Hi
Here is my problem: At the moment we have way to many G43s in the mod from a historical perspective. If you don't care about the history aspect of the game, feel free to choose option nr 1 without reading the rest of this post. I know that not everybody shares my sentiments in that regards and I respect people for it.
As of 2.26, the G43 can be found as a limited spawnable kit in the rifleman slot on both American "combined arms maps", Operation Lüttich and Cobra. It is also found as a limited kit on several infantry maps that don't have AT kits and as pick up kits on some Commonwealth maps. My issue is with the G43s in rifleman kits.
In my opinion, the rifleman kit is the "standard" for every army. It is the lowly grunt, the simple soldier, who only gets the standard equipment to do the basic killing in infantry combat. The kit also provides rifle grenades as a basic gameplay function.
Thing is: The G43 was NOT a standard weapon by any means. Just for a little exercise: Try to find photos of Germans using it in Normandy. I know a few, but they are far and few between. If you look at the equipment tables for German infantry companies, they were supposed to have 19 G43, 10 of which would have been scoped. This means the ideal and fully supplied German infantry squad would roughly clock in at an impressive 2 G43s per 9 man squad, one of which would be scoped.
Now two things about that:
- This makes it far from a standard weapon, as most of the squad members still carried the K98k
- I'm pretty sure these numbers were rarely achieved, and if they were you would probably have to look at the eastern front or maybe the Ardennes
If a German unit was lucky enough to have some G43s, they were probably found on a 1 er squad basis, mostly carried by a deputy squad leader or possibly a known crack shot who would put it to good use.
Now on to the gameplay side: Why do we have so many? Quite frankly, it is an attempt at mirror balancing. The Americans have semi autos, so the Germans also need them, huh? Well, on the other hand, with that logic you could also place tons of Pershings on tank maps to "counter" German heavies. The Germans have other strenghts and advantages, like their awesome MGs. Do we really need to bent history to such a degree?
If you think about it, has the Garand that big of an advantage? Both the K98k and the Garand kill in one shot. Both are almost perfectly accurate. Sure if you round a corner and bump into each other, the one with the Garand will probably win. I admit this is somewhat of an issue on Lüttich with its short view distance, but on Cobra? I mean that thing has about 400m fog distance, and very long engagement ranges. And even if the Americans have a slight advantage in the city part of the map: Can't the mapper just place one or two G43 pickup kits there? Problem solved.
On top of that, theG43 as standard kit means the Germans have no access to riflenades on these maps. Especially on Lüttich I could see them being useful.
So anyway, three options for you to choose from:
- Leave it as it is now
- Get rid of unlimited spawnable G43s
- Move unlimited spawnable G43s to scout kits on the maps in question
Note that this poll is not some kind of "community participation program". In the end it is up to the mapper what weapons he uses on his work. I just want to get some feedback and commets on this, because I personally feel this is worth changing to make FH2 more authentic.
Poll