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MGs a bit underperforming?

Blitzkrieg is strategy, not tactics. Nice try.


You didn't have to quote so much to stick your foot in your mouth. Blitzkrieg is a well known example of manoeuvre warfare.

"Maneuver warfare, or manoeuvre warfare, is the term used by military theorists for a concept of warfare that advocates attempting to defeat an adversary by incapacitating their decision-making through shock and disruption brought about by movement. Its concepts are reflected by a number of strategies seen throughout military history."

Please note that the strategy also works in small unit engagements. The problem is you don't know the difference between a strategy and a tactic. Tactics are "how do I move from here to there?" Not "WHY do I move from here to there."

The strategy I am referring to is about swamping the information processing centres of the enemy. It can be a high command or it can be a single human brain - the fundamental principle is the same.

I use rapid movement from strange directions, often attacking enemies from behind their own lines, causing them to stop and start shooting back towards their own men, and even triggering blue on blue incidents. Shock and Awe. The point is to leave the enemy unsure as to where you are, how many of you there are, and where you came from and are going to.

That tactics of HOW I get behind the enemy are another thing altogether. That involves pepper-potting (short dashes from cover to cover) lots of concealment and use of distractions. I might throw a nade one way just to get everyone looking there while I run another. THOSE are tactics.

You use tactics to put your strategy into action.
 
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I mostly like the MG's - they're accurate enough and pack a lot of punch.. but only if I don't run into deploy limitations and problems. Constantly I'm getting notified that there's no room to aim further - resulting in narrow fire areas. There's character bouncing/shaking related to weapon deployment. There's plenty of places where I should be able to deploy, such as on top of a cable wheels, static tank corpses etc. yet I can't. Only places where I can deploy with complete certainty are windows and other obvious "shoot here" places. I feel the deploying has become somewhat more limited in RO2 compared to the original. :C

At least deploy during prone works nicely.. Even if proning itself has problems ;)
 
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I really like the MG in RO2, also that you can reload or change the barrel in cover..

But one thing, which would be really awesome:

Sometimes when there was no cover or to get better LoS, another soldier was used for stable MG usage:

mg42_bello_198.jpg



weapon_mg42_15


So then you could choose where to deploy. Well and there should be some points for the "second mg guy" like kill assists or something. I'm wondering why TW didn't inlcude this.
 
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You didn't have to quote so much to stick your foot in your mouth. Blitzkrieg is a well known example of manoeuvre warfare.

"Maneuver warfare, or manoeuvre warfare, is the term used by military theorists for a concept of warfare that advocates attempting to defeat an adversary by incapacitating their decision-making through shock and disruption brought about by movement. Its concepts are reflected by a number of strategies seen throughout military history."

Please note that the strategy also works in small unit engagements. The problem is you don't know the difference between a strategy and a tactic. Tactics are "how do I move from here to there?" Not "WHY do I move from here to there."

The strategy I am referring to is about swamping the information processing centres of the enemy. It can be a high command or it can be a single human brain - the fundamental principle is the same.

I use rapid movement from strange directions, often attacking enemies from behind their own lines, causing them to stop and start shooting back towards their own men, and even triggering blue on blue incidents. Shock and Awe. The point is to leave the enemy unsure as to where you are, how many of you there are, and where you came from and are going to.

That tactics of HOW I get behind the enemy are another thing altogether. That involves pepper-potting (short dashes from cover to cover) lots of concealment and use of distractions. I might throw a nade one way just to get everyone looking there while I run another. THOSE are tactics.

You use tactics to put your strategy into action.

No.
 
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I really like the MG in RO2, also that you can reload or change the barrel in cover..

But one thing, which would be really awesome:

Sometimes when there was no cover or to get better LoS, another soldier was used for stable MG usage:


So then you could choose where to deploy. Well and there should be some points for the "second mg guy" like kill assists or something. I'm wondering why TW didn't inlcude this.

I've never taken the few photos that show this seriously. Doing that would really damage the poor guy's ears, not to mention he could easily be burned by the barrel if you fire long enough. And it just looks dumb. Maybe occasionally this was used for whatever reason, but to include it in the game wouldn't be good. Unless someone can show me this tactic in any German military manual at the time, I'll remain to take these pictures with a grain of salt.


What does this refute? Or prove? You can do better. A lot better. Than 'No.' :/
 
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Let me state it again.
In RO2 MGs only work if the user is playing exceptionally well and hiding from the enemy in ambush positions. Realistic MGs were strongpoints that were supposed to block the enemy in obvious spots. The MGs at the beaches of normandy were mostls in bunkers or fox holes that allowed a view of the area and they were very easy to spot and sitting in obvious places. Same for any other realistic situation. MGs should not have to hide from a few riflemen. And RO1 had it working well. MGs dominated open spaces even though they were not well hidden because standing riflemen could not simply shoot them unsupported after stopping fo a second.

As for the zoom.
I can judge distance really well in RO2. And zoom is not a good solution. Depth of field blur would be a good one. Becuase all that happens if you focus your eyes on something in the distance is that your eyes adjust the contrast on a far spot.
And believe it or not, if you look at something far away in a 3d game, your eyes are actually tricked into focusing far away.
And RO1 worked well without the zoom. Snipers did actually have a range advantage amd riflemen were not snipers and MGs had a realistic chance of actually setting up concealed, because if they are placed in a good spot, they were just a tiny blob of something that had to be identified as a target first. But not in RO2. You press SHIFT and get ACOG 3x zoom.

So right now the MG is screwed on close range for realistic reasons. Screwed on long ranges for crappy ACOG zoom on rifles, and screwed for getting excessive recoil when firing from deployed. A 10kg weapon can not physically kick up that far even when hip firing. Because the weight of the weapon is too large compared to the energy generated when the powder of a round explodes.
I think the whole rifle zoom and no sway is a simple measure to make the game easier and less frustrating for mass market appeal. If that is the case, at least give us proper sway and no zoom for realism mode.


And about the whole blitzkrieg argument. It fails.
The term described mobile tank warfare and was a strategic doctrine. 10kg machine guns with supporing guys and ammo to carry, did not run from cover to cover. They were usually well dug and fired from those positions. Simply because readying such a weapon to fire takes a long time and a machine gunner running around from cover to cover can not cover his own troops moving around. And in case you did not notice yet, you basically descrive how MG players in RO2 have to adapt into playing like a sniper to actually survive combat, and that is not what an MG is about.
 
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In RO2 MGs only work if the user is playing exceptionally well and hiding from the enemy in ambush positions. Realistic MGs were strongpoints that were supposed to block the enemy in obvious spots. The MGs at the beaches of normandy were mostls in bunkers or fox holes that allowed a view of the area and they were very easy to spot and sitting in obvious places. Same for any other realistic situation. MGs should not have to hide from a few riflemen. And RO1 had it working well. MGs dominated open spaces even though they were not well hidden because standing riflemen could not simply shoot them unsupported after stopping fo a second.
You're kidding right? You're going to use the beaches of Normandy, miles of empty coastline with zero cover and an assaulting force that can't stop to return fire as your example of MGs under normal conditions? That's a machine gunner's wet dream.

Expecting to set up in the middle of the street on Barracks with an MG, with no less than 15 windows looking straight at you, and expecting to dominate, is totally unrealistic. Is the other side supposed to run up the street in a big pack, and not try to shoot you through pinholes at the first opportunity?

The whole MG argument seems to boil down to "someone shoots me from a direction I'm not expecting. MGs aren't good enough." The only downside as far as I've seen (and I've made top of my team using the MG) is that you can't fire standing back from the windows like all the riflemen do. If that's all you're capable of doing, leave the MG to people with more balls.

But here's a perfect MG position to test out. Go play Barracks as the Russians and set up on the west side of the administration building, 2nd floor balcony, prone in the doorway. And reap kills as you murder all the Germans trying to flank the Adminstration building with their MGs, all the guys trying to slip out the back of the Propoganda House, everyone in its south and east facing windows and all the guys running out the front to hit the NCO Barracks. I did that for 10 minutes straight without getting shot.

It's funny, RO vets like to talk down to the casual shooters all the time, but they teach you one important lesson that RO vets are oblivious to. You kill someone in casual shooters, they know where you are and they come looking for you because they play on shoebox-sized maps. Something people pining for the "ye old RO1 bolt-action rifle/MG dominance" days don't seem to get if this thread is any indication, like they're used to sitting on a hill and shooting people with impunity for 20 minutes because the guys they're killing never have a prayer of hitting them at that range.
 
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The whole MG argument seems to boil down to "someone shoots me from a direction I'm not expecting. MGs aren't good enough." The only downside as far as I've seen (and I've made top of my team using the MG) is that you can't fire standing back from the windows like all the riflemen do. If that's all you're capable of doing, leave the MG to people with more balls.
No, the problem is not being outflanked. Being shot from an odd angle when using an MG is a realistic threat. However MGs have difficulty with head on attacks from enemies that are a bit farther away. Which, again, is a problem of simple riflemen getting ACOG level zooming which allows them to accurately find and shoot an MG from 200m+
 
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The zoom on the MG is 3x what the rifle zoom is. Where is the logic that says someone behind an MG should be able to see and shoot targets easily but a guy using the same human eye behind a rifle at the same range should struggle to see them? That makes no sense. I play with my FOV at 90, so I'm getting the least zoom possible and I think people are grossly over exaggerating it

I really think people haven't played the maps long enough to have found the way to use the MGs most effectively on these maps either. (Even though I've watched German MGs on Red Oktober bring the whole Russian side to a loss in 5 minutes.) They're running up to sandbags just like everyone else (including the riflemen) and getting their face blown off because they're looking to open up on a horde of advancing guys while there are a dozen enemies hitting every window looking for the first rifle flash they can see.
 
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I agree that maps are too small and because of this we can't have a real long range combat (300+ meters). Fog of war does help neither (as for snipers).

I really don't blame the zoom feature. Searching enemies through a monitor is really different from reality because of many things: look, I'm in a IL2 virtual squad since years (6S is the tag of my IL2 squad, we are not a RO clan) and the "dots=enemies" issue is the greatest limit of the sim.

And of course since the CAP system is a bit "close combat" focused the MG soldier finds himself out of the CAP and he's not rewarded in term of team points. How can I ambush the enemy side if I have to stay in a restricted area?

Anyway I finally get used to place my MG in protected position and with a good support from at least one rifleman to cover my back I have not to worry too much.

I've only two real big problems:
- As I explained in a post above 50% of the time I only wound the enemy: one, two or three spatters and the guy reaches a cover: from that moment I have to take attention on that place because I know he will come out for me in a pair of seconds. Many times I hit a guy in the back with a rifle from 3 meters and I dont kill him... netcode or damage model?
They should increase sway for injured soldier and of course remove that ridiculous bandage feature!

- Strange suppression from this kind of weapon: I take position to cut the enemy reinforcement for the cap zone. Two soldiers run in open space with few feet of distance between them and I manage to kill one... the other one stops, aims and kills me, standing with his rifle or better with his SMG. Sure this one is a good player, very fast, but if really the game is going to reward player's sleight with mouse and keyboard more than tactical position (in open ground against a Mg who killed a man few feet from him!) then something is really terribly wrong... there are many games that works in this way and I hope RO2 will not one of these.

So I don't think if suppression works the right way. Another negative point for the MGs... Sadly.
 
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I think what we are forgetting is recoil and how it is managed. Yes, Mg-42's ans 34's were deadly accurate, and more than a rifle; but these were layette or fortress mounted (and also Coaxial). Even in Ro1 you can put rounds in a much tighter group from a tank co-ax than you can with a non mounted one. Especially with the Mg-42 which does not have a single fire option (the Mg-34 is my choice because of that option).

since I refuse to pay more to play a beta of a game that should be out...I can't say for sure..but I bet this "deadly Heavy barrel accuracy" will come with the new mounted guns scattered on the map.
 
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I decided to spent today solely on MGs to find more insight on this issue, here are some thoughts:

We really need points for suppressing

I decided to go axis MG on Grain elevator. I found this two story building near spawn (with radio) where I set up the MG, as I could see like every window in the tall building and was able to fire at them all. I couldn't really see the ground level but this probably protected me from being gibbed by riflemen.

Everytime something moved in a window, I unloaded, the guys ran off cos it was obvious they wouldnt last long in the window. I did this for maybe a good 10 mins after which we managed to storm the building and I was no longer really needed there. I didn't get a single kill (which was weird, as if I couldnt penetrate the outer walls after 200m+?), but I suppressed probably two dozen guys so hard that they just had to leave the windows. Basically, I ended up with literally 0 points, but I'm sure I was worth a lot in the early stages of the fight by keeping the windows clear, but I was awarded in no way.

Recoil?

Realism aside, the reason several riflemen can outshoot me before I can drop them with my MG is probably the recoil. I don't know whether it's realistic or not, but the fact I can shoot a few good sized bursts at the guy and he can still take aim and shoot me even if I had the drop on him. I find accuracy good enough (but as if there was some weird bloom-effect in addition to recoil too?), but the recoil seems to make life much harder.

Recoil for me isn't much of an issue, but when we think about it: Are the MGs OP? No way, rather underpowered if anything. As far as I know, MGs were mainly used with loooong bursts of fire, but thats mostly pointless and impossible in RO2. With noticeably less recoil, we would probably give MGers better chances against infantry.

All this said, MG34's semi-auto is frigging awesome, but it feels like something else than machinegunning at this point.

Positioning

This is indeed a funny one. Instead of being able to set up a strongpoint, in RO2 you pretty much have to set it up at an ambush point to avoid dying very fast. However, if you have a decent team to support you, you can actually set it to obvious places too. Today was pretty much the first time ever that I could relatively safely deploy to a pretty "obvious" location and get dozens of kills without them being able to take me out. I guess this is partially map knowledge/utilization too, some spots are just naturally a bit better than others.

Changing places is pretty much mandatory every few respawn waves. The rifleman you just killed twice in a row almost straight outta spawn is gonna dedicate this life just to take you down. If he knows exactly which window you are on, you are pretty much as good as dead.



But yea, it seems to depend alot on your team as well as the opposing team whether or not you can be succesful with the MG. Sometimes the opposing team might have a person who prefers "camping" a certain spot which may sadly be looking right into your window. The next time theres perhaps no one who uses that place and you have yourself a godlike MG-spot.

What I would like to see is some fancy way to award suppressing (MGers already lose out on my cap-based team points and end up lower on scores) and perhaps less recoil to allow for more full-autoing or just generally speaking being able to take the guy out before he shoots you :D Wider radius on the suppression effect for MGs could be cool too, but that may make it a bit over the top at least if suppression awarded points.

I would suggest that you can only get suppression points from the same person once in their life. Once you get suppression point for PlayerA, you can't get them off him again until he has respawned. Also so, that the suppression meter would have to hit 0 for you to get those points, perhaps? This would give a nice edge to machine gunners when it comes to suppression points.
 
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We really need points for suppressing

I decided to go axis MG on Grain elevator. I found this two story building near spawn (with radio) where I set up the MG, as I could see like every window in the tall building and was able to fire at them all. I couldn't really see the ground level but this probably protected me from being gibbed by riflemen.

Everytime something moved in a window, I unloaded, the guys ran off cos it was obvious they wouldnt last long in the window. I did this for maybe a good 10 mins after which we managed to storm the building and I was no longer really needed there. I didn't get a single kill (which was weird, as if I couldnt penetrate the outer walls after 200m+?), but I suppressed probably two dozen guys so hard that they just had to leave the windows. Basically, I ended up with literally 0 points, but I'm sure I was worth a lot in the early stages of the fight by keeping the windows clear, but I was awarded in no way.
IMO points for suppression is a really good idea.

Recoil?

Realism aside, the reason several riflemen can outshoot me before I can drop them with my MG is probably the recoil. I don't know whether it's realistic or not, but the fact I can shoot a few good sized bursts at the guy and he can still take aim and shoot me even if I had the drop on him. I find accuracy good enough (but as if there was some weird bloom-effect in addition to recoil too?), but the recoil seems to make life much harder.

Recoil for me isn't much of an issue, but when we think about it: Are the MGs OP? No way, rather underpowered if anything. As far as I know, MGs were mainly used with loooong bursts of fire, but thats mostly pointless and impossible in RO2. With noticeably less recoil, we would probably give MGers better chances against infantry.

All this said, MG34's semi-auto is frigging awesome, but it feels like something else than machinegunning at this point.

:rolleyes:

MG34 - YouTube

Positioning

This is indeed a funny one. Instead of being able to set up a strongpoint, in RO2 you pretty much have to set it up at an ambush point to avoid dying very fast. However, if you have a decent team to support you, you can actually set it to obvious places too. Today was pretty much the first time ever that I could relatively safely deploy to a pretty "obvious" location and get dozens of kills without them being able to take me out. I guess this is partially map knowledge/utilization too, some spots are just naturally a bit better than others.

Changing places is pretty much mandatory every few respawn waves. The rifleman you just killed twice in a row almost straight outta spawn is gonna dedicate this life just to take you down. If he knows exactly which window you are on, you are pretty much as good as dead.

But yea, it seems to depend alot on your team as well as the opposing team whether or not you can be succesful with the MG. Sometimes the opposing team might have a person who prefers "camping" a certain spot which may sadly be looking right into your window. The next time theres perhaps no one who uses that place and you have yourself a godlike MG-spot.

I think that is also because you can't move objects in the map and so the good positions are really few.
For example in the first floor of building D in "Barracks" map:

unled1qc.jpg


I use to place there to cover defensively all the eastern side of the map. Its a really good position but that damned bed limit my movement: in reality I would move it... instead sometime it gives me problems with the movement of my avatar (glitches and so on).

In the same way there are many windows that are useless since you have to place the MG in line with their structure: in a room I would move a object (like a table) to place my Mg over it in a very defilated position (a little back from the window), just to cover 30
 
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Just my two cents:

I find MG a hard class to play effectively. This is because of set-up issues in windows e.g. not being able to properly rotate left and right. The other issue I have is that when I try to move with the team and provide cover fire on flanks I end up setting up too late and getting picked off.

The only time I've been successful with MG is if I hang back and cover some sniper windows, but that is extremely boring IMO, and isn't doing much for the team, either.

I've played the beta about 35 hours so far and I have yet to face a well-placed MG.

It just seems that there are lack of spots to deploy, and sometimes deploying feels really slow.

I don't think correcting sway is the way to go.. MG just needs to be more mobile -- faster deploy, crouching + undeploying, etc.
 
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In any mode what I usually do is find the most aggressive/high kill rate player on my team to follow, they will kill most close-medium range targets that pop out which allows me to move forward safely and find a good long range position to setup. I will usually sit there deployed and wait for my stamina to regen then I will either move forward if our team is pushing successfully or stay deployed if our team fails to push and try to lock down the lane until reinforcements come. This is the most effective way to play offensive MGs imo.

A good tip is never deploy in a window if their are no other targets for the enemy in the area, they will pick you off right away. I will use cover and maybe pop my head up to just look around really quickly and as soon as I see allies moving forward I will deploy and open up on all areas where I see enemy fire from. This will either supress them or kill them but either way my allies will be able to move forward which is how you win maps.

Defensive MG is much easier, you just scan the area for moving targets and shoot anything that is coming toward you.
 
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I would definitely like to see the deploying improved in the sense that most objects that are about the right size could be deployed on. Like on Red October, there are lots of those cable-roll-thingies which seem to have perfect amount of cover, location and height for deploying, yet you can't deploy on them.

I guess it's not an easy task, but basically making the deploying more dynamic instead of what it feels to be now, as in they've set each individual object whether it can or can not be deployed.

I think it has been mentioned several times here too that a smart MG probably wouldnt put themselves directly on the window ceiling, but rather a bit further back in the room to conceal themselves better. Well perhaps more of a sniper tactic, but since MGs dont quite work like they do in RL, this could do a lot too.
 
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It;s probably because the weapons are more accurate overall than in RO1. And because there is 0 sway.

Every shot is a hit from almost any range. So it takes only 1 guy to notice the MGer and shoot 1 bullet at him. So you die fast, almost everytime, without knowing that hit you, and without having the chance to relocate after a bullet comes whizzing by.

MGing is now so risky, it's not worth the effort anymore.

Tis the exact opposite imo. Yesterday on barracks I was leading the team in points & kills using an mg34.

I think people have a bug of the rambo with the MG and want to cover too large of an area. Find yourself a nice longerish range where you can see your entire shooting area without turning, use chained single shots, win.


the dp on the other hand which I've only used once did seem a bit innacurate, but again i think its just that i need to find what situations the weapon works best in...
 
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the dp on the other hand which I've only used once did seem a bit innacurate, but again i think its just that i need to find what situations the weapon works best in...

The DP-28 seems less accurate when popping single shots but it has a lot less recoil when deployed, giving you tighter groups when firing a burst.

With the MG-34, for me - not saying it's TWI's fault, it's almost impossible to put more than the first round on the target with the recoil. Just haven't had enough practice on it yet.
 
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