Matrix Games Forums

I was just reading the grenade malfunction posts and how some odd things have happened with certain 'nonbreakable' weapons like grenades and bows malfunctioning on a squad scale.

Though I understand how hard it is to differentiate between classes of weapons that should and shouldn't malfunction, I've turned off weapon malfunctions altogether for this and another reason.

I was recently playing a campaign game as the Germans and was set to defend against the Poles and their hordes of surprisingly determined 19 man squads. So, accordingly, I bought lots of machine gun platoons, machine gun nests, scout vehicles, and half a dozen battalions (yup, that many!) of 150mm guns. I was going to mop the floor with them.

That's when the interesting things started happening... I've come to the conclusion that weapons malfunctions are a bit too frequent, take too long to fix, and affect too many types of weapons.

I'm going from memory, but let me sum up so you get the gist:
On round 3 I noted one of my 150 batteries had already lost a gun to a malfunction, I checked, and another had lost a single gun.
On round 4, I lost another single gun from another battery.
On round 5, all hell broke loose and I lost two guns from one of the previous batteries to jamming/malfunction (so it now had ONE gun), and another unit was affected by one loss. Also, some machineguns started jamming, and I wasn't even using them full-on. Conserving for Opfire and all that.
After this, I lost exact track, but can be summed up like this: by the end of the game, I had lost over half of my 150's to malfunction, and none were ever repaired! One entire battery was wiped out from it! Also, I bought six machinegun nests, and three of them had jammed guns, one of them completely disarmed as well. None were ever repaired in the 20-odd turns I played.

Artillery's hard enough to stay in contact with, I can't abide by the gunners getting their hands stuck in the breach, forgetting to take off the cap, or off for smoking breaks as well.

I really do like the weapon and vehicle malfunctions (I leave the latter on), but just think the weapons break a bit frequently, aren't repaired quick enough (some of those machinegunners and artillerymen had 15+ turns to repair!), and affect weapons that should be immune.

But, just my opinion... and you can always turn it off!

Originally posted by Skandranon:
I really do like the weapon and vehicle malfunctions (I leave the latter on), but just think the weapons break a bit frequently, aren't repaired quick enough (some of those machinegunners and artillerymen had 15+ turns to repair!), and affect weapons that should be immune.

Agree.

Feels to me that things have gotten worse in v4.3b (from 4.0) ...

Arralen

Although.. a weapon jamming or becoming unusable for a short while is not uncommon. Usually the small things are fixed very quickly though, which is not happening here.

I agree, it's a little too frequent as it is.
Same for vehicle breakdowns. In a recent PBEM game i had a whole pz IV platoon immobilized. One could follow their way to their objective by the line of broken tanks Special case, and bad luck.. i know.. but still.

Originally posted by Fredde:
Although.. a weapon jamming or becoming unusable for a short while is not uncommon. Usually the small things are fixed very quickly though, which is not happening here.

I agree, it's a little too frequent as it is.
Same for vehicle breakdowns. In a recent PBEM game i had a whole pz IV platoon immobilized. One could follow their way to their objective by the line of broken tanks Special case, and bad luck.. i know.. but still.

Saboteurs in factory perhaps *G*

Really, I do think that weapon malfunctions are great. But it takes far too long to clear a MG. Naturally it should take longer for large weapons but a MG should be 1 turn max.

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Lars
Nec Timide - Nec Temere

Helllo...

Please remember that the breakdown rule simulates everything from a jammed bullet to a broken breach block. It would be difficult to repair the latter in one turn, or at all, for that matter.

Bye...

Michael Wood
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Originally posted by Lars Remmen:
Saboteurs in factory perhaps *G*

Really, I do think that weapon malfunctions are great. But it takes far too long to clear a MG. Naturally it should take longer for large weapons but a MG should be 1 turn max.

I think its important to note that the time frame for one turn is "minutes". i.e. two or three, I think. These are not the time frames we might be used to in many games where one turn might equal many hours or even a day. So keep this in mind when playing with the malfunctions on, it may take several minutes to get buddies hand out of that breach

Surfer

While I admit to having little knowledge of "mean time between failure" statisitcs and their relationship to WW2 combat, I do find it a little hard to believe the undistributed nature of the breakdowns. I have played many campaigns and games in SPWAW without a single breakdown. Yet, I have had several where breakdowns happen very frequently. I just finished a game where I had 6 tigers and 4 Mk IVs and by the end of the game 4 tigers and 2 Mk IVs had suffered a main gun breakdown. It seems to be all or nothing. Maybe the random algorithm, once it determines a breakdown, gets stuck in a loop.