"What should the hit chance be?" Topic

I'm a Canadian rifleman, crouched behind some rocks, taking three shots at a vile Nazi 100 yards away as he's running across the street.

I'm not marksman but I'm not a slouch either. The perfect model of an average rifleman defending Hockey, Democracy and those lovely French ladies.

WITHOUT going to your favourite set of skirmish wargame rules, what do you feel is a good chance of me knocking Fritz off his feet with my shots?

What do you think the chance should be in a game?

Smaller than you think

Were you tracking the rifleman as he burst from cover, or do you first notice him as he runs out?

With a semiauto, a wide street, and tracking him from cover, I'd give you roughly 30% chance of a hit.

With a bolt action rifle, a narrow street, and not expecting to see him burst from cover, I'd give you ca 5% chance of a hit.

All the same, you'd never catch me running across a street in the open with crouching enemy riflemen a hundred yards away!

25% base. Modify up or down based on circumstances. Probably never higher than 35%

Three chances at a 5%. For a game, probably a 30, a 20 and a 10. Here is a recent "to hit" thread:

TMP link

I kinda agree with Sabre6, but I'd give the Canadian a top of 50% to hit. 100 meters is a bread and butter shot for an Infantryman. Three shots from a solid supported kneeling is a good shooting position and good number of rounds for a hit. Semiautomatic though as racking a round would distort the shot picture. No better than a 50% since the opposing infantryman isn't strolling, but probably sprinting to cover! Modify up and down for extra shots, time of day/night, weather, and even less if the sprinter's buddies are providing covering fire.
Since our Canuck is a solid fellow and kneeling, I'd give him a base start of 35% for the first shot with a 5% increase for each additional pop against a moving target. It's real easy to lead too much for standard shooters, but 100m is within standard skills.

1%
And that's generous.

The majority wouldn't even shoot.
A running target is a pretty tricky shot.
100 yards is a football pitch.
Most riflemen didn't even think it was worth trying to shoot at that range let alone actually aim at someone.

Unless Fritz is crippled your getting one shot at best. Other then that I would give 50% tops, and that means you knew he was coming and nobody is firing at you. At worst a 1%.

I agree with Dynaman8799 – one shot maybe two.
He's crossing a street not a field.

First shot 12% chance.
Second 7%.

Additions or minus's nor more than 7%.

I'm Canadian and fired rifles.

Not a ruleset but John Salt's compendium of War Office tests -

A trial was performed on moving targets at 17 yards. The targets were 4ft tall and 1ft wide, covering
a 50 ft run, exposed for 5 seconds.
Weapon Runs Shots/run Hits/run Hits/shot
Rifle 6 2 1.3 0.67
Bren (single) 5 4 1.4 0.35
Bren (bursts) 6 6.8 1.2 0.17
Sten III (single) 10 5.6 2.0 0.36
Sten III (bursts) 35 12.1 4.4 0.38

Would be easier to track the target at 100 meters, but obviously a smaller sight picture.

Single shot run with the Bren would be equivalent to a semi, although the Bren has been stated here on TMP to be particularly accurate.

And then, how wide is the average French street?

P.S. On a stationary target at 200 yds -

First round hit probability -

Rifle (unrested) 57
Bren single 60
burst 90

yeah, three shots might be a bit much. If the chap is already standing sentry and watching the street, two shots is probably doable if he's good with his hands.

Unless you were on some kind of overwatch you probably never saw him.

I have shot a lot of running rabbits out of my fathers hayfield over the years. After I got my Gerand, thats what I used on them. Hitting with a .22 or a 30-06 was a tough job. Of course a ribbit is a bit snmaller than a man, but just getting the rifle into the right direction takes the most time. Shooting running targets is a different skill, and talkes some practice.

Fot the inevitable "use a cannon" and why hurt poor bunnys posts. .22 doesnt always stopp the rabbit. 06 pretty much does, I certainly dont remember having to shoot one twice. To a hay farmer, with pasture for both cows and horses, rabbits are vermin right down there with cockroaches. They can do an unbeliveable amount of damage to a hay field in a very short time. And, they then make a huge number of new bunnys for the next year. which is why I only rarely shot at coyotes, even though they did pick off a couple of calves. Long as they stayed away from the chickens they could get all the bunnys they wanted. mess woith my chickens, different story.

Owen

Very low, probably 1%, maybe 5% at best (you are in a really good firing position and you already know where the enemy soldier is going to start from).

If you think the chance is higher, think what that implies about the motivation level of the German doing the running.

Regards

Ivan,

The key question in this, in my opinion, is 'how wide is the street,' i.e., what is the exposure time? I believe this is driving a lot of the variance in responses.

Additionally, I will point out that running in combat is a funny thing; you're not moving nearly as fast as you think you are, and the effect actually gets worse the farther you are away from the guy shooting at you.

It was mentioned above about not firing at enemy targets at 100 yards (not firing at 100 yards!?). I'd suggest everyone go outside, pace out 100 yards, then turn around and look at how big the people (targets, in military parlance) are, and how slow they appear to be moving from that distance (even professional athletes on a football field or soccer pitch).

I will again caveat all that with the issue of exposure time. If you're on watch and the target is defiladed (he's out of LOS until he steps onto the road), and he's only going 10 yards, he's gone by the time you get the weapon on him. This is not an issue of combat marksmanship, this is an issue of human reaction time (and this is probably what the post about 'not even shooting' was about. If that's the case, I apologize as that's not how I understood it).

In terms of trying to figure out game design for probability of hits, I'd say you want to get to the marksmanship issue, which is better served (I think) by taking away the limited exposure: the enemy is 100 yards away and is going to run lateral to your Canadian rifleman at a constant speed and direction for 300 hundred yards. How many rounds does it take our Canuck to get on target (to then work some cool maths to figure out what that means statistically regarding 'chance to hit,' working in a little time scale to determine how many rounds our guy would get off in an activation)?

My opinion is that, if the guy simply keeps running, as opposed to hitting the deck/finding cover and returning fire, three rounds (at most)and our bad guy is on the deck. Which is close enough for me to make it a 4, maybe 5, on a D6. Or even a 1 and a 6 ;)

Regarding any issues that might come up regarding 'running in combat,' indeed, the world's infantrymen are taught to sprint in combat, but it has nothing to do with the (quite frankly, limited) problems posed by a moving target. It has to do with enemy reaction time. In (what the US military calls) 'individual rushes,' you are not making a difficult target by sprinting, it's the fact that you're up (or out of cover), sprinting, and then down again/behind cover before the enemy has a chance to react to successfully engage you.

The running is simply to cover as much ground in a single bound as possible, not to make you a more difficult target. The getting up, running, then getting back down before he can react is what makes you a difficult target.

Anyway, cool threat and discussion, and here are the two cents I found in the couch cushions ;)

V/R,
Jack

Having chewed over this problem when writing my own skirmish rules : link
I think you should forget what the 'real' chance to hit would be, and go with what you feel is right, and err on the side of missing!
You can alter the chance of a hit towards realistic levels by making some hits 'Grazes', or near misses, which keeps casualties down and player interest up…mostly!

Some good comments guys ! Running cover to cover has a number of varibles. What we do and it is based on an Old Avalon Hill rule. If the target spends 25% or < of it's movement in the open … it gets a cover bonus. As the target is not exposed enough to get a "good shot or shots" off … kind of simplistic … but it works with out being too "fiddly" … It's not so much about the firer being able to engage the target, but if the firer really has enough time to see & engage the target. We all know what happens if you spend too much time running in the open …

Combat effectiveness of weapons is approximately 40 times lower than on the range (more for individual weapons). So, if your chap gets 80% on the range at 100m vs moving targets, call it 2% on the battlefield.

That does make for a dull game of course.

@Martin,

I don't think I've seen the x40 number before – where does it come from? I've heard of the x6 number (unit reduction in efficiency on ops) lots of times, by contrast.

Not that I disagree with your number mind, it being pretty close to mine…

Regards

One shot, at a very low percentage maybe 5%. They are using a bolt action rifles not the Garand. This is realistic. Game wise probably use a higher percentage. In combat situation there really were not high casualty rates I have heard a few thousand rounds expended to kill a single solder in WWII. Unless assaulting a heavily defended position casualties were low and you were more then likely to retreat then to stand and fight against overwhelming odds.

I'm pretty sure the Napoleonic saw about needing a man's weight in lead to kill him is still accurate. Given that WW2 rifle bullets are ~35-45 to the lb (and that's just bullet weight, not total cartridge weight!), that makes a good 6000 rounds fired to drop a 150lb soldier!

For gaming purposes, I'd bump the to-hit chance to a number you can actually roll on a die, and maybe modify. Depends on your shooting mechanics.

Using Force on Force rules, better troops roll bigger dice (more sides), and need to roll a 4+ on their dice AND beat their opponent's die rolls. (I did the math once, this gives fewer hits than a simple count rolls of a 4+ and subtract number of opponents successes).

With Infinity rules, there are modifiers for range, cover, and camo, and those mods are in units of +/-3. Your basic shooting skill is 9 for abysmal shooters, 11 for average troops, and up to 14 or 15 for really good troops. Start with skill, apply range/cover/camo mods, roll target number or lower on a number of d20s equal to your weapon's Burst value (usually 3 for rifles, 4 for MGs). Except that your target is probably shooting back, so you need to beat his roll to hit you! Your opponent usually only gets one die to roll if it's your active turn. And there are other special cases, like getting a first strike.

But I've had a lot of shots where I needed a 1 or 2 to hit the target, for a 5-10% chance of hit.

This is one case where having a SMG or even a pistol gives you an edge over a rifleman -- you can get the short weapon pointed in the right direction quicker.

I thought it was, on exercise divide range accuracy by 10, in combat divide accuracy on exercise by 10. So .8% for a soldier who has 80% range accuracy. I guess it's why MG's do the butchers work and soldiers can often close to grenade range, without losing half a platoon.

Gentlemen,

I can't help but think we're giving short-shrift to your average rifleman. I'm not sure I understand all the commentary regarding 'take range accuracy then seriously degrade it to arrive at combat accuracy.'

It is my understanding that the serious degradation occurs due to issues of 'average combat range,' which I would put at maybe 300 yards (my understanding as a average for the various studies), and 'combat conditions,' i.e., more than likely our rifleman is under fire himself AND the 'average' combat would see our rifleman engaging an enemy in cover rather than in the open.

But this scenario IS practically a range shot: he's in a stable shooting position, eyes down on his sector of fire, not being fired at, and the enemy is moving laterally at 100 yards; at 100 yards he shouldn't even have to worry about sight manipulation/range estimation. The only thing to interfere with our rifleman is exposure time, i.e., is there enough time to see the enemy soldier, process the info, and react?

I would agree that mortars and machine guns do the majority of the killing on the battlefield, but that occurs from 900 yards down to 200 yards. This is not only due to their increased casualty producing capability, but also due to doctrinal weapons employment.

I'm not saying rifles would get more guys than MGs/mortars at 600 yards, I'm saying that rifles aren't even typically supposed to engage until 300 yards or so, less in the attack because you're generally trying to have your rifleman attack via a covered and concealed approach, moving and not shooting, whilst supporting arms take the enemy under fire.

Even in cases where a covered and concealed approach is not available to attacking infantry, the rifleman are still not firing until they've gotten very close to the enemy because having part of the unit fire while another part moves (fire and maneuver) leads to a sever decline in his command and control ability. So, the infantrymen are told to increase their interval and keep moving, not stop and return fire, while closing the range with the enemy.

I look at it this way regarding the how many rounds must be expended to put a man down: if he's in the open at 300 yards or less he's going down, if he's in cover he's not, it's going to take heavy weapons or close assault to clear the position. This leaves us with our current issue, 'how many rounds does it take?

In the first case (target in the open) our 'bullets expended' calculation gets thrown off a bit as rifleman tend to fire more rounds than was necessary: how many rounds did it take? Well, the first round put the guy down, but there were five riflemen that saw him and all five fired five rounds in about five seconds (I'm sure someone can quote us the British Army standard in WWII for bolt action rifles firing at the cyclic rate; it's a lot faster than most folks think). In the studies this gets turned into "it takes 25 rounds to kill the enemy at 100 yards in the open."

In the second case (target in hard cover), a platoon of infantrymen fired their entire basic load (usually somewhere between 125 and 300 rounds, depending on service and country), got more ammo, and fired that off too, not hitting anyone. The rifleman weren't concerned with an after-war study trying to make conclusions regarding small-arms combat accuracy/efficiency. They were firing to keep the enemy's head down so a flamethrower, or rocket launcher, or a tank could move up to point blank range and 'reduce' the enemy position.

Regarding our study, look there, thirty rifleman fired 6000 rounds and didn't hit anyone, at least that we know of; after the tank pulverized the position someone looked and saw twenty dead enemy bodies; which ones were hit by rifle rounds? And how many did it take to get that one? Was he the only one visible? How much of him was visible? What was the 'range capability' of the rifleman that got him? Hell, who got him?

I'd say, be careful with the studies. Hitting a man in the open and hitting a man in cover are night and day different, and I think we're on the wrong track if we think an average rifleman has a 2% chance of hitting someone at 100 yards. Certainly not rules I'd play ;)

For what it's worth.

V/R,
Jack

All this stuff about fleeting targets is making me think of an idea:

Roll a die size equal to the movement range of your infantry figures. If the roll is equal or under the distance moved in the open, reaction fire may take place.

So if a grunt moves 6" per turn, and is crossing a 3" street in plain view, I have to roll a 1-3 on 1D6 to get a shot at it (that's ignoring the chance to hit of course, this is just to get to fire)

In my rules I have a 'roll to shoot' DR and a roll to hit/damage – then a saving throw to escape from harm.

The most important DR and DRM are those for roll to shoot – I call it a fire task check – FTC for short.

In this case if your soldier is part of a pretty good section and has 8 morale then he needs to roll a DR less than 6 on 2 dice to have a chance of firing. 100 yards is about the limit of normal range. The most likely result is therefore that out Jerry will make it into the cover across the street unengaged – with the next most likely result being pinned in the street with a small chance of one or more casualties – I'd assume Jerry has a few friends with him but he could be an NCO, messenger or some other bod apt to be running about on his own.

69% MAKES IT OK – [INC 58% not even shot at]
25% PINNED
6% HIT – or one of his mates was and they are pinned under fire in the street – but have a 1 in 6 chance of still being able to recover and make it to cover

Sorry – OP said not to go to our favorite rules but I wanted to check mine against what people think.

Basically I'd say 1 shot maximum with a bolt action rifle and about a 5% chance of hitting.
Personally, I'd like skirmish and other sets to massively reduce casualties and proportionally increase the effects of losses and of just being under fire. It would not IMO make for a dull game though it might reduce the Hollywood element.

I think that this is one of those areas where it is virtually impossible to attempt to get anything like a realistic probability in a wargame and keep players satisfied and interested.

Firstly, there are far too many variables that need to be considered when considering the probability of a hit, as others have mentioned. Some of these relate to the situation while others relate to the shooter and the target. If anyone wants to write a set of rules which take them all into account, I wish them luck and I might well be the only person who buys them.

Secondly, the probability of hitting a moving target in a combat situation, even at 100 yards (what a quaint unit of measure) is surprisingly low. My own men, who were well trained in accurate, controlled shooting in conditions as close to combat as we could manage without actually putting their lives at real risk, found it very hard to hit moving targets at even relatively short ranges with any particular shot. I have discussed this with British officers, as I consider the British army to still be among the very best at accurate, controlled shooting, and their Afghan experiences were very similar to ours. Players would get bored very quickly.

Returning to the original question, if our German (ouch!) is sprinting across a 10 yard wide street, he is going to be moving for something like 2 seconds. Assuming that the Canadian is only armed with a bolt action rifle and has not found an MG42 lying around, and is alert, ready and expecting the runner, he might be able to get one shot off, so his chance of hitting is rather low, even in perfect conditions. However, combat conditions are far from perfect.

For example, is it raining and, if so, is the rain directly into the Canadian's face? Is the sun shining into his eyes? How tired is he? How stressed is he? How clean is the barrel of his rifle? How good is the quality of his ammunition? What is the likelihood of it jamming or misfiring? Is there smoke blowing around? Has his friend just been shot next to him?

For the Prussian (calling him that makes me feel a little happier about potentially shooting him), is rain making the road slippery? Is it icy? Is he running straight or dodging? How fast is he? How tired is he? Is he aware of the Canadian? Is there rubble or wreckage in the road that he can use for protection as he runs? is there rubble or wreckage in the road that slows him down or trips him?

There are many other factors that add complication to what seems like a fairly simple question. It all depends on who much detail you want to model and how much you consider to be included in the "luck of the dice". For our own skirmish rules, which were partly written and played while in Afghanistan, we went for the latter approach.

Jurgen

Another thought strikes me especially after reading Jurgen's post.

If your Canadians section's mission is to stop enemy infiltrating across that street aren't they more likely to fire 3 round bursts from the Bren gun every 20-30 seconds rather than wait and try to nail a solitary rifleman? This is quite a tricky thing to portray in a war game of course.

I've just been reading about 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines and their deployment to Afghanistan and Helmand province.

The thing that struck me was the massive ammunition expenditure and the incredibly low casualties.

I'm trying to remember actual figures but one incident had a platoon of RMs ambushed in the open by ~150 Taliban on 3 sides from drainage ditches at ~100m.

The Marines were engaged for 4 hours. They used the rest of the RM Company for support and the ambushed platoon needed ammo re-supply at least twice, using Viking vehicles to bring up the boxes of ammo.

Apparently the marines weapons expended 18,000 rounds of 7.62.

Talib were equally liberal with their ammo expenditure, also including RPGs and mortars.

Result: After 4hrs – no RM casualties and I don't think the Talib suffered any either.

So a lot of noise and pretty impressive fireworks display though.

I agree with some of the comments above: I think you need the weight of a soldier in bullets expended to get a casualty.

BattlerBritain,

In Afghanistan, that sort of action was not unusual, with the casualty rates and even the hit rates (body armour is wonderful!) being very low. The numbers of Taliban involved always need to be treated with caution.

However, I do need to add that the Taliban are generally dreadful shots; many of them are just local lads who are given an AK and a magazine and are told that they can leave when the magazine is empty. That does not encourage accurate, controlled shooting.

Jurgen

Skarper,

The best way to stop the enemy moving across a particular area is to make them too afraid to do so. In that case, doing what you suggest is a viable option. However, firing regular bursts allows the enemy to predict when it will be safer to run across so it is always better to randomise the time between the bursts and the lengths of the bursts.

If ammunition supply is an issue, which it usually is, then firing in that way may be too wasteful.

Jurgen

Hi Jurgen,

Yes, good comments. The book does mention that most Talib were pretty poor shots.

But even Royal Marines with a massive ammunition expenditure over a prolonged period couldn't seem to do much (no reported Talib casualties).

18,000 rounds of 7.62 in 4hrs – that's huge! That is 5 rounds every 4 secs for 4hrs.

Battler,

That level of reported ammunition consumption seems unlikely for just the platoon or even possibly the company, especially given that so few of the weapons would have been firing 7.62mm rounds. If it had been 5.56mm rounds, then it would seem more likely. I believe that action is described by Ewen Southby-Tailyour; I must reread his book.

Most of our engagements with the Taliban were indecisive (except for one or two memorable ones) as they tended not to engage too closely and had a very good sense of when it was a good idea to disappear into the local population. On occasions, we did fire off significant amounts of ammunition and were rarely sure of Taliban casualties as they removed their dead and wounded if possible. Milans usually upset them rather a lot.

Jurgen

Thanks Jurgen – I agree ammo supply could become an issue very quickly but I think this was done though I don't really know the details. You would want to vary when you fired – firing every 10-20 seconds at first then less often just to remind the enemy you were there. If you fired 3 rounds on average once a minute then with 1000 rounds available you'd be out in about 4 hours. Even firing every 15 seconds on average you could keep going for an hour.

I think troops did and do fire a certain number of rounds per minute to keep heads down or deny an area to the enemy with troops alternating fire. The all out mad-minute with every weapon firing at maximum rate is rare and only possible for a few minutes at most – not every turn as can happen in some war games. Ammo supply rules seem to be absent in most rules sets or grossly simplified if present at all.

Skarper,

I believe that a WW2 British (so possibly also Canadian) infantry section carried 25 Bren magazines, each holding, I believe, 30 rounds, so that is a total of 750 rounds per Bren gun. Given that you would not want to use them all up as it would be quite useful to keep a few in reserve just in case the enemy decided to attack you, I cannot see that the sort of firing that you described would be hugely popular. It was certainly not part of our usual procedure but it was practiced and we did do it for real on occasion.

The best thing to make an enemy fear doing something is seeing the bodies of their friends who just tried it laying there; that tends to make the testicles retreat upwards.

It is sadly true that most games have no limit on the amount of ammunition available; I think that the problem is that wargamers in general do not want to be bothered tracking ammunition expenditure, which is understandable as it is a game. However, in the real world, ammunition expenditure is critical. For example, the MG4 that we used in Afghanistan could empty a 100 round belt in about 7 seconds, while the MG3 could do the same in about 5-6 seconds and the G36 could empty a magazine in about 2.5 seconds on automatic. If everyone did that all the time, both sides would be reduced to throwing rocks at each other very quickly.

Jurgen

God points Jurgen and I agree … Plus guys … let's not over think this … as noted you can only get so much "realism" in a wargame. We did a hybrid verison of GW Epic & DS rules sets at one time … Great set of rules except in an attempt to "build a better mouse trap" … it almost took forever to resolve combat … And it's been noted many times before … modern combat requires lots of ammo expenditure in all forms to get a "kill" … IIRC, for example in Korea, something like a 100 artillery rounds were fired for only a very few NK/Chicom losses … like 1 or 2 KIA/WIA …

I suppose what I'm extrapolating from is the use of weapons to fire on fixed lines – and if you have a street which you don't want the enemy crossing firing a few rounds down it every so often would probably help stop them trying. I agree if they actually did cross and you killed one or two then that's discourage them even more!

I take your point it could not be done for long periods.

A O'Neil is right. He's being VERY generous.

I have a Garand and regularly fire it. By the time you can bring up that log to point in the general direction the target's gone, especially if they're dashing across one of those narrow French streets.

Like deer, what you want to do is wait for the SECOND guy to try it (like deer) and bag Him. Even then you have about a 4% chance.

Oh--- and if anyone is firing at YOU (better check someone is not setting up a shot at you!) then the odds are nill.

It is my understanding that the serious degradation occurs due to issues of 'average combat range,'

No, the serious degradation occurs due to fear, adrenalin, and fatigue, not to mention that some guys are less inclined to shoot another human being than they are a paper target, even if he is the "enemy."

"This is one case where having a SMG or even a pistol gives you an edge over a rifleman -- you can get the short weapon pointed in the right direction quicker."

Good point, although at 100 yds a pistol is a small fraction of the accuracy of a rifle.

I've interviewed ww2 veterans.
I think there's some document somewhere matches some of what I was told.
The most common reason for a rifleman shooting at an enemy at range was because he was ordered.
As youth, I found that rather odd.
When I asked the veteran would usually say something like "Jerry is just like us. If he wasn't bothering us then we didn't bother him".
This is not the ravening killer I expected from a diet of boys magazines.
Of course part of this is self interest if you shoot you also invite some shooting back.
Give away your position.
Get mortared or sprayed with ( rather terrifying ) mg42 return fire.
And what's the up side again?
You have some vanishingly small chance of shooting someone.

Some people have expressed disbelief at just how low a chance riflemen had of hitting someone at 100 yards.
How can that be?
Well it turns out most people are rubbish at killing people.
You can see this repeated in modern engagements in the green zone.
Your modern royal marine commando can group at 1" over 100yards when he's shooting paper.
I've seen several documentaries on Afghanistan where they go out and engage the Taliban.
These are from a while back when there was a lot more of this sort of stuff going on.
One in particular was across a field which was about 100 yards.
It lasted 7 hours.
There were no friendly casualties.
A load of shooting, rpg flying overhead.
Nobody was sure if any Taliban at all were hit.
(I'd guess maybe 1 or 2 ).
Which is weird seeing as those guys are ridiculously good at shooting.
They can group in an eyeball for effs sake.
But somehow when in combat they can't.
You might think this abnormal.
Apparently not.
The shooting casualties mostly happen within 30 yards.
This matches my understanding of ww2 combat.
While back there was one of these reality shows.
They were training young 18 year old lads as if they were ww2 soldiers.
On this they had a ww2 vet.
One eyed bloke.
He mentioned that all their fighting was done within 30 yards.
Beyond that, he didn't really consider it fighting.

Dear AOneil

I remember talking to some WWII vets. Admittedly it was only anecdotal but they told me that the reason they were firing was to get the other guy to stop shooting at them.

Another thing they told me was they were afraid of wasting ammo and then if they got into a REAL sticky situation where would they be???!!!

There's also another book.
"With British Snipers to the Reich"
The author describes being under fire from German "snipers".
He was a bit scared at first but after a while less concerned because they were missing by so much.
On one occasion he was with a group of infantry and a German was about 100 yards away and moving.
His men called on him to shoot the man as he was a sniper and they knew they'd never hit at that range.

One of the most telling things I ever heard about war came at the end of it. I saw this on one of those history channel things on World War Two. One guy was telling about how at the end of the war, they heard the news that Germany surrendered. Everyone had a few drinks and said "hip-hip- hooray" and all that. The guy then went to sleep. Next morning he got up and was paralyzed not because he was wounded or sick, but that he realized in his words "I'M GOING TO LIVE!!!!" The release of tension was so strong. It took him an hour or so to recover.

That shows you what sort of day-to-day tension combat soldiers are under and it is with that tension that they wrestle when they make a shot, and even to poke your head up is an enormous chance!

From a friend of mine who spent a tour in Afghanistan, if they were getting fire from over 300m, it was mortar/arty/air support bait. Why waste 5.56 on it? Keep enough 7.62 going downrange to keep them from moving too far, watch the A10 roll in and saw a foot off the top of the ridgeline.

Unfortunately, many people form their view of combat from films and sensationalist books; in reality, there are very few steely-eyed supermen looking to kill the enemy at any opportunity (except Obergefreiter Bachmeier).

Jurgen

Skarper – Those are some very interesting mechanics, certainly something to look into. Also, I have no problem believing the story about the Royal Marines firing off all that ammo; as you've pointed out, MGs are definitely used to cover avenues of approach and will fire with or without an 'active' target as they simply firing their PDF.

Obviously, this can account for a tremendous amount of ammunition, but nowadays this is possible, especially given the fact that many times the MGs are vehicle mounted and carry exponentially more ammo than 'foot' infantry ever could.

Along those lines, most of the time they are firing at enemies unseen; they're taking fire from that direction, so they pour fire into that building, treeline, or canal. As I mentioned earlier, this accounts for the vast majority of infantry targets (i.e., not folks gentlemanly enough to stand up out in the open from you, particularly in the 100 yard range), accounts for very few casualties, and greatly helps to explain our 'how many rounds does it take to put a man down' question.

Donlowery – "…serious degradation occurs due to fear, adrenalin, and fatigue, not to mention that some guys are less inclined to shoot another human being…" While the things you mention are certainly combat factors, this misses the point of training to make combat marksmanship 'muscle memory,' the whole point of which is to overcome the various stresses of battle.

AONeill and OSchmidt – "Well it turns out most people are rubbish at killing people." I disagree (mostly). I agree that non-veterans aren't very good at their job, so to speak, that is, they are not very capable in their first experience in battle, but becoming accustomed to the stresses, sights, and sounds of battle increases the individual's ability to perform. Furthermore, I believe there are very few people that won't do what needs to be done (regarding killing) to ensure their own survival.

The "Jerry wasn't bothering us" issue, I believe, is not so hard to do at 300 or 500 yards, but if he's at 100 yards he's probably getting ready to bother you.

I do agree with the part about our guy not wanting to engage for fear of giving up his position, which would come down to what his orders were and how committed was he to carrying out those orders. But that's a whole separate issue than "he's firing, what are his chances of obtaining a hit?"

"You have some vanishingly small chance of shooting someone." Again, I believe this is a different issue than 'what are the chances to hit?' If our rifleman doesn't see anyone, he's just plugging away at a house or hilltop (or he's firing at targets much farther away), then he I'd say he stands about a .00001 chance of hitting someone. But if he spots a target at 100 yards, moving laterally to him with enough exposure time to get off three shots, my opinion is that target will go down most of the time.

Regarding the 7-hour firefight with no known casualties, again, this is not surprising to me. I'd bet the Royal Marines received incoming fire but didn't see anything more than a muzzle flash or flash of clothing that entire time. And (assuming they pressed the issue) when the RMs closed the distance for close assault, the enemy had pulled back rather than stand and die.

"He mentioned that all their fighting was done within 30 yards. Beyond that, he didn't really consider it fighting."
I can only take my best guess as to what he meant, but could be totally incorrect in my assumption. Here's my go: a great many infantry attacks don't end in close assault because the enemy pulls back rather than get exterminated, which means the infantryman doesn't get all that many opportunities to fire his personal weapon.

1st Platoon crosses the line of departure 700 yards from the enemy, with 2nd and weapons company MGs on a nearby hilltop delivering fire on the objective and 3rd Platoon behind the hill in reserve. In scenario 1, there's no cover between the LOD and the objective, so 1st platoon is on line and starts taking fire from enemy MGs, mortars, maybe arty. Casualties mount, forward movement halts, then 1st Plt falls back, our boy never got a chance to shoot, never got within 500 yards of the enemy. I wouldn't say he wasn't in the fight though.

Scenario 2 uses the same set up, except 1st Plt has a defiladed approach, maybe a gully or sunken stream (and, for the sake of the story, let's pretend the enemy didn't place OPs and register indirect fire on it). So 2nd Plt is hammering away, 3rd is in reserve, and 1st is in column moving towards the enemy out of LOS. The gully/stream takes us all the way to within 100 yards of the objective, and 1st Plt arrives there, calls a quick halt to reorganize itself, then goes 'over the top' at the enemy. Our boy is looking at the objective and doesn't see a single enemy soldier, just knows the platoon is receiving lots of fire and taking casualties.

At about 75 yards the platoon leader calls for section bounds, so one squad is moving whilst the other two fire, then it switches between squads as the platoon inches forward. Our boy now gets to fire, but can't see a damned thing. Chances of hitting something: .0000001%.

The platoon keeps bounding ahead by squads, gets to within 30 yards of the enemy. Now the fight is very personal, and our boy can see who he's trying to shoot and who's trying to shoot him. My guess is that this is what the gentleman meant about "the fight's not real until 30 yards." I have a hard time believing he meant something like 'there was no fighting at greater than 30 yards,' as the vast majority of folks killed in WWII were killed at much greater range.

And I'd bet that our boy still missed the enemy, even at 30 yards, as that enemy was in cover and still nearly impervious to small arms fire. Which is why hand grenades and flamethrowers are so popular.

"His men called on him to shoot the man as he was a sniper and they knew they'd never hit at that range." Maybe there really is a generational difference between WWII and modern day regarding killing. I've heard plenty of stories about leaders getting into their troops rear-ends in WWII for not engaging the enemy at distances greater than a couple hundred yards, and I've never heard that in 'modern' times.

In any case, an unwillingness to shoot is still not the same as an inability to hit. I'm surprised it hasn't come up here, but there are quite a few stories around about a unit being surprised by an enemy scout at 50 yards, the enemy hopping up and running 25 yards out of sight into the treeline, with no one even getting a shot off, or two guys in a room emptying their weapons and not hitting anything. I don't doubt those stories, only remind folks that for every one of those types of stories there's another that talks about Joe Average rifleman bringing down and enemy soldier at 600 yards over iron sights.

For our games I think (as Jurgen mentioned above) we have to throw it all into the dice roll rather than try to extrapolate out every single factor. For me that means giving our average rifleman a helluva chance of bringing down someone in the open at 100 yards (assuming enough exposure time to actually engage).

Lion – "…if they were getting fire from over 300m, it was mortar/arty/air support bait. Why waste 5.56 on it?" I agree. But the scenario in the OP was much different ;)

This thread has been very interesting to me, I enjoy these types of 'talks.' I hope I've made sense in what I'm writing (it makes sense in my head), and, more importantly, I hope no one takes any offense to anything I've written, that's certainly not my intent.

V/R,
Jack

Jurgen,

"Unfortunately, many people form their view of combat from films and sensationalist books;"
Yes Sir, I'd agree there.

"…in reality, there are very few steely-eyed supermen looking to kill the enemy at any opportunity…"
Hmmm… I don't know about steely-eyed, much less being a superman, but it seems to me that killing in war is pretty much done by your average guy. I mean, look at the casualty lists (pick any war you'd like), someone's doing all that killing.

Furthermore, it seems to me that killing the enemy at every opportunity is the mission of an infantrymen. This killing necessitated by mission is buttressed by the fact that guy over there just *might* be trying to kill you, as well as the moral facet of preventing him from doing harm to others.

To me that concept doesn't seem strange, I actually thought it was pretty universal. The first is a huge parcel of human nature/vital self interest, the other more altruistic but still relatively common, despite what's portrayed in the media.

V/R,
Jack

Ever watch the shoot-outs on Cops. 20 Rounds at 5 feet and no hits.