German firepower

[nikoda]

Hi everyone

Sorry to lift up this thread again, but since i'm a new member of the forum and i think that the discussion subject is very interesting, i'd like to contribute to bring my own stone to the building.

About the geman firepower : As you know all of you, the base german infantry tactics were based around the dreadfull mg34/42. Yep, that weapon was revolutionary at this time : tremendous rate of fire, and available for many purposes ( light, heavy mg, aa purpose etc.)

As a matter of fact, US intelligence considered that the firepower of a hundred germans was equivalent to about 120 anglo-americans and 160-200 soviets troops.
I think the game try to reflect this as some of you said. But since the game -from my point of view- does not reflect some of his drawbacks, i'd like to bring some few infos about this :
( this comes from an article in french, i did my best to translate it in a correct english...)

Limits of the german MG42 :

" Our men have learnt how to bypass the germans light machine guns. Those light mg's got so hight rate of fire that they cannot cover fully a great surface of terrain. When our men are well stretched enought on the ground, those Mg's cannot harm them that much. In reality, those weapons are very ammo's wasting. And our men have learnt how to take advantage of the few moment when the germans firing teams are changing the gun. This occurs quite often according to the hight rate of fire.
The ground covered by such a machine gun is well covered, but in a very limited space..."

US Army, Intelligence Bulletin Vol.III n°4 December 1944.

Alfons, maybe you could try to reflect that. I think the idea of very limited ammo supply level is a good one. I don't know that much about the technical stuffs of the game, but if possible mg platoon more often out of ammo could relfect that and reduce their terrible efficiency.:)

About morale value of some units i would say as Napoleon said : "a soldier become the man of his uniform" This point in particular is absolutely true : how to explain that some "kids", without some much war experience could become some war beasts? Yes, the "esprit de corps"
can make some miracles , but but ...
i also agree about the idea "how can some HJ teenagers could face efficiently late war allied veterans" reminding images of captured youngs waffen ss with tears on theirs cheaks. Ok, Just an idea, i don't know if possible with the game mechanism : could it be possible to allow a certain value of morale and make it halved in case of losses ?
I mean imagine an ss or fj platoon with a morale of 8, most of the troopers as arrogant stubborn vindicative 17years old soldiers. But wenewer they take some heavy casualties, they become as they were always inside : scared kids . This could reflect that loosing too much close friends ( some of the recruits know each other since school, village etc ) affect their morale dramatically ??

Ok, Alfons, i wish you good luck for testing and designing your scenario.:)

Nico