Rustman1980

Ok, I made a version that is scaled up to 1:10,000 for letter sized paper. CryHavoc10000.pdf

Well, technically my goal was 1:25k scale because that is the most detailed military map scale that I have a protractor for... it just happens that the maps are so small that they all will probably fit on a 5x8 card.

Not really a mod, but I wasn't sure where to post this. Anyway, I like having physical topographical maps. For me it makes it quicker to read the terrain than flying the camera around the game world. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find that anyone had actually made any, so I just started making my own. This was my initial attempt at one of the smaller scenarios. It turned out... ok, I think. I can't actually get to a printer at the moment to see what it looks like on paper, but in theory it is sized to print on a 5x8 card. I'm going to keep making them regardless, but if anyone thinks that they might be useful I could post them on here as I finish them. CryHavoc.pdf

That is a very informative video. Than you for posting it.

Actually, I put 3 platoons across a 3km front as my example, but yes, that assumes that each can observe and mass fire into the desired EA. If they can't, either due to limitations of the weapons they have or because of the terrain, it would have to be contracted... or expanded... as necessary. That being said, the discussion has actually piqued my interest in looking at WW2 armor doctrine, which is really eye opening. By all means, if I'm reading something wrong correct me. Not my forte... just really interesting... and you guys are probably more up on the history than I am. From what I'm understanding, the Germans used organization and tactics that I'd be more familiar with in modern operations with their mechanized formations, but nobody else fought like that. The US doctrine, in particular, put the focus of armor specifically on direct infantry support and tasked regimental and division tank destroyer assets to the tank fight. In addition to being a colossal failure in general, in my mind that would mean that tanks would be being used primarily on the light infantry scale of microterrain and hundred meter engagement ranges instead of the big armor scale that I associate with modern mechanized warfare with big bounding movements over entire kms at a time. Kind of gives context that I was missing before and explains why things were compacted. Light infantry definitely don't operate on the same scale and the 1 plt/km piece absolutely doesn't apply there, so if you have tanks in support at the squad and platoon level, that's a lot of stuff being put in a relatively small space.

Yup... the rationale is that 5 meters is the averageish kill radius of a grenade. If your squad takes a frag you're not having an entire team knocked out.

Meh... not really. Physical massing of personnel and equipment isn't generally a good answer to any tactical question; you're not building a physical wall of troops and armor. It's how well you can mass fires onto a desired space, at a desired time, to effect a particular target. Terrain dictates, but the ideal is to maximize concentration of fires with as little physical concentration as possible while still being able to maintain command and control. In almost no situation would a platoon be able to hold ground vs a battalion, regardless of dispersion simply because a platoon doesn't organically carry enough firepower to adequately mass effects on a unit of that size (Though that isn't a hard rule either. I actually experienced a case study on this exact thing at the National Training Center this month. Granted, we were set up about as perfect as we could be for it, but my platoon, in the defense, knocked out 2 companies before OPFOR secured a bypass around the valley we were holding. That would, in theory, have rendered that battalion combat ineffective.), but... armor forces, even in World War 2, could engage at least out to a km. You take my platoon's gridsquare... and the gridsquares held by the platoons to the left and right and artillery... now you're massing a company + support worth of firepower into that same engagement area with the same broad dispersion of friendly personnel and equipment. If that battalion is canalizing into a one gridsquare front, which is how you're describing it, that is about an ideal setup for the defender as possible. That company should be enough to give the attacking battalion pause and, if they pushed on anyway, my money would be on the defender to at least knock the battalion out of further combat if not hold the ground entirely.

I get the OP's argument; the troops are very close together. In real life I'm a mechanized infantry squad leader in the US Army, so I'm more familiar with modern tactics than WW2 era, though I imagine a lot of the survivability stuff is pretty close. While there are exceptions (MOUT, crew served weapons, etc), IRL spacing is generally no closer than 5m between any two troops. That would make squads in game, if accurately spaced, occupy, at minimum, 5 action squares. I figure it isn't like that in order to simplify things for the user, and, besides, I'm not sure that, by itself, is the cause of high casualties. More so, I think its just that everything in game is very compressed. IRL, a mechanized infantry or tank platoon with good dispersion and fields of fire can easily occupy an entire gridsquare (1k x 1k) themselves. That makes even the 4k x 4k limit very, very small for the amount of troops that can get fielded; that is barely the limit for a mechanized company operation, much less a battalion or more. My assumption is that it is just to increase the pace of the action. Well, with that many troops in that small of a space you inevitably get high numbers of casualties. I'll have to test it, but I think if you cut the number of troops down to what you would actually see maneuvering on the amount of terrain you actually have to work with, the game casualties will more accurately reflect real life.