Matrix Games Forums

Having not posted to the forum for some time I was surprised that no one had mentioned the new flamethrower qualities of version 6.1

When I heard that the values would change I thought that they would be lessened , not dramatically increased.

FWIW from what I've read, barring the Pacific theatre of which I know almost nothing, the flamethrower was somewhat of a failure. Not a complete one however, it was supposed to have a serious effect on enemy morale.

Now there is a big difference between 12 men holed up in a stone building suffering serious rout inducing stress , to being completely wiped out in one spritz.

There is a lot of talk that 6.1 is supposed to be a final version of SPWAW. I would hope that the final version does not degenerate into battles of engineers, OT tanks, and Flamethrowing SPWs, which cost but a fraction
of a Tiger or MkIV.

It would however be nice if whenever something gets tweeked, that consideration is given to the effect on the most common elements of WW2 battles. i.e. Footsoldiers, MkIV tanks, Shermans, et al. I think this will result in a better balanced game.

Shouldn't as a game gets closer to it's ideal, changes should become less and less noticeable?

Sorry fellows , not to be a knob about it; it's just a crying shame.

Flamethrowers were nasty weapons...watch the scene in Saving Private Ryan when they torch the pillbox. Or check out some pics from the Marines assaulting Iwo, Okinawa, Guadalcanal, et al. I have some combat phots of incinerated Japanese soldiers that will turn your stomach.

They were nasty...and now they are represented as such in the game. They may be cheaper, but they are much more vulnerable to being destroyed. Beware.....

to Galka:

yes, flamethrowers are very nasty weapons, but as Flashfyre stated they are also vulnerable and to do the job they must be to the adiacent hex of the enemy, giving plenty of time during the approacing to destroy them

And about the behaviour to have plenty of big guns it is a personal taste i do not agree but also i do not blame. I prefer to stick with real formations when possible.
Bye

[ July 19, 2001: Message edited by: Mai Thai ]

In the USMC vs Japan campaign currently underway, I'm now playing a defend battle. The japanese engineer squads are annihilating me ! Visibility is one, so there is nothing I can do until they appear next to one of my units. Then two opfire shots which usually don't suppress them enough and - WOOOSH - another brave marine squad runs away crippled. M3 Stuarts burn well, too. In one case, they killed 7+4 +2 men with one flamethrower shot, killing two weakened units in the process.
This is the first defend battle i [ever] played against the AI since I started with v1.0 that I don't see me winning.

I considered posting this for a week or more now, but I said to myself, yes, flamethrowers are nasty and perhaps it is 'realistic' the way as it is.

But Galka said something above which made me think ...

How were flamethrowers employed ? I would think mainly against fixed emplacements. The flamethrower crew sneaks up to a bunker, keeps out of its field of fire and shoots a volley inside. In a confined space I think this would be really devastating.

But does this also apply to a squad in the open, spread out and with a much less restricted field of fire ?

Not complaining (yet) , just wonderin ...

Perhaps someone with more knowledge of the use of flamethrowers in WWII may shed some light on this issue ...

In my current Japan campaign, my engineering tanks are vicious. I have 3 in my core and they destroy squads like nothing. Of course I have to suppress everybody before I send them in. It doesn't take much for the crew to jump ship. They have THIN armor and it shows. So even though they are devastating, they require some delicate tactics so that they can survive. So far, they don't seem unbalanced, but of course I'm not on the receiving end!

Originally posted by Galka:
Having not posted to the forum for some time I was surprised that no one had mentioned the new flamethrower qualities of version 6.1

When I heard that the values would change I thought that they would be lessened , not dramatically increased.

FWIW from what I've read, barring the Pacific theatre of which I know almost nothing, the flamethrower was somewhat of a failure. Not a complete one however, it was supposed to have a serious effect on enemy morale.

Now there is a big difference between 12 men holed up in a stone building suffering serious rout inducing stress , to being completely wiped out in one spritz.

There is a lot of talk that 6.1 is supposed to be a final version of SPWAW. I would hope that the final version does not degenerate into battles of engineers, OT tanks, and Flamethrowing SPWs, which cost but a fraction
of a Tiger or MkIV.

It would however be nice if whenever something gets tweeked, that consideration is given to the effect on the most common elements of WW2 battles. i.e. Footsoldiers, MkIV tanks, Shermans, et al. I think this will result in a better balanced game.

Shouldn't as a game gets closer to it's ideal, changes should become less and less noticeable?

Sorry fellows , not to be a knob about it; it's just a crying shame.

i think you are right in some way. i play a email game where my oponent has some of these german flammwagen´s. i think they are more dangerous than a tiger tank,cause the hit rate is too high for this kind of weapon. they already wiped outed two complete squads with 1 shot and one of my sherman III. i don´t think it´s real,´cause to hit a complete squad of 10 men or a tank the flamethrower must be very aqurate...and i think they didn´t are. okay, 3 or 4 men gone will be okay,but complete squads???

Don't flame me but (get it?), a possible fix to the over proliferation of flame units is to modify the oob and increase their rarity, then turn rarity on. with a little tweeaking you should see those units in smaller numbers, then over all their impact should be lessened. again please don't flame me (i kill me!!)

Hmmm, I've used German flamthrower equipped engineers in '39 and I see only one or two casualities against troops, mortars, howitzers, etc. for each shot. I was thinking how weak they are.

Has anyone else seen them as not being too powerfull?

Originally posted by headhunter:
In the USMC vs Japan campaign currently underway, I'm now playing a defend battle. The japanese engineer squads are annihilating me ! Visibility is one, so there is nothing I can do until they appear next to one of my units. Then two opfire shots which usually don't suppress them enough and - WOOOSH - another brave marine squad runs away crippled. M3 Stuarts burn well, too. In one case, they killed 7+4 +2 men with one flamethrower shot, killing two weakened units in the process.
This is the first defend battle i [ever] played against the AI since I started with v1.0 that I don't see me winning.

I considered posting this for a week or more now, but I said to myself, yes, flamethrowers are nasty and perhaps it is 'realistic' the way as it is.

But Galka said something above which made me think ...

How were flamethrowers employed ? I would think mainly against fixed emplacements. The flamethrower crew sneaks up to a bunker, keeps out of its field of fire and shoots a volley inside. In a confined space I think this would be really devastating.

But does this also apply to a squad in the open, spread out and with a much less restricted field of fire ?

Not complaining (yet) , just wonderin ...

Perhaps someone with more knowledge of the use of flamethrowers in WWII may shed some light on this issue ...

I don't know claim to know anything, but I think flamethrowers would have been employed
greater numbers if they would have been really good.

Far as can deduct, one has to stand in placd and have lot of room have any of use the thing.

Just imagine trying to ambush a patrol with
flamethrower in jungle. A 6 man patrol walks towards place where you're positioned, and you try to stand way that offers you cover while use the flamethrower or then you stand on a clearing. In first case you will burn lot of trees around you which will protect the targets too and/or lot of fire will ignite the fungus near you.
Better protection, less effective I'd think the flamethrower would be.


While one is standing on a clearing, waving
the flamethrower in larger arc while six men
disperse to diffrent directions doesn't sound very sensible. Unless they walk REALLY close to each other. And somehow one succeeds
appearing front of their eyes somehow miracously.

Far as I've understood, flamethrowers were mostly used against fixed emplacements, with
lot of support.
And people who used them were itself pretty nervous using them, because they had bit limited range, slow rate of fire and you have to stand in place carrying a container that itself may ignite if hit.

In essence, I think flamethrower effectivity is about right what comes to bunkers and armor. But far off what comes to infantry.

And I think there were not many flamethrowers
per squad(max 1?) and they didn't alway work right if pressures weren't right in them.

So I think they should malfunction lot because limited numbers. Also I suspect some
people may have ditched them easily. Or how
does it sound to hit ground with lot of fuel in back in metallic container(which can ignite easily if penetrated), while shells drop around you?

I don't know much about them actually, but this is what I've gathered and deducted about them using common sense. If somebody
knows better, I'm more than glad to know better.

headhunter: I probably don't know more than you about flamethrower tactics, but fixed emplacements seem to be the best use. Also gun emplacements (w/out the pillbox or bunker) would be a good place to point them.

And I bet they were really nice toys in the southeast Asian djungles :p

I am testing a campagin "Retreat from Phillipines" using mainly US engineers from my core forces, and it usually takes 3 or 4 shots to wipeout a squad. Even though 7 or 8 casualties do occurs, often it is only 1 or 2 men. They are great at suppressing the enemy though.

BTW, I read somewhere that flamethrower do not kill by burning, it kills by depriving the recipient of oxygen, thus causing suffocation, smoke inhalation, etc.

As others have said, IRL flamethrowers were very effective against fortifications and troops in enclosed structures, they were relatively ineffective against troops that were mobile, regardless of terrain.

I think it would be great if there was a way to make Flamethrowers very effective against Bunkers and forts, fairly effective against buildings and trenches, and innefective against troops in the open. Pretty much the opposite of rifles and machine guns. Maybe give them a core attack value, multiply times 3 for forts, times 2 for buildings and trenches, times one for troops that are 'defending' and times 1/2 for troops that are 'advancing.' Unfortunately, I don't believe there is any way for the game engine to replicate reality.

I had the honor two years ago at the Reading air show, to see a live demo of the hand-held, and vehicle mounted flamethrowers!! I can assure you, they are a devastating weapon, but Inp4668 was correct, their main use is to asphyxiate the enemy, but often enough the flame itself works nivcely too, physically and psychologically!! I was standing about 75 feet away. and the heat every time it fired was INTENSE. I eould not want to be on the receiving end of it. However, the guys who used them were a very enticing target, moreso than even a machinegun crew, so they were usually escorted well, and used to ferret out bunkers and other fortifications, not so much as tank hunters, as they are all too often used here!! I;ve talked to customer that used one, they would sooner throw the thing away as soon as was physically possible, than wander around with the thing strapped to their back. Even the operator at the air show was visibly shaken and they were using a mixture composed mostly of diesel to keep down the chance of combustion!! I'll have to check on the usage per amount of men per company, but don't think there was any set ratio, as they were mostly engineering weapons for fortifications, although there were also remote operated larger units the Gerries used for defensive areas, also, couple of different types.

Originally posted by Kluckenbill:

I think it would be great if there was a way to make Flamethrowers very effective against Bunkers and forts, fairly effective against buildings and trenches, and innefective against troops in the open. Pretty much the opposite of rifles and machine guns. Maybe give them a core attack value, multiply times 3 for forts, times 2 for buildings and trenches, times one for troops that are 'defending' and times 1/2 for troops that are 'advancing.' Unfortunately, I don't believe there is any way for the game engine to replicate reality.

If the "HE kill"/"HE pen" values were reduced and instead the "HEAT pen" value were increased, wouldn't this approximate this behaviour, good against hard targets, not so good against infantry ?

[ July 19, 2001: Message edited by: headhunter ]

I am right now playing Tulagi Island mini-campaign and I haven’t seen complete squad wipeouts. It takes some firing before Japanese squad is taken out. But they do deal a lot of suppression on the receiving infantry. I thought it was realistic.

Thinking of this high flamethrower efficiency that others are seeing... Is there a possibility that secondary fire was contributing to the effect? Not only the fuel from the flamethrower, but burning trees, wooden buildings, grass, etc. Game engine does a good job modeling secondary fires on the battlefield.

Just imagine trying to ambush a patrol with flamethrower in jungle.

Yes, that would be a good one. Ambush with a flamethrower. The smell alone would tip off anyone. And then the guy standing there spraying a squad while it runs around like keystone kops with their pants on fire. That's about how real a flame thrower ambush would be. And in the woods no less. The trees would dance out of the way so he could hit everyone. And of course no one would shoot at him because they would all drop their weapons at first sight.

The flame thrower is a weapon to kill with. The target should already be suppressed by mortar or MG fire to allow the flame thower squad to move up and kill it. As long as the defense deploys interlocking fields of fire to cover the front the flamethrowers can not get close. By the time they come into use the attack is already well on the way to winning.

I think I know why Galka decided to post this subject. We are playing a Brigade size battle with 17000pts and he is kicking my butt. My FT are forceing his infantry back or are killing off whole squads outright. Yes I would find that frustrating too if I was trying to move foreward.
There are things about the game I don't understand at times too but I hope it all comes out in the wash. I am getting my butt kicked in the Northern part and I can't understand why my Panthers miss all the time and his are one shot one kill. When you think about what took place you say well, his tank was not moving mine was therefore he is more accurate. It still dosn't make you feel any better.

Originally posted by Jack:
I think I know why Galka decided to post this subject. We are playing a Brigade size battle with 17000pts and he is kicking my butt. My FT are forceing his infantry back or are killing off whole squads outright. Yes I would find that frustrating too if I was trying to move foreward.

That's part of it Jack, but it's more repulsive in other games I'm playing too.
In one I'm the German defender , dug in for several turns. Out from the farmers field appears a flame sherman, My AT gun gets off one round before he's spritzed to Valhalla.
Same for infantry squads. These have taken cover in open or forest areas, and more often than not the whole damn squad buys it! I bought some of the friggen things myself to give it a try. I expended all my movement points then opened up. I took two squads and a half track before my turn was up (with one SPW!) If my opponent has more troops in the area he might loose a couple of more squads taking me out, but that's ok, as long as I can buy more flamm SPWs for 40 pts apiece.

Naw, it's no fun, and I can see where it will lead. PS, Jack our rematch may be a hot one

Well my opinion is the infantry version is too devestating. My opponent in a game I'm in now bought both flame tanks and dismounted. The flame tanks are about right because they have to be close to work and I'm doing ok with them. I lost an entire squad that moved up one hex, in woods, and got ambushed by an engineer squad, also in woods, one hex away. All men gone, zap! I would think a more likely result would be one or two casualties, a huge morale loss, and my guys popping smoke and unassing. Were this a bunker or fixed location, I would say ok. But this much effect in an ambush role against infantry is not realistic. But I respect them!