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Tactics Taking out snipers and machine gunners with short barrel guns

kartasik

Grizzled Veteran
Jun 1, 2006
64
0
Certain imps tried to take over this topic by ignoring plain reality of real combat recorded by history. But here is a fact that they can not stupidly argue with.

It is an absolute fact that no one can dispute that I personally cannot in real life hit targets as easily as I can in Red Orchestra. Is that an opinion? No. Its a fact. In my real life, having shot many many guns I could never hit a sniper sized target at 150 yards using a 3 inch barrel pistol. This is not a theory - it is a fact about ME. Now this is a fact too: in Red Orch I suddenly and magically CAN hit such a target with a pistol! This is a fact about ME. No guy who just wants to argue can deny this. They are not ME and they cannot deny what I stated about me.

Now the mystery: how is it that in real life I can't hit a small head sized target at 150 fyards using a pistol, but suddenly in Red Orchestra I magically can? OBVIOUSLY the game DOES MAKE HITTING TARGETS EASIER THAN REAL LIFE.

Not only that but a computer screen and the game programmed pixel level is far more simple that a human's real field of vision. A Computer screen only has a small amount of detail compared to the human eye. Theory? Only a total idiot who knew nothing about computers and the real eye would dispute this. I was a programmer of games back in the early 90s - I know something about pixels. Thus when I look at a real scene with my eyes at a target at 150 yards the level of detail is thousands of times more detailed. The pixel level of my eye sight would be thousands of times more than that of a mere computer screen. Actually in a game program like Red Orch the head of a man will look like a blob at distance and the pixels assigned to the target zone will be greater than the area of a real man's head in the real world. The reduction algorithms in a game are never true to life since in games like Red Orch the 3D is just an illusion (unlike the real world). Nor are the colors true to life in Red Orch compared to real life sight. In real life seeing a small head sized object at 150 yards is not that easy if it is hidden inside a darkened room like a bunker.

THUS: Red orch should be altered the way I originally stated in the first post below. This also explains why thousands of US soldiers could not take out a single machine gun that had wiped out over a thousand of them. Red Orch does make taking out such an enemy overly easy. Its a fact - since in REAL LIFE I PERSONALLY COULD NEVER DO THAT WITH A PISTOL. BUT IN RED ORCH I DO IT ALL THE TIME. Obviously magic is not the answer - obviously the game is UNREAL and needs adjustments.


Old posting:
Yep, you all know if you have played a short time that you can take out a machinegunner or sniper in a window, bunker slit, or hidding behind a wall by simply aiming a pistol carefully or by raking your submachine gun up and down on the axis of their tiny visible head as it peeps at you. I have done this at 60 meters or more. It's sadly unrealistic - (see my post about gun accuracy in Ideas and suggestions) but its true. Its one reason I avoid sniper rifles and heavy mgs. With my Rusky or German sub-mg, I can rake their heads going up and down in a verticle flow (over coming the kick-drift of the sub) with greater effect than a sniper has to take me out. Its sad and I would like to see Red Orc fixed on this.

Power of a real machinegunner:

"I saw how the water sprayed up where my machine gun bursts landed, and when the small fountains came closer to the GIs, they threw themselves down. Very soon the first bodies were drifting in the waves of the rising tide. In a short time, all the Americans down there were shot."
He fired for nine hours, using up all the 12,000 machine-gun rounds. The sea turned red with the blood from the bodies. When he had no more bullets for the machine-gun, he started firing on the US soldiers with his rifle, firing off another 400 rifle rounds at the terrified GIs.
A leading German historical expert of the Second World War, Helmut Konrad Freiherr von Keusgen, believes Severloh may have accounted for 3,000 of the 4,200 American casualties on the day."



http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1166&id=643752004



In Beach assault I commonly take out snipers and machinegunner with just my Russian sub mg while hiding in the dunes. But in real life at Omaha Beach thousands of Americans armed with M1s and Tommy guns could not take out such enemy until they got near enough to use gernades. As a result fortifications in Red Orc are less than real in their true effect.
 
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It is true that guns like SMGs and small arms are accurate enough to hit and kill someone far away like that, the reason why they don't is because of the user, most people don't understand that recoil can shake a gun before the bullet exits out of the barrel; throwing off the shot. shorter guns, (especialy hand guns) are harder to keep still when firing, a good focused marksman could hit enemies at the ranges and instances that are simulated in RO the way you say. The thing is is that in RO almost every person is a good focused marksman; which throws off historical accuracy. I believe that without a new, complicated aiming and movement system we will not be able to compansate for this loss of realism sense there are always those people that play the game constantly and learn how to aim perfectly in unrealistic amounts of time.
 
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A better strategy: MGs and snipers have limited traversal speeds. The people manning those weapons tend toward tunnel vision.

The answer, then, is that multiple short-barreled weaponeers can overcome ... by not doing frontal attacks. When one guy is under fire, the other guys should be rushing on the sides. When the fire shifts to those guys, the first guy can try to keep their heads down.

Most infantry are killed by artillery. The rest are typically killed through fire-and-cover approaches, which were well in place by World War II.
 
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I don't see the problem, I use the MG alot and the sniper rifle as well. I have never been killed by an SMG or pistol when using either, unless at very close ranges. Why? Because I **** with the short-barreled guns but I am pretty decent with the rifles and the MGs, so I use them accordingly. That means I deploy using my brains and:

A) Kill people with 1 shot with the sniper rifle, usually from pretty far away
B) See A, only with an MG. And using a few more shots.

Seriously, I don't know what you are talking about.... so it really can't be a huge problem?!

Oh and if you can kill a sniper with a pistol from 60 metres + without him spotting you first... he deserves to die.
 
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Nifel

Nifel

That's silly. The point was on D-day thousands of US GIs, many who were expert shots could not take out MGs in the bunkers until they got near enough to get gernades or flamethrowers into them. Now and then a lucky shot would take out an MG man, but that was rare. The MG guys I have taken out with a pistol were not STUPID as you pretend. They were good men in many cases. Some were hiding in bunkers over the beach in Beach Assault. They should be almost impossible to shoot from the dunes, but they aren't. That is why the beach bunkers do not hold up troops anywhere like real beach bunkers did in D-day. You just don't want to hear anything against RO - and that's childish. Because since I started in Red Orc it has been revamped and improved many times. And certainly I'd like to see the next game in the distant future (what ever that is) corrected. I have hunted, and shot guns since I was 6 and now I am 53 and I know that in real life I should not be able to take out a MG gunner with a stupid short barrel gun at long distance. Real ammo - especially WWII mass produced ones, often made with slave labor, were not 100% the same. And in distance firing wind, barrel clog (with spent propelant) and barrel heating played a major role in accuracy.

Did you ever see Saving Private Ryan? Do you think that was just a cartoon? The writter of that story did a lot of research on D-day and it was no accident that a sniper had to take out the main mg nest blocking their way. Had they used pistols, even at the short range dipicted the world audiance (those who know guns and not just video games) would have been in an uproar. Apparently you would have thought pistols should have been fine.
 
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That's silly. The point was on D-day thousands of US GIs, many who were expert shots could not take out MGs in the bunkers until they got near enough to get gernades or flamethrowers into them. Now and then a lucky shot would take out an MG man, but that was rare. The MG guys I have taken out with a pistol were not STUPID as you pretend. They were good men in many cases. Some were hiding in bunkers over the beach in Beach Assault. They should be almost impossible to shoot from the dunes, but they aren't. That is why the beach bunkers do not hold up troops anywhere like real beach bunkers did in D-day. You just don't want to hear anything against RO - and that's childish. Because since I started in Red Orc it has been revamped and improved many times. And certainly I'd like to see the next game in the distant future (what ever that is) corrected. I have hunted, and shot guns since I was 6 and now I am 53 and I know that in real life I should not be able to take out a MG gunner with a stupid short barrel gun at long distance. Real ammo - especially WWII mass produced ones, often made with slave labor, were not 100% the same. And in distance firing wind, barrel clog (with spent propelant) and barrel heating played a major role in accuracy.

Did you ever see Saving Private Ryan? Do you think that was just a cartoon? The writter of that story did a lot of research on D-day and it was no accident that a sniper had to take out the main mg nest blocking their way. Had they used pistols, even at the short range dipicted the world audiance (those who know guns and not just video games) would have been in an uproar. Apparently you would have thought pistols should have been fine.
Beach assault is a custom map and I doubt the bunkers were designed with real life height measurements & angles of Omaha from the beach level up to the bunkers. I also doubt the bunker recess is accurate & correct as real life bunkers so the MG'r isn't sitting right next to the opening waiting to recieve his bullet snack. Trust me, once you play against some hardened guys firing your pistol at them (at range) will just paint a sign on your head saying "please execute me first!"
 
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You just don't want to hear anything against RO - and that's childish.
Jesus, what's the patronising all about? What do you know about how I think and what I feel about a game like RO:O? I just don't want to hear anything against RO? What? Sorry if I am repeating myself here, I just can't believe what you just said there.

And you are 53 years old?

Like age ever mattered? Or are you trying to say that since you are almost double my age you are smarter and/or wiser than myself?

Alright, your inane comments about age aside - I have many things against RO and if you actually cared to use the SEARCH function you'd see that. I have been vocal in the MG discussion for some time - this due to myself having rather extensive knowledge of the modified MG 42, namely the MG3. I do believe I have fired the weapon more than you have fired your guns, unless you have been in the army as well. I am trained to kill people with the MG3 and I have fired tens of thousands of rounds with it, and while I have taken any lives with the MG, I have watched people beeing cut apart by it. Literally. I have fired handguns (mainly Glock 18 and Colt .45 1911) and several battle/assault/bolt action rifles (like the H&K G3, the Kar98, M16, M4, G36, Barrett 12.7 mm and a few others) and some 5 - 6 different versions of the MP5 smg.

Alright, lots of guns there. Why do I mention all those different weapons? Because you assume I don't have a clue with real world firearms.

And then you proceed with moronic comments like
Did you ever see Saving Private Ryan? Do you think that was just a cartoon?
...and I wonder what your problem is. Even more patronising. Again, age isn't proportional to the amount of wisdom and knowledge a person has, even if you seem to think so.

1) Yes, I have seen Saving Private Ryan.
2) No, I didn't think it was a cartoon
3) Yes, it was realistic
4) No, it wasn't ALL realistic

and finally

5) YES, it is STILL A HOLLYWOOD FLICK!

The writter of that story did a lot of research on D-day and it was no accident that a sniper had to take out the main mg nest blocking their way. Had they used pistols, even at the short range dipicted the world audiance (those who know guns and not just video games) would have been in an uproar. Apparently you would have thought pistols should have been fine.
Films, no matter how realistic they think they are, should never be used as a reference point. Historical documents should. I am just mentioning this since you are referring to a film instead of some book or even a documentary.

That said, of course you need a sniper for that. That speaks for itself. Oh, I forget, you think I am an idiot who haven't held a gun before. Like you said "those who know guns and not just video games" - obviously referring to me. No, I don't think pistols should have been fine. I just haven't, like I said in my post, experienced what you are claiming happens all the time (or so it seems by your post). I for sure can't snipe like that from 60+ yards in RO - when I go prone and aim carefully the bullets won't even hit the same spot. How can you snipe then? Same deal with the SMG's - sure you aren't experiencing the no recoil bug? I suggest you should take some screenshots next time. I really want to see you shooting an MG'er in the head from 60+ yards with a pistol.

Oh, and where did I say the MG'ers you killed with a pistol were stupid? Or did you just put words in my mouth?

EDIT:
Cooled down a bit but I still mean what I wrote, though perhaps I should have typed it up differently. Just don't patronise like you did good sir, it really pisses me off. You don't know me just like I don't know you.

EDIT 2:
I don't think I should have chosen different words anywhere after all, from reading your other posts you seem to be full of yourself and a besserwisser.
 
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Alright people, calm down. Now, having said that I would like to point out that this is a really old, pre-release discussion. I would like to remember that we got to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with the guns, what is wrong that the player is able to use them as if he/she were lying on a shooting range without all the pressure of battle. First of all, you are afraid to die = stress. You might be under supressive fire = even more stress. All these things make it harder to point the gun in the precise direction you want, making it all but impossible to land that single shot kill from 60 metres with a pistol.

At the moment we have a slight blur of the screen when bullets fly by. Although this is a really cool feature that I have been waiting for a long time, it doesn't have any real impact on your aim. People learn to ignore the effect and land that precise shot anyway.

What would be cool is to have some sort of real supressive effect that makes your gun tremble when under supressive fire (not sway, the sway is fine, but tremble. As in low amplitude sway with higher frequency =) Of course, we will now land in a discussion about wether this will make people feel that the game killed them or not, but I claim that it is up to them to choose to stay up and try to pull off the shot even though the odds are against them. You could take this to another level by implementing a "stress-o-meter", that works the same way as the stamina-meter, but it decides the ammount of supression effect on a player. You should be able to recover from supression way faster than you recover stamina in order to not make the game come to a complete halt.

Just my two cents.
 
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I totally agree with you Elak :) A supression effekt would have been neat. But that's an age-old topic in the history of RO, so I'll let that lie for now.

A wee bit calmer now and I'd like to add that the TT-33 pistol has an effective range of 50 metres while the PPSh-41 has an effective range of 200 metres in semi mode and 100 metres in auto mode. In real life. The 7.62x25mm round was more pointed and longer than a 9 mm for example, and as such has a wee bit longer range. The PPSh's sights were adjustable from 50 to 500 metres - later versions had sights that quickly could be changed from 100 to 200 metres.

What people don't realise is that in RO objects are closer than you thing, much due to the FoV (field of view) in the game. It distorts somewhat and seeing it all on a computer screen doesn't help either. I think someone made a shooting-range map with ranges marked, though I am not sure. Someone enlighten me if so, and tell us where we can download it :)
In the absence of said map, use a Pzfaust set at 80 metres, aim at a tank and fire it. Due to the trajectory of the PzFaust it should hit the tank from above... which means where the charge lands is roughly 80 metres. It's further than you might think. Now imagine a PPSh having an effective range twice as far, and then some.

Like Elak said, this matter has been discussed before and the conclusion is that ranges are just about spot on.

As for pistols, IIRC they DO have a randomzier in RO - the farther away your target is, the more spread you will get. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
 
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... many who were expert shots ...

Expert shots? I was aware that a very, very large amount of the soldiers that landed on Normandy where fresh out of basic training with little or no real experience.

... it was no accident that a sniper had to take out the main mg ...

Correct me if I'm wrong but I was under the impression that America didn't have a sniper division at the time, snipers didn't exist on the American side, and the ones that where there where just a few dudes that where decent with a rifle that found a scope somewhere and slaped it on their gun.

I agree with Elak, he has the right idea, that's what I was trying to say in my first post.
 
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I think fear of death has a lot do do with it as well. In game you spawn and take aim. In real life you hit the deck when fire is coming your way. I assume most GI's on d day were scared out of their minds, no matter how experienced they were. On a beach with no cover facing tons of machine gun and arty fire from and enemy above, most people would try and find cover and then stay down and then maybe try and shoot at something.
 
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I think it's up to the player to feel the "stressometer" and that a video game can't accurately replicate the physiological effects of fear. Attempts to do so will make it feel like you have no control over the game and will actually probably tick off more of the realism fans out there.

To my way of thinking, realism is about placing control of your own destiny in-game in the hands of the player. that's why cone fire is bad, but high recoil is ok. It's why teams without mirror image equipment is good, even though we still try to balance the map itself.

It's up to the player to perform. Maybe we're all overperforming, but that's because it IS a video game and you'll never get it 100% realistic, especially with matters like psychological effects of fear and their physiological manifestations.

I mean, consider some of the things we don't model:

- Shell shock.

- Uncontrolled bursts of adrenaline.

- Loss of bladder control.

- wound shock

And so on.

I'd like the game to play realistically, but given that it's not a sim and there will never be true fear for one's life, we'll have to settle for peope being startled and just not wanting to respawn.
 
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Power of a real machinegunner:

"I saw how the water sprayed up where my machine gun bursts landed, and when the small fountains came closer to the GIs, they threw themselves down. Very soon the first bodies were drifting in the waves of the rising tide. In a short time, all the Americans down there were shot."
He fired for nine hours, using up all the 12,000 machine-gun rounds. The sea turned red with the blood from the bodies. When he had no more bullets for the machine-gun, he started firing on the US soldiers with his rifle, firing off another 400 rifle rounds at the terrified GIs.
A leading German historical expert of the Second World War, Helmut Konrad Freiherr von Keusgen, believes Severloh may have accounted for 3,000 of the 4,200 American casualties on the day."


tp://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1166&id=643752004

3000 casualties with 12000 rounds? every 4th bullet a hit? That's hard to believe.
 
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Isn't this just this thread http://www.redorchestragame.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15586
recycled?

and I quote myself
You're going to have to accept the fact that on beach assaults the soldiers on the beach were really under it.

Large amounts of MG and mortar fire shot them down indiscriminately, most of their weaponry wasn't ready to use. To be quite honest, no one is going to have the composure to stand there and take pot shots at a pillbox whilst this was happening.

This is not the same as a 1 MG vs 1 Rifleman situation. To be honest it IS annoying when MG's are constantly being shot by riflemen, but if your position is good enough, you'll find yourself practically untouchable (unless someone uses the lean exploit to get you)

And also, SMG's are accurate to around 50m, but there effective range is higher than that, odds are if you have the weapon rested on something and you fire off enough rounds at a target one of them is bound to hit.
The beach assault map is not an accurate portrayal of a beach assault, 10-15 people running up hundreds of metres of beach spread out so far that there is no real purpose of a machine gun in the first place.
Plus it's subject to the games mechanics. Get 3/4 MG's in a pillbox working together, and cram the allies up into bunches and I'm sure you'll have a different result.
 
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Okay, admittedly it's a fact that a small percentage of a squad/platoon does most of the killing, but one guy accounting to 3/4 of all casualties suffered on Omaha beach is a bit hard to believe.

And how did he come to be known as the Beast of Omaha Beach? "That one guy up there in the bunker. We'll call him the Beast, because he's killed thousands of us."

I'd be a wee bit suspicious of that link.
 
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As a side note to all of the 'too easy to kill' remarks--

I read many years ago- perhaps it was in a Hackworth or Keegan publication- that during the WW2 era it took roughly 1,000 rounds of rifle fire to secure 1 hit (and this one hit not always being The Deadly Shot). When MG's are added to the mix the 1,000:1 ratio goes up even higher due to the heavy expenditure of ammo the MG's put out, especially the German 34/42 series.

Note that during WW1 the ratio might have not been that much different, but the overall amount of ammo expended would have certainly been less as the majority of battlefield weapons were bolt-action rifles, with MG's just coming into their own.

In RO, our shot:kill ratio is much closer. Why? Are we THAT good or is RO weighted for 'easier' kills? I tend to think the latter, since you don't see a whole lot of RO players laying in the virtual mud with a virtual ****ing chest wound; neither do you see a whole lot of virtual tankers with Nth degree burns in their virtual tank, either. Burdening the system with having to keep track of each indivudal player's vital signs and such is simply out of the question- it's easier (and ultimately more playable) to have bullets more lethal than their Real Life counterparts.

Now what does all of this have to do with the original premise- that of it being easy to take out snipers with SMG's with a simple in-game 'trick'? Not much- but in the larger scheme of things as much as we'd like to think RO is (or should be) 100% historically accurate, it just isn't going to be so. We can be fighting in the streets of Berlin, we can be slogging through the snow or shivering in the rain IN THE GAME, but there is simply no way to transmit this sort of thing into game terms. When was the last time you were required to play RO in sub-zero temperatures while wearing a historicaly accurate German summer uniform? Rain in the game has no effect on people as it would in real life. And don't even get me on the subject of amphibious tanks.

Which brings me to the point: RO is a universe unto itself, and in order to gain any sort of enjoyment from it one must play by its rules. So it's 'easy' to take out a sniper? It's impossible to drive through Granny's garden fence with a 50-ton tank? Instead of focusing on what we CAN'T do in RO, why not focus on what we CAN do and Keep It Real on RO's terms? So you can't drive through Granny's fence- drive around it just like any other obstacle.

And if it's easy to take out snipers at long range with an SMG, by golly, go for it. In the RO Universe, that's not historically inaccurate- it's Just The Way It Is. And if YOU are that sniper, the burden is upon YOU to find a spot where you can't be taken out with that SMG so easily. Tiger tanks could normally engage T-34's at twice the distance the Rus could engage; in RO I have to live with the fact that their gunsights are just as good as mine and that they will ALL be within return fire range when I open up on them. (I do have issues with Tigers being so easy to kill with one shot, but again it's Just The Way It Is and I have to play the game accordingly.) In RO all the Russians have radios and everyone has the potential to be up on Voice comm- in Real Life, most Soviet tanks did NOT have radios and the vast majority of armor units relied greatly on signal flags and simple battlefield SOP's to get them through. Imagine if RO provided for this and added in visual signals for Russian tank commanders, with ONLY the few leaders having radios available to talk to each other or call in artillery? Can you imagine the in-game carnage if virtually an entire team couldn't talk to each other? But in this case we, of necessity, sacrifice some Reality for more Playability.

Until we have a pretty hefty leap in our gaming capabilities, we're not going to have a game- ANY game- that can lay claim to being 100% accurate; it just isn't going to happen.
 
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Perhaps a little too full of himself- that sort of claim is just too far out there to be valid. MAYBE he accounted for 3/4 of the kills on Omaha Beach IN HIS SECTOR, but certainly not the entire Omaha zone.

And getting pulled from the Eastern Front for TONSILITIS? I hardly think so. He may indeed have served there, but I doubt very seriously if tonsilitis alone would have been grounds for reassigning him- a low-ranking enlisted man- to oh-so-horrible duty in France!

With all due respect for an old soldier... I smell a rat.

Okay, admittedly it's a fact that a small percentage of a squad/platoon does most of the killing, but one guy accounting to 3/4 of all casualties suffered on Omaha beach is a bit hard to believe.

And how did he come to be known as the Beast of Omaha Beach? "That one guy up there in the bunker. We'll call him the Beast, because he's killed thousands of us."

I'd be a wee bit suspicious of that link.
 
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