Time to Open a Can of Worms - Weapon Data in OOB's

[Suhiir]

As most of you know I've been working on a revised USMC OOB (Obat #13) for about a year now (taking this long mostly cause it's a "spare time" project).

I currently intend to tweak many of the small arms stats in the OOB.
This will no doubt cause great, and real concerns as any modifications there can potentially unbalance the game.

My weapons tweaks are mostly in the areas of accuracy and range.
And with VERY few exceptions no more then 1% or 50m greater then the default stats.

The reason I feel this is necessary is because with the exception of the USMC OOB every OOB in WinSMBT is a "National Army".
Thus the default weapon stats in OOB's realistically reflect their use by the "average" people with "average" levels of training.
If the USMC were just another National Army this would be fine.

But . . .
It' not.

More then any other non-specialized (spec forces, sniper) military orginazation that I'm aware of they stress effective use of small arms. Many folks laugh a bit at the USMC claim "Every Marine is a Riflman" but it's true.
In most armies the clerks, supply types, and truck drivers have probably not fired their rifle in months, if not years. In the USMC EVERY Marine is required to qualify with their weapon yearly, and our qualification course STARTS at 200m. To actually qualify (which about 99% do) you have to be able to hit a man-sized target at least 50% of the time at 500m.
I know as well as you do that rifle range shooting IS NOT combat shooting.
But, the ability to fire accurately at ranges in excess of of the official maximum effective range of a weapon ( the M16A1 is officially listed as having a max effective range of 460m) is going to translate into increased battlefield range and accuracy.

I'm wide open to discussion/suggestions on this point.

[thatguy96]

Have you run any tests to see how much this actually affects gameplay? I've found that what seem likely wildly different weapon stats for class 1 weapons (at least I think class one is individual weapons, but I'm away from my home computer at the moment) have little effect on gameplay most of the time. I'd be interested to see if you see any marked change in how the game functions with these changes.

[Suhiir]

LOTS of them.
And yes the changes from altering the accuracy are quite small. They're intended to be.
The ones from changing the range on a rifle can be quite significant at times. Because now that can shoot just a bit sooner then most opponents thus supress or damage units before they get into range to fire back with their primary weapon (most of which have range 8, 400m).
In most cases this has the effect of lowering the damage your units take thus allowing them to be a bit more durable.
This could also represent to the generally better training and morale Marines have, the body armor, whatever.
All-in-all it does give them an "edge" without being overpowering - at least from my tests.

[Marek_Tucan]

What about leaving the weapon range be and upping accuracy or giving the riflemen some small edge in fire control?

[Suhiir]

Could do either - but...
Adding more accuracy doesn't cause the effect I'm looking for.
I want them to have somewhat more accurate and most importantly longer ranged fire.
As to Fire Control, not for individual weapons. Looking at the OOB's it is used (quite well) to represent inherent weapon stabilization. i.e. a tripod mounted machine gun is more accurate at any range then a bipod mounted one.

Quick story or two
Grenada - 1983

The US Army had to borrow M16 ammo from the Marines because their "suppressive fire" doctrine caused their units to run low on ammo. The failure was obviously in the logistic planning, BUT ... both Marine and Army troops carry the the same basic individual ammo load. The army of course went thru theirs far quicker due to doctrine.

In another instance an Army platoon ran into a Marine squad (do to some shifting of phase lines they wound up in the same place at the same time by accident). Since neither side knew about the other they had a little blue-on-blue action (no actual casulties tho as I recall). The Army platoon leader called back that he was under heavy attack by a company strength unit (due to the accuracy of the incoming fire) and began to withdraw. The Marines began to assault the Army position having suppressed it with their more accurate long range fire. About this time someone noticed both sides were American and the firefight stopped.
The Army guys absolutely could not believe that few rifleman could generate that level of accurate fire at that range.

[thatguy96]

Suhiir said:
In another instance an Army platoon ran into a Marine squad (do to some shifting of phase lines they wound up in the same place at the same time by accident). Since neither side knew about the other they had a little blue-on-blue action (no actual casulties tho as I recall). The Army platoon leader called back that he was under heavy attack by a company strength unit (due to the accuracy of the incoming fire) and began to withdraw. The Marines began to assault the Army position having suppressed it with their more accurate long range fire. About this time someone noticed both sides were American and the firefight stopped.
The Army guys absolutely could not believe that few rifleman could generate that level of accurate fire at that range.

Immediately what I want to know from this story though is what is "that range." I'm also confused as to how a unit commander would determine possible opposing strength by accuracy of fire rather than volume of fire. I would think the key would be the volume of the fire, maybe worse by its accuracy, not just the sheer accuracy for it. Maybe that's just my lack of grunt military experience speaking.

If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm generally against these sorts of manipulations of "common denominator" weapons, because I feel that then to create a certain across the board accuracy you'd have to create individual subtypes of all infantry weapons in all OOBs to properly handle elite forces with more stringer small arms training. I'm not saying that these changes might not be accurate (I really want to stay away from that debate as much as I seem to be going for it), but it just seems like something a game of this scale is not set up to handle.

[MarkSheppard]

As for your story; there's a reason the Army has emphasized heavy weight of fire when doing suppression; they found out in World War II fighting against the German Army that one of the biggest problems they had with brand new riflemen coming out of basic infantry training was that they had been trained in the States to emphasize accuracy; e.g. to fire at identified targets; and this was useless in the real world; where you did not see clearly identified targets. It took a lot of time to break the new arrivals of their habit of waiting for a target, and instead to randomly fire in the general direction of the enemy.

[thatguy96]

Suhiir said:
The ones from changing the range on a rifle can be quite significant at times. Because now that can shoot just a bit sooner then most opponents thus supress or damage units before they get into range to fire back with their primary weapon (most of which have range 8, 400m).

I'm intrigued by this. I've generally found that duals at these ranges tend to be more the area of the weapon in the #2 slot, which generally has better accuracy and range than the number 1 weapon. This is regardless of HEK and Acc increases that I've made in my cases. Maybe this is a product of Exp/Mor ratings and the like.

So the next series of questions has to do with who these experiments were fought against and in what terrain. I guess I can see this in open terrain, but in anything less, I don't see it giving such a serious advantage in other situations where fire is brought to bear quickly and equally.

[Suhiir]

thatguy96 said:I'm intrigued by this. I've generally found that duals at these ranges tend to be more the area of the weapon in the #2 slot, which generally has better accuracy and range than the number 1 weapon. This is regardless of HEK and Acc increases that I've made in my cases. Maybe this is a product of Exp/Mor ratings and the like.

So the next series of questions has to do with who these experiments were fought against and in what terrain. I guess I can see this in open terrain, but in anything less, I don't see it giving such a serious advantage in other situations where fire is brought to bear quickly and equally.

Oh the #2 weapon IS the one that really matters (usually) for unit destruction. But I've seen a definate increase in the durability of my USMC infantry due to their ability to "get the first shot" and partially suppress or damage the opposition before they can return fire.
And yes, it only applies where the terrain is open enough the extra range matters. In close terrain there is little, if any, effect. But then again that's pretty much exactly what I'm trying to generate with the changes.

[MarkSheppard]

Many folks laugh a bit at the USMC claim "Every Marine is a Riflman" but it's true.

I'm one of them who laughs at the claim.

In most armies the clerks, supply types, and truck drivers have probably not fired their rifle in months, if not years. In the USMC EVERY Marine is required to qualify with their weapon yearly

That's because the USMC can afford to have it's logistics handled by either the US Navy (when they do amphibious landings), or by the US Army (when they're Army Junior, as in Iraq); so they look like they have a very high tooth to tail ratio.


Don:
Morale can be between +5 and +10 higher on average, again, it depends on the decade. And that was done years ago to make them " More special"

I've run across some very interesting statistics from past yearly annual DOD reports, they make for interesting reading; this is from the FY79 report



Desertion rates are a good eye into the "morale" of personnel, and it's very interesting to see that the USMC always has higher desertion rates than the Army; and it gets very pronounced in the late seventies; where the army goes down to 1.77 per hundred in 76, while the mAarines are at 6.92 per hundred.