Super dooper Snipers !

PDF · #1 July 16th, 2006, 09:14 AM

Well, I've again got a gripe towards what I consider an unbalanced unit

... This time it's the Super Sniper !
I've played an Iwo Jima scenario as USMC against an IA Japan assault : but it doesn't develop as I thought (Banzai-ing japanese closing to HtH while being whacked by MG fire), it was rather a long-range context (4-6 hexes distance)

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On my side I had squads with 3BARS and MG teams, but the Japanese had The Dreaded Snipers of Death (the Acc 30 Range Finder 10 guys)

!
And they kind'a won : the snipers were able to virtually eliminate MG crews (and some squads) while being very hard to kill ! The funniest was when 1 sniper shot made 4 casualties in a squad, I envisioned some film where the 4 guys were killed by the same bullet !

I got a Decisive Victory because the IA didn't take any flag, but the casualties were 120 to me vs 240 to IA, and in the 120 more than 50% were sniper kills ! Knowing that it was a pure infantry assault vs entrenched defenders with *lots* of arty, it's rather weird !
It really doesnt look correct, snipers shouldn't be that effective vs entrenched and alerted troops, isn't it ?

Oh and BTW is the game still limited to east/west "rout route" ? In a N/S map it's ridiculous to see "routing" troops marching all over the front line just to get killed... [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif[/img]

PatG · #2 July 16th, 2006, 10:43 AM

Non c'est correct. In the game guide (I believe) it states that a shot represents more than one round fired, so Nakamura Ichi probably dumped a whole magazine into your hapless unit. Mg teams are high on the target list for real life snipers so that's "prototypical' as well. Consider too that elimination of a unit does not mean that every man has been killed or wounded - it means that the unit is no longer a combat effective entity. Imagine if you will a squad where the Sargeant, Corporal 2ic, radio operator and lmg team have all been elimnated by an unseen enemy - 6-8 guys are still un-harmed but probably very shook up and not combat capable.

That said - sounds like the AI got good buys. Repair, continue est bon chance!

junk2drive · #3 July 16th, 2006, 11:14 AM

I recently played a PTO campaign in WW2 and a Vietnam battle in MBT. It always seems that the enemy snipers get kills on every shot and my guys rarely suppress anyone.
I even had a marksman that couldn't hit from two hexes.

As long as this effect is because of adjustable settings I guess that's the way it goes sometimes.

narwan · #4 July 16th, 2006, 12:56 PM

Check the stats. There's a huge difference between a marksman and an elite sniper. Accuracy, range, HE kill and FC are all different.

Snipers are very exensive. If you're suffering heavy casualties you're probably dealing with them the wrong way. I rarely suffer significant losses vs snipers and the more expensive types of snipers never kill their own points worth of my troops. Those are very expensive units.

And as to the effectivenes of snipers vs entrenched troops, they are likely to suffer LESS from the enemy being entrenched than just about any other type of unit.

Snipers aren't unbalanced, they just take skill to deal with (as in RL btw).

Narwan

PDF · #5 July 16th, 2006, 02:21 PM

Quote:

narwan said:
Check the stats. There's a huge difference between a marksman and an elite sniper. Accuracy, range, HE kill and FC are all different.

Snipers are very exensive. If you're suffering heavy casualties you're probably dealing with them the wrong way. I rarely suffer significant losses vs snipers and the more expensive types of snipers never kill their own points worth of my troops. Those are very expensive units.

And as to the effectivenes of snipers vs entrenched troops, they are likely to suffer LESS from the enemy being entrenched than just about any other type of unit.

Snipers aren't unbalanced, they just take skill to deal with (as in RL btw).

Narwan

Huh, what Was I supposed to do besides firing at them, having an entrenched defense vs "human wave" like attack ? Yep I put smoke in the way and arty on them, ot was rather ineffective...
Granted they're expensive, but they could be twice the price and twice as effective, they will be just more unbalanced !
And I concur that my guys could get repeatedly hit from an hidden enemy, the problem here is that the snipers were spotted quite early, and yet unsuppressed by a full platoon fire ... That's the problem !

DRG · #6 July 16th, 2006, 03:50 PM

Experienced players seem to have no problem dealing with snipers and inexperienced ones almost always do. We have been doing this little dance on this subject for years and every time it's brought up I have always built test sceanrios and watched what happens and I always end up wondering if we are all playing the same game. This is almost identical to the "Bunkers are too hard to kill" argument and I always end up wondering if we are all playing the same game after retesting that as well.

And yes the game, as always, is designed to be played left-right not top-bottom and if you play top-bottom the troops will retreat left-right and as long as people keep insisting on trying to break the game by playing top-bottom there will be complaints about how this is "ridiculous". Yes, it is "ridiculous" that some players build top-bottom games knowing the game retreats left-right

Don

DRG · #7 July 16th, 2006, 03:55 PM

Quote:

junk2drive said:
I recently played a PTO campaign in WW2 and a Vietnam battle in MBT. It always seems that the enemy snipers get kills on every shot and my guys rarely suppress anyone. <snip>

The grass is always greener in the other guys yard. The code for snipers is the same if they are yours or the AI's.

Don

junk2drive · #8 July 16th, 2006, 04:29 PM

Hense the word "seems".

I feel the same about bunkers and spider holes, LOL

PDF · #9 July 18th, 2006, 11:18 AM

(Re DRG) Haha, I knew it wasn't normal

! Till now I've had some kind of nose with minor OOB/stats flaws

Don, from what I've understood
- the easy way to fix this is to just remove weapon #2 in this unit (yes it was Japanese unit 67)
- else modify the scenario replacing them with 1-man snipers, in fact one per one : cost-wise the 2-men team is only 2 points more than the 1-man one, 59 vs 57, maybe there's a catch here too !

markgame · #10 July 18th, 2006, 12:49 PM

A bit off-topic, but I just finished reading the book "Sniper" by Adrian Gilbert. Very interesting history of sniping with a fairly comprehensive review of hardware and tactics used.

One interesting anecdote was the use by the US of 37mm anti-tank guns firing canister to combat Japanese snipers in trees. Would be an interesting tactic to try!