Automatic fire rule in v2.2?

[Michael Lewis]

I was wondering how the auto fire rules work out in play. Especially with the danger zone rule.

[Adm.Lee]

From what I remember, it reads cooler than it plays. Someone needs to remember that there is a danger zone out there, or find some kind of marker to remind them. I recently had the idea that laying a pipe cleaner on the map might do the trick.

Other than the danger zone, the math (bursts vs recoil vs Strength, etc.) to determine number of bursts is a bit annoying. I recommend having it recorded somewhere what a character's numbers are for a weapon in each range bracket. I've started using 3x5cards, which has the bonus that if you print them from your computer, you could scan in pictures of the gun in question, and add little squares for marking off ammo used.

Example:
Range 1 shot 2 3 4 5 : 1 burst 2 3 4 5
0-50m 15 15 13 11 9 : 5 10 15 10 5
51-100 8 8 6 5 4 : 3 6 9 3 3
(No particular gun or character was used in the above, just made it up to show what I think it should look like)

Having said all of that, I really like the 2/2.2 autofire system, and consider it one of the reasons I prefer it to v1 rules.

[pmulcahy11b]

From what I remember, it reads cooler than it plays. Someone needs to remember that there is a danger zone out there, or find some kind of marker to remind them. I recently had the idea that laying a pipe cleaner on the map might do the trick.


When I was actively GMing, I used clear acetate and alcohol markers over drawn maps, from Squad Leader, or other wargames. We could then draw whatever we needed on top of the map.

[Adm.Lee]

I mostly use the standard battlemats and wet-erase markers, but it seemed too bothersome to aly down and then wipe up those zones, so I never tried it.

[Badbru]

I was wondering how the auto fire rules work out in play. Especially with the danger zone rule.

As a Gm I'm not keen on the autofire rules as written 2.2.
This is from the GMs notes OOC thread from a TNE game I'm running;

Second, Autofire. I understand where they're comming from saying autofire is essentially a fundamentally different type of shooting but for me and my group back in the day it was just too broken. All fire regardless of range is fired at impossibe difficulty. When you reduce the chance to hit that small it dilutes characters skill too much and worse it feels like the mechanic no longer takes the character skill into consideration. Mostly that came out to needing ones or twos on many many d20s and we didn't have that many d20s. My alternate rule was to treat autofire the same as ordinary direct fire. Failure meant you missed with the burst but still rolled half of all missed shots for adjacent targets. Success meant you had the burst on target and have hit with one round. You then took all the dice reduction mods like range and recoil etc into account and rolled however many that left less the one hit for success as d6 rolls with a result of 1 meaning an additional hit. This converts to a flat 17% chance per extra round whilst allowing the character to shoot with their skill at the appropriate range.
This also made the games more leathal too.

So I modify it and blend 2.0 back into it.

As a player I hate the 2.2 autofire rules worse than as a GM.

I once played in a game where the GM played everything by the book.

In one encounter my character had a PK gpmg prone firing three 5rnd bursts per turn, so I was loosing dice on the third burst per turn but thought it was worth it. I was firing at approaching infantry in light woods and managed to fire off the entire 100rnd belt and only scored one hit. Had to retreat (run away) when they started spamming us with nades which is how close they got. In my opinion those kind of results are not kind on they player considering we're playing world war 3 survivors. An considering the effectiveness of machineguns on the modern battlefield since world war one, not very realistic either.

[swaghauler]

I had to change the autofire rules too.
Rate of Fire in my game is the weapon's listed Rate/100. So an M16 with a rate of 800 rpm would have a ROF of 8. an AK would have a ROF of 6. This represent's a controlled roughly 1/2 second burst from a normal weapon (this is widely considered to be the most controllable type of fire by real world shooters).

In my game Full Auto is ONE DIFFICULTY LEVEL HIGHER than single fire is (ie, an AVE shot becomes DIF). Recoil only removes dice once you hit a target number of 1 for your "To Hit" roll.

Dispersion is VERY overrated. This shouldn't occur until longer ranges (the disruption of the air cannot overcome a round's velocity at shorter ranges. It looks more like this:
2 to 4 round bursts= 1 die lost at Extreme Range.
5 to 10 round bursts= 1 die lost at Long, & 2 dice lost at Extreme Range.
11 to 20 round bursts= 1 die lost at Medium, 2 dice at Long, & 4 Dice at Extreme Range.
21 round+ Bursts= 1 die lost at Short, 2 dice lost at medium, 4 dice lost at Long, & 8 dice lost at Extreme Range.

I have two special types of automatic fire in addition to the normal burst type of fire. They are Saturation Fire, and Grazing Fire. These types of auto fire will significantly reduce a weapon's burst size. These two types of auto fire may also be combined together.

Saturation Fire:
This type of fire exchanges dice rolled for an increased hit chance. When using Saturation Fire, divide the total dice rolled by 2 (rounding down). This is the number of dice rolled for hits. The remaining dice are divided by 2 as well (rounding down). This number is added to the To Hit number of the firer. For example; an AK (ROF of 6) would get a +1 to Target Number (3/2=1.5, rounding down to 1) and roll THREE Dice for the hit (6/2=3) when using Saturation Fire. The dice for Dispersion are subtracted from the dice lost to the Saturation Fire effect FIRST (the Dice used to determine the Hit Bonus).

Grazing Fire:
This special type of automatic fire is used to attack area or group targets with a single burst. It is ONE DIFFICULTY LEVEL HIGHER THAN A STANDARD BURST (AND TWO LEVELS HIGHER THAN SINGLE FIRE). To engage in Grazing Fire; The attacker divides the burst by 2 (rounding down). The remaining dice EQUAL the number of meters the burst can cover with a single To Hit Die per meter. The player may allocate these dice in any manner he chooses. For instance; an AK with a ROF of 6 could cover up to 3 meters of targets. The shooter could put 1 Hit Die in each meter of the 3 meter burst space, or put 2 Dice in 1 meter and the last Die in a second meter, ignoring the third meter. Targets being attacked must be no more than ONE meter apart. If that is not the case; the shooter MUST EXPEND ONE DIE PER METER OF "EMPTY SPACE" between targets. The dice that are lost are used to cover the burst's Dispersion losses FIRST. If this auto fire is combined with Saturation Fire above; do the calculation for Saturation Fire FIRST. This is the most common form of auto fire in my games.

Danger Zones:
These are highly inflated as well. The Dispersion should only be about 1/2 a meter to either side of a Short or Medium Range target, and 1 meter for a Long or Extreme Range Target. In practice; I just track the 2 meter square the target occupies straight back to the end of the Range Band or the weapon's Short Range (whichever is greater) with elevated targets considered to be in the line of fire too.

[CDAT]

I had to change the autofire rules too.
Rate of Fire in my game is the weapon's listed Rate/100. So an M16 with a rate of 800 rpm would have a ROF of 8. an AK would have a ROF of 6. This represent's a controlled roughly 1/2 second burst from a normal weapon (this is widely considered to be the most controllable type of fire by real world shooters).

Just woundering where this comes from? In my experance I have seen people using M16A2 (three round burst) and if lucky hit with one round, and these are trained combat vets. The only exception that I have seen in macheine guns as they are built for that and also normlay fired from a mount of some type.

[Adm.Lee]

You could always fall back on the v2.0 autofire rules, and drop d6s, hit on a 6, instead of the very low to-hit probabilities in v2.2.

[swaghauler]

Just woundering where this comes from? In my experance I have seen people using M16A2 (three round burst) and if lucky hit with one round, and these are trained combat vets. The only exception that I have seen in macheine guns as they are built for that and also normlay fired from a mount of some type.

This rate of fire is a weapon's mechanical rate of fire over 1/2 to 6/10ths of a second. It provides a bit more variety than the game's standard ROFs. Any trained machinegunner (I did my training on the M60E2 in the 90's) or any competitive shooter will tell you that 1/2 second bursts are the most easily controlled form of automatic fire. Ironically, GDW worked on the same premise. The ROF of 5 for AKs is exactly a 1/2 second burst (at 600 rpm, an AK will fire 10 rounds per second). They did fudge rates of fire with other weapons though.

Rate of fire has nothing to do with accuracy. Accuracy is measured by a character's skill. The people you know were not qualified by the US Army. To qualify as an Expert Rifleman in the Infantry during my term of service, you had to hit all the pop ups with all the rounds in a triburst (even the 300 meter target). To qualify Expert with the M60E2, I had to hit a 600 meter target with 3 rounds of a 6 round burst (in 8 seconds or less).

This does bring up an interesting issue with most modern shooting games. The rates of fire are different than they would be in real life. In IDPA Matches (my current shooting sport), a Master level shooter will have 1/10th of a second "Split Times" (time between shots) equaling a ROF of 10 rounds a second. An Expert level shooter will have 1/4 second "Split Times" equaling 4 shots per second. Experienced shooters will have 1/2 second "Split Times" equaling 2 shots per second. and a Novice shooter will barely break a 1 second "Split Time." Your rate of fire should be tied to a combination of your shooting skill and reflexes. I guess you could do this by taking your RAW (non Asset) skill and dividing it by 2 (rounding down). You then take your AGL and divide it by 2 (rounding down). The lower of these two numbers is the number of shots/bursts you can fire instead of the default 5 (operating on the 1/2 a second ROF theory).

If GDW were using 1/2 a second as a base; Other rates could be changed to reflect real world fire rates.

Bolt Actions: "Long Throw" bolt actions like the 98K, and the M700 would need 2 seconds to throw the bolt. "Short Throw" bolt guns like the Lee-Enfield, the Mosin, and the Arisaka (look for straight or only slightly down-turned bolt handles for a short throw bolt) could be manipulated in 1 & 3/4 to 1 & 1/2 seconds per bolt throw. This could be reduced by high AGL or Skill levels.

Lever and Pump Actions: These are about equally fast. Just watch some videos on Youtube of the Single Action Society shoots to see how fast a lever gun can be. I can tell you from my 3 Gun shoots that an Novice "Pumpgunner" can average 1/2 a second "splits" and an Expert gunner can easily hit the quarter second mark between shots. I have seen ONE man who can average 1/10th of a second "splits" (timed electronicly). So the Twilight rates aren't all that accurate. These weapon's fire rates should be skill/AGL dependent too.

[CDAT]

...
Rate of fire has nothing to do with accuracy. Accuracy is measured by a character's skill. The people you know were not qualified by the US Army. To qualify as an Expert Rifleman in the Infantry during my term of service, you had to hit all the pop ups with all the rounds in a triburst (even the 300 meter target). To qualify Expert with the M60E2, I had to hit a 600 meter target with 3 rounds of a 6 round burst (in 8 seconds or less).
...

Yes and no rate of fire does have some to do with overall accuracy, the more recoil the less accurate you are, skill does compensate for this some, but not all. Weight, compensators, and just how the weapon is build are some other factors that can be factors in overall accuracy.

I am not sure when your team of service was, but during mine (1993 - 2013) automatic/Three round bust was never part of any rifle/carbine qualification course, SMG/Machineguns yes but the M16/M4/Mk18/GAU-5 or whatever you want to call it. Now on the Machinegun even by your post an expert only has a 50% hit rate on full auto but rate of fire has nothing to do with that? If they were shooting semi-auto would a 50% hit rate still be an expert?

[Adm.Lee]

I think you guys are leaning towards the idea that lower-skill (and/or lower-AGL) shooters might fire off more bullets per "shot"? That's an interesting idea. Given that the players I've run into don't like the math already involved, I'd have a hard time getting that into the "playable" range

[swaghauler]

Yes and no rate of fire does have some to do with overall accuracy, the more recoil the less accurate you are, skill does compensate for this some, but not all. Weight, compensators, and just how the weapon is build are some other factors that can be factors in overall accuracy.

I am not sure when your team of service was, but during mine (1993 - 2013) automatic/Three round bust was never part of any rifle/carbine qualification course, SMG/Machineguns yes but the M16/M4/Mk18/GAU-5 or whatever you want to call it. Now on the Machinegun even by your post an expert only has a 50% hit rate on full auto but rate of fire has nothing to do with that? If they were shooting semi-auto would a 50% hit rate still be an expert?
I was in from 1988 to 1996. Your issues with my post are my fault for not being clearer. I'm not talking about Basic Rifle Marksmanship Training/Qualification (the 40 round single fire pop up course or the optional 25 meter fixed target course) that all soldiers must shoot. I was talking about the advanced Infantry Qualification that was part of the SQT (Skills Qualification Testing) tests that were MOS specific. I think they were being phased out when you joined, but you might have taken one. Today I'm told it's a digital qualification, being fired on something called the Weaponeer (some form of laser emitting simulator) and being as much a shoot/no shoot exercise as a shooting qualification. The original Advanced Qualification was shot on a moving target range. A hit that knocks the target down is good (# of rounds do not matter). However, not all posts have a "Mover Range." When a "Mover Range" is not present, the "Pop up Range" is used. All targets must be hit BUT ALL rounds in the burst MUST be counted as well (because the targets are not moving). There is even a clause for using the 25 Meter "Zero Range" for Advanced Infantry Qualification. All rounds must be on target AND 2 rounds must be in the circle printed on the center of the silhouettes for advanced qualifications (on a side note, this was added after the A2 was introduced). This is the same for the Machinegun course I took. The 20 targets had to be knocked down AND you had to have 1/2 of a 6 round burst on the target. You could really screw yourself if you didn't have good trigger control. You got two 65 round belts to shoot it with. To heavy on the trigger, and you wouldn't have enough ammo for every target. For the record; I missed the 600 meter target. I know there are a couple of Vietnam vets in this forum so I'm going to ask this while were on the subject of training. When you went to Basic, did they still have the "Tactical Assault Course" where you walked in cover and shot pop ups as you went along?

[swaghauler]

I think you guys are leaning towards the idea that lower-skill (and/or lower-AGL) shooters might fire off more bullets per "shot"? That's an interesting idea. Given that the players I've run into don't like the math already involved, I'd have a hard time getting that into the "playable" range

Actually I was trying to explain the opposite. A novice shooter can barely get off 1 round per second. An expert shooter could fire up to 4 rounds per second. A master level shooter (in IDPA matches anyway) can fire up to 10 rounds in that same single second. If your wanted to portray this in game, then there are two factors that would affect rate of fire (in semi). The first is "hand-eye" coordination, and the second is the shooter's skill (representing the speed of aiming and recoil recovery). If you are using a 1 second phase system (6 or 7 Initiative points), then the character's ROF with SA firearms should be either his/her RAW (non Asset) Small Arms skill or his/her AGL; Whichever is LESS. This should be the maximum number of shots he or she could fire in a 1 second phase.
I split the ROFs into 1/2 skill or 1/2 AGL above because GDW was using 1/2 a second for determining an automatic weapon's ROF. If they had been using a 1 second scale for ROF, the average numbers would be 10 (600 rpm) and 20 (1200 rpm). My theory (like GDW's I'm guessing) is that if the average phase is 1 second; the first 1/2 second would be for initial aiming and the actual shooting would occur in the second half of the 1 second in question. Take note however, just because a Master pistol shooter can fire 10 shots a second (1/10th second split times), doesn't mean he would. It also doesn't mean he would hit what he's shooting at. In certain situations however; The higher rate of fire an expert pistol shooter can manage might change the balance of power in a shootout.

[swaghauler]

I played around with this version of auto fire in version 1.1, and found it to be faster and more accurate. I make auto fire one level more difficult than single fire and do all the target modifications just like with single fire. I then divide the Hit Chance Percentage by ten (dropping all tenths) and just roll a number of D10's equal to the ROF. It's fast and accurate just like the old version 2 was.

[Jason]

In one encounter my character had a PK gpmg prone firing three 5rnd bursts per turn, so I was loosing dice on the third burst per turn but thought it was worth it. I was firing at approaching infantry in light woods and managed to fire off the entire 100rnd belt and only scored one hit. Had to retreat (run away) when they started spamming us with nades which is how close they got. In my opinion those kind of results are not kind on they player considering we're playing world war 3 survivors. An considering the effectiveness of machineguns on the modern battlefield since world war one, not very realistic either.

Counting all the re-rolls from misses that should have been set aside and rolled against the advancing enemies you just had terrible luck in this case. If you had 99 misses, that would be an additional 49 dice for a rollicking total of 149 rolls of ye old d20. Even if you were hitting on 3's (meaning your asset was 12) you should have gotten over 20 hits! Getting only a single hit! I suck at probabilities, but wow it must be pretty low. Edit-Even losing dice for firing too many bursts, you still should have been rolling around 100 or more dice too hit.

If you consider statistics from actual firefights with auto-fire weapons, the ratio of hits compared to bullets expended is astronomical. Basically, everyone should be hitting on less than 1' on a d20. Now that would make for lousy game play, but surely it would be more realistic.

I have never had any major issues with auto-fire rules in 2.2, but did add an option for characters with a skill of 8+ to fire bursts with a single to hit roll, adding extra hits from the burst based on margin of success. This was intended to please those players whose character's have real professional shooting skills.

[CDAT]

My understanding is that during Vietnam the US fired around 250,000 rounds for every kill, during WWII it was still 25,000 rounds. Why the differance I can not say for sure but would be willing to say one of the issues is that everyone had a full auto weapon and there was a lot of spray and pray going on. In the movies, games, and books full auto is the thing you want, but in real life it is a good way to just waste ammo.

[Olefin]

full auto is a great way to spray a lot of bullets into the air - so if you are tryiing to kill a flock of birds overhead I would recommend it - otherwise unless you are on tripod or other mount its a great way to have players lighten their loads pretty quickly without doing much damage to whoever they are firing at

now if you are trying to scare off someone I could see doing it - as in "Damn if they have that much ammo screw these guys lets hit someone else!" as the marauders run for it

[Medic]

In one encounter my character had a PK gpmg prone firing three 5rnd bursts per turn, so I was loosing dice on the third burst per turn but thought it was worth it. I was firing at approaching infantry in light woods and managed to fire off the entire 100rnd belt and only scored one hit. Had to retreat (run away) when they started spamming us with nades which is how close they got. In my opinion those kind of results are not kind on they player considering we're playing world war 3 survivors. An considering the effectiveness of machineguns on the modern battlefield since world war one, not very realistic either.

Having instructed people on the use of PKM, I must say, that is very, very unrealistic as the weapon is very accurate. At 300m range, the procedure I have been taught is to fire short, controlled bursts with a spotter calling out the strikes of the tracer rounds. When the tracers connect with the target area, the bursts grow slightly longer to fire for effect. And even at 300m, the bursts are accurate enough when fired from prone, supported position, the strikes are within 60cm of one another.

[Olefin]

I agree with Medic - that is one place where a GM should be ignoring the results of the dice - if you are firing that weapon properly there is no way that you go thru that whole belt and only hit one person firing as you did in the combat situation that was described - you would have to have a weapon with either defective ammo or defective sights or both to miss that many times - especially if they were advancing under fire as was stated - its one things if its all long range fired at guys who are dug in -

found out a long time ago that the book is a guideline not a straight jacket

[Tegyrius]

In a moment of devil's advocacy, I will note that few automatic weapons would have barrels in good condition by 2000.

- C.

[Olefin]

it depends on if the weapon is part of your initial equipment or if you pick it up from an enemy

initial equipment should be in fully working condition per the game rules (unless your GM wants to do differently)

now if you are talking an old worn out gun with worn out barrels thats one thing - now thats believeable that you could fire a whole belt and only hit one guy

but if its in good condition with a good barrel and a trained user - time to ignore the dice rolls - maybe you can just have them all be wounds but no way that only one guy gets hit in a situation like that

game is fantasy but its based on reality after all

[Targan]

In my last campaign we kept track of barrel wear. SOG 1's armorer would do his best to swap out heavily worn MG barrels for less worn barrels. The PCs that chose to carry MGs generally made sure they kept the least worn barrels for themselves.

[swaghauler]

I believe the automatic fire rules were written based on the US Army's experience with poorly trained conscripts during the Vietnam War (the first US war where fully automatic weapon's were a general issue item). I have seen enough machinegunners and class 3 (NFA) competitors who could easily control short 1/2 second bursts to believe that automatic fire should really only be about 1 level more difficult than firing in semi automatic fire. We should just let the recoil penalty calculations take care of the rest.

[Tegyrius]

"NFA competitors." Now there's a title and ammo budget I wish I had...

- C.

[swaghauler]

"NFA competitors." Now there's a title and ammo budget I wish I had...

- C.

There is a gunshop called Altra Firearms near where I live. About once a month they have a machinegun shoot (they also rent various Class 3/NFA weapons for the public to shoot). Chandler, the owner, and his crew are every bit as good at full auto's as any military shooter I have seen (Chandler's crew are mostly retired PD and military guys). In fact, chandler opened Altra in order to be able to buy newer Class 3 weapons. Only police departments and Class 3 dealers can own firearms made after the 1986 "Machinegun ban." By the way, he has very good deals as well. The money these guys spend in just ammo is simply unbelievable.

[swaghauler]

Check out the 3 part video comparison of the M3 (NOT the M3A1) "Grease Gun" verses the new H&K UMP on Vickers Tactical on YouTube. Larry Vickers was a Tier 1 Operator with Delta and his video shows the difference in the control of low rate of fire smgs (the 450 rpm M3) verses higher rate of fire smgs (the 600 rpm UMP). They even discuss how recoil affects accuracy and how skill is used to counteract that effect. It was a good video.