Realism Scripts: Randomize Bullets & Shaky Hands

[m21man]

.300 Magnum...HAH! Try firing a .338 Lapua Magnum for the first time (It's a slightly smaller version of the .50 BMG ).

[General Barron]

As a united states Marine who has actually :gunman: fired an m16a2 service rifle, I feel the need to weigh in on this discussion.

A gun, when braced on something (A bipod, or something more primitive like a sandbag) is extremely stable. Plus, when shooting large caliber weapons, the bullet has an enormous fps rate coming out of the muzzle. The bullet doesn't shift course or anything like it does in JAM. Here's the acid test: Armstrong, have you ever actually fired a real rifle? I have, and trust me, it won't wobble noticeably when placed on a sandbag, or better yet, a bipod.

   This is true, to some extent.  When you are in the prone, and especially when you have something to rest the rifle on, there is very little shaking. I could put 10 out of 10 rounds into your chest if you were standing up 300 meters from me, and I was prone. At 500 meters, that number may drop to about 7/10. Shooting from the prone on a rifle range is very accurate indeed.

    Standing, however, is EXTREMELY less accurate than prone. In OFP, it is a little bit less accurate to shoot standing compared to prone. But at ranges more than 200 meters, even the best marksmen aren't going to be very accurate from the standing position. I'll state it again, because this is a HUGE realism problem with OFP: :noo:IN OFP YOU ARE MUCH TO ACCURATE SHOOTING FROM STANDING:noo:!!! I should not be able to get headshots from 400 meters away while standing! Then we take up the issue of machine guns, which generally can't even be fired from standing, and those that can, not very accurately.

    Whew! Glad I got that pet peeve off my chest. Anyway, there is no way to correct this without making prone shooting far too inaccurate, since there is no way to tell if a unit is standing or if he is prone. I think it best to find a happy medium between the two.

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    Okay, I'm a pretty good shot, and I've already told you some rough numbers on accuracy above. I'm sure everybody else here with shooting experience would give you about the same story. That all applies on the rifle range, with soft clothes on, and I'm well rested and happy and yada yada.... But let's take a look at how things would change if you were in a combat environment. Just imagine you are now on a combat patrol, en route to attack the enemy:

   First of all, in combat you are going to be wearing lots of gear that you wouldn't wear on a rifle range. You've got your canteens, your ammo, your body armor and then your helmet. Trust me, that damn helmet makes it 10 times harder to shoot. You may even be wearing a 100 pound backpack, if you meet the enemy before you drop your packs.

   Most importantly, in a combat evironment, you are going to be TIRED! The next time you go to shoot, try running around for just two minutes before you fire, then see how well you shoot. Suddenly it gets a lot harder to hold that weapon steady, or to control your breathing or even your trigger control, no? And that's only after a couple minutes running. Now imagine yourself doing fireteam rushes for a hundred meters (if you don't know, that's where one man gets up, runs for a few seconds, then gets down, then the next man behind him does the same, and so on), while under fire, after a 10 mile hike to the objective. How much time would you have to take each shot?

    This isn't like on the range, where you get as much time as you need to take each shot. And, oh yeah, do you even know where to shoot? On the range, you get a nice big bullseye to aim at. You always know where it is. But in combat, the enemy is camo'd, hiding, and could be anywhere. Have a friend wear green clothes and lie down in the bushes a hundred meters from you. How well can you see him? Where exactly would you aim if you were trying to hit him?

Oh yeah!

The recoil is really scary!

 You wanna talk about scary? No weapon that I've fired has any "scary" amount of recoil; not even machine guns. But if I were ever in a situation where somebody was actually firing bullets at me, and trying to kill me, I think I'd be a little scared. And that little bit of fear is going to affect how accurately you shoot.

I have no problem keeping my weapon steady, except for a marginal couple centimeter error from windage and what not.

   At 300+ meters, a few clicks wrong on windage translates into MUCH more than a few centimeters off on the target. This is even worse for the elevation knob; if you think somebody is 300 meters away, but he really is 400 meters, you're bullets are going to be hitting a few feet below your target.

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   The default weapons in OFP are WAY too accurate! I don't see how anybody could deny that. I've seen HD mags at work in the SEB 'Nam pack, and I like what I see, but I still have to set everybody's skill down to zero if I want a realistic firefight. But having a script that would work without an addon would be very nice. Actually, I'm working on a script to do just that, but I'm having a little bit of trouble with my vector-algebra. I'll get a little help with that, and then I'll write the script. Then we'll see how it works.

[m21man]

Have you ever tried the FDF MOD? Those guns have a much more noticeable recoil and are virtually impossible to shoot accurately with while you're standing or crouching.

[Torak]

First off, I have to agree with just about everything you said; one comment, though, would be that the Swedish-issue AK5 (based on the FNC) is relatively stable even from standing, since the higher weight means it doesn't swing as much.

Then we take up the issue of machine guns, which generally can't even be fired from standing, and those that can, not very accurately.

Depends on the gun. The Minimi/Ksp90/M249/SAW/whatever (depending on nationality) is light enough to fire like an assault rifle from the shoulder, and some of our squads were trained to fire it like that (though still keeping prone firing as the standard, of course). The Ksp 58 (FN Mag / M240) is often (well, OK, sometimes) fired from the hip from a kneeling position; this is mainly used by the MP units.

But one of the guys in my company was HUGE. On one occasion - and this is absolutely true, I saw it with my own eyes - he held his issued Minimi at arms' length in a classic in-line stance, such as competition pistol shooters use, and fired a few dozen rounds on auto. He didn't hit anything, of course - well, all right, he hit a lot, but not the target - but even firing the bugger and keeping it relatively stable was fairly impressive to watch.

Nobody ever picked a fight with him, oddly enough. ;D

[KyleSarnik]

Defined in CfgRecoils, the recoil for standing/crouching is different from recoil while prone. So weapon makers can just make the standing recoil alot higher....

[General Barron]

Defined in CfgRecoils, the recoil for standing/crouching is different from recoil while prone. So weapon makers can just make the standing recoil alot higher....

I know virtually nothing about addon making... but I do know that there are a lot of properties of units and weapons that are invisible to scripters, but are visible to addon creators. I guess that this is an issue that should be solved by addon makers (such as the FDF mod, which I haven't yet tried but looks to be amazing). But what about the first shot, anyway? However, a lot of missions just use the default models/weapons, and thus would only benifit from scripting. Of course, nothing says an editor is going to make use of a script, even if it is available....

One comment, though, would be that the Swedish-issue AK5 (based on the FNC) is relatively stable even from standing, since the higher weight means it doesn't swing as much.

I've never shot that, but I have shot other rifles that are heavier than the m16 and yes it is much more stable. But then again your arm tends to get tired quicker from holding the thing up.

As for the machine guns, I guess I was thinking mainly of the m240G, which can't easily be fired standing. That's true though, that the SAW is pretty light, and I guess since it is pretty much the standard machinegun for a rifle squad, I am kinda off base in that area.

[Torak]

As far as tiredness is concerned, I wholeheartedly agree. Perhaps it could be adjusted so your arm starts sagging randomly the longer you hold your arm up?

That's one major advantage of bullpup rifles; OK, a lot of people complain about the moved centre of mass, but I find it marvellous. Most of the weight's between the pistol grip and your shoulder, so you don't need as much force holding up the front. But then, the first assault rifle I ever fired was the L85, so I guess I'm used to it.