Project Reality Forums

Is it possible for Officers to have one mag with magnesium bullets? They glow red when fired, just like tracers but then a full round of it. It will be useful for officers to show targets for an APC or Tank Gunner that can't see the target. It will improve teamwork for people without mumble/super high knowledge of PR.

I have to say, that's one great idea. A way to implement it would to be give the Officer kit two M4s, one with standard rounds and a standard amount of magazines, then another M4 with magnesium rounds and one magazine.

You don't need two M4's you just have 2 types of mags and only one rifle.

It sounds kinda cool but we have the magic marker that is even better. Then there is the problem with no free weapon slots for officers. Maybe it is the regular soldiers that needs it, is it common for soldiers to carry that?

which is quite useless and wont work that well.
Cherry, that would take up kit slots.

ghost-recon wrote:Is it possible for Officers to have one mag with magnesium bullets? They glow red when fired, just like tracers but then a full round of it. It will be useful for officers to show targets for an APC or Tank Gunner that can't see the target. It will improve teamwork for people without mumble/super high knowledge of PR.

I'm not aware of any military-issue ammunition that is a magnesium bullet. Adding something like that to the game would not only be unrealistic, but such an item would be very dangerous to the operator. I can't even imagine anyone wanting to fire a magnesium bullet, with the risks involved.


Yes, in the military we do sometimes use tracer fire as a form of signal. But you make a few points that are counter-productive.

1) If the armored vehicle can't "see" the target that an officer can, then how are tracer rounds going to help? The armor will have better optics and magnification, so they should be able to locate and identify a target much better than ground troops. Squad leaders also have the ability to mark spotted targets, unlike regular soldiers.

2) Anyone using the officer kit should have a decent knowledge of PR. If they don't, then they need to stick with a basic kit until they have a better understanding of the game/mod. Squad leaders should also be using some form of communications, if not a mic then they at least need to be capable of using team text effectively. If they are unable to communicate with the rest of their team, then they should not be in the SL role.


3) Remember Murphy's Law of Combat...Tracers work both ways.

Also, this has been suggested before, at least twice.

M.

ghost-recon wrote:You don't need two M4's you just have 2 types of mags and only one rifle.

you would need two rifles, in which case it would take up a slot and the officer kit slot is already full.

gazzthompson wrote:you would need two rifles, in which case it would take up a slot and the officer kit slot is already full.

Arrrrr well that sucks. Would've been bad ***.

A great idea, but too bad the kit slots are all taken up.

It are Just normal bullets, just tracers. I saw in a documentary of History channel (Shootout!), they used it in Afghanistan. You think how would the officer see the target and the apc not? It could hide behind cover, the APC could be in the wrong angle and can't see the target. But maybe it's something for the AR? Because all officer kits are full.

ghost-recon wrote:But maybe it's something for the AR?

it already looks like a lazor when you fire it

Is there a problem with the tracers that currently exit your rifle barrel?

Generally, when you are going to use "signal by tracer fire" you are doing so during a deliberate ambush, not a hasty ambush or other type of tactical engagement. During my time in the Army, the Deliberate Ambush is the ONLY time I have personally ever seen or heard of that method being used.

What "signal by tracer fire" means is that the soldier/officer in charge of the ambush will load up the top few rounds in their magazine with some tracer rounds. All soldiers will take cover and conceal themselves in preparation for the ambush. When the enemy forces are in the correct location, the leader will fire some tracers into the enemy group. When the rest of the friendly forces see those tracers, they light them ******** up.

If possible though, you would be better off initiating the ambush with the Claymore mine. They are placed on the same side as your team, obviously, and when you hear those babies boom you mash down your trigger and spray left to right like you're washing a car. We had many ways of signaling the start of an ambush, even the old-school whistle blowing. Signal by tracer fire was just one of dozens of those methods.


Generally, that method is rarely used because you need to manually pre-load your magazine with those tracers, which are not often issued for rifles anymore. In situations outside of an ambush, do you really think someone is going to take the time to remove their magazine, find the one with tracers loaded on top, and go back to shooting at a specific point target? It's really not a viable option in most combat situations.


If you absolutely need to mark a target for friendly armor or air to use as a target reference, have your grenadier thump a smoke into the group. Not only will that smoke partially blind and confuse the enemy, but it should provide a visible enough marker for the tank to blast with HEAT rounds or spray with the coax.

If we need to designate or show the approx location of a target (think en firing point), we'll pop the mag off, dump in a few tracers and then issue the order to 'watch my tracer'. Most commonly used by a lead section coming under contact within a dismounted patrol, for showing a firing position to the rest of the bods who are now firm and ready to return fire. 8 pairs of eyes are better than the guys relying on 1 section commander's, so usually they'd all carry a few loose tracer. You can pretty much utilise a few of the weapons ingame for this.

Showing support elements where they need to put down suppression fire with tracer is not something I've ever come across before tbh. Usually we just vector them on using visible orientation points (left hand side of lone wall to front, 200m etc) or a bearing if needed.

I can't say this would be used much tbh. Blink and you'll miss tracer.

thats kinda useless.. you'll give away your position, take up slots, and why would you when the SL can already laze targets using the GTLD and markers

I think this is great idea. Just remove another smoke grenade from SL and remove those 100% accurate 3D markers completely they are VERY unrealistic. Markers in 2D squad screen map should be enough? Then to newly opened slot add couple clips of tracers for SL.

[R-DEV]Ninja2dan wrote:Generally, when you are going to use "signal by tracer fire" you are doing so during a deliberate ambush, not a hasty ambush or other type of tactical engagement. During my time in the Army, the Deliberate Ambush is the ONLY time I have personally ever seen or heard of that method being used.

What "signal by tracer fire" means is that the soldier/officer in charge of the ambush will load up the top few rounds in their magazine with some tracer rounds. All soldiers will take cover and conceal themselves in preparation for the ambush. When the enemy forces are in the correct location, the leader will fire some tracers into the enemy group. When the rest of the friendly forces see those tracers, they light them ******** up.

If possible though, you would be better off initiating the ambush with the Claymore mine. They are placed on the same side as your team, obviously, and when you hear those babies boom you mash down your trigger and spray left to right like you're washing a car. We had many ways of signaling the start of an ambush, even the old-school whistle blowing. Signal by tracer fire was just one of dozens of those methods.


Generally, that method is rarely used because you need to manually pre-load your magazine with those tracers, which are not often issued for rifles anymore. In situations outside of an ambush, do you really think someone is going to take the time to remove their magazine, find the one with tracers loaded on top, and go back to shooting at a specific point target? It's really not a viable option in most combat situations.


If you absolutely need to mark a target for friendly armor or air to use as a target reference, have your grenadier thump a smoke into the group. Not only will that smoke partially blind and confuse the enemy, but it should provide a visible enough marker for the tank to blast with HEAT rounds or spray with the coax.

I'm a Recce guy, i dont known about United States Army/Marines [no matter the force you where in..] but i known C.F. Recon do not carry tracers. When we are on patrol or "paper-pot" [foot patrol] we get rid as much tracers as we can on the M240/249 belt [since we dont use any tracers for C7/8A2] for the simple fact that tracers will get us revealed so quickly its pointless to had any of them. The only place where we keep tracers is in the LAV25. [I'm only talking about the Armored recce, Infantry/Arty/etc... use theyre own way.]

Anyway, people seems to forgot that real soldier put theire own life on the line, they wont more than likely use anything that wont help them. As tracers that just give away you're position. ??:

Hotrod525 wrote:I'm a Recce guy, i dont known about United States Army/Marines [no matter the force you where in..] but i known C.F. Recon do not carry tracers. When we are on patrol or "paper-pot" [foot patrol] we get rid as much tracers as we can on the M240/249 belt [since we dont use any tracers for C7/8A2] for the simple fact that tracers will get us revealed so quickly its pointless to had any of them. The only place where we keep tracers is in the LAV25. [I'm only talking about the Armored recce, Infantry/Arty/etc... use theyre own way.]

Anyway, people seems to forgot that real soldier put theire own life on the line, they wont more than likely use anything that wont help them. As tracers that just give away you're position. ??:

This is in part why we (US Army) don't use tracer rounds in small arms with the exception of LMG/HMG. We used to load up a few tracers for night missions, but that was before NODS were standard issue. Our night-fire range drills do use tracers, but I've never seen them used in combat in that manner.

Back when I was in though, each squad leader did carry one box (20 rounds) of tracers. These were carried in his buttpack or stuffed into a pocket somewhere. The general use for those rounds was as I had mentioned before, was for use during an ambush or assault. In both cases, those tracers were used as a signal for beginning the attack. So basically, once those tracers were fired the enemy was going to know where you are because they'd have a wall of lead coming at them.

The concern during those situations about the enemy following the tracers back to the soldier firing them was therefore gone. Once you fired a few tracer rounds, the enemy would see and hear incoming fire from all over the place. Those not turned into hamburger would probably be too suppressed to return fire anyways.


Tracers in regular combat have long been a thing of the past. In PR, tracers are often necessary because you can't see your rounds as well as in real life. I can generally see my rounds impacting at 250-300 meters with iron sights, but in PR you probably can't see the impacts past maybe 50 meters. For this reason, a few tracers (1:4 ratio?) is best to ensure players are putting those rounds in the right place. It's not that realistic, but it helps solve a problem given by the game engine.

Giving players the option to fire a magazine loaded with 100% tracers would not only be unrealistic, but ineffective. You would need to swap back and forth between magazines, which in PR actually requires an additional weapon slot. I still think that other methods of target marking, such as 40mm smoke rounds, would work better.

Hm. But if we'd get rid of all tracers from the normal rifles, we could have much more better ballistics, couldn't we? And it'd be realistic, too... Can't the impact effect range somehow be increased? Smoke appears on long distances, too, and is some sort of "impact effect" of a smoke grenade.

I guess the Devs already considered that, but to me it sounds quite possible. Possibly laggy for the older computers (like mine) but maybe worth it.