Re: Suppression: HMGs verses Artillery and Infantry
 

Also do not forget if you wanted real ammo loads, T-72 would get 30 rounds for the 12,7mm MG or so... ;)
This is worthy of another idea though - the .50 weapons usually have pretty low practical RoF and ammo supply, either mobile or mounted, OTOH according to some British study the suppression effect of .50 is HUGE compared to 5.56 and 7.62 (which are not that far away)... Thought of trying to give .50s a WH size of 2 so that they have a different graphic (AC) and bigger suppression (and HE penetration) compared to rifle caliber weapons.
BTW also tried a similar approach with snipers, giving the sniper rifle a class of 2 (so that you can do say a sniper team without everyone in the team firing the sniper rifle) and WH 4 (to create a beaten zone) with HE kill of 1... My reasoning was that snipers were also pretty suppressive weapons and that their suppressive effect was often far bigger than factual.

Re: Suppression: HMGs verses Artillery and Infantry
 

Thinking about it 2 is acceptable if think of it as has been asked to move up & assist. When he first arrives unsure what hes aiming at so lays a bit of covering fire while getting a handle on the situation.

Re: Suppression: HMGs verses Artillery and Infantry
 

Speaking of the ammo available for a squad MG, historically a British rifle section would have around 1000 reserved for their Bren gun, and their German equivalent would pack around the same amount of ammo for their MG. US rifle squad would have around 500 rounds for their BAR.

As for the HMG sections, historically these tended to have lots of men to haul the guns and ammo. For example late war German rifle company HMG section would have 18 men, 2 MGs, 2 horse-drawn carts and horse-drawn wagon allocated to it according to the official TOE (with 3 of the men being designated as the cart/wagon drivers).

Re: Suppression: HMGs verses Artillery and Infantry
 

I've seen reputable figures for ammo carried at:

Bren 1000
MG34 1150
MG42 1150
BAR 640

The Bren, Squad MG34/42 and BAR each have 80 ammo units assigned.

But the MG34/42 have about double the KILL value. I assume this is because the German MGs have about double the rate of fire.

I think it's sensible that those weapons get higher KILL values, but to achieve that KILL value they should be using up ammo at twice the rate!

Currently the Germans get the benefit of their weapons (high rate of fire/KILL) but the allies don’t get the benefit of their weapons (low rate of fire/low ammo usage).

If we ignore historical ammo load-outs as ‘paper levels’ - and assume that in reality all squads carried the same amount (as much ammo as was sensible) - but took into account KILL/ammo use, then ammo load-outs might look like this:

Bren (kill 5) AMMO: 80

MG34 (kill 8) AMMO: 56

MG42 (kill 10) AMMO: 40

BAR (kill 5) AMMO: 80


If we were to use historical ammo load-outs then they might look like this:

Bren (kill 5) AMMO: 67

MG34 (kill 8) AMMO: 48

MG42 (kill 10) AMMO: 38

BAR (kill 5) AMMO: 43


The same KILL/ammo disparity exists for the 30cal tri-pod MGs. The Germans get KILL 10, the US/UK get KILL 5.



Cross

Re: Suppression: HMGs verses Artillery and Infantry
 

Been a long time since I read anything but if memory serves what made the German MG outstanding was not so much its ROF but more its flexibility. Its used by squads as a LMG or can have good optical sights & tripod fitted.
Practical sustainable ROF was not that diffrent to allied MGs esp if take into account swapping barrels etc but it was the MG of WW2.
Also ammo figures quoted are they in squad role seem to remember at least MG42 used in HMG role carried a lot of ammo, possibly they could carry more as for a HMG it was comparitevly light.

Re: Suppression: HMGs verses Artillery and Infantry
 

Hi John,

Yes, ammo figures quoted are for squads.

I wouldn't call the MG34 any more flexible than other MGs. The Bren was often fitted to mounts and used on vehicles or as an AA weapon. In fact you could pick the Bren up and use it on the move:

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/9066/brenq.jpg

Now that's flexible! Try doing that with a MG34 ;)

As for sustainable rate of fire. You're saying the MG42 had the same sustainable RoF as allied guns which fire half the RPM. Which means you're saying the MG42 should fire half as often as the allied weapons because of cooling and barrel change issues?

If that's true then in SP the MG42 should get only 3 shots a turn instead of 6. But it should still have half the SP ammo load-out as the allied guns. Then they would start and finish firing on the same turn and use up the same amount of bullets (not SP ammo); the allied gun would have fired twice as often as the German gun, but the allied gun would have caused half the damage for each fire/hit.

Sounds reasonable to me :)

If the MG42 tri-pod crew served gun carried more ammo than other HMGs, I've not heard that. Other nations HMGs had support vehicles instead of support horses. And even if the MG42 did carry more ammo, then we should be paying more to purchase the MG42. Currently the MG42 gets what amounts to twice the ammo or twice the damage, and according to you twice the RoF, and all for the same price!

My point is that there doesn't appear to be a justification for current ammo advantage given to the German MGs.



Simon