Hi everybody :)

[Sternjaeger]

I'm new here, but I've been a fan of the H&D saga since the very beginning!

Like probably most of you here I'm a WW2 history buff, and also have a little collection of ww2 rifles that I enjoy shooting when time permits, I'm glad to share my list with people that will appreciate them instead of looking at me like  :

M1 Garand
K98
K98 with ZF41
K98 with ZF39
Mosin Nagant 91/30
Mosin Nagant 91/30 with PE scope
Mosin Nagant 1938
Mosin Nagant M-44
SMLE MkIII*
Enfield No4 Mk.I
Springfield 1903a3
Carcano Mod. 91
G/43
Stg44 (modern replica)

I'm in the process of moving to another country, so I hope to carry most of them along with me 

Anyway, back to our game, I do believe that to date H&D2 is the most satisfying WW2 role game ever, I can't wait to have some good talks about it with you all and hope to see some sequel to this great game :)

Cheers!

[Jason]

Hello and welcome to the forums. I don't think any one here on the forums or in the community is against guns. I think the only one I would like to have is a Sten gun and maybe a m1 grand, even then I would settle for a fake. I use to go shooting with my father when I was younger but to be honest never had that much of a liking for it. I'm a strategy fan more than a gun fan.

Question, when firing the M1 grand does it really make that classic sound we all hear from the movies and games when you finish a magazine?

H&D is definitely the best world war 2 game. The gameplay is diverse which the others just don't have so I tend to get bored of the same style. Or maybe I have been playing H&D so long that I just expect it to change

Last I heard when 2k Czech was still Illusion Softworks they had proposals but now that 2k Games / Take 2 own Illusion Softworks they own H&D. I'm not sure how it works, if 2k games runs the show and tells the companies to make the games they want or if the individual 2k game companies get to make all the decisions. I suppose that means Take 2 own H&D now, I asked specifically a while back who own H&D and it was Illusion Softworks but... now... let's hope they all decide we need another H&D game. I am sure there are those within 2k Czech that will always want to go back to their launch pad game H&D

2k Czech have a lot of games under development, quality takes time so it will be a good year or 2 before we get any news and a product.

[Oldih]

Collecting militaria is not too odd. My room is more or less full of DDR shit, USSR shit, nazishit, some vietnam shit, british shit, few deac-weapons, one replica, soon-to-arrive several MG ammunition belts with deac-ammunition, MG ammo box and the list goes on.

Some of them are reproduced, some original. My DDR winter uniform smells like someone had been using it to shut down small fires, and original german canteen cup has field-made repairs in the handle, which looks quite hilarious 

[Sternjaeger]

Hi Jason, yes, the PING is real :)
The Garand is loaded by means of an en-bloc metal clip with 8 rounds inside, and when the last round is shot, the bolt will stay open and the clip itself will be ejected, making that familiar sound, that at first was considered a disadvantage (cos it basically told the enemy that you had to reload..), but soon became a decoy, where a "bait" would shoot until the clip was ejected, and a hidden marksman would then exploit the situation, since the enemy was likely to come out and shoot in turn (war is hell!! )
The Garand is the best rifle overall: versatile, sturdy, powerful and above all quick! A great rifle indeed, no wonder some snipers in the first Gulf War still used the scoped version of it!
R u guys both in the UK? I asked because of the deac stuff...

[Oldih]

but soon became a decoy, where a "bait" would shoot until the clip was ejected, and a hidden marksman would then exploit the situation, since the enemy was likely to come out and shoot in turn (war is hell!! )

Interestingly, this was not found to be entirely efficient. Albeit the "ping" was a good alert for the enemy to know when he is reloading, statistically that and the decoy tactic did not show any real significance on any unit, even though they were used once in a while 

R u guys both in the UK? I asked because of the deac stuff...

I live in Finland. I mainly have deac weapons since finding a working WW2 firearm (or any other period firearm) and getting license to have one is pain in the ass. Even getting a blank-firing gun here is pretty much impossible without some insane hassle.

[Jason]

Hi Jason, yes, the PING is real :)
The Garand is loaded by means of an en-bloc metal clip with 8 rounds inside, and when the last round is shot, the bolt will stay open and the clip itself will be ejected, making that familiar sound, that at first was considered a disadvantage (cos it basically told the enemy that you had to reload..), but soon became a decoy, where a "bait" would shoot until the clip was ejected, and a hidden marksman would then exploit the situation, since the enemy was likely to come out and shoot in turn (war is hell!! )

Sweet! that reminds me of the scene in the movie The Longest Day where the airborne have "crickets" to signal friendly troops. One solider mistakes a german cocking his rifle for the cricket noise.

The Garand is the best rifle overall: versatile, sturdy, powerful and above all quick! A great rifle indeed, no wonder some snipers in the first Gulf War still used the scoped version of it!

From using it in H&D2 I would have to agree, of course a game and real life are totally different. The game version is way better than all the others. The only other that comes close is the... *checks game guide* m1 carbine, can't believe I forgot that! it was my favourite in H&D Fight for Freedom.

R u guys both in the UK?

I'm in Australia and I just realised this forum doesn't show our country, I will have to fix that...

[Sternjaeger]

Yeah, I've read about that too, but still, in certain situations (like close combat) you don't want to let the enemy know that you need to reload, do you? It takes some precious seconds to take a clip off your pouch, push it in and close the bolt.. I assume it was something like the GIs waiting for the MGs to do the barrel change to attack an entrenched position. The thing that always got me though is how they dealt with noise: a single shot of these rifles will have your ears whistling for quite some time, imagine facing an MG or a cannon!!

Jason, the M1 Carabine is good for several reasons:
1) 15 rounds magazine
2) Semiauto with low recoil, it's easy to put 3 or more rounds in the same spot fast.
3) Small and light, which means easy to handle and versatile.

I tried a friend's at the shooting range, and apart for the low punch you can't really not like it!

The Garand chambers 30-06 ammo, which is quite a kick, and it is more accurate on longer range.

We shot with my Garand and his Carabine at an inch thick iron plate that we nicked from the pistols range and shot at it from 50 yards: the Garand made nice large holes on it, while the M1 hardly bumped the plate.. It really depends on what you need to do with them, but overall I would choose the Garand.
What most of the people ignore is the revolutionary aiming system introduced with the Garand and M1 carabine, where the rear sight is a ring really close to the eye of the shooter. All you have to do is peep through it and put the front sight on the target, and the game is done. The other rifles of the time used the conventional aiming leaf that was usually located halfway on the rifle length (Lee Enfields, K98s etc..). This meant that you had to be really careful when aligning the sights, as it was easier to get a windage or elevation misalignment (depending on your shooting position, eye focusing etc..). The M1 Garand and Carabine instead introduced a system (that is still used nowadays) that was more adapt for the instinctive shooting, where you lift the weapon, aim quick and BANG!
After having said all of that though, bear in mind that bolt action rifles are more accurate: the semiauto mechanism and gas recovery system of semiauto weapons tend to influence and disturb the bullet trajectory, whereas a manual bolt action system is more stable as there are no parts moving while the bullet is leaving the muzzle.
Among all the bolt action rifles, the K98 is definitely the most accurate you could put your hands on back then, and even without a scope you can obtain impressive results at relevant distances!
The G/43 is another interesting rifle, not as reliable as the Garand, but still a nice shot! Do you guys know if there is anywhere I could get more info about the game ballistics? I'd be quite intrigued to know more about them.
I'm Italian, but I recently moved to the UK, and firearms rules are quite restrictive here, I think pretty much like Australia, what a pain in the arse...

[Sternjaeger]

Uh I forgot to ask, are there any new maps or single player missions that one can download? I'd love to play some new missions!

[Oldih]

Yeah, I've read about that too, but still, in certain situations (like close combat) you don't want to let the enemy know that you need to reload, do you?

More or less, but again, it should be also noted that squad philosophies and practical princilpes between germans and americans were completely diffrent (MG being the main squad weapon vs rifle being the main squad weapon, squad organisation etc), and it is quite silly to rush into a close combat fight with a bolt-action rifle when there's semiautos against you. The germans often avoided direct headbutts in such situations as they knew they were on disadvatange.

Even though this is just very rough basic idea (so it does not apply in every situation, there are exceptions to every rule), if you don't count Airbourne Infantry or Rangers even in late 1944 many G.I.s were inferior to their german counterparts when acting as a squad. Americans had greater chance of getting squad leader killed, greater chance of being paralyzed or even practically "useless" without any 3rd party support, and lack of 'efficient' support weapons (I don't say that BAR sucks, but compare practical use + squad organisation and you'll understand what I mean) often caused more casualties than one might expect.

Uh I forgot to ask, are there any new maps or single player missions that one can download? I'd love to play some new missions!

As far as I know, there are none which is unfortunate.

[Lars]

Uh I forgot to ask, are there any new maps or single player missions that one can download? I'd love to play some new missions!

As far as I know, there are none which is unfortunate.

http://www.had-gf.de/downloads/index.php?ordner_id=16

More or less playable as SP in coop alone  All maps works only with sabre

[Oldih]

http://www.had-gf.de/downloads/index.php?ordner_id=16

More or less playable as SP in coop alone  All maps works only with sabre

My information has been incorrect then 

[Sternjaeger]

I agree Oldih, funnily enough the German army was based on a more obsolete rifle, but their tactics were outstanding (at least until 1944..) and extremely flexible; the stronghold in Montecassino is one of my favorite examples of how the Germans made a superb use of territory knowledge together with fighting skills, a bit like the legendary Battle of the Thermopylae between the Spartans and Persians.
Historians tend to hide how close we got at some point to have a complete change of history..

Lars, I'm not sure I do understand, I can play the maps as single player against AI Germans but I dont get to use other team mates?

[Lars]

Exact .. you can play it in coop with other human players or alone in some sort of singleplayer (lonewolf) without any teamates. With some editing it might be able to import it into the real singleplayer but I think the coop version is more than enaugh for all

[Oldih]

I agree Oldih, funnily enough the German army was based on a more obsolete rifle, but their tactics were outstanding (at least until 1944..) and extremely flexible

True, but  it should be also noted that the german squad organisation itself was flexible and basic training even enforced the idea, as until the very late 1944, german basic training was still quite good.

Instead of relying that rifles are the main weapon or the heart of the squad, everything with them revolved around a machinegun. Whether it be an MG34 or MG42, the main idea was to achieve fire superiority by hosing down bullets with the machinegun. Riflemen mainly kept sure the MG'er got more and more ammunition coming, protected the MG'er and only if needed, advanced in frogleaps supported by the MG fire.

Considering MG34s and MG42s more or less high rate of fire back then, they did excellent job with that in practice. And even if the squad got over 50% casualties all out of sudden or the squad leader was incapaciated, they still knew what to do as the very basic methods were taught to everyone, which is one reason why often severly understrenght german units were still able to operate efficiently than their allied counterparts. All that mattered were the MGs.

Interestingly, somewhere in 1942 the german drill manual\training manual\whatever it is, ceased to make distinction between a rifle squad and a machinegun team, as practically every squad was employed as a machinegun unit.

[geosouv]

I find this topic extremely interesting as I am simply crazy about guns!
Sternjaeger, you seem to be a gun expert to me. Unfortunately, here in Greece there aren't many firearm books to read in Greek. I have a good one, which is my first one, it is written by a guy called Theodoros Dimopoulos. It has almost every old and new gun you can imagine with the exceptions of two German guns: Gewehr 43 and MSG-90 (which is a sniper rifle I loved in Soldier Of Fortune 2). The problem with this book is that first of all it was a bit expensive, we are talking about 255 pages and a price of 19 €! And the second and biggest problem is that it is completely epigrammatic. Just a short one page presentation of each gun. The good thing is that you can learn some terminology in Greek and that it is very well organized.

Yeah, I know what you think about Greeks: We are disorganized . Well, I have to tell you that I am Greek and I am obsessed with organizing everything! It really does not depend on the nation, it depends on the person. But I have to say there are some Greeks, especially older people who are completely disorganized! Anyway, I am trying to become a gun expert... without owning any firearms as in Greece the laws are very very strict (and they should stay that way too). So, since getting my hands on a true firearm is impossible, unless it is a hunting shotgun, the type I don't care about much I have evolved into a marksman and a big airsoft fun.

I practice shooting with my airsoft spring AK-47 or Kalashnikov, as it is better known in Greece, everyday (literally ) and dream about getting an AEG M14, which is the gun of my dreams, with the money I don't have . The guns I currently own are: One Gamo Shadow 1000 spring air rifle (Spanish brand), an expensive 2-9x scope Norica (made in Germany), the aforementioned Kalashnikov and 4 Spring airsoft pistols: Desert Eagle (Silver), Jim Boland Government model (full metal), Walther P99 (Jame's Bond's pistol) and last but not least a Glock 17L (Long version) which is made in Japan (by Tokyo Marui) and is the most accurate, handy and beautiful of my pistols.

That's it. The gun I would really like to have as an airsoft is the M1 Garand. Sternjaeger, where did you get all these antique guns? Tell us more about the M1 Garand's recoil, its feel (wood and metal) and tell us more about the Mosin Nagant and the Lee-Enfield. If you are interested in guns search for a guy named hickok45 on youtube. He is an American and he has like 40 guns including old and new ones. He is quite old and he also has one or two videos for safety and firearms. I have downloaded and written on DVD many of his videos and I watch them quite often. He is great, although I find it a bit difficult to make sense of what he says because English is not my mother tongue and he is from the South of the U.S.

I also have many many carefully chosen pictures of firearms which I collected from the web and I can send them to anyone who wants them. Just p.m. me and give me your e-mail. Thank you very much for reading my bullshit and have a look at the links below, they contain the two shoulder weapons I own.

Gamo Shadow 1000
Kalashnikov - AK 47 Don't worry, the websites are in English!