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[NFossil]

This came up during some discussion on writing stories:
I have no doubt that well-trained soldiers can identify any weapon they might come across, but how often do they consciously think about and communicate such information? Especially when the weapon encountered isn't really special in its usage or is very common, or when they are on the front line?
I, with no military knowledge whatsoever, seriously think soldiers have more to worry about than exactly what gun the enemy is using. It kills you anyway, so watch out. I think anyone who includes precise, time- and faction- accurate information is just trying to show off his knowledge about weapons, instead of writing about a realistic battlefield or soldier. It's like "Hey! I know what's used during this period by that army! I'm an expert on military history!"
i.e.
Rather than "It's this specific howitzer with something caliber from the whatevercountry's army!"
I prefer to read "Artillery! Run!" or something along those lines. I mean, you are being fired at. By the enemy.
Also "He's got this model of rifle" vs "He's got an old-looking rifle decorated with bands of turtle shell. It menaces with spikes of horse bone."

[Enzo]

I don't really know what the discussion here is supposed to be, but yeah, some writers like to go "HEY LOOK AT ME, I DID THE RESEARCH" and include descriptions that would be completely devoid of meaning to anyone who doesn't know much about the topic. It is common. It is annoying. Yeah.

[Aqizzar]

Blame Tom Clancy and his massive gun porn diatribes, that give the inanimate objects in his novels more characterization than Jack Ryan.

I do have a tiny insight into how people judge what's being fired at them.  I read a lot of accounts by war correspondents (vicarious wimp that I am), and people who've been in firefights a few times do start to recognize the general noise of some weapons.  M-16s sound a little different from AK-47s, long range fire sounds different from short range, explosions have different pitches at different sizes, and so forth.

But they have luxury of hiding and listening without anything else to do, whereas combatants actually have shit to do when being shot at, and probably don't stop to consider what exactly the sound is.  I imagine hoary old veterans who can "stay cool under fire" do start to analyze sounds, but that's probably just something they'd claim to impress people.

By the same token, any novel or movie where a character counts shots in a gunfight before doing whatever, was written by someone who's never been around guns.  Even if you had the clairvoyance and encyclopedic knowledge to know what you're being shot at with and how large its clip is, you'd have to be a machine to differentiate shots from anything but a revolver and still think straight.

[Cthulhu]

Well, not as much if you're being shot at, but if you pick up a gun knowing what gun it is and the various specifications will help.  An M16 can't handle a grimy muddy environment as well as an AK47, and that should influence how you behave if you don't want your gun to jam in a fight.

That's another thing.  Some guns might have different means of unjamming.  Probably not a huge difference, but there might be something.

Oh, glocks have an internal hammer, which means it won't get caught on your clothes when you draw it.  That's a pretty big thing right there, especially if you're a cop or something like that.

[Heron TSG]

In WW1 you had to be able to differentiate the whines of different shell varieties to know when to duck, when to run, when to put on a gas mask, and when to charge. (the lattermost because high-arc shells were for hitting enemy artillery, not you. watch for machine guns though.)

[woose1]

Why don't we have more WW1 games in the mainstream market?

Is it just too dirty for our shiny high-tech pieces of digital rendering equipment? 

[Cthulhu]

World War 1 wouldn't exactly make for an exciting game.

Sit around in trench for eight hours.
Run out.
Get shot/blown up/cough up pieces of lung/etc
Die.
Roll credits.

[Rilder]

I want a FPS with muskets. 

Fucking ETW has me musket crazy lately.

Though that would be a bit more boring then a WWI game.

Stand in line
Aim in enemies general direction.
Fire
Reload
Head gets ripped off by a cannonball

[Cthulhu]

There's a Half Life 2 mod with musket combat.  One shot kills unless you hit them in the foot or something, pretty realistic accuracy and reloading, it's pretty cool.

Not many people play, but there's usually a decently populated server.  Occasionally you get a server that does line battles.

[Supermikhail]

Necrovision and the Darkest of Days, as I've heard, feature some historicity in guns... Don't know about muskets...

[Muz]

I think just about every war game about infantry would be boring if done realistically. People just really bend the rules. Fighting drug dealers, armed robbers, or terrorists would be as interesting as things get.

Heh, anyway from what I heard of real war stories, grizzled war vets aren't so scared of artillery. Catapults don't tear down walls in a few minutes, they take frigging days. Similarly for a lot of other artillery.. cannons (at least the pre-WW2 ones) don't rip holes in true navy vessels with one hit, they like kinda bruise and dent the surface. And guns don't shoot right through plate mail either. There are plenty of stories about a general standing somewhere I'd freak out at, like the bow of a battleship or some tower getting shot at, and bossing his men around. True story involved some cocky veteran general defying a younger general's order to tell everyone to retreat after taking heavy artillery fire, and actually winning the fight when the artillery got tired or something.. forgot the details.

Realistically, he could get like really bored and say that's a whatever model cannon they're shooting at us. You know, along with other bored conversation like "they're 3000 meters away from us" and "his wife is hot". And if he's really bored, don't put that in a book, for god's sake. Skip to an interesting part. That's why I stopped reading books; authors are just too happy to put in boring crap in the name of detail. If I wanted boring stuff, I'd read history books on past battles, at least it's true. If you want to give me boring stuff, at least make sure it's interesting, and not utter crap you made up.

[Rilder]

There's a Half Life 2 mod with musket combat.  One shot kills unless you hit them in the foot or something, pretty realistic accuracy and reloading, it's pretty cool.

Not many people play, but there's usually a decently populated server.  Occasionally you get a server that does line battles.

Found it, Definitely gonna try this out.

[Aqizzar]

I want a FPS with muskets. 

Mount & Blade: 1866 Mod.  It's pretty frustrating, and proves why saber-swinging cavalry survived at all.

I think a WW1 game could work, as long as it has nothing to do with infantry combat, which is kind of a copout.  I've played several WW1 flight-sims, including one the best and earliest, Red Baron.  At the other end of the scale, I think you could make an entertaining, if very limited, game about WW1 tank combat.

[Sensei]

If I were going into any sort of battle, I'd want to familiarize myself with guns enough that I can know when I have what advantage (which would probably be more accurately covered in a briefing, but say, whether it's a mounted MG or an assault rifle would be good to know), and enough about my and my enemy's weapons that I can reload, fire, and unjam all of them under duress.

Also, there's more games than you think that use muskets. It usually is pretty lousy (unless you get to use your bayonet, a lot, or you're commanding an army like in MnB).

...back on topic, in my weirdly formatted post, in a battle situation you're probably going to be specifically briefed about the range and abilities of your foe's weapons.

[Forumsdwarf]

Soldiers knew intimately the weapons arrayed against them.

Fear of the German MG42 was so intense the Army made instructional propaganda videos attempting to allay the Allied soldiers' fears.

It's very important to know if the small arms fire you're taking is from a sniper rifle like the Dragunov or an assault rifle like the AK-47.  The sound of gunfire also serves as a generally accurate method of determining where friends and foes are -- assuming the two sides typically use different weapons (AK-47's vs. M16's, etc.)

The type of incoming artillery and mortar fire is important for the patterns they're likely to come down in and the amount of warning those in the threatened area have before the shells land.

Whether a soldier would actually talk about specific weaponry during combat seems to depend on context.  A veteran instructing a rookie has a good reason for talking, but gratuitous talk would be as dumb as those martial arts cartoons where the fighters pause to call out the name of the move they're about to execute -- talking should never interfere with ducking.

I expect if a soldier heard a Dragunov and yelled, "Sniper!" that would be realistic.  The audience would need to know how the soldier knew it was a sniper, so down in the foxhole the vet explains to the rookie that the gunfire was coming from a Dragunov.  I can keep my disbelief suspended for that, no problem.

Something else you might not've considered is how the EOD guys are going to know every last detail relating to ordnance and talk about it constantly.  How they dispose of an IED is directly related to what it's made of, and their lives depend on what they know about it.