Weapons teams in CM:BN

[Sgt_Kelly]

I have been watching 'The Pacific' over the holiday and found the focus it has on weapons teams interesting. Good to see some attention finally being payed to the guys who are lugging the heavy stuff around the battlefield.

This reminded me about one thing that always annoyed me a bit about CMx1 : HMG teams were somewhat of a liability, especially on the defense. You don't need a whole section to man a heavy machine gun in a static position, especially when the extra men don't actually do any kind of fighting. No SMG or rifle fire on enemies trying to flank the position, no use of grenades.

The fact that the extra men in the section didn't do any fighting made MGs somewhat too easy to flank and take out IMO. Basically you have 4 guys there who do nothing but wait to become casualties.

And of course any kind of HE fire and your HMG section would be toast as they couldn't abandon their weapon.

I'm hoping we'll see better modelling of this in CM:BN, with the ammo bearers fighting properly as riflemen. Abandonment and recrewing would be a great bonus, but I'm not holding my breath.

In company level engagements there is quite a lot of manpower tied up in heavy weapons crews and in a 1:1 game you ought to get more out of these guys than you did in CMx1.

 

[thewood]

I am not sure you will see HMG much different in CM2, at least using CMSF as a reference. Now as fas as organic squad MGs, US can slit them out, but not Syria.

 

[Pandur]

well at least form CMSF one can say that the additional man in the team do fire when they come under attack form close range and they re-crew the machinegun if the gunner is dead. but thats about it, in CMSF. no temporary abandomning or things like that.
so i would say that when everything goes well in the battle, you will not see the additional guys in the weapon team in action, but when they come under fire that puts the whole team in danger and is close enough, the others start to shoot.

now i think the same goes for stuff like on map mortars and things...they all have some kind of weapons with them and they can use it, but as example when your mortar team needs to use its personal weapons, its a bad situation anyways, so you will try to avoid it in the first place.

 

[Rule_303]

How is that TV series? I was thinking of buying it, but I'm worried that with the Spielberg/Hanks sponsorship it'll have lots of sentimental P.C. "Japanese are human beings just like us" stuff, which was completely NOT in the spirit of the times. Each side successfully dehumanized the other and acted accordingly.

 

[KG_Jag]

How is that TV series? I was thinking of buying it, but I'm worried that with the Spielberg/Hanks sponsorship it'll have lots of sentimental P.C. "Japanese are human beings just like us" stuff, which was completely NOT in the spirit of the times. Each side successfully dehumanized the other and acted accordingly.

The series is worth viewing at least once. It's a bit soft in spots--and in various ways, but the hatred of the times is represented too. Its biggest weakness is that the film is too disjointed, caused by following too many story lines that flop back and forth. This remains true despite reducing the number that was covered in the book. The other major problem is that I only really connected with some of the key characters--Eugene Sledge by far above the others.

 

[junk2drive]

I received the DVD set for Christmas from my kids. I watched BoB until around episode 8 when it started to get politically slanted. I hope this is better in that respect.

Now, do I watch it on my little PC screen or my not wide screen TV?

 

[KG_Jag]

Wide screen--especially when they ship out to fight. The first episode and the back to the rehab island stuff is OK for PC viewing.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

How is that TV series? I was thinking of buying it, but I'm worried that with the Spielberg/Hanks sponsorship it'll have lots of sentimental P.C. "Japanese are human beings just like us" stuff, which was completely NOT in the spirit of the times. Each side successfully dehumanized the other and acted accordingly.

I thought it was poorly done and promised myself I wasn't going to waste any money on the DVDs. Band of Brothers was much better and, like SPR, will be setting the bar against which others will be judged for some time to come. Tough act to follow.

You don't have to worry about lack of dehumanization, but they may have gone too far the other way - and being HBO, it's definitely not something to watch with your kids; one episode practically borders on pornography. Not that I'm squeamish about such things, but it seemed odd, given that the historical source material the series is based on was far more discrete in its treatment of quote "romantic" unquote encounters.

Worth watching - perhaps renting - before deciding to buy. I watched it through once; perhaps I'd change my mind on a second viewing, but I'm not investing in the DVDs just to find out.

watched BoB until around episode 8 when it started to get politically slanted.

I have no earthly idea what that means.

The series is worth viewing at least once. It's a bit soft in spots--and in various ways, but the hatred of the times is represented too. Its biggest weakness is that the film is too disjointed, caused by following too many story lines that flop back and forth. This remains true despite reducing the number that was covered in the book. The other major problem is that I only really connected with some of the key characters--Eugene Sledge by far above the others.

Great points. I also didn't particularly like any of the characters or feel much sympathy for any of them, which made it harder, with the exception of Basilone, but then, we never really learned much about him. Because they were based on historical characters - some of whom, like Basilone, died young, the writers were a bit reluctant to flesh them out.

 

[Geordie]

Watched it and while being watch-able, its not very memorable and does not compare to BoB. The main reason being, as previously stated, you dont really relate to the characters and a bit like the Pacific campaign itself, the continuity is very chopped up.

In BoB I had more empathy with the characters as I was with them from the day they turned up for training until the wars end. The Pacific feels more like individual one hour episodes rather than a flowing series.

Probably difficult to get a series to do it justice though given the nature of the Pacific war and wanting to cover all of the main events but not having any units that took part in every one of them.