Wishlist: Suppression: HMGs verses Artillery and Infantry

[Cross]

Hi Ray,

I agree that attempting to compare HMGs with artillery is ‘apples and oranges’.

I will run a few tests of my own, and see what I come up with.


John,

You seem to support the status-quo, but make a couple of interesting remarks:

"The simple answer is if probably if someone abuses it dont play them again."

What is the abuse of z-fire? You appear to answer this question in the following statement:

"What I am trying to say is most players I have come across dont Z fire them every turn they use z fire sensibly."

Why is z-firing a MG every turn not sensible?

What I’m saying is, that if HMG z-fire is correct then how can it be abused?

Do we accuse players of abusing artillery when they fire it every turn? Why not?

In the end, does the game ‘feel right’? When we have to fabricate agreements not to overuse (abuse) a weapon, that’s about a big as sign as you are going to get that something is out of kilter.


regards,
Cross

[Cross]

You are right about the RoF for plotted, and the damage/suppression would be far greater for plotted fire. Which makes me feel a lot better about MG z-fire situation.

Another thing that makes feel better is the fact that infantry z-fire suppresses the target hex about 10.1, and infantry have 2 target hexes. Compared to MGs which suppress the target hex just a little more and the splash hexes only about 3 or 4 each. Which means MG are not suppressing far more than they should be when compared to infantry rpm.

regards,
Simon

[Cross]

Infantry
I remembered an old thread that said rifle ammo units are 1 for 1 round, times the number of rifles in the section; and MG ammo units represent a burst of 5 rounds. But I assume this was for the squad LMG, which would mean it had 450 rounds available.

As one turn is about 2-3 minutes, this would mean that infantry are definitely being careful with ammo in firefights. But as you suggested, the game designers probably didn’t want ammo trucks all over the battlefield.

MGs
I can’t believe the same 1:5 ratio applies to crew MGs because they obviously cause a bit more than 3 times the suppression of a squad LMG, and as a crew served gun you’d expect them to carry and use a lot more ammo.

While we are doing all this speculating…let’s run with the 3 times more than LMGs, then perhaps 1 HMG ammo unit equals a burst of 15 rounds, in which case 90 units equals 1,350 rounds. 15 rounds would be a 1 second burst for a MG34.

This load-out, of just over 5 boxes of ammo, would also make sense as a reasonable amount that a 4 man crew would carry. Though, 5 boxes are only one minutes worth for a MG42 at full auto. But this would match the conservative use of infantry ammo.

Z-fire
The game was designed before z-fire was introduced. It could be that HMGs were considered more of an infantry direct fire weapon before z-fire, but are now more of a suppression/support weapon post z-fire, making them more closely aligned to mortars. And as such perhaps they should now suffer the same ammo supply issues as mortars?

I don’t know…It’s fun to kick this stuff around, but in the end it’s what makes a better game; and that may be in the eye of the beholder.

I think most – but not all - would prefer to limit z-fire, and ammo is certainly a way to do that. Some players would love to see ammo become more of a concern, even for infantry; others would prefer that ammo wasn’t something they had to worry about. But for those who don’t want to run out of ammo, there’s a little button in ‘Preferences’ called “Ammo Limit”, turn it OFF, and you and your opponent can fire z-fire all day long


Cross

[Imp]

limiting Z fire would need some sort of trust & think could exempt troops as only time I tend to do that is moving adjacent on occasion say in woods. The game makes it that inacurate with no LOS can easily pin your own troops which is correct they are blind firing.
Otherwise Z Fire main uses.
1) Firing through smoke normaly towards targets you had a LOS to, what Z fire was mainly introduced to allow I think.
2) MG is in transit misjudged LOS but important so fire anyway hoping splash hits
3) Soft targets in a group in LOS will Z fire if an empty hex may cause more splash especialy if they are running to keep them at it.
4) Firing at a hidden firer as in someone recieved fire from that hex but not visible.
5) If I know an enemy squad made it near my MG will attempt to pin it as the MG will probably not win the close quarters firefight.
6) On odd ocasion if my troops have blundered into others near by may try & pin them to save my troops from counter attack.

What I think you are objecting to is blind firing all or nearly all every turn just to fire them, I have not come across this very often seems a rare tactic.
Intrestingly as never really thought about all the above with the possible exception of 2 seem reasonable.

[Griefbringer]

Originally Posted by Cross

MG ammo units represent a burst of 5 rounds. But I assume this was for the squad LMG, which would mean it had 450 rounds available.

Speaking of the ammo available for a squad MG, historically a British rifle section would have around 1000 reserved for their Bren gun, and their German equivalent would pack around the same amount of ammo for their MG. US rifle squad would have around 500 rounds for their BAR.

As for the HMG sections, historically these tended to have lots of men to haul the guns and ammo. For example late war German rifle company HMG section would have 18 men, 2 MGs, 2 horse-drawn carts and horse-drawn wagon allocated to it according to the official TOE (with 3 of the men being designated as the cart/wagon drivers).

[Marek_Tucan]

Also do not forget if you wanted real ammo loads, T-72 would get 30 rounds for the 12,7mm MG or so...
This is worthy of another idea though - the .50 weapons usually have pretty low practical RoF and ammo supply, either mobile or mounted, OTOH according to some British study the suppression effect of .50 is HUGE compared to 5.56 and 7.62 (which are not that far away)... Thought of trying to give .50s a WH size of 2 so that they have a different graphic (AC) and bigger suppression (and HE penetration) compared to rifle caliber weapons.
BTW also tried a similar approach with snipers, giving the sniper rifle a class of 2 (so that you can do say a sniper team without everyone in the team firing the sniper rifle) and WH 4 (to create a beaten zone) with HE kill of 1... My reasoning was that snipers were also pretty suppressive weapons and that their suppressive effect was often far bigger than factual.

[Imp]

Thinking about it 2 is acceptable if think of it as has been asked to move up & assist. When he first arrives unsure what hes aiming at so lays a bit of covering fire while getting a handle on the situation.

[Cross]

Originally Posted by Griefbringer

Speaking of the ammo available for a squad MG, historically a British rifle section would have around 1000 reserved for their Bren gun, and their German equivalent would pack around the same amount of ammo for their MG. US rifle squad would have around 500 rounds for their BAR.

I've seen reputable figures for ammo carried at:

Bren 1000
MG34 1150
MG42 1150
BAR 640

The Bren, Squad MG34/42 and BAR each have 80 ammo units assigned.

But the MG34/42 have about double the KILL value. I assume this is because the German MGs have about double the rate of fire.

I think it's sensible that those weapons get higher KILL values, but to achieve that KILL value they should be using up ammo at twice the rate!

Currently the Germans get the benefit of their weapons (high rate of fire/KILL) but the allies don’t get the benefit of their weapons (low rate of fire/low ammo usage).

If we ignore historical ammo load-outs as ‘paper levels’ - and assume that in reality all squads carried the same amount (as much ammo as was sensible) - but took into account KILL/ammo use, then ammo load-outs might look like this:

Bren (kill 5) AMMO: 80

MG34 (kill 8) AMMO: 56

MG42 (kill 10) AMMO: 40

BAR (kill 5) AMMO: 80


If we were to use historical ammo load-outs then they might look like this:

Bren (kill 5) AMMO: 67

MG34 (kill 8) AMMO: 48

MG42 (kill 10) AMMO: 38

BAR (kill 5) AMMO: 43


The same KILL/ammo disparity exists for the 30cal tri-pod MGs. The Germans get KILL 10, the US/UK get KILL 5.



Cross

[Imp]

Been a long time since I read anything but if memory serves what made the German MG outstanding was not so much its ROF but more its flexibility. Its used by squads as a LMG or can have good optical sights & tripod fitted.
Practical sustainable ROF was not that diffrent to allied MGs esp if take into account swapping barrels etc but it was the MG of WW2.
Also ammo figures quoted are they in squad role seem to remember at least MG42 used in HMG role carried a lot of ammo, possibly they could carry more as for a HMG it was comparitevly light.

[Cross]

Hi John,

Yes, ammo figures quoted are for squads.

I wouldn't call the MG34 any more flexible than other MGs. The Bren was often fitted to mounts and used on vehicles or as an AA weapon. In fact you could pick the Bren up and use it on the move:



Now that's flexible! Try doing that with a MG34

As for sustainable rate of fire. You're saying the MG42 had the same sustainable RoF as allied guns which fire half the RPM. Which means you're saying the MG42 should fire half as often as the allied weapons because of cooling and barrel change issues?

If that's true then in SP the MG42 should get only 3 shots a turn instead of 6. But it should still have half the SP ammo load-out as the allied guns. Then they would start and finish firing on the same turn and use up the same amount of bullets (not SP ammo); the allied gun would have fired twice as often as the German gun, but the allied gun would have caused half the damage for each fire/hit.

Sounds reasonable to me

If the MG42 tri-pod crew served gun carried more ammo than other HMGs, I've not heard that. Other nations HMGs had support vehicles instead of support horses. And even if the MG42 did carry more ammo, then we should be paying more to purchase the MG42. Currently the MG42 gets what amounts to twice the ammo or twice the damage, and according to you twice the RoF, and all for the same price!

My point is that there doesn't appear to be a justification for current ammo advantage given to the German MGs.



Simon