Weapons not firing correctly??
 

I'm playing a campaign as the US versus the Japanese during 1941 in the Philippines. I have M3 tanks, M3 75 mm tank destroyers, M4A2 light tanks and infantry. I have just started to engage some of the Japanese infantry with these units and have run into a “problem” where they will fire at them with their slot 1 weapon but will not fire any other weapons even though I’ve made sure that they’re in range.

Example: M3 tank will fire its 37mm gun and 75mm gun but will not fire it CMG or BMG. I can deactivate the 37 and 75 and one MG will fire but not the other. Same for my tank destroyers, they will fire the 75mm TD gun but not the machine gun unless I deselect the 75.

It gets annoying after awhile of selecting a unit, deactivating main guns, firing several times, reactivating weapons and doing it all again for the next tank, TD, etc.

I’ve be playing winSPMBT for awhile and units on that game will fire all weapons until it runs out of rounds for that turn. Is it just that it’s a different game or is there something I need to check in the preferences?

Re: Weapons not firing correctly??
 

Is not a bug, it's a feature.
As far as I now there's an experience check to fire other weapons then the first one.
When I fire at the running infantry for the first time I almosy always turn the main gun off, so they will be hit with MG before getting suppressed by main gun fire.

Re: Weapons not firing correctly??
 

In that time frame, the USA experience level is only about 60. Low experience troops have less chance of firing lower weapon slots (ie higher numbered ones), and concentrate on the prime weapon slot only when they have alternatives.

Especially true for small crews (e.g. 2 or 3 man man light tanks) with several alternate weapons, rather than 10 man rifle sections etc.


Andy

Re: Weapons not firing correctly??
 

I think I've got it now. As my troop’s experience goes up they'll start to fire more of the "secondary" weaponry that their carrying.

Thanks

Re: Weapons not firing correctly??
 

AFAIK the range is also an issue here - IIRC once you get within 6 hexes the secondary weapons will get fired a lot more.

Re: Weapons not firing correctly??
 

At first that’s what I thought I was doing, being to far away. I double checked the listed ranges on the weapons and I was within its range. At one point I had a TD that had been immobilized and it was firing at infantry, in the open, two hexes away and the only thing that was firing was 75.

Re: Weapons not firing correctly??
 

If it was damaged, did it have a full crew? If the crew suffered casaulties, there might be just enough of them to fire one weapon at any range.

Re: Weapons not firing correctly??
 

I had no idea of the mechanism but this is quite realistic, tanks did not tend to fire there MGs at range apart from co-ax as RF. As Griefbringer said 6 hexes seems about the tipping point to bring everything on line in most cases.

Re: Weapons not firing correctly??
 

Yeah the TD had been damaged; it had been strafed/bombed during an air strike.
I’m not sure if there were any crew casualties but it was suppressed some, 4 to 6, if I remember correctly. Some “time” had passed between the air strike and when the infantry got so close.

The thing is that there was another TD sitting beside it when the infantry got so close and it was doing the same thing, only firing the 75. The second TD had not been hit in the air strike and was 4? hexes away when the first one got zapped by the plane. I had moved it up closer to the first during the initial fighting with the infantry.

Re: Weapons not firing correctly??
 

Here’s another interesting development that may or may not be related to the problem. I’m still in battle number one of the campaign. I noticed that I was getting my weapons ranges in meters and not yards. I saved, clicked out to the main screen and reset the display to yards. Restarted my saved game and started back fighting. Now quite a few of my units are banging away with all their weapons. I had a M2A4 with experience of 51 cut loose on a SNLF infantry unit at about 100-150 yards with all three of its MGs.

My question is this, is there a difference in the programming when the computer tells weapon X to fires in meters and when it tells weapon X to fire in yards?