Low Ammo OOB

[Cross]

John,

You are right, I did ask for feedback, so I’m sorry if it appeared like I was dismissing your input, I was not.

Scrounging
I understand what you are saying about rifles being the last to run out and that they can scrounge additional ammo from the battlefield. And that is one of the things I want to accomplish by lowering MGs more than rifles, on the most part. But even scrounging ammo has limits.

In a real firefight troops can run out of ammo in just a few minutes. In real life an Enfield’s ‘mad minute’ would expend about 20 rounds in one minute; so three minutes of intense rifle firing can cause ammo problems.

A firefight lasting 15 SP turns is about 30-45 minutes of real time. Currently, SP infantry can engage in ‘full on’ firing for almost that entire period. The ammo OOB I’m proposing will lower the ‘full on firefight’ from 30-45 minutes (15 turns or 90 ammo) to 20-30 minutes (10 turns or 60 ammo). Still way off a ‘realistic’ 3 minutes of intense firing; but does allow for a considerable margin for scrounging ammo off casualties and enemy.

IOW, I think 60 ammo still allows for your concern that infantry get to fire a lot more than they should be able to.

Fire Discipline
Apparently, in a real firefight, one of the hardest things to instill in troops is ‘fire discipline’. Fire discipline is where you don’t allow your MG to fire off its entire load-out of 1200 rounds in two minutes; or your riflemen to fire off all their ammunition in three minutes.

We need a little ‘fire discipline’ in SP, especially when it comes to ‘Z-fire’. Currently, there is no need for fire discipline in SP. You can fire your MGs and rifles at just about their highest rate, and not have to worry about ammo in most battles.

Late War German Artillery
I hear you about German artillery shell shortages. But I think players can more easily model this by agreeing to limit German artillery, to say 5%, or not allowing German ordnance trucks to re-supply artillery.

Testing
I also think you are right about testing this low ammo OOB. It may be that it only has a place in shorter battles, or certain types of battle. But we may find that it works well in longer battles with the judicious use of ammo re-supply. Only testing will tell.

Regards,