aggimajera wrote: ↑Mon May 23, 2022 2:48 pm
3.) On your final note of why you shouldn't go around firing AK's to prevent blue on blue, why not let players discover this the hard way? Why not have us endure blue-on-blue as a result? Perhaps your squad mates ridicule you or straight up call you an idiot for carrying an Insurgent weapon as your primary.
No idea how feasible it would be with regards to AI in the game, but yeah, it would be interesting experience to clear a house with an AK and get suppressed by Marines who haven't seen player using enemy weapon. I guess that would be limited to other squads/teams, as I suppose player subordinates would always be pretty close by.
As for picking up ammo for AKs - maybe make it a reeeaally long animation (player's character searches through pockets of fallen enemy), so that player will start to regret his decision somewhere in the middle of the process?
This got me thinking, and I don't know how it fits into the planned gameplay/level design - if levels are made so that enemy can flank player, or even surprise him by attacking the rear, maybe enemy AI could also pick up weapons from fallen comrades and use them? Especially "high value"/ stuff like RPGs, machine guns or sniper rifles. This could add a sort of "mini-game" of player picking up weapons from dead enemies and delivering them to the rear formations.
This is sort of a wild idea, and may probably not work at all, but reading about modern counter-insurgencies (whether in Iraq or elsewhere), it seemed that "battlefield clean-up" was pretty important task.
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As for the guns themselves, I cannot help but notice that the "AK-47" is in fact an AKM. Although it has a stock with a downward slant, which is indeed reminescent of the original AK. IMO it would be better to straighten the stock on the gun, as it looks a bit wonky in it's current form. Here's a visual comparison of the stocks:
- akakm.jpg (28.66 KiB) Viewed 15047 times
Apart from that, I'm kind of bummed because of the overall "generic" character of the insurgent armoury. Let me nerd out a little bit. While AK is obviously a Soviet design, it was also made in many different countries, which often made their own little changes to the design. Saddam's Iraq was know to supply rifles from Romania, East Germany and Yugoslavia, and finally began manufacture of their own line of AK-clones. Quite naturally after the fall of Saddam these guns were used a lot by the insurgents, new Iraqi Army and police, and
even allied forces. IMO it may be worth to take some of the visual cues from these guns, to make the weaponry of Six Days insurgents stand out from a "Run of the mill" shooter.
Base AKM model could be transformed into a Romanian-like rifle by adding a so-called "dong" (handguard with vertical grip) and/or a wire side-folding stock (
example of both). East German gun could be simulated by adding the same wire side-folder to the gun with regular handguard, although "proper" East German guns had a number of plastic parts of original design, either mixed with wood (
examples) or exclusively plastic (
example 1 and
2).
Step above that would be recreating a Yugoslav-pattern of AK rifle, the Zastava M70, which was also manufactured in Iraq under Tabuk name. This variant features a number of changes when compared to regular AKM: reinforced receiver (
right side,
left side), larger handguard with
three vent holes,
rifle grenade sight (
flips up to fire grenades), different grip and stock. Zastava M70 and Tabuk were made both in
fixed- and
folding-stock variants.
Iraq also made
a "sniper" variant of the Tabuk, which has became sort of a thing of legends (a look-alike was even featured in
"American Sniper" movie). The sniper Tabuk has a longer barrel with
SVD-like flash-hider, is equipped with Yugo
ZRAK ON M99 scope that's similiar to PSO-1 (in fact Tabuk sniper can mount PSO too), and a distinctive stock. What's interesting about this gun is that (unlike SVD or American marksman rifles such as M14 EBR, Mk11/M110) it uses an intermediate 7.62x39 cartridge, just like regular AK rifles (the magazines are also interchangeable). This makes it pretty well suited to urban warfare, and despite new Iraqi Army and police receiving a lot of 5.56 guns (M16s and M4s), Tabuk sniper rifles are still being used (especially by police).
To spice-up the things even more, insurgents could use weapons such as
RPD (which is more of a M249 equivalent than PKM), Zastava M72 LMG (made in Iraq under
Al Quds name, also with
folding stock) or sniper rifles such as
Romanian PSL (a sort-of "enlarged" AK which seems to be more numerous in Iraq than SVD) or Saddam's own
Al Kadesiah (a cross between PSL and SVD). Maybe some pistols, like the
Tariq (would play well with my earlier idea of insurgents taking the guns from their fallen comrades).
Of course, what I described here requires a hell lot of an effort to make! So don't treat it as a request, or even suggestion - more like a collection of ideas on how to make the insurgents arsenal have a little more of Iraqi flavor. Can't wait for next SITREP! Maybe something about aforementioned traps and IEDs?