direct fire vs area fire

[Weasel]

I have been wondering which is better when trying to suppress tanks and infantry with MG fire. Should you LOS direct fire them, or will Z fire, with our without LOS, cause more suppression?

[zeiss]

Direct fire is always the best. You have a much greater chance of hitting the target and causing suppression. Z-fire is quite random and may miss every shot or even suppress your own units.

[Narwan]

I don't have hard figures but the actual suppression numbers seem to be higher for z-fire. Whether that off-sets the bigger chance to hit with direct fire I'm not sure.
What I do know is that weapons with no HEP value sometimes do very little or no suppression to armor targets with direct fire (the higher exp the target the less they are bothered by these 'pings' on the armor). They can button them without causing any suppression at all.

Then there's the question of what sort of mg's you're using. If they're mmg's or hmg's with a splash effect what I tend to do is aim at a unit adjacent to the one I want to pin or button. The suppression by the splash effect in adjacent hexes is determined by the same routine that artillery uses. It uses HEK and warhead size for determining suppression numbers. The artillery routine will give slightly higher numbers than the direct fire routine will inflict on the target unit for weapons with low warhead sizes.

You can check it by setting up a cluster of squads and then fire at the center unit with an mmg from very long range (to minimise chances of actually inflicting casualties). As long as the target unit isn't actually taking damage you'll see that the squads around it will usually get pinned before the target unit does.
The difference's aren't that great as it usually takes just a couple more volleys to get the target unit pinned too. It's a minor quirk resulting from using the direct fire routine for one event and the artillery (indirect fire) routine for the splash effect.

If you use Z-fire then all the events are run by the indirect fire routine. So while there's no target unit, units in the target hex will tend to get more suppression from the Z-fire in their hex than they would have from the direct fire had they been the target unit for that.

So when in line of sight and firing from up to medium range Z-fire will tend to land in the target hex and is often preferable if you want to cause max suppression, especially if using weapons that can't damage the enemy units and if there are no adjacent units to aim at.

I use both direct fire and Z-fire for these sort of events but which I use when is very situation specific.

Narwan

[Vesku]

Ok, the splash damage for mgs explains a lot. I've noticed that if there's an AFV and infantry in the same hex it's easier to pin the infantry by firing at the AFV.

[Narwan]

Ok, the splash damage for mgs explains a lot. I've noticed that if there's an AFV and infantry in the same hex it's easier to pin the infantry by firing at the AFV.

Same quirk indeed. The target unit has supression determined from the direct fire routine and the other unit in the hex from the splash routine.
The downside from firing at the AFV is that you're not going to hit and damage the infantry as often you would with direct fire. Those hits and damage cause far more suppression than splash fire does, but that's if you hit.
I often do it the other way around, use mg's to fire at leg units to button AFV's with them. That way you might still score damage on the infantry while quickly buttoning the AFV.

But it all depends on the situation. No one way is better and in the long run it all averages out more or less.

Narwan

[Weasel]

this is what I was getting at, it seems that area fire from MMG> does far more suppression then direct fire. So I will keep area firing the armour.

Thanks guys.

[GUNSLNGR]

I have question along these lines.

In an MBT game, my opponent noticed that one of his squads was down from 8 to 3 men. He played the replay and there was no "footage" of my units shooting directly at that squad. I did z-fire in that direction with both 2 MMG's and a mortar.

The only answer that I could come up with is that I scored some admittedly very lucky hits on that squad with both the mortar and/or MG's. Due to the fact that is was z-fire and out of my LOS - I never saw the unit get hit. He also didn't see it in the replay, because I didn't have LOS.

Am I completely off base here, and if so why didn't either of us see the 5 casualties?

[Imp]

You can get lucky with Z fire I have both destroyed & immobilised armoured vehicles & soft targets with Z fire, pretty rare though.

[Narwan]

Am I completely off base here, and if so why didn't either of us see the 5 casualties?

Z-fire use the artillery routine. That means it doesn't get replayed what 'fast artillery' is on. Looks to me like one of you (or both) had fast artillery set to ON.

Narwan

[GUNSLNGR]

Z-fire use the artillery routine. That means it doesn't get replayed what 'fast artillery' is on. Looks to me like one of you (or both) had fast artillery set to ON.

Narwan

So, if you z-fire with any arty unit it plays in the replay like an actual plotted arty drop? How does that work if you z-fire the arty but then continue with movement/shooting with other non-arty units afterward?:conf: