Rifles of the World

[The Commissar]

I still haven't gotten an answer as to why the other hundreds of other historical inaccuracies such as every soviet given plenty of ammunition and marksmen sniping lone wolf instead of with spotters or arty not taking down buildings doesn't bother them.

And what exactly is a "true gamer"? There is zero difference between someone who plays a well known game with thousands of players and one who plays with hundreds.

I say "true gamer" in reference to people who actually want a defined and good game; people who play skillfully and know what they want (not the casual kind of gamers who play any type of shoot'em up).
Also, when you say historical inaccuracies and mention Soviet ammunition, I suddenly think that you're referring "Enemy At The Gates". Yes, ammo wasn't in excess, but by no means was it as bad as it was portrayed in that movie.

 

[HellsJanitor]

I say "true gamer" in reference to people who actually want a defined and good game; people who play skillfully and know what they want (not the casual kind of gamers who play any type of shoot'em up).
Also, when you say historical inaccuracies and mention Soviet ammunition, I suddenly think that you're referring "Enemy At The Gates". Yes, ammo wasn't in excess, but by no means was it as bad as it was portrayed in that movie.

That is a good movie. But no, they actually did send ones in with rifles first then a second line with only ammunition to pick up the dropped rifles.
Every soldier wasn't give 12 clips of rifle ammunition

It's very frustrating to hear one thing called out as historically inaccurate when there is plenty else that they don't call out since it was in RO1. It's great that the veterans love that game, but that shouldn't drag down any other good ideas under the guise that they are "historically inaccurate" and prevent the series from moving forward.

 

[The Commissar]

That is a good movie. But no, they actually did send ones in with rifles first then a second line with only ammunition to pick up the dropped rifles....

That is actually horribly untrue... (for the ammunition part)
It's a fact of history that supplies were low, but it's a concept from Hollywood that Soviet soldiers were sent with either a rifle or with ammunition.

 

[Offensive name]

Speaking of ammo, did they really issue 3 drums to a ppsh gunner?
Can you really carry 3 belts of 250 rounds for the mg34? = 750 rnds?
and then having your teamates give you even more?

 

[{aTo}SixKiller]

Over 11,800 MKb 42 (H) models were produced in Late 1942-43. I find it funny that everyone seems to know if was or wasn't there except the German Federal Archives (Das Bundesarchiv), which I have an open case regarding field trials at Stalingrad. They so far, don't have an answer if it was or was not fielded in Stalingrad. It seems some know better than the German Military Archives, makes me laugh.


[url]http://www.bundesarchiv.de/index.html.de[/URL]

 

[CopperHead]

Not Surprised.

Also not surprised that this fact was by and large ignored.

Everyone already knows the reason for including it however. My theory? To sell more units. After all... look at the game play. Look at the box art. Look at the shift towards a CoD game play?


Like so many others... I am disappointed at the outcome of this game so far.

Everyone already knows what the company did, and what the motivations for them doing it were for. Money Money Money.

 

[ElPresidente]

 

[Nikita]

That is a good movie. But no, they actually did send ones in with rifles first then a second line with only ammunition to pick up the dropped rifles.
Every soldier wasn't give 12 clips of rifle ammunition

It's very frustrating to hear one thing called out as historically inaccurate when there is plenty else that they don't call out since it was in RO1. It's great that the veterans love that game, but that shouldn't drag down any other good ideas under the guise that they are "historically inaccurate" and prevent the series from moving forward.

The stories of unarmed Russians charging the Germans with stripper clips are generally not true. For the most part, ammunition was what soldiers lacked--the overwhelming majority were issued the weapon. Even in extreme situations, such as the siege of the Brest Fortress or the Battle of the Isthmus of Perekop, underequipped Soviet units often only had a fraction, say one in five or six, of their combat troops unarmed.

For instance, note that most Soviet penal battalions were issued small arms (except for tramplers)--what made their lifespans so short were the assignments given them, their lack of heavy equipment or fire support, cruel measures such as sending them into mined areas or on winter attacks with dark uniforms that stood out against the snow, and their lack of an adequate supply of ammunition. Those rifles and submachine guns certainly didn't have a high likelihood of making it back to friendly lines after the Shtrafbat had been sent out...

You are probably correct that the average Soviet soldier did not have sixty rounds of rifle ammunition... but that WAS actually the theoretical on-paper combat ammunition carried by a Red Army rifleman. I find it FAR more galling that the German Mkb-trooper can have up to six magazines of 7.62 Kurtz Mkb ammunition--and resupply infinitely at any supply point.

And there were plenty of inaccuracies in RO1, large and small, that people pointed out and protested. The fact that the Walther P38's safety was in the SAFE position, as was the k98's until Tripwire was bothered sufficiently to fix it. The fact that the smoke pots on the German tanks were just for show. Uniform inaccuracies. Typos in many of the tank gunsights. Propaganda posters from the 1950s with an AK-armed Soviet infantryman prominently featured. The lack of select fire or even a selector switch on the PPSh-41. Serial numbers on the k98, the k98 stripper clip reload, the PTRD's penetration values...

Seems like a whole lot more inaccuracies on the German side were ever brought up than for the Soviets, but other than that, plenty of people were perfectly privy to what was wrong from the perspective of historical accuracy. Given the minor nature of most of these complaints, I hope you realize just how authentic Ostfront actually was... :IS2:

 

[Offensive name]

They so far, don't have an answer if it was or was not fielded in Stalingrad. It seems some know better than the German Military Archives, makes me laugh.


http://www.bundesarchiv.de/index.html.de[url]http://www.bundesarchiv.de/index.html.de[/URL]

 

[Grabbed_by_the_Spetsnaz]

Speaking of ammo, did they really issue 3 drums to a ppsh gunner?
Can you really carry 3 belts of 250 rounds for the mg34? = 750 rnds?
and then having your teamates give you even more?

1: AFIK Soviets PPSH solders were given one standard drum, and three full magazines for subsequent reloads, this was because the PPSH drums were very fiddly to reload and to a long time, especially when the drum was empty

2: Machine gunners generally didn't carry the Mg ammo as it would be way too heavy for the machine gunner, in real warfare you'd have an accompanying soldier carrying the ammo you weren't using at the time, and any bipods/tripods your MG use. That's why there are always at least two soldiers fining a machine gun in any picture or referance.

 

[Goten]

Another MkB thread. Russians nightmares all over ...

 

[[Mad_Murdock]]

That is a good movie. But no, they actually did send ones in with rifles first then a second line with only ammunition to pick up the dropped rifles.

This is the LAST forum you wanna say this, man. The absolute last, but i think the good comrades Nikita and Comissar already got this covered, so I won't add my voice to theirs besides a general lol.

As for the MKb, tbh I was as riled up as these guys back around release day when it exploded en masse onto the RO2 battlefield. But now, I just find it so...hard...to...care anymore. The subject has been beaten to death more so than Ogletez. I mean, yeah its disrupting as hell when you're waiting to spawn and all you hear is the "KEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKE" of MKbs the world over, and when you empty an entire PPSh mag down a hallway, or think you do, but then halfway in the Ubersoldat hoses you down while standing strong in the face of multiple 7.62x25 rounds penetrating his chest, but as far as I understand, it here to stay. There have been dozens of threads about the MKb being there or not being there, most of which i have read, and some have even posted in.

With the advent of "Classic Mode" perhaps the MKb will be relegated to an "Elite Assault" class, perhaps not. But at the end of the day, it will still be ingame, and its just easier to adjust your tactics accordingly, i find, than to try to change its existance. Maybe I'm just old and tired and need a good drink, but I think that it might be time to hang up the old sword(MKb, lol) on this one.

 

[HellsJanitor]

This is the LAST forum you wanna say this, man. The absolute last, but i think the good comrades Nikita and Comissar already got this covered, so I won't add my voice to theirs besides a general lol.

To say it didn't happen is untrue. The Soviets did much worse things than not giving soldiers ammunition or rifles. I've heard and read historians state that it did happen, just not as often as Hollywood portrays, but Stalingrad was an example of it.

It's a known fact here that any Mosin Nagant made during WW2 it saw combat because there were shortages of them. Another reason why they made more Mosins instead of SVTs is because They didn't have enough of them and they were easier to make. I pulled this off a website dedicated to them...
Q. How can I tell if my rifle was used in combat?
A. If it was built prior to the end of WWII then the odds are close to 100% that it was issued. This applies to Russian, Soviet, and Finnish Mosins. Whether or not it was actually used in combat is impossible to know, but again, the odds are pretty good that it was. If it was built near or after the end of WWII the odds are very low that it ever saw combat unless it is a documented war trophy from Korea or VietNam. Even then it might have been captured from a weapons cache and never actually used in combat.

 

[luciferintears]

I still haven't gotten an answer as to why the other hundreds of other historical inaccuracies such as every soviet given plenty of ammunition and marksmen sniping lone wolf instead of with spotters or arty not taking down buildings doesn't bother them.

And what exactly is a "true gamer"? There is zero difference between someone who plays a well known game with thousands of players and one who plays with hundreds.

In the process why dont we also make an assistant machine gunner class that has to run around with the gunner carrying ammuniton. Then you have to feed the rounds into the gun while your partner is firing; left mouse to feed, and right mouse to not feed.

But because we want this to be realistic, we have to make it so that if you're killed, some guy comes over to your house and kicks you in the nuts with steeltoe boots, and then smashes up your computer. If your wounded, you still get kicked in the nuts, but now you have to play this mini game where have to sit through an medical operation in real time, and then slowly limp to a bus that will take you home. Then you spend the rest of your life in a mire of depression and alcoholism.

jokes aside, there is a difference between historical accuracy and realism; and both have their limits. In the event that you didnt notice this is a game, not a simulator, but that doesnt mean mean all semblance of realism should be tossed out; especially considering that RO2 is marketed as a gritty and "real" portrayal of Stalingrad.

The fact of the matter is, the mkb and all the other stupid attachments/weapons/unlocks act as immersion killers

 

[[Mad_Murdock]]

To say it didn't happen is untrue. The Soviets did much worse things than not giving soldiers ammunition or rifles. I've heard and read historians state that it did happen, just not as often as Hollywood portrays, but Stalingrad was an example of it.

Perhaps true in some rare cases, but this could be said of most armies in the second world war. Even if brutal, the Soviets were not retarded, and if anything the Soviets did have in abundance at Stalingrad it was weapons, if not the men to use them. This scenario would be far more true for the German team in the later maps than the Reds.

 

[Coolicus]

I just want to make a distinction between authenticity and historical accuracy. Ostfront was very good at giving you a feeling of authenticity in the face of numerous gamey/unrealistic elements.

Here are some of the features in Ostfront that gave a feel of authenticity to the combat in spite of there lack of relevance to reality or simply improved the game - in my opinion.

Fights at 200 meters involved eye-straining pixel hunting - Now I cannot say I always liked this featured but when in a toss up between this and a zoom feature I think I tend to side with the former rather than the latter. It is a sad fact of life that until we have super high resolution monitors there will be very little we can do about it. It also made it a little harder to hit a target.

That is not to say hitting a man sized target with a rifle at 200 meters is difficult in fun shooting conditions but in combat you have a fear of death that will probably result in the expending of more ammo than if you were on the range.

Grenades had a pathetically small AoE - I think this is still true in RO2 to be honest but this is really just to make a point. I only started playing this game in 2007 but I think I am writing in saying that initially in the original mod grenades had a similar effect to a real world counterparts and it was horrible apparently. For one whilst you might say there was plenty of nade spam in urban fighting there was generally a little more sense of the use of a grenade whereas in RO1 I fondly remember people sprinting and tossing them blindly over walls in the hope of killing an enemy. Now imagine that grenade lands 10 meters from your team mates and explodes, killing 3 of them - you aren't going to be very popular are you? Mix that in with a spot of autokick and it's goodbye.

You could decide to fix or unfix your bayonet - Whilst this is a relatively minor thing and I think it has been shown on the forum that in WW2 Russian soldiers were almost always told to keep their bayonet permanently fixed in a combat zone, it was nice to have the element of choice. A practical example of why choice would be nice is in HOS you can end up in situation where whilst behind cover your bayonet is poking over or even through the cover revealing your situation.

The combatants were relatively quiet - In Ostfront aside from the occasional voice command spam your "characters" were pretty quiet. I'm not going to argue that real combat was generally as chatterless as this but I will argue for the purposes of a feeling of authenticity it was better. In HOS you often find yourself in a situation where your characters uncontrollable verbal diarrhoea gets you killed as he triumphantly announces to his team mates several floors above that "I GOT HIM" or "RELOADING". If there is to be more chatter I would only accept a system like in Resistance and Liberation where 3D VOIP rules the day and talking has consequences rather than in most games (RO1 included) where your teams soldiers are using inaudible telepathy to communicate with one another.

You could leave your tank - One of the more contentious issues was the teleporting tankman who would dispose of his foes with his trusty pistol. Now this was annoying sometimes but I think something that is often forgotten is that most tanks did have pistol ports or view slits that the tankman could shoot out from in close combat situations. More than that you wouldn't be resigned to your fate of getting cooked in the flames of a burning vehicle like in HOS. Now I did prefer the way it was handled in DH where you had to open the relevant hatch to be able to exist that was a good compromise.

You could effectively one man tank - as opposed to AI aimbot hullgunner and public server players - 'nuff said.

And plenty more...

 

[how2skate_com]

The current maps are in Stalingrad, but I look at the game more like "Eastern Front", rather than limiting it to Stalingrad. So I don't have a problem with MkB being in game, and because it's in the game it only makes sense that it's in the Stalingrad maps as well.

Ps: I didn't unlock it yet so that's not my motivation to say this. I'm not saying it's over or underpowered, but the principle of having it in game doesn't bother me at all.

 

[Unus Offa Unus Nex]

Biggest mistake TWI made was naming the game "Heroes of Stalingrad" and limiting it to that theater, and I'm sure they have realized that by now as-well

Had the devs at TWI decided not to concentrate solely on Stalingrad, but simply a time period, like say late 41 to early 43, then a lot of the "historical issues" the fans are having with the game right now wouldn't be present.

As a result TWI would probably be best off now by working on a quick sequel that concentrates on a certain time period instead, which will allow for more weapons and a much larger variety of map types being added - as-well as decreasing the chances of potential historical mistakes that the community can start going bananas over.

 

[Oldih]

To say it didn't happen is untrue. The Soviets did much worse things than not giving soldiers ammunition or rifles. I've heard and read historians state that it did happen, just not as often as Hollywood portrays, but Stalingrad was an example of it.

Weapon shortage is rather odd thing to consider, as the accounts where people were sent to frontline with insufficient ammunition or weapon can be counted with one hand. Now if we take total strenght of say one million soldiers, how many of those are actually right at the front? How many of those belong to say logistics staff etc which may be in close vicinity but very rarely are involved in fighting? Now if you account supporting personel in the total calculations regarding weapon avaibility and total manpower -- which may not really represent actual relative combat strenght -- yes, they were having shortages. If you consider only people doing the fighting, not so much. You can count the cases that have some supporting evidence by one hand throughout the entire war.

US Army had similiar thing going on before M1 Carbine was introduced. A lot of supporting personel were insufficiently armed because M1 Garand was considered too bulky\not issued to them and a mere handgun is not exactly combat effective other than for self defence at point blank range.

(Speaking of US Army going on with the hypothetical shortage examples US Air Force still had original batch M16s in their storages few years ago, probably even to this day. Omg shortages!!!111)

 

[Nikita]

To say it didn't happen is untrue. The Soviets did much worse things than not giving soldiers ammunition or rifles. I've heard and read historians state that it did happen, just not as often as Hollywood portrays, but Stalingrad was an example of it.

It's a known fact here that any Mosin Nagant made during WW2 it saw combat because there were shortages of them. Another reason why they made more Mosins instead of SVTs is because They didn't have enough of them and they were easier to make. I pulled this off a website dedicated to them...

The REAL reason why they made more Mosin-Nagants than SVTs was because SVTs were harder to manufacture, harder to maintain in the field, and because PPSh-41s could provide superior firepower in most infantry engagements for a fraction of the cost. In practice, the SVT was often issued to soldiers who had shown that they were better able to take care of their weapons.

As for Russian treatment of their troops, you are correct in that there were many cases where official measures were less than forgiving... but despite the atmosphere of political repression, the threat of exile, imprisonment, execution, or a punishment batallion, the often poor decision-making by officers scared for their own skins, the virtual nonexistence of home leave, the uncertainty of one's family ever being informed of one's death, the poor quality of medical care, and other factors, it's simply in the best interests of any nation under threat to make sure their soldiers are well-armed and supplied.

17.4 million Mosin Nagants were manufactured during World War Two. 30 million soldiers served in the Red Army during that time, not all at once. Add the 6,000,000 PPSh-41s manufactured, and that's more than enough to theoretically equip all frontline troops, without even counting tankists, artillerists, machine gun and mortar crews, anti-aircraft gunners, and the officer corps, all armed with different weapons but nevertheless serving on the frontlines. The Red Army had a much higher ratio of combat to noncombat troops than most World War Two armies, but clearly, what mattered was getting the rifles and ammunition to the right place at the right time, not the manufacture of significant quantities of either.