Musings about Men of War

[Patchman123]

I play MOW and when I do,
I drag the mouse over a bunch of infantry and form a squad of men. That's just fine. However, I would like to be able to have that squad permanently stay together as a squad with full integrity and control of individual soldiers in that squad and to have a squad permanently assigned and form new squads and merge them into platoons, regiments, divisions, instead of acting like a Rambo type loner character out there on the battlefield where you win the war all by yourself.

My idea or proposal is to have permanent squads, with an interface that controls individual soldiers in a little panel in the game, while still maintaining the individual control of soldiers we love so much. You can tell the machine gunner for example, to open fire on that enemy soldier or vehicle in that squad and have the other squad members cease fire, then be ordered to fire on those soldiers and then so on and so forth.
How about permanently attached squads, instead of dragging the mouse over a bunch of soldiers and calling them a "squad?"
And the artillery needs some work. I am tired of point-blank range artillery against tanks. That negates the advantage I would have of long-range gunner in the Sevastopol mission against the oncoming Panzers in the game. That big battleship turret gun is a great asset and incredibly destructive, but it takes too long to reload.

And aircraft? Why can't you shoot at an attacking aircraft with a Mosin-Nagant rifle? In RL, you could and soldiers often did, shoot at aircraft with personal arms to give them some sort of psychological chance of shooting back at an aircraft, so that they could defend themselves, whether or not it was effective is debatable, no matter how effective or ineffective it might have been. At least they did something.
That giant howitzer out there in our trenches. Man, the Panzers have laser-guided accuracy and can always hit you in that trench with their guns and always are right on the mark, despite the fact that exploding shells leave shrapnel in the body and explode close to you, but you still live because the trench is supposed to protect you from artillery fire because that was the whole point of trenches was to protect from artillery fire, but in the end, a precise and well-aimed shell in a trench still blows you up and kills you like any other.

The ineffective anti-tank rockets need fixed. No more suicidal charges against enemy tanks to throw anti-tank grenades, that were marginally effective in real life anyway and highly dangerous because of the fact that it took 30 feet to close within a tank and destroy one and is thus, suicidal with infantry around. You shoot a tank with an AT rocket and it does nothing and bounces off, despite a Panzerfaust or Panzerschreck destroying a Sherman or T34 or any Allied tank with laughable ease in real life.


What am I ranting for? Simple, make squads more permanent and more manageable.
Why is it that there is a Panzerschreck in the Rostov Oblast (Region) Yudino level in the year 1941 in the armory box? Why is there an MG42 as well? Those weapons did not come out until 1942 and 1943 respectively. The MG42 came out in 1942, hence the 42 at the end, standing for the year that it was released into active duty and/or made. The Panzerschreck did not come out until 1943.
We need better squad management and better squad tactics and to break up squads if necessary and still go back to playing regular old individual infantry. Don't worry, you'll still get to play on individual soldier after another. You need to be able to spread apart soldiers in a squad to avoid being blown to bits.
Soldiers are just too close together in formation and are easy targets for artillery and mortars. That annoys me too. Being in close formation like that makes you a prime target.

I have another problem in that I have erratic keyboard movement in the game where if you move someone with a keyboard for a long time, they will erratically move in an unintended direction somewhere or will be uncontrollable with the keyboard and they keep going in that direction and you can't control it. It's irritating.

Men need to spread out and shoot things when ordered to. They need to be able to adjust to various stances, various combat formations, armies usually do not have perfect by the book formations in combat like in the game, because they need to be able to be flexible enough to spread out and find cover to avoid being shot at, blown up by artillery and/or mortars, from enemy air attacks, strafing and bombing runs, getting mowed down by a machine gun or flak cannon, etc.

Why not be able to pry open a hatch of an enemy tank and drop a hand grenade down inside? Soldiers did that in real life too and it was effective way of taking out an enemy tank by killing the crew and capturing it. Why not have default AI behavior where they actually shoot at you like they would an enemy if you are driving an enemy vehicle? In RL, you would not know the difference between someone in your squad and an enemy and since it's an enemy vehicle, marked as an enemy, it can be a target to be shot at. Someone else in your same army is not gonna know that you a friendly soldier are driving that vehicle, or if you are a enemy and they are gonna shoot it, as if it was a enemy vehicle because it looks like one, regardless of who's inside it, let's shoot it because that IS your duty as a soldier to shoot at enemy vehicles and personnel to fight them to win the war.
I cannot believe that games like these penalize people for shooting at enemy vehicles driven by one of your own simply because he is driving it, instead of it being an enemy vehicle and getting points for destroying an enemy vehicle, while being penalized for shooting at a friendly, while it is understandable that you would do that,

Why be penalized for shooting enemy vehicles driven by friendlies? The captured vehicle should be marked with a Red Star or White Allied Star, depending on where you're at, and marked in such fashion in multiplayer to indicate that it is a captured vehicle or artillery piece. Capture the vehicle, like capture the flag, you select the capture button and the vehicle is captured and repainted in captured standard Red Army or Western Allies camouflage paint scheme colors and you get to own the vehicle and if you do shoot it, you become penalized for destroying a now friendly vehicle.



Is there a way to enable friendly fire in single player? That would enhance realism for me.