9mm Ammo

[weapon2010]

Why do they give you so much?At the end of my games I have thousands of rounds left.I blow through 7.92mm.

[Boche]

Well since mp40s spit out so much of it at times, I wouldnt mind having more!

[YankeeDog]

Huh. I usually have the opposite problem, at least in my rifle squads. Plenty of 7.92mm left at the end of the scenario, 9mm low or gone.

[weapon2010]

Wait, you dont get very many mp40's to eat up 9mm.Whatelse is using it up?.I was also talking about my ht supply of 9mm.

[YankeeDog]

IME, once the range gets under 200m (which is more often than not in the relatively close Normandy terrain) the guy(s) with MP40s burn through ammo like trigger-happy monkeys.

The MG42s burn through it too, but with well over 1,000 rounds of 7.92mm per squad, they've got a lot more to burn. The Kar 98k guys are almost a non-factor; their ammo usage is very low.

Edit to add: It can be an issue for me with the MP40s in when playing Germans, but IME ammo supply is actually much more of an issue with the Thompsons in American squads. Those guys burn through their 150 round allotment (typically) very quickly. Drawback of the much heavier .45 cartridge, I guess -- less rounds carried.

[Erwin]

Just curious... I have seen different sizes of Tommy Gun mags. How many rounds typically? 24? 30?

[Michael Emrys]

...IME ammo supply is actually much more of an issue with the Thompsons in American squads. Those guys burn through their 150 round allotment (typically) very quickly. Drawback of the much heavier .45 cartridge, I guess -- less rounds carried.

Yeah, I was going to mention that. If I have any vehicles around, I usually have them grab a couple hundred extra rounds before going into combat.

Michael

[Sublime]

I believe they're 30 round clips. I may be wrong and they're 20 however.

[JasonC]

Erwin - the standard mags during the war were 20 and 30 round. Drums could hold more (50) but were rare to non-existent in military use of the Thompson; the troops disliked them as too heavy and making the gun handle poorly.

They started with the 20 round stick mag, and there were complaints that it didn't have enough capacity. The two solutions to that were the new 30 round longer stick mag, or just taping 2 20s together, reversed (to reload the other way). The 30 was a better solution (fewer jams from junk getting in the bottom of the reversed mag).

I hope this helps.

[Sakai007]

More often then not, when I have troops assigned the Thompson and Grease Gun, I will load who ever I can into the nearest jeep, half track, truck and grab as much .45 ammo as I can. The starting amount is way to low for close range fighting in the hedge rows and forests. Breech teams and scout teams are #1 on the priority list for this, as they are out in front and the way I try to use them, engage in short, sharp close range firefights. Nothing beats the Tommy Gun in this kind of fighting, it is absolutely devastating.

[womble]

More often then not, when I have troops assigned the Thompson and Grease Gun, I will load who ever I can into the nearest jeep, half track, truck and grab as much .45 ammo as I can. The starting amount is way to low for close range fighting in the hedge rows and forests. Breech teams and scout teams are #1 on the priority list for this, as they are out in front and the way I try to use them, engage in short, sharp close range firefights. Nothing beats the Tommy Gun in this kind of fighting, it is absolutely devastating.

Yep, that's SOP for me too. A Thompson Womble-Unit of Fire is 100 rounds and I try and get every .45cal SMG an extra unit, starting with the squad sergeants. It isn't such a problem now that the engagement range for SMGs has been dropped down, but pre-patch it was vital, and even now it removes one item from the "things to worry about" list until right at the end game.

[LemoN]

At times I've bought five trucks per German Platoon (three sections and HQ) and split up ALL the ammo between them. Nothing better than a German section with 2x MG 42's, 3x MP40's and 5k 7.92 rounds and 2k 9mm.

That's of course only when defending, but boy, those guys will hold up an entire company, given that there's not a lot of arty flying around.

[TrailApe]

given that there's not a lot of arty flying around

Dirty rotten Yanks and Limeys, they know we are the best mano a mano, but the dirty rotten soft effeminate scumbags stand off and shell us into oblivion. Now that's not the way to fight a proper war........

[Boche]

we should go back to more civilized times

[Michael Emrys]

Dirty rotten Yanks and Limeys, they know we are the best mano a mano, but the dirty rotten soft effeminate scumbags stand off and shell us into oblivion. Now that's not the way to fight a proper war........

Unless of course you happen to be the one with the artillery. Then it is perfectly proper and just good practice.

Michael

[Lee]

I can tell you that an MP40 uses up magazines at an amazing rate when firing heavily. So it's good to have large reserves of ammo. The fire is deadly accurate in skilled hands, though. A German squad armed with them can deliver huge amounts of fire on target. Perfect for fighting in a place like Normandy.

[Erwin]

Thanks for the mag info JasonC.

And yes, ammo supply is one of the weird items in all CM2 games. One often spends the first minutes of setup simply loading up ammo to pretty ridiculous levels. Fortunately, all CM2 troops seem to be professional weightlifters and there are little if any negative repercussions from carrying 300+ rounds of 45 for the Tommy (or massive amounts of ammo for any other guns for that matter) heh.

[womble]

Thanks for the mag info JasonC.

And yes, ammo supply is one of the weird items in all CM2 games. One often spends the first minutes of setup simply loading up ammo to pretty ridiculous levels. Fortunately, all CM2 troops seem to be professional weightlifters and there are little if any negative repercussions from carrying 300+ rounds of 45 for the Tommy (or massive amounts of ammo for any other guns for that matter) heh.

I remember reading in one of the accounts of 'Nam (Chickenhawk/I], maybe?) that troops would hit the LZ with 600 rounds of ammo apiece. My fading memory is that this was with M-14s, early on in the war/police action - about the first deployment of the 101st, so that would be 600 rounds of 7.62 full-on rifle ammo. Now, they're dropping from Hueys, rather than legging it, but stacking an extra hundred rounds a man doesn't seem like too great a burden for pTruppen, and 100 rounds of .45ACP is only another 3 mags, on top of the 5 the sarge already carries.

[YankeeDog]

Talk to anybody who's done a tour in Iraq or Afghanistan... even when they have to hump it through in 110 degree heat on an extended foot patrol, wearing body armor and weighed down by all sorts of other modern combat gizmos, it's pretty amazing how much ammo infantry grunts will load themselves up with, given half the chance.

Carrying extra ammo and stuff like zook rounds, etc. does have a fatigue effect in CMBN, but it's pretty subtle unless you're asking your guys to do something really strenuous like crawl an extended distance, or run through heavy woods, or something like that.

[Erwin]

So, it really does make sense to keep recon troops light and ammo-deprived if they have to do a lot of crawling etc?

It's great to know this sort of thing - but only if the ammo weight has a NOTICEABLE effect in the game. Unfortunately, many really interesting effects (how experience affects sniper accuracy, effects of a superior quality HQ etc.) are so subtle that it's hard, maybe impossible to notice any effect in the game (ie outside of doing specific tests).

The subtllty may be realistic. But, it would help the game if these effects were a bit more noticeable.