tanks Tank tactics: why the regression?

[General Jack Ripper]

3 minutes ago, Sasa Narinasa said:

That's three clicks in Combat Mission and two drags on the cursor.  In Close Combat, that's one click.

It was actually, right-click unit, left-click ambush, right-click the arc (in CC3 or later) to position the arc, then left-click again to set it.
Even in CC2 or earlier, you had to right-click the unit, then left-click ambush. That's TWO whole mouse clicks!
OR: You can left-click the unit, and press the "N" key...
OR: You can left-click and drag a bounding box (in CC3 or later), and order all selected units to ambush by pressing the "N" key, or using the two mouse clicks.

But hey, who's counting?

The reason it was important in Close Combat though, was because if you didn't have your troops set to Ambush, they would simply open fire on anything they could see and give away their position, or they would "Act on own initiative" after five minutes of inactivity, and run off at random to get shot in the face.

In Combat Mission, you don't often have the same problems, your men sit right where you tell them to sit, and generally only shoot at things they think they can hurt.

Wait, what are we talking about again? Tank tactics?

[Sasa Narinasa]

1 hour ago, SLIM said:

It was actually, right-click unit, left-click ambush, right-click the arc (in CC3 or later) to position the arc, then left-click again to set it.
Even in CC2 or earlier, you had to right-click the unit, then left-click ambush. That's TWO whole mouse clicks!
OR: You can left-click the unit, and press the "N" key...
OR: You can left-click and drag a bounding box (in CC3 or later), and order all selected units to ambush by pressing the "N" key, or using the two mouse clicks.

But hey, who's counting?

The reason it was important in Close Combat though, was because if you didn't have your troops set to Ambush, they would simply open fire on anything they could see and give away their position, or they would "Act on own initiative" after five minutes of inactivity, and run off at random to get shot in the face.

In Combat Mission, you don't often have the same problems, your men sit right where you tell them to sit, and generally only shoot at things they think they can hurt.

Wait, what are we talking about again? Tank tactics?

That always drove me nuts when they would go off and do their own thing!  Actually, in Combat Mission it's four clicks if you aren't already in the Combat menu (and no - I don't care much to remember the letter hot keys  ).

[General Jack Ripper]

4 hours ago, Sasa Narinasa said:

Actually, in Combat Mission it's four clicks if you aren't already in the Combat menu (and no - I don't care much to remember the letter hot keys  ).

Welcome to the forums.

[Erwin]

6 hours ago, Sasa Narinasa said:

That's three clicks in Combat Mission and two drags on the cursor.  In Close Combat, that's one click.

One of issues that slow down the play of an already complex game like CM2 is that some actions require a lot of clicks and mouse movement. eg:  The arduous ACQUIRE process if you are trying to resupply a company plus of inf, and the number of clicks it takes if you want to alter the COVERED ARCS of a company or more of turreted vehicles every time they move thru several waypoints and you want each turret to face a different direction.

Imo, the game itself is great (or at least good enuff).  Hopefully, future enhancements will address making actions more efficient and speeding up the process.

Edited October 15, 2017 by Erwin

[Sasa Narinasa]

1 hour ago, Erwin said:

One of issues that slow down the play of an already complex game like CM2 is that some actions require a lot of clicks and mouse movement. eg:  The arduous ACQUIRE process if you are trying to resupply a company plus of inf, and the number of clicks it takes if you want to alter the COVERED ARCS of a company or more of turreted vehicles every time they move thru several waypoints and you want each turret to face a different direction.

Imo, the game itself is great (or at least good enuff).  Hopefully, future enhancements will address making actions more efficient and speeding up the process.

You know what would be cool?  Voice commands! 

[General Jack Ripper]

10 hours ago, Sasa Narinasa said:

You know what would be cool?  Voice commands! 

There is a program called VoiceAttack I've been meaning to try. I dunno if it will work on Combat Mission, but it does help to add some hands-free control to things like Cold Waters.

[Sasa Narinasa]

4 hours ago, SLIM said:

There is a program called VoiceAttack I've been meaning to try. I dunno if it will work on Combat Mission, but it does help to add some hands-free control to things like Cold Waters.

Thanks!  I will look that up and experiment with it also.

[Erwin]

"You know what would be cool?  Voice commands!  "

This is no joke. I deliberately have avoided getting a smartphone until I can just tell it what I want it to do and the phone's AI is good enuff to read between the lines and understand what I want. 

Then I will marry it.

Seriously tho' my wife is a senior executive with a smartphone, and she barely knows how to use it.  She discourages anyone calling her on it (including me).  It must be an age thing.  You have to have been born with the dam thing in your cradle or have a 14 year old kid teach you how to use the new tech.

Subtext:  Still hate Win 10.  Barely use my very expensive Win 10 game machine.  Don't understand why we have to spend weeks/months learning a new OS when Win 7 does everything I want.

All you 14 year olds here (and there seem to be plenty) please let us know your reasoning. 

Edited October 15, 2017 by Erwin

[Sasa Narinasa]

24 minutes ago, Erwin said:

"You know what would be cool?  Voice commands!  "

This is no joke. I deliberately have avoided getting a smartphone until I can just tell it what I want it to do and the phone's AI is good enuff to read between the lines and understand what I want. 

Then I will marry it.

Seriously tho' my wife is a senior executive with a smartphone, and she barely knows how to use it.  She discourages anyone calling her on it (including me).  It must be an age thing.  You have to have been born with the dam thing in your cradle or have a 14 year old kid teach you how to use the new tech.

Subtext:  Still hate Win 10.  Barely use my very expensive Win 10 game machine.  Don't understand why we have to spend weeks/months learning a new OS when Win 7 does everything I want.

All you 14 year olds here (and there seem to be plenty) please let us know your reasoning. 

Ahaahahhahaaahaahahaha!  You and I park our cars in the same garage.  I'm half a century old . . . but it does help if you watch a lot of Science Fiction. 

[kraze]

On 10/14/2017 at 4:37 AM, Xorg_Xalargsky said:

Well... not really. You can replicate its functionality with the Target Arc or Target Armored Arc command. All Ambush did in Close Combat was prevent a unit from engaging enemies until they came within ~30 meters or they came under fire.

Just in case someone doesn't know - you can also hold SHIFT while using any Arc command and the selection will switch to radius for the true ambush command. Extremely useful when you want to let enemy armor within 200m for an RPG/AT4 strike

[MikeyD]

Funny thing, typing the word arduous involves eight keyboard commands, if you include the word space after. EIGHT keyboard commands! And don't get me started on the word peripatetic - Eleven keyboard commands, including the word space after, just to describe walking around (which, admittedly is fifteen keyboard commands, including the word space after).

[Sasa Narinasa]

11 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

Funny thing, typing the word arduous involves eight keyboard commands, if you include the word space after. EIGHT keyboard commands! And don't get me started on the word peripatetic - Eleven keyboard commands, including the word space after, just to describe walking around (which, admittedly is fifteen keyboard commands, including the word space after).

Try typing in the words "Fallschirmjaeger",  "Heereswaffenamt", "Sonderkraftwagen" and "Nahverteidigungswaffe".   

[Sgt.Squarehead]

"Paras", "Huns", "AFV" & "Evil Nazi Trick".....Easy! 

[sburke]

 

[Vergeltungswaffe]

5 hours ago, Sasa Narinasa said:

Try typing in the words "Fallschirmjaeger",  "Heereswaffenamt", "Sonderkraftwagen" and "Nahverteidigungswaffe".   

You called?  Oh, nevermind...

 

[General Jack Ripper]

19 hours ago, Sasa Narinasa said:

Try typing in the words "Nahverteidigungswaffe".

Sneaky tank bomb werfer thingy.

[Sasa Narinasa]

12 hours ago, SLIM said:

Sneaky tank bomb werfer thingy.

I love your translation! 

[IronCat60]

I would love to see a "Turret Defilade" command. That's where the weapons are masked by cover or concealment and only the vehicle commander can see the engagement area. Having the vehicle move up to a Turret Defilade would use a different Line of Sight than the one that is currently centered on the approximate axis the main weapon elevates and depresses on.

Yep a "Shoot and Scoot" combined with a Turret Defilade command that transitions into a Hull Down would be very helpful. Then you could have your tanks move up from Turret Defilade to Hull Defilade, take a shot and reverse back to Turret Defilade. Exposure times during engagements would be a lot less. The initial Fire Command is conducted while in Turret Defilade. ammunition selection and a rough orientation of the gun is completed.Then the driver moves the vehicle up on command, the gunner identifies the target, and the fire command is given. It would be close to real life berm drills. And if I remember correctly Shoot and Scoot reduces the amount of fatal pause time between forward and reverse movement.

I kinda can do this using multiple movement commands but there is that line of sight issue and the pause time I just mentioned.

But I would settle for just the "Shoot and Scoot". The engagements would at least resemble real life conduct of fire from the Hull Defilade. Engage one or two targets then quickly scoot back and shift to a alternate position to continue the engagement with the enemy.

I also use the Forward and Reverse command for Rhino tanks putting openings into boucage. If there is no way to move the scouts through the obstacle and you have to breach then I ensure that I have enough firepower to quickly supress any AT weapons. Plot a movment so the vehicle just clears the boucage and then it reverses back through the boucage and stops about half a vehicle length or more from the edge of the opening so it's exposure to AT weapons is reduced and the infantry can get around the tank and through the opening.

 

[MG TOW]

30 meters may not be the ideal distance to spring an ambush, the arc itself is just a shift and 2 clicks,  not a bad price for a custom ambush.

[Bulletpoint]

I think a big part of this problem is that while most players play WeGo, the game mechanics seem to be designed for real-time play where you have very fine-grained control of what happens and when.

In real time, you can:

• Move a recce vehicle forward, then the moment an enemy shell or bullet whizzes past, you can reverse out of danger.
• Immediately move an AT team to safety after firing the bazooka
• Move a tank to a ridge, then wait for the exact moment it spots and fires at an enemy tank before pulling it back
• More easily coordinate teams to assault a building from several sides at the same time
• Fire a Sherman's smoke shells at various spots to make the smoke screen cover a lot of ground, instead of having it fire all of them at the same spot and making one small but very thick cloud
• Suppress a longer hedgerow/couple of buildings by adjusting the machinegun target point continually
• Immediately realise you gave a "bad" fire order and give another that actuially makes the unit fire
• etc.

 

Solution: The developers could start play WeGo themselves, realise the issues and then adjust the mechanics to give us better control of these things  

One idea: Allow the WeGo player to issue several fire orders for the same unit at the same waypoint. The unit would then distribute its fire among alle the aim points equally. So you could split up your machinegun's suppression or fire smoke shells at various points within the same turn.

Edited August 24, 2018 by Bulletpoint

[A Canadian Cat]

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

In real time, you can:

• Move a recce vehicle forward, then the moment an enemy shell or bullet whizzes past, you can reverse out of danger.
• Immediately move an AT team to safety after firing the bazooka
• Move a tank to a ridge, then wait for the exact moment it spots and fires at an enemy tank before pulling it back
• More easily coordinate teams to assault a building from several sides at the same time
• Fire a Sherman's smoke shells at various spots to make the smoke screen cover a lot of ground, instead of having it fire all of them at the same spot and making one small but very thick cloud
• Suppress a longer hedgerow/couple of buildings by adjusting the machinegun target point continually
• Immediately realise you gave a "bad" fire order and give another that actuially makes the unit fire
• etc.

You need to add - for only one small set of units while the rest of the battle field goes unattended. Ooops.

Except for the Sherman making the smoke screen - that does not require RT micro management control. You can set that up in WEGO fairly straight forwardly.

 

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

Solution: The developers could start play WeGo themselves, realise the issues and then adjust the mechanics to give us better control of these things  

?? or they could just decide again that they don't want to increase the micromanagement that players need to do and happily play WEGO.

 

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

One idea: Allow the WeGo player to issue several fire orders for the same unit at the same waypoint. The unit would then distribute its fire among alle the aim points equally. So you could split up your machinegun's suppression or fire smoke shells at various points within the same turn.

That would be nice.

[Erwin]

2 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

In real time, you can:

• Move a recce vehicle forward, then the moment an enemy shell or bullet whizzes past, you can reverse out of danger.
• Immediately move an AT team to safety after firing the bazooka
• Move a tank to a ridge, then wait for the exact moment it spots and fires at an enemy tank before pulling it back
• More easily coordinate teams to assault a building from several sides at the same time
• Fire a Sherman's smoke shells at various spots to make the smoke screen cover a lot of ground, instead of having it fire all of them at the same spot and making one small but very thick cloud
• Suppress a longer hedgerow/couple of buildings by adjusting the machinegun target point continually
• Immediately realise you gave a "bad" fire order and give another that actuially makes the unit fire
• etc.

Some of these would be useful as it would save wasting time on issuing complex orders "manually".    But most allow for an unreasonable amount of micromanagement and control that is very unrealistic.  In RL, there are always folks who don't get the message, didn't notice they were being shot at, get the time wrong, don't coordinate properly etc.   The CM system does a good job (whether intended or not) of simulating fog of war and confusion. 

I started with CM1 and thought that RT was the only way to play.  But as I gained experience, realized that RT gives one way too much control and after that only play WEGO.

 

[Michael Emrys]

1 hour ago, Erwin said:

But most allow for an unreasonable amount of micromanagement and control that is very unrealistic.  In RL, there are always folks who don't get the message, didn't notice they were being shot at, get the time wrong, don't coordinate properly etc.   The CM system does a good job (whether intended or not) of simulating fog of war and confusion. 

That thought has been echoing around my brain as I have been reading this thread. The real problem I believe lies in we megalomaniac war gamers belief that if only we had perfect control over every action of each of our troops, the world would be forced to concede that we are the greatest general who has ever trod upon his defeated enemies. I watched this kind of micromanagement craze begin and then flourish wildly during the heyday of paper games in the 1970s and 1980s with the growing profusion of "monster games" which reached its apex with The Campaign for North Africa...or whatever it was called. You know, there is a reason why armies have chains of command. There are fairly strict limits on just how much one man can think about and respond to. Generals do not generally concern themselves with the conduct of platoons, that is the job of lieutenants. You have to be able to trust that they in fact perform those jobs adequately. War is chaos, you just have to hope that it is worse for the other guy.

Michael

[A Canadian Cat]

That post is probably the best of your 26 000 plus posts

13 minutes ago, Michael Emrys said:

War is chaos, you just have to hope that it is worse for the other guy.

In particular this line.

[Mord]

At those odds he was bound to have one...

 

Mord.

Edited August 24, 2018 by Mord