Script for Battle Rifles in CM (Patreon)

Well, this took a little longer than anticipated- there are definitely things that I missed out, but I think the basics are covered.

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Battle Rifles in CM

Welcome back to Combat Mission Cold War, where we’re going to take a look at Battle Rifles. The British and Canadians were recently added to the game, using the L1A1 and C1A1 FN FAL variants respectively as their core infantry individual weapons. This stands in contrast to the M16A1s and AK74s used by the existing US and Soviet armies respectively and it’s interesting to dig into the differences between them and what they tell us about modern warfare.

Range and Power

What really sets Battle Rifles apart in a tactical sense is the use of a full powered rifle cartridge. The SLR fires 7.62x51mm NATO, which is considerably larger than the intermediate cartridges used in Assault Rifles, cartridges like 5.56 NATO.

To simplify, Battle Rifles have longer effective ranges than Assault Rifles: 6-800m compared to 3-500m; and they have a lot more muzzle energy- 7.62x51 NATO typically comes in at 3,500 joules as opposed to about 1800 joules for 5.56. This basically translates into a 7.62 Battle Rifle firing further and hitting harder than a 5.56 Assault Rifle.

Plugging that into the tactical, what we should see is battle rifle equipped sections performing better than assault rifle equipped squads at longer ranges.

The Test

To test the concept, I went into the editor and set up a firing lane with ten lanes. Each lane is totally flat and walled off from the others. At one end is a blue squad or section. At the other is a red squad which can be deployed at intervals of 100, 300 and 500m. Or rather, just inside those distances to avoid Combat Mission’s range cut-offs.

Both blue and red squads face each other in the open with no cover or concealment and I tracked the casualties inflicted by both sides in the first minute. I repeated this ten times for each range bracket for a US Light Mech Squad and for a UK Rifle Section; both against a Soviet BTR squad. That gives us 100 results for each range and squad type combination- not a huge sample size, but enough to develop some trends- and because all the squad sizes are different, I’ve represented the casualties inflicted as a percentage rather than the raw numbers.

This kind of testing has some downsides- and I talked about a lot of them back when I was outlining the new infantry firepower test a few weeks ago- but I thought it was going to be most useful to have whole squads blasting away at each other like they would in actual gameplay. So yes, there are machineguns, grenade launchers and recoilless rifles mixed in with the Battle and Assault rifles we’re comparing, but they would also be there in an actual firefight too. It could be that the characteristics of Battle Rifles are accounted for by other weapons at section level.

The Results- Casualties

The results are pretty interesting.

100m

At 100m, the Americans racked up 49.86% kills and the Soviets opposing them scored 38.11%. The Brits got 44.57% versus their Soviet’s 43.75%.

So we have a pretty clear winner with the Americans. That makes sense because they have the largest squad, with nine men, or two more than the Soviets they’re shooting at. They have more eyes to spot, more weapons to shoot and they can absorb more casualties.

The Brits, with the Battle Rifles meanwhile, actually slightly outperformed their Soviets. Not by much- it’s really very even around the 44% mark- but they did considerably better than the raw rounds downrange comparison might suggest.

The two Soviet results are different because, obviously, this is competitive test. If one side does really well, the other will correspondingly suffer.

Interestingly, the total percentage of casualties inflicted in both sets of tests at 100m adds up to about 88-89%. What changes between the US and UK runs is the distribution of those casualties between them and their Soviet counterparts.

300m

At 300m, things are a bit different. The Americans scored 12.86% against their Soviet’s 10.56%, the British Section racked up 18.29% and their opposition got 10.38%.

Very clearly, the British section with the Battle Rifles is doing better than everybody else. So our theory that Battle Rifles will outperform Assault Rifles at range is bearing out. The Americans are a distant second- again, they have more bodies than everyone else- and the two Soviets have almost identical results.

Here, we’re not getting everyone adding up to the same total. The Americans and Soviets totalled 23% losses, the Brits and their Soviets totalled about 29%. The Brits are inflicting an extra 6% casualties.

500m

At 500m, this trend dramatically continues. The Americans inflicted 0.14% casualties, while their opponents scored none at all. The Brits came out on top with 3.29%, with their Soviet opposition racking up 0.38.

For reference, in raw casualty terms, the Americans inflicted 1 out of a possible 700 casualties, the Brits 23 out of 700 and the Soviets facing the Brits 3 out of 800. So although the Brits are clearly out in front again- supporting the theory- we’re not dealing with significant effects here.

Casualty Conclusions

Overall then, we’ve got a very clear trend. The percentage casualties inflicted for every squad or section drops off as the range increases, but the section with Battle Rifles decreases in effectiveness more slowly than the squads with assault rifles. At 300m and beyond, the UK Section is clearly outperforming everyone else.

So What?

But the question is… is it outperforming them in a meaningful way? In terms of casualties inflicted, the British advantage only amounts to about 6% at 300m and 3% at 500m. That’s not nothing… but it’s pretty close and a long way from how we might envision the difference between Battle and Assault rifles if we confine ourselves to their technical characteristics.

The reality is that the limiting factor on small arms effectiveness is generally the human component, not the technical. It doesn’t matter if a rifle is physically capable of accurately hitting a target 800m away if the shooter handling the rifle cannot identify that target or lacks the marksmanship ability to hit it. And we have to remember that in a battlefield situation, we can expect the target to be doing everything possible to avoid getting spotted and hit, while we can expect the shooter to be suffering the adverse effects of physical exertion and a high level of stress. And that’s just the target and shooter. Once terrain, lighting and weather conditions get involved, we can expect limits on the fields of fire available.

In other words, the greater effective range of a Battle Rifle does not necessarily translate into an actual battlefield advantage.

There are certainly situations where the terrain lends itself to longer range engagements. Deserts, mountainous terrain and South Atlantic islands can all feature expansive sight lines that Battle Rifles can take advantage of in ways that Assault Rifles can’t. But denser terrain like woods and urban areas where long range fire is not possible are not only very common, but represent terrain that infantry is likely to find itself fighting in.

The Results- Win Rate and Raw Casualties

So we need to ask ourselves a follow-up question here: is the Battle Rifle’s marginal range advantage outweighed by any other factors at shorter ranges where engagements are more likely?

Well, most conspicuously, the SLR and C1A1 are both semi-automatic weapons. Part of the trade-off for the power of 7.62 NATO is more recoil and although fully automatic 7.62 Battle Rifles do exist, that recoil makes fully automatic fire very difficult to control.

This is, in fact, part of reason Assault Rifles were developed in the first place. Rounds like 5.56 and 5.54 are intermediate cartridges with enough power to accurately reach out to typical battlefield engagement ranges but with low enough recoil to make fully-automatic fire practical.

So the American M16A1 and Soviet AK74 are both select fire weapons: they can fire on both semi-auto and full-auto. So in theory, the Americans and Soviets have more firepower at close range, because they can go cyclic in a way that the Brits and Canadians can’t.

This is definitely borne out in the rounds-downrange tests I’ve been doing: at 100m the Americans and Soviets are putting out 626 and 398 rounds respectively while the British section lags behind on 263. We certainly saw the American close range superiority reflected in our tests here, but the Brits were very close to- and actually slightly outperformed- the Soviets.

Raw Casualties

But that’s in terms of percentage casualties. I very specifically adjusted chose percentage casualties as the output here because the squads are all different sizes and pure kills inflicted isn’t a like-to-like comparison. The data is still there though and looking at the results in terms of raw casualties, things are a little bit different.

Here, the Brits are definitely lagging at 100m. They inflicted 312 kills on their Soviet opposition, but sustained 350 in the process- a clear advantage to the outnumbered Soviets that we’re not seeing with the percentages. The Americans, meanwhile, traded pretty equally with their opposing numbers at 349 to 343.

This pattern in raw casualties does invert when we get to 300m- the Brits are 128 for 83 while the Americans are again well matched at 90-95- and at 500m the Battle Rifles are definitely on top. But we’ve already looked at how closer range engagements are much more likely.

Win Rates

Another way we can look at the data is in terms of win rates. Each lane in the test is basically a contest between two squads, we can compare the numbers of kills and determine ‘winners’, ‘losers’ and draws based on who got the most.

Looking at that, the Brits are well behind their Soviet opponents, with 42 to 54. That’s mirrored the other way with the Americans, who are winning 54-42.

As the range increases, our Brits with Battle Rifles do start doing better with 57 to 32 at 300m and 22-0 at 500, but like we saw that doesn’t actually translate into a significant number of casualties. They might have 22 wins at 500m but they only scored 23 kills, so only one each time. Or, to flip it, they failed to achieve anything about 80% of the time. That’s still better than everyone else, but does it actually matter?

Putting all this together, it’s clear that the Brits are not doing as well at close range as pure kill percentage would indicate. That fits the theory, and when we take into account the fact that the Battle Rifle advantage at longer ranges is arguably pretty minimal, as modelled in Combat Mission I think Battle Rifles are clearly the inferior choice.

Context

We do have some caveats, however, both in Combat Mission terms and in how these results reflect on the reality.

The Cold War Context

The first, and most obvious, is the wider context. The characteristics of individual weapons are just one piece of a huge, complex machine. In the Cold War gone hot context of CMCW, infantry squads and sections are unlikely to be operating alone. They will be supported by other weapon systems, indirect fires of all kinds, tanks and ultimately infantry fighting vehicles.

These can all engage to greater distances that infantry small arms: in an ideal world, the infantry are really just there to deal with what’s left by everything else. That means that, providing longer ranged fires are effective, the range envelope issues of both Assault Rifles and Battle Rifles can be mitigated to some extent. There is a surprisingly strong argument that infantry small arms are not a significant piece of the warfighting puzzle, providing they meet some rudimentary standards.

The Tactical Context

Second, we have tactical context as well. This kind of testing inevitably involves an arbitrary and rather unlikely situation. It’s really not realistic to expect firefights to start with two opposing squads hanging around in the open a set distance apart.

Infantry should be operating in such a way as to gain as many advantages as possible before a firefight starts. That means using cover and concealment, taking the enemy by surprise, working with other squads or supporting elements to achieve local superiority and so on.

More to the point, because the advantages and disadvantages of different weapons are known quantities, it makes sense for squads to try and specifically cater for them. There is little point, for example, in a Soviet Motor Rifle Squad trying to put effective fire down at 500m the way that a British Rifle squad might be tempted to.

Semi-Auto in Reality

Finally, we have to bear in mind the way that Combat Mission handles semi-automatic weapons fire. In reality, the speed at which something like an SLR can fire is controlled by how fast the shooter can squeeze the trigger and this will not be the same in all circumstances. A slower rate of fire is more suited for aimed deliberate fire at longer ranges, a faster rate of fire is a better idea at close quarters.

Combat Mission appears to model a single rate of fire for semi-automatic weapons- a slower more deliberate rate. So we can argue that the close range performance of the L1A1 and C1A1 in Combat Mission Cold War is significantly worse than we might expect in reality.

It’s worth noting that this actually works in reverse as well. Pixeltruppen in Combat Mission use fully-automatic fire considerably more often than modern militaries do. This may not have been the case in the Cold War, but there is definitely a very strong modern emphasis on semi-automatic fire even for tasks like room clearing.

Conclusion

So that’s a quick dive into the performance of Battle Rifles in Combat Mission Cold War: better at long range than Assault Rifles, but not decisively so, and arguably not in a way that outweighs their limitations at close range.

Some of that is due to the real characteristics of Battle Rifles, some of it is to do with the way that they are modelled in Combat Mission, but their strengths and weaknesses can be tempered by context.

Historically speaking, Battle Rifles occupy a curious niche in issued small arms. Development was pointing everyone towards Assault Rifles at the end of WW2, but in greatly simplified terms, politics happened and the US pushed NATO towards Battle Rifles in the 50s before reversing course for itself in the 60s, leaving nations like the UK and Canada adopting Assault Rifles in the 1980s, maybe 30 years later than they could- and perhaps should- have done.

That’s a whole ‘nother story though. Hope you all found this one interesting. If you’d like to watch these videos early and support the channel you can do so via Youtube and Patreon memberships. Whether you do or not, thanks for watching and I’ll catch you in the next one.