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Command Friction 2.0


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6 minutes ago, Bud Backer said:

Definitely interested in seeing those clarifications, Bil. IanL and I discussed this yesterday over breakfast and decided we wanted to use in in CMBS - coupled with EW it may make for a very different challenge.

Bud, working on them today, hopefully will have something to share by this evening.

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I have gone through and done quite a bit of re-writing.. you can read the rules with descriptions at this link:  COMMAND FRICTION RULES

Might be lengthy, but the rules are all up front, the rest is description and explanation (a lot of this are direct copies of some of my posts from this thread).  Please let me know what you think.

I will add to these as required.. the contents of this document follows.

Edited by Bil Hardenberger
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13 minutes ago, Bud Backer said:

Under Unit Task it says:

 

  • There are no limits to the number of waypoints used in an HQ Task

 

This is verbatim from HQ Tasks. Did you mean it to say

  • There are no limits to the number of waypoints used in a Unit Task

{emphasis mine}

Right you are.. fixed.  Thanks Bud.

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3 hours ago, Bud Backer said:

Bil,

Scout task does not end until changed. But since we are supposed to designate an area or route, what happens when one reaches the area or end of the route? 

Thanks Bud, let me chew on that one for a bit... there is a reason I did it like that but it escapes me right now. ;)  You are right they should default to Defend when they reach the end of their Scouting area.

 

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1 hour ago, Bil Hardenberger said:

Thanks Bud, let me chew on that one for a bit... there is a reason I did it like that but it escapes me right now. ;)  You are right they should default to Defend when they reach the end of their Scouting area.

 

That was my assumption, but then I thought, it may be that there is a very good reason that you don't want that. :)

 

It occured to me that it would not be strange to expect scouts to return (to where? company HQ? Their direct superior?)  rather than stay in place and defend. But that may be frustrating to players.

Edited by Bud Backer
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9 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

If they don't have radios reporting back would make a lot of sense.

That is already in the Scout rules:

SCOUT

    • This Task is used to send units ahead of your main body in order to scout either an area, or a route

    • Must specify area or route to recon and destination

      • Description placed in the comments field

      • Must operate within the specified boundaries

    • A unit or formation on Scout orders can withdraw (or send one or more units) to contact their HQ or a neighbor unit in order to share information (if required).

    • Once the HQ or neighbor unit has the enemy contact themselves the Scout unit must return to its area of operation and continue its task.

    • This order is cancelled upon reaching the destination if conducting a Route Reconnaissance or after completing the Area Recon (to the player’s satisfaction) (Formation or Unit assumes a Defend Task)

Edited by Bil Hardenberger
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10 hours ago, Bud Backer said:

That was my assumption, but then I thought, it may be that there is a very good reason that you don't want that. :)

 

It occured to me that it would not be strange to expect scouts to return (to where? company HQ? Their direct superior?)  rather than stay in place and defend. But that may be frustrating to players.

Bud, after thinking about it, I am going to have them default to a Defend Task.. it has been updated in the rules.

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I'd love to see some of these ideas incorporated into the game as an optional extra difficulty layer. Preferably in a somewhat simplified version - for example:

* You can only area fire at contact markers that the firing unit has.

* You cannot issue orders to a unit out of C2 contact unless it has at least +1 leadership.

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On 17/6/2017 at 11:32 AM, Bulletpoint said:

I'd love to see some of these ideas incorporated into the game as an optional extra difficulty layer. Preferably in a somewhat simplified version - for example:

Just what I thought:

I do not have the time and temperament to play it the way you do with all the paperwork next to the computer.

But I really like the realism aspect of it!

- no orders to units out of C2

- no feedback from units out of C2

- a more robust hunt order where units stop and fire on contact, continue to the waypoint after a certain amount of time without contact.

- when idle for a prolonged time units should automaticly go back to the last known location of their commanding officer

 

Would be the most important improvement for the series for me.

And a step forward for wargaming ;)

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42 minutes ago, CAS said:

- no orders to units out of C2

- no feedback from units out of C2

I have written this before but I'll say it again since this has come up again - twice in the same thread:

That is completely unworkable from a game play stand point.

First of all that would mean you would have to watch an isolated team (or perhaps a large group of soldiers actually if their platoon leader because a casualty) fight nothing that you can see and die to invisible enemy fire. Not fun.

Second the whole way this game works is to represent all levels of leadership from NCOs all the way up to the battalion commanders. The TAC AI is pretty good but it is pretty good at following your orders not in making up its own orders. So if you have a squad isolated form their platoon Lt. that squad's Sargent needs to be allowed to make decisions for his squad. That Sargent is *you* because that is how the game works. If you can no longer give Sgt level commands to a squad just because the Lt is over the hill or in the hospital the game does not work any more.

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1 hour ago, IanL said:

First of all that would mean you would have to watch an isolated team (or perhaps a large group of soldiers actually if their platoon leader because a casualty) fight nothing that you can see and die to invisible enemy fire. Not fun.

It sounds like fun to me actually. Especially if isolated teams would be able to plot their own orders if they had a 0, +1, or +2 leader. And if teams with negative leadership would try to break contact and fall back.

In any case, it's very rare that I lose both the platoon leader and the XO. When that happens, I often use the company commander as a stand-in. Under these hypothetical rules, he would also be able to move out and pull back teams that are out of contact.

I'm sure this optional game mode would make the game much harder, but I think it would also be interesting. Command and Control would be really crucial, and if you knocked out your opponent's leaders, he wouldn't be able to react in a coordinated manner on that part of the battlefield. That sounds both realistic and very challenging to me.

While some players might prefer to play on other realism settings, at least these ideas seem to be interesting enough that some other players start fiddling with huge excel-files to do similar and even more advanced things :)

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1 hour ago, IanL said:

That is completely unworkable from a game play stand point.

Second the whole way this game works is to represent all levels of leadership from NCOs all the way up to the battalion commanders. The TAC AI is pretty good but it is pretty good at following your orders not in making up its own orders. So if you have a squad isolated form their platoon Lt. that squad's Sargent needs to be allowed to make decisions for his squad. That Sargent is *you* because that is how the game works. If you can no longer give Sgt level commands to a squad just because the Lt is over the hill or in the hospital the game does not work any more.

I have been playing my last games wit a strict policy to keep my units in C2 and this is not impossible! (WW2)

You have to keep the officers closer, take good care of them and recover all lost radios!

With free line of sight the squads are allowed to move pretty far away.

You can still move them further away than C2 and give them complex commands before they break contact. You will just not see what they encounter before they are back in C2.

Obviously a squad is more fragile when out of C2 because it can not split up and react dynamic to new contacts with flanking manoeuvrers.

Autonomously they can:

- react with fast move (move order)

- cancel move order (when suppressed)

- stop (hunt order)

- retreat (when suppressed)

(additionally i would like them to stop and fire on contact, continue to the waypoint after a certain amount of time without contact)

All this is not perfect but certainly not a game breaker!

 

The problem now is:

You send a squad or even a tiny recon detachment to the front. The soldiers (without radio) spot a enemy and you (as the commander) have instant knowledge of the situation and adopt the behaviour of the entire Company to the new situation. 

This situation encourages the use of small teams spread over the map as cheap and effective recon.

This is not realistic at all!

I would prefer degraded control over units out of C2 over  this unrealistic "über" view.

In reality a isolated squad without C2 would be pretty helpless and useless in the big picture.

 

Of course this is not everyone cup of tea and it should be optional.

 

Sorry Bil Hardenberger for hijacking your thread, at least I think we share some ideas.

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37th minute (counting down to zero):

1st Platoon - 1st Squad has reached the hedgeline that was outlined in their task instructions, so now automatically reverts to the Defend Task.  

38-1st+Platoon.jpg

I simply change each of the 1st squad teams instantly to Defend.  And delete the task Comments.. remember last turn we selected New Tasks for 2nd and 3rd Squads.. these will be rolled for at the end of the Orders Phase.

38-Log-01.jpg

 

4th Platoon - Even though the Company HQ is not yet on the map,  1st and 2nd Platoons both have command links to it, so are considered within C2 Range (see the 1st Platoon image above, note the green dot and the radio icon indicating C2.  Compare that to the 4th Platoon image below.. the red dot and no C2 icon indicates out of C2 range.. thus this formation cannot receive a New Task and must sit idle until the Company HQ arrives. 

The reinforcements however are now all within C2 to the Platoon HQ, so they can now fall under the HQ Task that was set for this platoon.  I delete the Unit Tasks and the Comments for these units (see below).  I select these fields, then hit the delete key to clear them.

38-4th+Platoon.JPG

38-Log-02.JPG

 

2nd Platoon - 2nd Platoon, like 1st, does have a C2 link to Company HQ (see the image below)... so they can be given a New Task... I know last turn I said they couldn't because the Company HQ wasn't on the map.. however I'm figuring this out as I go..

EDIT:  Looking back at my last turn post this platoon definitely did NOT have a C2 link to the Company HQ... I don't think I ever noticed before that prior to an HQ coming in as a reinforcement the C2 link gets activated (for radio comms) a turn or two prior.  I found this very interesting... by the way, in the next turn 4th Platoon also gets a comm link established with Company HQ. 

I assign them an Idle Task as I want them to stop for now.

38-2nd+Platoon.JPG

38-Log-03.JPG

 

Note in the image below that I have assigned 1st Platoon's 1st Squad (A Team) a New Unit Task.. this team is within C2 Range, however C team is not, and though I would like to assign it a new Task I cannot.  I want to extend their Scout Task to scout to St Martins Farm.

After assigning the above all of my task assignments are complete,  which means that the Die Rolls have all been updated and finalized for the turn.  We will check the A Team and the 2nd Platoon New Tasks next order Phase... 

...but we are now checking the 1st Platoon 2nd and 3rd Squad's New Tasks (assigned last turn).. and as can be seen in the blue circle, they both fail.  Next turn we will check for all of these tasks... for now those two squads have to remain in place on their Defend orders.

38-Log-04.JPG

Edited by Bil Hardenberger
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