The Effectiveness of Flanking MG Fire

[Cross]

Saw an interesting documentary by National Geographic last night: "Guns: Machines of War". The focus was on the development of the MG from the early Gatling gun to the 1 tonne 7 barrelled (each barrel about 21Ft long) 30mm found in the A10 Warthog.

One issue they raised was the importance of 'flanking fire'. They demonstrated this with a Vickers and 250 helium filled balloons, tied down 6ft off the ground and spaced like a WWI company advance (I think 50 balloons line abreast by 5 balloons deep about 6-8ft between balloons). The Vic had only 250 rounds of ammo and at several hundred yards tried to 'kill' as many as possible. They did this twice, once with the MG in front of the "advance" and once with the MG in a flanking position.

The Vic scored 37 'kills' from the front and 240 from the flank. The reason was of course that bullets traveling the length of the company (about 50 balloons deep) had far greater chance of striking someone than bullets going through the depth of the company (about 5 deep). Some individual bullets clearly went through several balloons; as would be the case -to a lesser extent- with powerful ammo going through people.

For me, this raises a slight SP improvement opportunity. I like the more recent tweak that has MG fire wandering into adjacent hexes. But I wonder if this would be more accurately modelled if the MG fire strayed into the hexes directly in front and behind the target hex, perhaps even 2 or 3 hexes in front or behind, but always in 'line of fire' rather than drifting off to the left or the right which is just not as realistic.

This reminds me of the SP improvement made way back, when artillery used to come down in a predictable 4 hex zigzag line, but now comes down in a more realtic random pattern.

But for MGs isn't it more realistic for bullets to wander into and hit those areas directly in line of fire? MGs don't nearly as often miss way off to the left and right.


Cross

[DRG]

It depends entirly on the gunnner and the weapon he's using. Many HMG's when set for LR fire only allow limited vertical adjustment wheras side to side movement is not as resticted. It also depends on the range you are firing the weapon at. Firing from 300 yards puts rounds through every hex between the gun and the target at pretty much the same height wheres if you are firing from 1000 yards you would need to aim higher placing the danger zone closer to the target. We don't model grazing fire in the game

The squad leader board game had this kind of grazing fire rule where everything between the target and the gun would be affected however, what you see in both WinSPmbt and WinSPWW2 gives a good general representation of fire straying from the target hex and is not going to be changed.

Don

[Mobhack]

the whole point in adding zone fire (splash effects in the adjacent hex) for the MG classes was to give MG something similar to this that fit the game engine. The MG classes are now useful for an area supressive effect on tight-packed crowds of infantry - which they were not before in the old code.

Cheers
Andy

[baggypants]

Post deleted by baggypants

[chuckfourth]

Hi Cross
Good Point. Currently the 6 hex modeling reflects the beaten zone effect mentioned by baggypants, but this is a very long range phenomenon as it relies on the inherent variability of each round and to some extent the gun/mount obviously any movement of the gun itsefl with such long range fire will move the beaten zone a long way off target In any case beaten zone wasn’t previously modeled in the game. We shouldn’t confuse this beaten zone with what (I think) Andy is trying to model here, "enfilade" fire, which as already mentioned is restricted to the hexes in line with the gun and target and is a close range phenomenon. I would like to point out that to model enfilade fire correctly the effect needs not only to be restricted to the hexes in line with the MG and target, but the effect in these hexes should be the same as in the target hex. This is why when a well positioned MG is in the flank of a coy or larger infantry advance (invariably in line for control purposes), its good night MR Chips.
Best Regards Chuck.
edit
That is to say in enfilade fire the "extra" affected hexes are hit every bit as hard as the target hex this is also pretty much true for beaten zone also.

[Cross]

I guess the discussion is:

Is the effectiveness of a well placed MG modeled as accurately as we can manage with the code limitations?

Are MGs as powerful on the battlefield (compared to rifles for instance) as they should be?

Most MGs have six shots in a turn, so when engaging a larger infantry advance, we have the ability to target several sections/squads. But so do rifles. By changing targets the fire is not sustained and not as accurate, so tends towards suppression; probably rightly so.

But it doesn’t matter if the MG is in front or on the flank, and in some circumstances it should. Can we model this?

MG fire wandering into adjacent hexes, or ‘the beaten zone’ at longer ranges could be considered inaccurate fire or a suppression oriented ‘miss’, a definite MG characteristic, not shared by rifles, and well modeled in current WinSP.
But ‘enfilade fire’ (nod to Chuckfourth) is not currently modeled.

Offensively, imagine the additional threat if you get a MMG onto the flank of a defensive line.
Defensively, a savvy commander should place MGs on both flanks to protect the front, preferably with overlapping azimuths. An attacking commander should have to think about his line of advance based on flanking MG positions, not just field of fire.

Can a target hex also have fire wander into additional hexes beyond, like heavy artillery also effects adjoining hexes? Perhaps MG fire should ‘come down’ in a 3 or 4 hex zigzag line, or random hexes beyond the target?

If ‘enfilade fire’ could be modeled, it would rightly give MGs more power in certain situations. Making a well placed MG a more serious threat. Imagine getting a MG into a position when it could fire down a road, for example.

Andy and Don, so you understand that this post is meant as constructive not critical:
I think WinSPWW2 is by far the best modeled wargame of its genre. My hat’s off to SPCamo and their cool analytical ability to keep this game on course.

Cheers,
Cross