MG34 Range

[chuckfourth]

Hi
Heres a quote from Orbis Publishings book "World War II"
"Despite the characteristic reduction in weight and size, the excellent construction and powerfull 7.92mm cartridge give the MG34 remarkable ballistic qualities. Its normal sights are graduated from 200 to 2000 metres, but with telescopic sights it has a range of 3500 metres."
The US Army Manuals "German infantry Weapons" listed in Mark Shepperds recent post agrees with the range of 3500m ie,

"This telescopic sight is graduated up to an effective range of 3,500 meters"

and also adds

"The telescopic sight is used with the tripod mount for aiming the machine gun in either direct or indirect fire"

So it would appear that this weapon should get a range of 70 hexes?
Best Regards Chuck

[DRG]

No. It's stays as it is along with the rest of the ranges already in the game. If you want to MOBHack your own OOB be my guest

Don

[chuckfourth]

Hi Don
Well I would have thought a HMG with a telescopic sight should have better range than one with iron sights but if you think it should be the other way round, not much further I can say.
Baggypants made an interesting comment in one of his posts about the Quad 50 cal which got me thinking. If we have two weapons, one with a greater range than the other, say 40 and 24 hexes and both are firing at a target 2 hexes away is "hit chance" better for the longer ranged weapon?
Thanks Chuck.

[pdoktar]

I think it is. Accuracy values diminish less, when firing with the same acc. FC and RF weapon, that has a significantly longer range.

[BaronvonBeer]

Small arms ranges tend to be modeled for effective range. Even with a telescopic sight, 1200m is a very long shot. Trained snipers using modified rifles with hand selected & matched to the rifle ammunition consider this extreme range.

I would think small arms would require variable effectiveness to better model that kind of "indirect" plunging fire. Would be largely supressive in nature, while in game it would be using the lethality ratings of direct fire.

[chuckfourth]

Hi BaronvonBeer.

Yes I agree, I think 1200 is a pretty long shot also but you need to look at the range of the MG34 as compared to the other MGs in the game. I would be almost happy with the MG34 having a range of 1200m -if- the other MGs in the game also had a range of 1200m but they dont. The majority get 1500m and any MGs in the 12.7 calibre gets an incredible 2000m. As the MG34 has telescopic sights, If the in-game standard open sighted MG gets a range of 1500m then surely the telescopic sighted weapon should get a better range, not less! References suggest this could be as high as 3500m.

The 12.7mm 2000m Range does come with a proviso, even though 2000m is the direct fire range its meant to model the calibres indirect fire range as mounted on a tripod. However the 2000m range is also incorrectly applied to all the non-tripod mounted 12.7mm 13.2mm and 15mm weapons ie on tank turrets etc. These should have the same range as the 7.62mm calibres (1500) or less as they are all using open iron sights. Also there is no reason why 7.62mm calibre cant fire out to 2000m indirectly also.

Though not explicitly stated reading the "US Army Manuals "German infantry Weapons" referenced in my origional post it does look as though you can put a target in the telescopic sight up to 3500 and fire -directly- at it ie though the bullets will be tracing an arc it remains "direct" sighted fire.

There is also a play balance issue here. In the 7.62/7.92mm category the german MGs gets a lesser range even though they have telescopic sights. We then get to the predominantly allied 12.7, 13.2 and 15mm calibres these all get the remarkable 2000m. We then progress to the next calibre up the predominantly axis 20mm and range drops back down to 1500m. this would be OK if it reflected the various weapons real ranges but it doesnt.
This is especially important if as Podoktar suggests giving a weapon bonus extra range then gives it a better accuracy or hit chance at all lesser ranges. I have already shown that the weapons are very effective at the max 2000m range against soft targets and crewed weapons, mainly because they affect 7 rather than a single hex.

Best regards Chuck.