Is it just me?

[Weasel]

My point isn't so much killing, and I am not just talking mg42, but suppression in general.

I was a qualified gunner on the GPMG (old 30cal from ww2 that we used up to 1988), 50 cal, C6 and C9. The odds of a single squad winning a firefight with an mg are next to nil if caught in the open and unable to manoeuvre, not from killing, but from being pinned down. In brush they can obviously put down a base of fire with the lmg section while the rest of the section moves into a flank position (or straight at it if you are in saving pte. ryan)

So to some up, Matrix stated long ago that the mg now creates less kills but much more suppression; while I agree with that I disagree that this is occurring in the game. Hell, I am fighting Bulgarian infantry with an M4 firing main gun and 3xMG at about 150m and the grunts are still shooting back!!

Not bitching about a free game, I am just asking opinions if others feel that way when comparing old vs new.

[Vesku]

The amount of fire a inf squad can take and keep firing is ridiculous. They pretty much every time can shoot back all six shots unless they suffer casualties, suppression has very little effect or they don't get suppression.

[Alby]

So to some up, Matrix stated long ago that the mg now creates less kills but much more suppression; while I agree with that I disagree that this is occurring in the game. Hell, I am fighting Bulgarian infantry with an M4 firing main gun and 3xMG at about 150m and the grunts are still shooting back!!

Not bitching about a free game, I am just asking opinions if others feel that way when comparing old vs new.

Which game are you talking about here with the Bulgarians?? WAW or WW2?
And which Bulgarian troops?
Regular infantry or some elite units?
Morale, experience, leadership ratings all come into play
In fact if you are talking H2H, Leo inflated all troop Morale ratings so often troops will rally easier, and fight to the death rather than retreat.

[Narwan]

Now that you mention it, are we talking about the CAMO game or WaW/H2H?

For the CAMO games: units lose one of their ROF as soon as they get 5 points of suppression. The amount of suppression needed for another ROF to be lost depends on exp/mor. For low quality troops the point of either no shots or retreat status can even be under 20 suppression.
When taking casualties squads don't just take suppression too (which can jump to 99 instantly when taking a loss) but lose shots from their MAX ROF for the second, third and fourth weapon slot.

Few squads can take 3 volley's of mmg/hmg fire in clear terrain at less than 500m without getting pinned. Rallying can remedy that off course.

Narwan

[Weasel]

I thought it was clear when I said "the old DOS versions" but that can be missed. I am speaking of winspww2. I haven't played h2h for a long time but if and when I get back into sp I am going to try the waw remakes.

I don't know how many times I have shot up an infantry squad with tanks, mgs, cannons etc and then in the same turn tried to finish them off with an infantry unit only to see the squad turn around with a huge amount of fire power. That is one reason I like dropping infantry % to about 50%, and even then they are super human.

[Weasel]

BTW - in my game with Buckaroo that I surrendered a Gurkha unit in an open plowed field engaged by my mg42 in the woods at 200m range (I wanted to ambush them). My mg42 got two bursts off and then was eliminated by the squad.

[Narwan]

Looks like we are at complete opposite ends here. The last stat I would drop is infantry. In my view, and in my gaming experience, infantry is far too easy to deal with. I wouldn't mind seeing it beefed up.

If a squad you wanted to finish off with a squad of your own, and I presume from close range, you forgot to achieve one of two things (and you really need only one, and it's not hard to do); either you suppress them to retreat status or you drain it's return fire until it's depleted.
"Shooting up" a squad with a lot of low percentage shots isn't going to achieve much more than pin it. Off course it's unhealthy to close in on them with other infantry under such conditions.

Did you have the infantry set to 50% in that game too btw? And in the game with MG42? Since I've never seen this 'huge' firepower or the supermen you mention I wonder if your not mistaking two things. That in fact you're not seeing 'huge' firepower but 'huge' weakness in your units that got engaged. If you set infantry at 50% then yes, the squad you drop next to that enemy squad will appear to get a lashing. Which really makes me wonder, on the one hand you complain about alleged supermen and at the same time you complain about how easy your own troops die. Which is it?

Same with the MG42 incident. From your phrasing I take it it was a single MG42 unit. So you engage a squad of 10 that is presumed to be spread out over roughly a 50 by 50 area. I also assume they weren't running at full speed so were mindful of their surroundings (and making some use of the cover that even 'clear' terrain offers). If you enage them from 200 yards distance you'd have a sizeable angle from left to right to 'cover' them all. It would be hard to get a bead on two guys at once, let alone hit more than one or two, with a single burst. And you're firing at Gurkha's, elite troops, from short range. Off course they'll spot you after two bursts. Off course they'll return fire as fast they can, that's survival mode kicking in, especially from close range as most of the squad aren't personally engaged yet after two bursts. You might get away with that against low quality troops as the resulting suppression from the firing of two bursts may cause their spotting ability to drop to the point they won't see you and won't return fire. But against elite troops like gurkha's I'm not suprised at all by their respons. Mg's on their own are bad ambush weapons for the simple reason that it's just one barrel. You can't aim 1 barrel at 10 guys at the same time who are spread out over a 50m area. If you ambush with another infantry squad it would be much more deadly as they can each pick their own target, 10 barrels firing at 10 guys spread over a 50m area. Works far better.

Finally, mmg's and hmg's are crewserved weapons. That means the guys equiping it are close together. In other words the game assumes that the squad of 10 men is spread out over the 50m area while the 3(?) men crew of the mmg is concentrated at one spot of that 50m area. If the crewserved weapon takes damage then the chance of more than one casualty are as a result higher than it would be for an infantry squad (which makes the crew served weapons especially vulnerable to instant death if infantry is set at 50%). Same applies to gun crews for example. That's why you will occassionaly see an entire pak crew or mortar crew die from a single hit while similar incidents for squads are much, much rarer.

Narwan[/i][/b]

[Vesku]

If you enage them from 200 yards distance you'd have a sizeable angle from left to right to 'cover' them all. It would be hard to get a bead on two guys at once, let alone hit more than one or two, with a single burst.

Narwan[/i][/b]

I didn't know that crew served weapons have lower hitting chance the closer the targeted squad they are. Learning every day.

[klanx171]

how about making infantry tougher by beefing their stats up a bit on the prefrences screen. In ET higher numbers have made infantry very tough at close quarters and elite units doubly so, if anything isnt thats what those settings are for?

I do think MGs need to be tweaked a bit, but I think its should be much quicker to suppress than kill.

[Narwan]

If you enage them from 200 yards distance you'd have a sizeable angle from left to right to 'cover' them all. It would be hard to get a bead on two guys at once, let alone hit more than one or two, with a single burst.

Narwan[/i][/b]

I didn't know that crew served weapons have lower hitting chance the closer the targeted squad they are. Learning every day.

Sorry for the confusion Vesku, that comment of mine was a description of how the game views the real world situation. It doesn't mean the game gives a penalty to fire closer targets, it's just that there is no 'grouping' bonus for firing from closer range. There's just the regular scale that applies to just about every type of weapon of hit chance increasing the closer to a target a unit gets.

A mmg firing from 300m will be more accurate than one firing from 500m, ie it will have more chance to hit the target with a burst. But a burst will usually cause just one casualty in the game. Those few times you'll see multiple casualties from a single burst show those exceptions where the mg was lucky enough to be able to get a group together. Could have been that a couple of squadmembers got together to confer at that specific moment or could be an enfilade effect allowing more than 1 men to be hit. But those are exceptional circumstances, not the rule.

Something you may not know about the game is that there is a range category where the probability to inflict casualties doesn't drop with range for the intial couple of volleys. That's not due to hit probabilities staying the same but a side effect of the suppression rules. If you fire from about 600m distance just about every volley will land in the target hex (exp matters greatly). It's not that likely to immediately inflict casualties but it is likely for the squad to become pinned, quite likely from that first volley. If you fire at close to 1000m, there's a good chance you'll hit a different hex than the target hex. While the splash effect of mmg fire can still cause suppression in the adjacent hex, that suppression is less likely to cause the unit to become pinned. If the target was moving, there's a fair chance it will stay 'moving' because it received no suppression at all. And now comes the interesting bit; the game use a three step hit resolution system. The first shot at target is at 1/3 max hit prob, the second at 2/3 hit prob and the third and subsequent shots at full hit prob (assuming you keep firing at the same target). Going from moving to pinned reduces the max hit probability by about half (ballpark figure).
So firing the second volley at 600m at a pinned squad goes at 2/3 of a max hit prob that's 50% reduced compared to the second volley at 1000m at a ready unit still moving. The reduction in hit prob due to increased range is of a similar order of magnitude. If you run a series of tests you'll see the loss rate of squads fired at from roughly between 500m and 1000m by 3 volley's of mmg fire won't be that much different. Once the squad at the longer range is pinned too the one at shorter range will get more hits than the one at longer range but until then...