Spearman and the Battleship

[Wodan]

If I wanted a game with surety, I'd be playing diplomacy.

You mean the boardgame?

Wodan

 

[rubixd]

Unless these 1000 men were lining up one at a time the 3 machinegunners wouldn't stand a chance. Just by sheer numbers even unarmed, 1000 men would completely overwhelm 3 men with even the best small arms weapons.

machine guns = small arms?
and no way would 1000 men kill 3 machinegunners, in real life:
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pfff ez the machinegunners hold down the trigger and turn back and forth a couple times

 

[Wodan]

Why in the world would 1000 men line up so they could be gunned down?

That's entirely the point: They wouldn't.

They'd sneak up at night, or shoot their arrows up over the walls (arrows are much more ballistic than bullets), or whatever.

Wodan

 

[Arkazius]

For anyone that doubts whether troops armed with pointy sticks can defeat a technologically superior force, have a read of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulu_war
The Zulus in the end lost the war, but the fact remains that 20,000 "spearmen" defeated 4000 "riflemen".

 

[ellie]

For anyone that doubts whether troops armed with pointy sticks can defeat a technologically superior force, have a read of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulu_war
The Zulus in the end lost the war, but the fact remains that 20,000 "spearmen" defeated 4000 "riflemen".

If your talking about isandwana, yes it was a disaster but it was actually
just over 1000 - 1500 British troops (half of them local african auxiliaries not
trained british troops) and 22,000 impi. The main force under chelmsford has gone off to look for the zulu.

At ulundi, in set battle 5000 British forces took on 20,000 Impi

casualties were around 1500 dead zulus and 10 dead British soldiers.

The battle was over very quickly (it lasted around 30 minutes) and a realistic example of modern equipment against obsolote military.

Navally..opium wars..1 tiny little frigate sank a big chunk of the chinese
navy, due to better tech.


__

Anyway sorry for so offtopic lol

 

[ferenginar]

Where do the figures of 1000 macemen, and 3 machine gunners, actually come from, surely a unit of machine guns would amount to more than 3.

Judging by the wikipedia figures for the Zulu wars that have British riflemen killed zulus at about 100:1, it seems perfectly feasible that a machine gunner could take out 300+.

 

[BeefontheBone]

A decimated tank unit would have an ingame strength of precisely 25.2 (disregarding promotions), since decimation is killing one man in 10 (randomly selected, historically, in order to prevent desertion in the Roman army - you'd think twice about going AWOL if 1 in 10 of your friends gets executed).

 

[fugazi]

They should have given units a bonus vs older tech units so that 'more modern' units always got an edge.

 

[Volstag]

Will there ever be a time when this complaint isn't brought up? Quit worrying about the picture of the unit and focus on the combat odds -- that's all that matters.

If you want more "realism" in your combat, go play TacOps4 or anything in the most excellent Combat Mission series. The Civ series is a grand strategy game, not a tactical combat simulator.

 

[Beamup]

pfff ez the machinegunners hold down the trigger and turn back and forth a couple times

And before they've killed more than a fraction of the enemies, the gun jams, or the barrel has to be replaced, or they've run out of ammo.

Machine guns firing long continuous bursts is something you really only see in movies. IRL machine guns are fired in short, controlled bursts - because if you try anything more you won't be shooting that gun any more for a while.