Infantry LMGs
 

Is there a set rationale for statting out infantry support weapons the way you did? Some choices I can understand--the MG3's awesome rate of fire earning it an HE rating of 10--but others aren't easy to fathom. (The M60 with Acc 18/HEK 5, the Bren with Acc 21/HEK 5 despite being very different weapons? The RPK-74 and L86 LSW both having very high Acc 25+ and HEK 4, but the M27 IAR having the same stats as the M1918 BAR at Acc 17/HEK 5?)

Because, correct me if I'm wrong, it appears that the various support-type weapons were coded in without standardization, and now there are some distinct oddities in how they perform. If so, it may be a good idea to plonk down some ground rules on Acc and HEK ratings for them, to reflect how--for instance--a belt-fed M60 can sustain a lot more firepower than an M14A1 SAW.

Re: Infantry LMGs
 

Acc is based on round diameter to barrel length ratio.
HEK on rate of fire.

Is it perfect?
No.
Is it something that can be standardized and relatively easily verified.
Yes.

Re: Infantry LMGs
 

Open up MOBHack Help and read the section on Formula for Guns. Accuracy is very much standardised on that formula

Re: Infantry LMGs
 

I see that, and I'd still disagree with some variables (scoped, almost marksman-like M27 being less accurate than an unscoped RPK-74, and on par with an M14A1 SAW?), but in general I can live with that.

However, MHMBT doesn't say anything about HE kill ratings and how it applies to small arms or machine guns--and matching it to ROF breaks down in implementation when belt-fed machine guns have the same HE kill as an automatic M14.

Re: Infantry LMGs
 

You can disagree with some variables all you like but I try to use the same formula for all guns otherwise we are back to basing weapons stats on "opinion" and everyone has a different one.


OK, here's what we're going to do.

YOU make a list of all the LMG's in the game.....by name and nation and on one side put the data we are using and the date you think we should be using on the other and when you are done I will look at it but you could cherry pick a LMG here and another there and ask why this one is like that and this other one is like this....for YEARS. I know we could because I know I've had the same conversation with others before on similar issues and it comes down to if you want to nitpick my work you need to do your own and present a logical alternative for me to consider. Most new weapons put into this game are put in based on what else in the game is similar and how is this different .....or not..... if it's not significantly different in any way we consider GAME SIGNIFICANT then the old one gets pasted in and the new name gets pasted over the old.

There is WAY too much obsessing over tiny details that mean NOTHING after all the random factors that this game uses to produce combat results are factored in...... and "accuracy" is one of them..... that has to go through the firer morale and experience then the target morale and experience then terrain factors and other things as well.. The REASON this game has lasted this long is BECAUSE if you do 'A' then 'B' the game hardly ever does 'C' every time.


Spend the time and produce a list and I'll look at it...... I may not agree with it and I may not implement it but I WILL look at it otherwise this is just random sniping while cherry picking targets. The M60 and Bren comparison was interesting as I had never compared the two but I know for certain that those were set up before I took full control of the OOB's and now we are faced with THIS reality

Don

Re: Infantry LMGs
 

While we are at it - lets move this to the proper sub-forum for the topic, rather than the main game forum.

Andy

Re: Infantry LMGs
 

DRG, I'll take that seriously. It'll be an interesting side-project, and I've got just enough of an OCD touch for it to sound worthwhile. Do you want it as a Google spreadsheet, or OBAT files, or something else?

Before I start, I'll lay out my intent, so as to make clear I'm not making changes arbitrarily.

ACC: for now, for the most part, I'll leave them as is, assuming that they're calculated according to the caliber formula in Mobhack.


HEK baselines:

Box-fed: 4
Drum-fed: 6
Belt-fed: 8

Automatic rifle: -1 (penalizing automatic rifles--BAR, M14 SAW, heavy-barrel FALs)
Battle-rifle caliber: +1 (rationale: penetrating light cover to more of an extent than assault-caliber SAWs can)
ROF bonus?: +1

The -1 malus in "automatic rifle" reflects the necessity to fire short bursts to avoid overheating, in lightly-built automatic rifles. This is intended to penalize the BAR, for instance, but not the Bren. There will be some edge cases like the RPK series; my inclination is not to penalize them. (This will also hit the L86 LSW and the M27 IAR, both of which make up for the decreased HEK by their increased accuracy--they are essentially DMRs firing short bursts.)

The ROF bonus gives the MG42/MG3 HEK 10, while most belt-fed GPMGs would get HEK 9. This is meant to reflect the sustained-versus-cyclic rates debate, and the conclusion most armies seemed to have settled on--i.e., the difference isn't great. I'll provisionally say that if it cycles above, say, 1000 RPM, and if it is drum- or belt-fed, it'll earn the bonus.

What's lost in this schema is the portability of AR-caliber machine guns like the Minimi. So, statistically, a belt-fed 7.62mm GPMG is just going to be "better" than a belt-fed 5.56mm SAW. Since moving accuracy isn't really modeled for infantry, the SAW's better portability will be lost.

This also means that similar weapons like the PKM, the M60, and the FN MAG are going to end up with HEK 9.

If these baselines seem reasonable--and I'm open to suggestions--I think I can begin the slog...

Re: Infantry LMGs
 

I volunteer to do this with all the experience/morale settings in this game. And I am serious by saying this.

Re: Infantry LMGs
 

I already know what they are exactly and I am not much interested in changing them.

Re: Infantry LMGs
 

I'm not sure I agree with the HEK baselines and I DO NOT have the time ATM to consider the issue. Neither am I much interested in changing every LMG in the game :down:AT ALL:down: which is what you are suggesting as there are 531 of them and changing them will lead to upsetting the balance for MMG and HMG as well( and requiring standardization with winSPWW2 ).....and so on and so on all for a relatively negligible change in-game result.

What you REALLY need to do for your own information is build a test OOB with test units using the current numbers and test units using what your new system would use then playtest a dozen games with the units fighting side by side and prove to me that game results change significantly as a result .....and you may have noted there hasn't been anyone else but you complaining about it.

SO....we are back to using the existing system and you proving that a specific weapon is significantly under or over powered and that changing that will not cause a domino effect cascade with dozens of other weapons and I will "simplify" that by providing a CSV of every WC2 weapon in the database that has a Warhead size 1 ....so all LMGs

Re: Infantry LMGs
 

Addendum

I think before we head any further down this rabbit hole we need to focus in on what you think the "problem" actually IS and how the conclusion it was "a problem" was arrived at.

So.... was this the result of observation during gameplay or trolling though the MOBHack database and comparing numbers?

Don

Re: Infantry LMGs
 

I decided to get ahead of this a bit to save everyone ( me primarily ) time and effort in the long run

IF anyone does look though that CSV I have no doubt someone will find something to quibble about. I've been doing this too long to not know better.

One thing I just discovered today...because there is simply too much data to remember every last weapon....but it relates to the Bren as that was brought up right at the start.

In the game, the Bren LMG has an HEK of 5. In the game the L4A1 LMG has an HEK of 8. The "problem" is an L4A1 is simply a 7.62 Bren

oops....

I'm not going to take credit for that but I did miss it for 15 years.( and so did EVERYONE ELSE)

However, it does allow me to test two near identical weapons with 2 different HEK's that are seemingly significant in difference

All tests used target infantry with speed set to zero. All the shooters only had their Bren or L4A1 active. Visibility was 70 and the range was 450m

EDIT As well....both the shooters AND the targets had their Experience and morale set to 70 as that is an important factor the game uses to determine hits and morale status as well and most people do not ensure that those values are stabilized as it does affect combat resolution results....units with high experience hit their targets more often and targets with lower experience get hit more often so any test like this MUST use 70 for both values as that is the median.

TEST 1

Target 1 ( Bren ) 2 casualties status Pinned

Target 2 ( Bren ) 2 casualties status Pinned

Target 3 ( Bren ) 2 casualties status Pinned

--------------------------------------------------------------

Target 4 ( L4A1 ) 2 casualties status Pinned

Target 5 ( L4A1 ) 1 casualty status Pinned

Target 6 ( L4A1 ) 3 casualties status Routed


Battle report was 12

Test 2


Target 1 ( Bren ) 1 casualty status Pinned

Target 2 ( Bren ) 2 casualties status Pinned

Target 3 ( Bren ) 0 casualties status Pinned

--------------------------------------------------------------

Target 4 ( L4A1 ) 1 casualty status Pinned

Target 5 ( L4A1 ) 2 casualties status Pinned

Target 6 ( L4A1 ) 0 casualties status Pinned

Battle report was 6


Test 3



Target 1 ( Bren ) 1 casualty status Pinned

Target 2 ( Bren ) 1 casualty status Pinned

Target 3 ( Bren ) 2 casualties status Pinned

--------------------------------------------------------------

Target 4 ( L4A1 ) 1 casualty status Pinned

Target 5 ( L4A1 ) 3 casualties status Routed

Target 6 ( L4A1 ) 1 casualty status Pinned

Battle report was 9

a slight difference( really slight )...not 100's of hours work difference. There is more variation put in by the random number generator than the OOB stats and points out in this game in this scale of combat simulation... A LMG is a LMG is a LMG and LMG HEK or ACC values a point here or there are a mere grain of sand on the balance scale this game uses to produce combat results

Re: Infantry LMGs
 

In a 5 minute game turn the feed mechanism (box, drum, belt) is pretty irrelevant. This isn't an FPS where a second or two one way or the other matters.

I'd look at the stabilization method; none, bipod, or tripod: and standard sights; iron or scoped: rather then caliber or general method of use/employment.

And while I agree with Don, I'm curious to see what you come up with.

Re: Infantry LMGs
 

I have used both the GPMG and the LMG.

The LMG with a good 2 man crew produces sufficient fire downrange, is lighter to carry, has no belt to entangle itself in foliage etc, and it was a joy to strip and clean after the GPMG. (The latter filled up with gunk and was not a fun thing to clean - definitely a 2 man task.)

Having a top-mounted box mag, the LMG was simple to keep fed with the No 1 simply whipping the mag off and calling "change" as he did so, no2 then plonking a new one directly onto the gun easily. No fiddling underneath the weapon (like say a BAR would require, with the no2 there only able to pass the mag to no1 to then fiddle into place himself). The top-mounted mag and the change process meant no1 could remain laid onto the target as well. Unlike a BAR, it had a quick-change barrel with a handle so you did not need an asbestos mitt (a feature the GPMG carried on).

The LMG, when originally in 303 as the BREN was designed for the old WW1 type marching fire, carried at the hip on its sling. When doing so, the top mounted mag meant an easy change, unlike the BAR which would require fiddling under the weapon. The GPMG could be slung and used from the hip, but was a bit of a beast to do so. (NB we were particularly instructed back then to restrict the term BREN to ones in 303 (which were still around in caded forces etc.), LMG for the 7.62 conversion. Nobody back in the 1970s ever used the "L-numbers" - doing so meant you were a "train-spotter":)! - and if you did do so then it would probably lead to a quick run round the drill hall with the weapon held above your head:hurt:)

The GPMG did have the ability to loose off great bursts of fire when required, but 99.99% of section tactics had no real need of fire hosing...

The LMG was quite accurate, and it was used as a sniping weapon in single-shot mode in WW2. That was also in the pamphlets for initial use in the defence, so as not to give away the position of the gun group too early in the contact. GPMG only had automatic, though with a little practice you could get it to "single tap" - frowned on if you did that on the range though!.

The LMG also had a slow rate of fire, which the data-ferrets would probably "penalize" it for. But in reality the low ROF meant the weapon was extremely easy to control on auto, and you could direct the fire extremely easily as it went of in its distinctive "duf duf duf". Note that the USA came to the same conclusion with its SPIW automatic rifle concept of the 60s and 70s. A low ROF leads to controllable auto-fire. And also does not burn through mags at silly rates.

The GPMGs ability to fire big busts really was of any use when tripod mounted, with a set of heavy barrels used to deal with the excess heat. In light mode you were to use bursts of 3-5 and maybe the odd 10 shot in special circumstances such as in an ambush situation. The LMG with 30 rounds in the can could do that just fine. So no need for some artificial lowering of its HE value in game terms.

There is a lot more than just a simple reading of book numbers and guesstimates on magazine capacity etc in determining what an MG should score as a real-world system.

In real-world application then an LMG and a GPMG are really pretty much equivalent devices. The German LMGs with their 1200 round rate of fire do get a mention in many WW2 memoirs, but it seems the high rate of fire was more of a morale effect rather than any noticeable on-target effect, and it did chew through the ammo!. A BAR though would be a little less use as an LMG - but then it was an SAW in any case.

A SAW is operated by one man to produce occasional burps of fire with inevitable pauses as the gunner feeds the beastie. The SAW has problems with keeping up a sustained base of fire (whether its the gunner having to fiddle with underneath-mounted mags, or single-handedly dealing with long belts all by himself).

Quite frankly - I would probably have just an "LMG" and a "SAW" weapon class with just 2 data points. No need to differentiate micro-details between a BREN, a Spandau, an M60 or an FN GPMG. All have the same game effect, as they also do in reality. It is also what 99% of tabletop wargame rules do.

Re: Infantry LMGs
 

I agree with that sentiment. I think that machine guns should be standardized in the same fashion as rifles and assault rifles were.
In game stats there is no difference not only between AKM and AK-74 but between AK-74 and M-16 and so on. Why there is difference between RPK and RPK-74? Different names should be retained for a flavor reasons mostly.

Re: Infantry LMGs
 

I am not a specialist for weapons, but I have found the ideal opportunity for me to be satisfied with the game. Whenever I think something is wrong with the units or the weapons, i change them to my satisfaction. It is my Game!

This LMG thing, why not use all the expertise of qualified men and put everything into a mod? If the users love it, the modmakers could issue one for all nations perhaps?

Speaking in general, not because of this LMG story:

Sometimes I think that every time an expert presents a WW2-postcard in which a MG is mounted on a bike, the game is changed to be more accurate. Then after a while, it falls on someone that this MG is not simply mounted on the bike. It is mounted between the bicycle handlebar! And, of course, the expert asks for rectification. But the programming reaches its limits or either it would assume a horrible amount of time ... there is no way to please everyone.