen to not do incorrectly?), but I generally find the effectiveness of my snipers/scouts/engineers/etc. satisfactory. In my experience it's a matter of how one employs any given unit.

[LemuelG]

I had myself a little sniper duel. Two two-man 'sniper' teams with their respective battalion commanders on opposite hill-sides. Map 300x400m, distance 400m apart, spread across map, snipers in each corner, HQs spaced evenly across middle - straight shots are 400m (ish) and corner-to-corner just under 500m. No wind, veteran teams and normal motivation, all plain dirt terrain.

US assistants have no binoculars, Germans do. Is that proper? Will the Brits get the 20x telescope? Do German snipers have the special ammo effective for aimed fire to ranges out over 400m that they did in reality?

At this range range only marksmen fire. I cease-fire when all marksmen on one side are eliminated - including assistants who buddy-aid scoped rifles.

case 1: ends after 3.5 minutes; US takes 7 casualties, German none - US marksmen die quickly, assistants killed while aiding. Strong appearance of marksmen favouring other marksmen as targets.

case 2: ends after 4.5 minutes; US 1 casualty, German 7 - same story, different side. Still looks like snipers are favoured over HQs and assistants.

case 3: ends after 10 minutes; US 2 casulties, German 9 - the last German assistant holds out for five minutes after his pals are killed, otherwise it is the same story - he has good luck I guess.

case 4: ends after 3 minutes; US 7 casualties, German 2 - Germans win this time.

Result appears to be decided by which side kills the other's original marksmen first, usually this happens within a 2-3 minutes max; not every shot hits, but a 500m first-shot kill against an opposing marksman isn't particularly unusual by the looks of it (it happens a few times in my tiny sample). There definately appears to be a targeting-bias against opposing marksmen.

Good, I think this is good... there's no point holding-up a soldier like Hurtzenauer and demanding every German marksman shoot like him. As it is, 'snipers' can spot, engage, and kill with reasonable efficiency from ranges outside most other small-arms fire. Short of making them some kind of mystical ninja I'm not sure what else is needed.

I would like to see some sort of field-craft/camouflaging - for defending/ambushing units, purchased and applied before battle; and also for recon/snipers at-will in the field (i.e. the German sniper's camouflaged umbrella adorned with a bit of shrubbery). But that is not just a sniper issue, it concerns everything and is a massive tactical deficit in this game.

[slysniper]

I had myself a little sniper duel. Two two-man 'sniper' teams with their respective battalion commanders on opposite hill-sides. Map 300x400m, distance 400m apart, spread across map, snipers in each corner, HQs spaced evenly across middle - straight shots are 400m (ish) and corner-to-corner just under 500m. No wind, veteran teams and normal motivation, all plain dirt terrain.

US assistants have no binoculars, Germans do. Is that proper? Will the Brits get the 20x telescope? Do German snipers have the special ammo effective for aimed fire to ranges out over 400m that they did in reality?

At this range range only marksmen fire. I cease-fire when all marksmen on one side are eliminated - including assistants who buddy-aid scoped rifles.

case 1: ends after 3.5 minutes; US takes 7 casualties, German none - US marksmen die quickly, assistants killed while aiding. Strong appearance of marksmen favouring other marksmen as targets.

case 2: ends after 4.5 minutes; US 1 casualty, German 7 - same story, different side. Still looks like snipers are favoured over HQs and assistants.

case 3: ends after 10 minutes; US 2 casulties, German 9 - the last German assistant holds out for five minutes after his pals are killed, otherwise it is the same story - he has good luck I guess.

case 4: ends after 3 minutes; US 7 casualties, German 2 - Germans win this time.

Result appears to be decided by which side kills the other's original marksmen first, usually this happens within a 2-3 minutes max; not every shot hits, but a 500m first-shot kill against an opposing marksman isn't particularly unusual by the looks of it (it happens a few times in my tiny sample). There definately appears to be a targeting-bias against opposing marksmen.

Good, I think this is good... there's no point holding-up a soldier like Hurtzenauer and demanding every German marksman shoot like him. As it is, 'snipers' can spot, engage, and kill with reasonable efficiency from ranges outside most other small-arms fire. Short of making them some kind of mystical ninja I'm not sure what else is needed.

I would like to see some sort of field-craft/camouflaging - for defending/ambushing units, purchased and applied before battle; and also for recon/snipers at-will in the field (i.e. the German sniper's camouflaged umbrella adorned with a bit of shrubbery). But that is not just a sniper issue, it concerns everything and is a massive tactical deficit in this game.

I swear, sometimes this game can seem crazy, from what you say your numbers appear to be much higher than mine, plus you are shooting from a greater distance and with lower quality units. This appears to make me now want to do a detailed test with massive data gathered to see what is going on.

[slysniper]

Sniper test, 425 meters, no wind, 5 minutes per test, target= 1 American squad (regular) with platoon leaders. Test ran as the German in real time vs. the AI except round 6

Map is open with the Americans on a forward slope of a hill elevation 25 to 20; the snipers are on a ridge at 25. All terrain between is at 20. (This does expose the enemy even more than my first test. I do not know what more you can do to make the shot easy)

Sniper units

G43, Green, Ldr=0, motivation normal

6 test results

14 shots 2 kills

15 shots 2 kills

14 shots 2 kills

16 shots 0 kills

14 shots 2 kills

13 shots 0 kills

Total

86 shots, 8 kills

hits 9% of shots (1 in 9)

G43, Req, Ldr=+1, motivation high

6 test results

14 shots 2 kills

16 shots 2 kills

18 shots 2 kills

16 shots 2 kills

17 shots 0 kills

16 shots 4 kills

Total

97shots, 12 kills

hits 12% of shots (1 in 8)

Kar98k, Vet, Ldr=+1, motivation high

6 test results

25 shots 2 kills

15 shots 3 kills

14 shots 0 kills

15 shots 2 kills

15 shots 2 kills

16 shots 4 kills

Total

99 shots, 13 kills

hits 13% of shots (1 in 8)

Kar98k, crack, Ldr=+2, motivation extreme

5 test results

Unknown shots, died, 2 kills

26 shots 1 kills

16 shots 2 kills

16 shots 3 kills

15 shots 5 kills

15 shots 3 kills

Total

86 shots, 14 kills

hits 16% of shots (1 in 6)

G43, elite, Ldr=+2, motivation extreme

6 test results

21 shots 5 kills

21 shots 1 kills

21 shots 2 kills

21 shots 5 kills

21 shots 5 kills

22 shots 6 kills

Total

127 shots, 24 kills

hits 19% of shots (1 in 5)

I will have to claim this final number is much better than the results I achieved from my first test of a elite team at 200 meters, going back to that test map shows nothing to indicate why other than there was a light breeze and that this map layout exposes the troops possibly more.

During this testing you might note that the crack squad had a 5 for 15 rounds in one test, thus hitting 33% one time.

The elite squad had one round at 27% and 3 rounds at 24%

So I will withdrawal my comments on how poorly these snipers are performing. These top end units in this test did well enough for the game. They did have their moments to at least be a real challenge

The test would need to be run much more to get the numbers more accurate, I had results vary from all the snipers together from 8 to 17 kills in the 5 minute test ( with about 80 shots fired per round)

The one result with the sniper being killed was an accident, the enemy squad had a sniper, the only one for the Americans and he opened up and killed the German sniper. I left him in the test to see if it would happen again, no, in general, the AI units never fired on the snipers.

I ran round 6 as the Americans and area fired at ? markers And then target fired once clear sight was achieved, which was within the first 2 minutes for all units, so the remainder of that round they returned fire. Note: no sniper was lost, plus in general, all my snipers performed better that round except for the Green unit. Possible the Americans are exposing themselves more by firing.

I want to run this test with a MG unit and others to see which will do better, no question a mortar unit will have a field day,

[Erwin]

In game terms, I think the effects of the "worst" snipers vs the very best snipers is too subtle to get a feel for it in CMBN.

I have the same issue with the C2 system. It's all understandable for a simulation intended for RL training. But, it's all too subtle for an entertainment game.

[slysniper]

In game terms, I think the effects of the "worst" snipers vs the very best snipers is too subtle to get a feel for it in CMBN.

I have the same issue with the C2 system. It's all understandable for a simulation intended for RL training. But, it's all too subtle for an entertainment game.

I dont know about that, the difference is almost twice as good. I do not see anything wrong with that. That is a good improvement.

I would like to see the percentages higher at this range, more like what I saw when they were having a good run. personnally I think the best sniper results at this range should produce a 33% hit as a adv.

But I did get that one time out of 30 tested runs, but for them type of rare occasions, it should be at least 50% when a elite sniper has a good moment.

[Erwin]

I think I am agreeing with you. A 9% thru 30%+ result for Elite is what I would like to see too.

9%-19% is too subtle when you consider one is mostly dealing with Green-Vet troops. That's only 9%-13%. Indistinguishable in the game.

[womble]

...one is mostly dealing with Green-Vet troops...

Depends what you're looking to simulate. A "true sniper" as the Germans (and others, but they're not in CMBN) produced, and the Americans didn't in WW2, is never going to be green, or even Regular. They've all had extensive additional training, and were selected for that training. If you want a sniper rather than a "unit marksman", then you really shouldn't feel any inhibition against selecting Crack or Elite as their experience level, and then you are getting into significant differences.

[LemuelG]

I would like to see the percentages higher at this range

I tentatively agree - there was that one test that went forever with one single guy surviving forever (five minutes, an eternity in a firefight)... one sniper team ran out of ammo shooting at him, it was a bit sad. Other times they seemed to do great, with the decisive result coming after the first couple of rounds of shots (both starting marksmen on one side being killed). I might have been expecting the SA rifles to have a slightly better ROF as well.

There were encouraging signs - the tendency to prefer shooting at other marksmen was very pleasing.

[slysniper]

I tentatively agree - there was that one test that went forever with one single guy surviving forever (five minutes, an eternity in a firefight)... one sniper team ran out of ammo shooting at him, it was a bit sad. Other times they seemed to do great, with the decisive result coming after the first couple of rounds of shots (both starting marksmen on one side being killed). I might have been expecting the SA rifles to have a slightly better ROF as well.

There were encouraging signs - the tendency to prefer shooting at other marksmen was very pleasing.

The kar98k should actually be giving units a more accurate shot. but like you pointed out, it appears the rifles are not reflecting any difference at these ranges. As for aimed sniper fire, it really would not change the amount of times a sniper would fire. A sniper does not fire multi shots normally for many reasons. so the semi auto is not a preferred weapon until recent times, since the range or distance you are firing from now allows you to get multible shots off and still not be spotted. but even now it still is not a wise decision if the enemy has anyway to reach out and touch you. For that period, both weapons would be similarly. The semi auto would only help if they ran into troops close and was in a normal firefight, but even then, the sniper rifle is the last thing yoou want to use under a 100 meters. Normally the sniper will have some other weapon for use while moving and the scout always has something for up close firepower so they are not totally naked in a fire fight.

[womble]

...there was that one test that went forever with one single guy surviving forever (five minutes, an eternity in a firefight)...

Were the tests conducted with the exact same map/setup file, with the targets in precisely the same places every time? I'm wondering if there might be some variation in the 'microterrain' defensive properties of your targets, where occasionally a pTroop manages to 'find' an exceptional piece of cover that gives a high 'saving throw' even against the slightly plunging fire you arranged. Given that the snipers didn't have any more difficulty than usual in hitting the other targets, it seems like a possible explanation.

[Erwin]

Again, I agree with you Womble. Snipers and other troops with special training should be Crack or Elite imo.

However, I got jumped on several times (by milpros I think) when I suggested exactly the same thing in other forums. So, there seems to be a bias somewhere against making certain troops function a lot better than others.

[womble]

Again, I agree with you Womble. Snipers and other troops with special training should be Crack or Elite imo.

However, I got jumped on several times (by milpros I think) when I suggested exactly the same thing in other forums. So, there seems to be a bias somewhere against making certain troops function a lot better than others.

I think it's perhaps unfortunate that some of the 'Experience' descriptors carry, at least in the wargaming world, an amount of baggage beyond 'ability to perform the tasks of a soldier', which is what CMx2's ratings are, I think, meant to indicate. "Elite", for example, often has connotations of determination, esprit de corps and elan. In many wargames, Elite troops not only function better in the killing people and breaking things stakes, but have unbreakable morale and excellent leadership. CMBN digs into more detail and has some things split out into other soft stats, and that can muddy the waters.

I think it's pretty clear, though, that as far as BFC are concerned, a 'Sniper' unit in CMBN is just a guy with a scoped rifle, on the American model where Springfields were dished out at Company level to standard dogfaces who'd got a reputation as dead shots. If you want a sniper such as the Germans produced, the only way to get there (or at least to an approximation) is to up the soft stats... Don't see how anyone can get a bee in their bonnet about that. Especially because 'proper' snipers were chosen men who'd been given extra training, so are the very definition of 'better than a regular'.

[LemuelG]

Were the tests conducted with the exact same map/setup file, with the targets in precisely the same places every time? I'm wondering if there might be some variation in the 'microterrain' defensive properties of your targets, where occasionally a pTroop manages to 'find' an exceptional piece of cover that gives a high 'saving throw' even against the slightly plunging fire you arranged. Given that the snipers didn't have any more difficulty than usual in hitting the other targets, it seems like a possible explanation.

Yeah, everything was the same (dunno how much abstracted cover 'dirt' gets you, but that's what he had) - the marksmen's assistants tended to crawl around a bit after their buddy got zapped - I think my die-hard found himself some decent defilade somehow; I didn't pay a great deal of attention to the topography. Since he did eventually die I assumed that it could have happened at any time, he wasn't invincible after all - definately looks like an anomalous result, but I can't be bothered testing too far into it.

[womble]

I don't think paying attention to the topography would have revealed anything more than a quick glance, on a plain flat plain: the 'microterrain saving throw' is entirely abstract. Yeah, he probably just rolled a '1' on his D6 multiple times in a row.

[A Canadian Cat]

Sniper test, 425 meters, no wind, 5 minutes per test, target= 1 American squad (regular) with platoon leaders. Test ran as the German in real time vs. the AI except round 6

Map is open with the Americans on a forward slope of a hill elevation 25 to 20; the snipers are on a ridge at 25. All terrain between is at 20. (This does expose the enemy even more than my first test. I do not know what more you can do to make the shot easy)<snip>

That sounds like it matches up with my test pretty well.

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1306604&postcount=11

I did not calculate the shot percentage or repeat at a variety of sniper skill levels and I started my platoon further away to see when the snipers would open up. My tests showed that the first shots were fired by the snipers at between 725 and 770m which is not out of line with the comments from the sniper interview quoted by LukeFF

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1306968&postcount=46

One thing I have noticed in my test and when playing a game is that the TacAI does not prioritize targeting snipers. Many times my tanks and platoons target other enemy forces on the battle field or seem slow to target snipers. This is just anecdotal but it is supported by my test: snipers even once spotted don't take a lot of fire from the enemy. This was the chief reason when I let the AI run the snipers and I ran the platoon I always killed the snipers - I had to give target orders to my squads to make sure they shot. Now in a game if I see a sniper team I make sure I order some of my troops to shoot at them - if at all possible. I do not count on my troop's TacAI to target the snipers.