The Vickers Sucks Now

[Nebelwerfer 42]

I wouldn't exactly call the Bren the best LMG of the war, it was a solid gun and very much liked by the Brits, but the MG34/42 are just flat out better, the firepower capabilities they provided an infantry squad were simply unmatched by anything the allies had.

My gripe is with the Bren and Vickers being complete dogshit like they are in this game, I'll always expect them to be worse than the MG's, but where they are now is completely unrealistic.

 

[IronHat]

I wouldn't exactly call the Bren the best LMG of the war, it was a solid gun and very much liked by the Brits, but the MG34/42 are just flat out better, the firepower capabilities they provided an infantry squad were simply unmatched by anything the allies had.

My gripe is with the Bren and Vickers being complete dogshit like they are in this game, I'll always expect them to be worse than the MG's, but where they are now is completely unrealistic.

I talked about this in my earlier thread pinned in my signature, but basically somehow the german 7.92mm deals 2.66 time more damage than the American .30-06 and the British .303.

(6.6x is per burst, 2.66 is per "bullet")

 

[Think Tanker]

Called the best machine gun of the war? lol. The soldier calling it good would have only had the vickers hmg to compare it to...... From a historical standpoint, the mg34/42 where much better

Reliability, durability, sustainability, dependability?

My bad, I didn't know the best machine gun was the one with the most "Buzz" per Buzzsaw. Guess I should break the news to NATO, huh?

I talked about this in my earlier thread pinned in my signature, but basically somehow the german 7.92mm deals 2.66 time more damage than the American .30-06 and the British .303.

(6.6x is per burst, 2.66 is per "bullet")

Krupp Stahl?

 

[Jonnydodger]

Called the best machine gun of the war? lol. The soldier calling it good would have only had the vickers hmg to compare it to...... From a historical standpoint, the mg34/42 where much better

Best LIGHT machine gun of the war. The MG34 and MG42 are GPMGs, the Vickers and the Browning's are MMGs/HMGs. Plus they have the disadvantages associated with belt fed machine guns, disadvantages the Bren did not have. For one, the Bren rarely needed a barrel change and the cartridges are rarely exposed to dirt, unlike in the belts of the MG34/MG42.

 

[Rojan]

Best LIGHT machine gun of the war. The MG34 and MG42 are GPMGs, the Vickers and the Browning's are MMGs/HMGs. Plus they have the disadvantages associated with belt fed machine guns, disadvantages the Bren did not have. For one, the Bren rarely needed a barrel change and the cartridges are rarely exposed to dirt, unlike in the belts of the MG34/MG42.

Don't you think that that's a rather pedantic argument? The Germans employed a GPMG in a LMG role. They can be reasonably compared because of this.

 

[Karlburg]

I might've rerolled ost truppen to be cheaper and armed with a ZB-26 because the Germans did use a lot of those in second-line units. It would make them more different from grenadiers, but it's not a huge deal.

 

[Hidden Gunman]

Called the best machine gun of the war? lol. The soldier calling it good would have only had the vickers hmg to compare it to...... From a historical standpoint, the mg34/42 where much better

Having actually used them, it was very good for it's purpose, although heavy. The Bren was used in a far wider range of environments that the MG34/42's, and was still in used in some Commonwealth nations in 1990.

 

[Nebelwerfer 42]

Best LIGHT machine gun of the war. The MG34 and MG42 are GPMGs, the Vickers and the Browning's are MMGs/HMGs. Plus they have the disadvantages associated with belt fed machine guns, disadvantages the Bren did not have. For one, the Bren rarely needed a barrel change and the cartridges are rarely exposed to dirt, unlike in the belts of the MG34/MG42.

A General Purpose Machine Gun and a Medium Machine Gun tend to be the exact same thing.

 

[IS-2]

y dose bren do so little dmg?

look eugen the size of it.. it can kill tiger

 

[fufubear]

y dose bren do so little dmg?

look eugen the size of it.. it can kill tiger

That's a lahti l-39 20mm AT rifle. If this was sarcasm then that's really bad sarcasm.

 

[1776ZOOMSNIPE1911]

Having actually used them, it was very good for it's purpose, although heavy. The Bren was used in a far wider range of environments that the MG34/42's, and was still in used in some Commonwealth nations in 1990.

The mg42 saw an even broader range of use and is still being used today as the mg3.

 

[1776ZOOMSNIPE1911]

Reliability, durability, sustainability, dependability?

My bad, I didn't know the best machine gun was the one with the most "Buzz" per Buzzsaw. Guess I should break the news to NATO, huh?


Krupp Stahl?

You don't need to break the news because it already in use with nato members

 

[IronHat]

back on the vickers.

just decreasing the range of the 500m mgs was the wrong move to make. the 800m mgs like the .50cal, mg34, and mg42 can more easily stay out of harms way but the m1919, m1917, and vicker have to get significantly closer.

leaving the question regarding range aside, the m1919,m1917, and vicker should get their pre-nerf size back.

or do something fancy with them. In game most howitzer have a hidden direct fire gun, and I am not referring to the 25 pdr's AP shell. In reality the vicker and m1917 were more used like artillery as they were too heavy to constantly move. Give the vicker and m1917 the capability to fire indirectly.

The earlier optics on mg42 and mg34 did have the inclinometer used for indirect fire, although by 1944 the newer ones lacked this feature.

the m1919a4 should get their size back

 

[dmdelor]

Indirect fire MGs sounds obnoxious as heck, and super broken in deep forest or dense urban areas. More HP for the shorter ranged MGs seems like a decent idea, though. If nothing else it looks like the M1919 MG typically had a four man team, at a quick google? So, it could at least go back up to four without annoying people who prioritize realism, I'd imagine. That's a 33% boost to its HP, right there.

Personally, assuming no dramatic changes to the way machine gun ranges are currently structured, I'd like to see:

-Vickers to 600m range with a suppression boost
-M1919 to 4 HP and cost 25, with a (larger) suppression boost
-Bren is fine as is thanks to 10-point price tag, but the Guards get one card of them in Bedfords

This still leaves the German MGs pretty dominant in terms of absolute capability and at the top in terms of cost effectiveness. However, it'll give the Vickers a bit more reach to act as a longer range support gun. By making the M1919 more cost effective and tougher, it slots it firmly at a halfway point beween the Vicker's MG support team role and the Bren's "we're basically long ranged riflemen" role.
(or, if you prefer, kind of emphasizing the short vs long range roles for the teams; Bren/M1919 for close support, Vickers/M2HB to cover a long field of fire)

 

[Hidden Gunman]

The mg42 saw an even broader range of use and is still being used today as the mg3.

Ummm...wrong. The Bren was in every theatre that Brit and Dominion forces served in.

The large reason why the Bren was chosen as a basic/section level LMG for the Brits was the experience gained in WW1, where the Lewis was used as a platoon/troop level mg. In general, speaking from the Australian experience, each platoon/troop had a Lewis gun as standard, and in practice these were used for up to 'sutained fire' of 10 - 20 round bursts when opportunity presented itself.

'Best' debates are meaningless, pretty much...too subjective and too many variables.

 

[IronHat]

Indirect fire MGs sounds obnoxious as heck, and super broken in deep forest or dense urban areas.

or just a different weapon to reflect the different method of fire once you're firing by direction and distance. They would still follow the normal LOS like the 105mm sherman or the 95mm cromwell/churchill.

 

[dmdelor]

So, like, just worse stats for longer range fire rather than indirect fire? (like they currently already do for reduced suppression at short range) Well, that's fine, I guess, as long as they still require LOS.

OTOH, it also makes them less comprehensible as a unit, so it seems like you may as well just give them longer range and be done with it in that case. Or even, like, longer range and lower ACC which would have a similar effect without adding new hidden weapons to them. Once the range closes some they'll start getting the range ACC bonus and get better anyway.

I wouldn't hold my breath on Eugen giving up on German MG range superiority, though. Personally, I used to think they should just normalize all MG teams to 700m range and be done with it, but I'm warming up to Steel Division's asymmetrical design in general and I'm less strident about that than I used to be. I just want all of the units to be useful and worthwhile in-game.

 

[IronHat]

I wouldn't hold my breath on Eugen giving up on German MG range superiority, though. Personally, I used to think they should just normalize all MG teams to 700m range and be done with it, but I'm warming up to Steel Division's asymmetrical design in general and I'm less strident about that than I used to be. I just want all of the units to be useful and worthwhile in-game.

I would say that historically the german did have mg superiority, but people tend to associate the allies' mg inferiority as them being crap. not as good and bad are two entirely different thing.

the bren's worst failing was really that it was a conservative design instead of the forward thinking design like the mg34 was. Yet it would be a mistake to say the bren was bad. The bar's problem was that it was outdated, it received very little change in the twenty years since ww1.

The last changes to the bren group only change it to being the weakest and cheapest unit in the game next to the german ersatz. There was really a lot of possible meaningful changes to the bren group, like giving its missing suppression or the missing member.

The 2x bren deal the same suppression as the 1x bren despite there being supposedly two brens firing in unison. The 2x lmg34 model its two mg firing in ripple so there's no lost suppression.

Historically a bren group consist of the gunner, loader, and the group leader. The bren group in game should basically six men since it's two historical bren group working as one unit.

the price of the bren group would definitely go up, but it would a decent fire-support unit.