US Sniper rifle???

[Marek_Tucan]

Deputy said:
The Sherman tank had the nickname of "Zippo" among the US troops because of it's tendency to blow up in flames due to it using gasoline as a fuel.

A myth, it was due to unexperienced US crew in African campaign often keeping all kinds of flammable stuff inside the tank and due to relatively exposed ammo in pre-wet storage. Under combat conditions there is nil difference between diesel and gasoline in flammability after penetration.
Just for illustration, German tanks are hardly considered "Zippos" and they used gasoline as well. And they even had worse fuel storage (Sherman got the fuel separated from the crew at least).

As for the tank riders, hey, maybe they're just naturally good at spotting 88 fire and quickly jumping from the tank?

[evan]

As I understand it many US marine snipers where using a variety of private target and hunting rifles through and after the war because they where either the weapon they knew or else they (the sniper) concidered them better than the standard issue item; sort of like thompson's being better than M16's really.

[Deputy]

thatguy96 said:

The sniper rifle data is not meaningless. Its that small variations have such a negligible effect on the game that having anything other than a generic "sniper rifle" is more about name flavor than about stats. You could create every small arm you can think of and incorporate it in game, but the differences would be so small that it simply would not be worth it in the end. Furthermore, if you tried to make them all different you'd probably quickly find that it makes some inaccurately powerful because there isn't enough room to maneuver at this scale in the stats. Furthermore, remember that the training and relative skill of the marksman is not included in the stats for the sniper unit entirely, but in the stats for the weapon, and that the acc figures are as much a comment on the sniper's personal ability as the weapon's base accuracy.

Furthermore, do you have information that suggests that since there was no specific rifle that there were no snipers or marksman? I just don't know, but I think that would be much more of a case to modify the dates at which snipers can be bought than the existence of a type of rifle that it has already been suggested has little to no bearing on any specific type.

Again,if you are only interested in manuvering around huge formations of tanks and troops, snipers aren't all that relevant. Snipers didn't enter into the picture in any quantity for the US until AFTER D-Day. As far as I can tell, pretty much every flavor of small arm HAS been included in the game. Although there are still some missing. Truck drivers and tank crews WERE armed with small arms like M3 Greaseguns and Carbines, not just a 1911A1 and a grenade. Heck, I doubt most truck drivers and tank crews HAD grenades with them unless they begged some from an Infantryman.

Were there "snipers" without sniper rifles? I would say NO. Snipers can fire out to ranges far greater than an ordinary rifleman. But they do that becasue of their rifle. Were there "marksman". Yes, most definitey. But being accurate with a rifle still doesn't make you a "sniper".

Here's my bottom line...the sniper rifles and snipers of Germany and Russia were probably the best in WW2. And the sim should represent that. Saying all sniper rifles and snipers are "equal" is like saying a Sherman tank is equal to a Tiger tank is equal to a T-34 is equal to a Churchill. Will snipers matter for those playing huge tank battles or human wave attacks? Of course not. But everyone DOESN'T play that type of battle in WinSPWW2.
If the sniper is that meaningless, just delete him and move on. Otherwise, let's try and get the OOB to at least reflect SOME kind of historical accuracy. You wouldn't want a Tiger tank to pop up in 1939 would you???

Dep

[DRG]

Dep, you're a troll and I'm calling you on that. You twist every perceived "error" to prove your point but the argument is totally bogus. We stated right from the beginning that "in this game a "sniper rifle" is the same no matter who's using it" I said you could think of it by any name you like . You twisted that into some kind of damning evidence that we are providing "a sniper rifle available months or even years before they were even produced " when in fact snipers and "sniper rifles" have been used by the US Army and USMC in every war it participated in in the 20th century. During WW1 the USMC used the Springfield 1903 with 5x Lyman and Winchester A5 scopes. During WW2 and later they mostly used Springfield 1903A1 rifles with the 8x Unertl scope and Springfield 1903A4 with the same scopes than the US Army (M73B1) and in WW1 and the interwar years the US Army used the Springfield 1903 as well so there's your "sniper rifle". It doesn't matter one iota if snipers did or didn't "enter into the picture in any quantity for the US until AFTER D-Day" The point is they DID exist and are in the OOB.

Even suggesting that the decision to make all sniper rifles equal is the same as "saying a Sherman tank is equal to a Tiger tank is equal to a T-34 is equal to a Churchill" is complete and utter bull**** as is the remark "You wouldn't want a Tiger tank to pop up in 1939 would you?". Neither remark as ANY bearing on sniper rifles and does nothing to advance the idea that they are so it's trolling simply to stir up [censored].

Go away. You're really starting to piss me off.

Don

[thatguy96]

Deputy said:

Again,if you are only interested in manuvering around huge formations of tanks and troops, snipers aren't all that relevant. Snipers didn't enter into the picture in any quantity for the US until AFTER D-Day. As far as I can tell, pretty much every flavor of small arm HAS been included in the game. Although there are still some missing. Truck drivers and tank crews WERE armed with small arms like M3 Greaseguns and Carbines, not just a 1911A1 and a grenade. Heck, I doubt most truck drivers and tank crews HAD grenades with them unless they begged some from an Infantryman.

Were there "snipers" without sniper rifles? I would say NO. Snipers can fire out to ranges far greater than an ordinary rifleman. But they do that becasue of their rifle. Were there "marksman". Yes, most definitey. But being accurate with a rifle still doesn't make you a "sniper".

Here's my bottom line...the sniper rifles and snipers of Germany and Russia were probably the best in WW2. And the sim should represent that. Saying all sniper rifles and snipers are "equal" is like saying a Sherman tank is equal to a Tiger tank is equal to a T-34 is equal to a Churchill. Will snipers matter for those playing huge tank battles or human wave attacks? Of course not. But everyone DOESN'T play that type of battle in WinSPWW2.
If the sniper is that meaningless, just delete him and move on. Otherwise, let's try and get the OOB to at least reflect SOME kind of historical accuracy. You wouldn't want a Tiger tank to pop up in 1939 would you???

Dep

Firstly, I'd like to say that the statement that "Snipers didn't enter into the picture in any quantity for the US until AFTER D-Day" seems to be confused by your assertion that the purpose built M1903A4 had been around since early 1943, and that you only speculate that there were no snipers using other types of rifles or basic infantry rifles before hand.

I fully disagree with your assertion that a sniper rifle makes a sniper. That just seem to make sense in my mind. A sniper is a sniper if he's treated as such regardless of the weapon he uses. Marine snipers in Vietnam used commercial Winchester Model 70s, or are you suggesting these weapons were specifically designed for unparalleled accuracy at some magic "sniper" range (ie, over 800-1000 yds)?

As for every flavor of small arms being included in the game, it is very far from being complete in my opinion. Those that are included are often included for name flavor only as I had asserted earlier. Generic pistol, shotgun, and sniper rifle weapons are in the OOBs, which already create a whole swath of modeled weapons, as does treating every Thompson the same way, and not including lesser known SMGs, or even suppressed SMGs (maybe that's worth a stat point somewhere). There simply is not enough room for variation in my mind to make these tweaks worth the effort, especially when there's nothing to suggest they have a noticeable effect on game play, and the game's cost calculator using its assumptions about what affects game play relative to cost usually agrees.

I've done a fair amount of OOB editing in the last two years and played around with all sorts of things, and when it comes to small arms, let me say that the only small arm I felt compelled to create was a fully-automatic shotgun, as different from the standard shotgun. I felt a reasonable HEK increase was warranted because of the fact that the weapon was no longer in the generic shotgun class. Beyond that, everything else has been for flavor. Saying that all sniper rifles are equal in terms of this game is no where near saying a jeep is equal to a tank which seems to be the extreme comparison you're looking for. You simply don't have that kind of flexibility if you try and make it fit with other existing game stats for all classes of weapons.

If you believe the Russian and German snipers were better up the exp in the formation or the stats of the unit. Trying to up their ability by mucking with the weapon stats will likely leave you disappointed and still complaining about the inability of them to perform better then their wannabe more accurate than usual American brethren. Most of my OOB work has been in creating specialist infantry, not more jacked up vehicles, and let me tell you this yields more definitive results than weapon stats. Militia using a my "assorted rifles" weapon, don't make use of the fact that it actually has better stats than the M16 weapon if their -10 exp and morale in their formations.

And lastly, you're still equating meaningless to inaccurate in your mind. The sniper is not meaningless, especially if the one comment from another user about them picking people of all over the place and being impossible to kill is at all true. They are most definitely an important factor in the game and do have a place. You seem to want to suggest that if it can't be 110% accurate then it should be nixed from the game. At that point, you might as well hack out all infantry units because of your assertion that all the small arms must have unique stats.

[Marek_Tucan]

evan said:
As I understand it many US marine snipers where using a variety of private target and hunting rifles through and after the war because they where either the weapon they knew or else they (the sniper) concidered them better than the standard issue item; sort of like thompson's being better than M16's really.

The same for Germans and, well, everyone. Specialised sniper rifles were always in short supply and civillian hunting etc. rifles were used, as well as makeshift field mounts on general issue rifles.

[Deputy]

DRG said:
Dep, you're a troll and I'm calling you on that. You twist every perceived "error" to prove your point but the argument is totally bogus. We stated right from the beginning that "in this game a "sniper rifle" is the same no matter who's using it" I said you could think of it by any name you like . You twisted that into some kind of damning evidence that we are providing "a sniper rifle available months or even years before they were even produced " when in fact snipers and "sniper rifles" have been used by the US Army and USMC in every war it participated in in the 20th century. During WW1 the USMC used the Springfield 1903 with 5x Lyman and Winchester A5 scopes. During WW2 and later they mostly used Springfield 1903A1 rifles with the 8x Unertl scope and Springfield 1903A4 with the same scopes than the US Army (M73B1) and in WW1 and the interwar years the US Army used the Springfield 1903 as well so there's your "sniper rifle". It doesn't matter one iota if snipers did or didn't "enter into the picture in any quantity for the US until AFTER D-Day" The point is they DID exist and are in the OOB.

Even suggesting that the decision to make all sniper rifles equal is the same as "saying a Sherman tank is equal to a Tiger tank is equal to a T-34 is equal to a Churchill" is complete and utter bull**** as is the remark "You wouldn't want a Tiger tank to pop up in 1939 would you?". Neither remark as ANY bearing on sniper rifles and does nothing to advance the idea that they are so it's trolling simply to stir up [censored].

Go away. You're really starting to piss me off.

Don

Don,
I congradulate you and others on making a "perfect" sim that functions in WinXP . In the future I will consult with other users in PM who feel the same as me concerning OOB and other errors. Goodbye.

Dep

[DRG]

Thanks. It's just about the best Christmas present I could ask for.

Now..........if anyone else thinks the game has "death rays attached to the bombs" or that "The P-51 Mustang seems to be a flying Tiger tank. " or that "the OOBs slanted so much at an Allied advantage in WinSPWW2 that altering the Preferences makes no difference whatsoever" or that even when the game user preferences are reduced to the lowest possible number for the US side you think that " Even with those changes in the preferences, the US Infantry appear to be supersoldiers." or that you totally misinterpret the help manual info that... "HE Kill - the value of the round at killing soft targets. Bigger is better!." and then jump to the conclusion that this means "it's only measuring the size (diameter) of the projectile vs it's damage to humans" ( HE kill has nothing to do with warhead size if this is too confusing ) and then claim " the OOBs are going to need some major reworking to get them correct. " or if you want try to make the point that there is ". No way!! " the " Thompson and MP38/40 is shown as having a 3 hex range." because you think "each hex is 250 meters across " ( it's fifty and always has been and even SP3 was "only "200 yards across ).......IF any of you reading this believe all that ( or even some of it... ) Please follow Dep off this forum.

........and all that came out in less than 40 posts

I am quite willing to discuss real or imagined flaws in the game but all this was so over the top as to be trollish.

Don

[pdoktar]

As said this is a Bn level game. So generic bolt action-rifle, self-loading rifle, assault rifle will have the same generic characteristics. Also you can find out that different snipers have different fire control and range finder values, that has an effect on firing both moving and stationary targets, that try to simulate better training and optics of different snipers.

Pics of what rifle this or that sniper has is irrelevant. In MBT, snipers sometimes have dragunov as a pic or some old scoped bolt-action, when they should have "correct" pic of scoped SLR, PSG-90, whatever. You can say that pics are wrong, but there´s always something wrong. Do not use the pics as a reference what this sniper is currently carrying.

The problem of making different rifles matter is as said, the scope of the game. You can do your research and do it yourself. If the developers would do it, there would millions of people arguing that this rifle is actually better than the other one, and this is so unreliable, that it can´t have any better stats that that other piece. This is a compromise to make generic sniper rifles to end such pointless discussions, considering this is a battalion level game. As everybody likes or dislikes their personal weapons and find some other better for them, there would be an unbelievable amount of threads considering only different sniper rifles and game designer would be swamped, if they tried to really evaluate these minute differences, not considering the pressures of national prides still at stake in this world. When the sniper rifles would be evaluated, there should be different rifles and SMGs and for the sake of it, flamethrowers and hand grenades, you can see where this is going, huh?

[Deputy]

DRG said:
Thanks. It's just about the best Christmas present I could ask for.

Now..........if anyone else thinks the game has "death rays attached to the bombs" or that "The P-51 Mustang seems to be a flying Tiger tank. " or that "the OOBs slanted so much at an Allied advantage in WinSPWW2 that altering the Preferences makes no difference whatsoever" or that even when the game user preferences are reduced to the lowest possible number for the US side you think that " Even with those changes in the preferences, the US Infantry appear to be supersoldiers." or that you totally misinterpret the help manual info that... "HE Kill - the value of the round at killing soft targets. Bigger is better!." and then jump to the conclusion that this means "it's only measuring the size (diameter) of the projectile vs it's damage to humans" ( HE kill has nothing to do with warhead size if this is too confusing ) and then claim " the OOBs are going to need some major reworking to get them correct. " or if you want try to make the point that there is ". No way!! " the " Thompson and MP38/40 is shown as having a 3 hex range." because you think "each hex is 250 meters across " ( it's fifty and always has been and even SP3 was "only "200 yards across ).......IF any of you reading this believe all that ( or even some of it... ) Please follow Dep off this forum.

........and all that came out in less than 40 posts

I am quite willing to discuss real or imagined flaws in the game but all this was so over the top as to be trollish.

Don

I just wish there was some way to send this crappy game (with the designer's attitudes it doesn't deserve to be called a "simulation") back for a refund.