withdrawl from map & pursuit?

[vincere]

I'm assuming units will be able to withdraw from battle maps?

But what about pursuit type battles. For example leg infantry are defeated by armour or mechanised troops so they attack again to finish off the leg infantry. Will there be some mechanism to stop repeated quick map exits? will there be something to stop gamey players exiting troops before pursuer has chance to engage?

[General Bolt]

I think this would a very acceptable method of play and is not gamey at all. I think the type of action, on the defenders part, is called retrograde in official military terms.

As the attacker moved forward to re-engage, they would be gaining real estate, which is a very important part of an operation.

Besides all that, from some of the screen shots, it looks like units have different CMC move rates. I'd bet a mech group should be able to overtake a pure inf group. However, a good inf commander would sacrifice a few of his men, at the rear, in a blocking actiion to hold off the attackers.

This kinda battle happened all the time. The retreating troops could escape off the edge of the CMC map and then go away - kinda like Dunkirk. Or maybe at some point there could be some reinforcements for the retreaters and the counter attack could begin - kinda like the Battle of the Bulge.

[vincere]

I see what you're saying about delay tactics; but I was refering to CMBB map not the campaign map.

If mech or armour were atacking leg infantry after they'd retreated should the player of the leg infantry be able to set up right on the edge of the map just to move them off first turn to avoid anhilation?

[Ike]

vincere: I think, based on my reading of the FAQ etc, that once any units are retreated off a CMBB map edge, they're back in the hands of CMC. [guess mode on]CMC would move or place or position such a retreating unit according to its movement rate, fatigue, morale state, etc (whatever it uses to determine positioning within any CMBB map that a unit moves onto in the campaign/operational part of the campaign). And that means such a follow-up attack or pursuit would be conducted much like real life, with rear guards desperately trying to hold off the pursuit -or- pre-positioned ambush forces previously held back and hidden because that's what the retreating commander planned from the beginning of the last battle -or- no rear guard and your pursuit runs right up their .. erm ... the unprotected rear of the retreating units. In short, within the other limits of CMC and CMBB, it would be like a real life battle from which a loser attempts to retreat and break contact with the attacker.[/guess mode off]

[David Chapuis]

Originally posted by Ike:

vincere: I think, based on my reading of the FAQ etc, that once any units are retreated off a CMBB map edge, they're back in the hands of CMC.

But what keeps a player from perpetually exiting turn 1? I think vincere brings up a good question.

[Ike]

David Chapius: I don't know what programming might be in the CMC to keep a player from exiting off the CMBB battle-map on turn 1 each time. I suspect that such a strategy would lose the campaign, especially if that player's opponent were to pursue vigorously. [guess mode on]At some point, after a certain number of such retreats, the pursuer's forces would destroy such a retreating force. For various reasons, this is what would happen in a real life campaign and I find it easy to believe that some kind of game effect on the retreating troops - morale loss, fatigue increase, inability to rest and recover from morale and fatigue losses, abandoned equipment and guns, just to name a few - would cause the retreating force to fall apart or be quickly and easily destroyed by a vigorous pursuit. Further, such a retreating force would need to retreat across the entire CMBB map, under constant attack, unless CMC allowed it to be set up right at its own friendly map edge; that is, all the way across the map from where it entered after leave the first or prior battle.[/guess mode off] That's my ignorant guess on the question. (No sarcasm intended; I know nothing more about the game than you fellows do and some of that is bound to be incorrectly understood by me.)

[Sergei]

What might work is to assume that a unit that has suffered so and so great hit on morale and cohesion, should go into a disorganized state (as is normal in operational level games, like TOAW). In the next battle its infantry units would start as 'routed', and part of the troops that still kept pulling off the map would be lost for good (to represent stragglers and deserters). Especially so under leaders with poor organization and leadership qualities.

[Steiner14]

I want to see the operational player, keeping the tactical player in command, if he simply ignores orders and redraws...

Additionally from what i understood so far, the single tactical player only has very limited knowlege about what is going on on the operational-level.

So withdrawing just for fun could have quite negative cosequences for the whole front.

[Tankgunner]

Suppose an infantry Coy (no AT guns, molotovs only) catched by the enemy tank unit at the open. Trying to resist (something like a ME or Probe-type game) may result in complete destruction. The best tactical solution is definitely a withdraw on turn 1.

But on the operational map panzer unit is surely "faster" than infantry, and withdrawn unit is supposed to be completely routed, splitted by small groups of soldiers without control.

I wonder how to solve this. May be heavy losses and disorganization of "routed" unit, and some kind of "time of win" logic: a) Attacker completely captured the map in few turns (so he cathes retreated units) or spent 30minutes to get 500 meters of ground (he delayed, and defender managed to disengage).

Surely not a complete destruction - I want to left a platoon as a screen and quickly move the main force back, to the nearby wood.

[vincere]

Ike's and Sergei's points about having a hit on morale and organisation would go some way towards realism, but the problem of first turn exits might remain. I like the idea of possibly loosing units when retreating.

But that leaves the problem of simulating ordered delay and withdrawl tactics. And screening tactics mentioned by Tankgunner. The time aspect could go some way to solving this possible problem.

I just had the idea of adjusting set-up zones. If a unit has just retreated and exited battle map and they are immediately attacked again then their set up zone should be towards the middle of the battle map. That would give attacker with greater mobility chance to engage. It would also give skillful players the possiblity of still pulling back part of the force. More mobile units would stand a better chance of disengageing as in RL.

[eye-switcher]

Seems like a big problem to solve.

And i dont know if a unit should automatically have a morale loss because they retreat at turn one, it can be a viable strategy to lure the other sides units into a trap or simply retreating to better terrain.

[Midnight Warrior]

BTW. I just stumbled into this site. Cool!

That may be one of the bigest challanges for them to solve. What happens in the next turn when the attacker exits the map in 10 minutes verse 30 minutes or 50 minutes.

This begs a question. The turns are one hour. Does that mean that the resulting CMBB games will also be one hour?

Also, I am wondering if they will have staged reinforcements in the CMBB battles. If one unit (say a company) moves off the map after 20 minutes and another after 40 minutes will they arrive on the new map in the next turn twenty minutes apart?

Also if CMC too severlyrestricts where the defender can set up (at the edge, in the middle, etc) then that tips the attacker of where the defender will be in that he will know withouthaving to recon that the defender always sits up sayin the middile of the map.

The issue is what is called quantization error. Since the CMC game is quantized into one hour turns and 1km squares. Thus one hour events (like exit times) may be difficult to hand off from one turn to another without there being messy "seams" between the turns where the action is fluid within a CMBB sub game but jumpy between CMC turns.

Hopefully they will come up with clever solutions to these types of problems.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by vincere:

Ike's and Sergei's points about having a hit on morale and organisation would go some way towards realism, but the problem of first turn exits might remain.

If your units start the battle routed, you cannot change their initial deployment, nor can you move them within the first minutes.

[General Bolt]

[All conjecture here]

What if the pursuing unit (combined tank and mobile inf) was given an order to move 2 CMC squares. In minute #5 they enter a square containing a weak inf platoon. A 55 minute battle starts. By minute 2 of the CMBB battle, they exit. They are only able to exit so quick because they were near the edge of the CMBB map. The retreating units then shown up in the next square of the CMC map.

About 20 minutes later the attackers reach the second CMC square. Here I wonder if the pursing tactical commander must play CMBB "alone" for 20 minutes to reach the far edge of the map. Or if a CMBB auto surrender would occur and these units would also appear on the CMC map with orders to move to the next CMC square.

[continuing conjecture]

By rate of speed calculations the retreaters are in the middle of the CMBB 2km map when the attackers reach them. A 33 minutes CMBB battle begins <font size =1> (do the math 5 minute entry, 2 minute escape, 20 pursuit to the next CMC square 60-27=33). <font>

<font size =3>Now a tank company for the defending side arrives in the CMC square with 15 minutes to go. They join as reinforcements.

Correct?

[vincere]

If your units start the battle routed, you cannot change their initial deployment, nor can you move them within the first minutes.

Fair point, but still not great if they auto-deploy near the exit map edge.

[Splusmer]

I was wondering about a situation similar to General Bolt's. Let's say you have two battles scheduled in CMC to begin at or very near the same time, in locations adjacent to each other.

Say in Battle A, 20 minutes in, you order a unit to retreat off-map in the direction of Battle B. Will this unit be added to what was generated for Battle B as a reinforcement? Ah, now, what if the same thing happened in Battle B, even at the same time? I assume both tactical battles aren't being resolved, minute-by-minute, at the same real-world time? That you complete one, then the other?

[Peterk]

As mentionned in another thread. Playing the battles sequentially might be more orderly, but playing them in paralell will speed up play greatly assuming that you are playing by PBEM.

[General Bolt]

I've given this more thought also. From the website:

Once the tactical battle is finished, CMBB then sends the results back to CMC and play is continued at the Operational level.

From this statement CMC does NOT accept results from CMBB on a minute by minute basis. Therefore, all my earier wild assed guess is out the window.

So my new guess is: Any guys that exit a map during a battle are in the twilight zone until the completion of the CMBB battle. This could lead to stragglers leaving one square only to find 60 minutes later there is a tank company right all around you.

Hunter, can you help us out here?

[Boris Balaban]

Do not mix up the level/time scale of play from CMC to CMBB.

In the early days when only CMBO was out I got to play in a fairly big battle with about 40 players (its been a while) :confused:

All the problems were worked out. I am guessing that is how CMC may have been born.

As for the scale of CMC your units occupy each 1km X 1km unless you are moving so the setup will be based on your status. If you are stationary then do you have scouts out to alert you to pull back or dig in. You may have chose before to dig in where mine fields are laid and barbed wire is strung out (defense) and it takes time.

As for leaving the battle field before the game is over, make sure that the battle field command and control does not cause a route of all units still in the battle. It would be a tactic to leave a defending-delay unit so you can pull out. I think this will be part of CMC that will take a % of units for a short time play (less then 60 min).

[vincere]

Bump

[JasonC]

vincere has the right answer. In pursuits in my CMx10 campaigns, I started the pursued around the middle of the map - the back edge of the set up zone of any unit that retreated the previous time is not the back edge of that tactical map, but hundreds of yards farther forward.

If the withdrawal was voluntary and done at the operational level, not under pressure in a tactical fight, then the set up zone goes clear to the back of the map. Possession of any flag in the fight for the previous location was my own determiner for this. (An attack that took most of the flags took the op-square. That sort of "retreat" allowed a full set up zone to teh defenders. If they lost all of them then they were in the "forced back" category). Also, if there were units already in the new opsquare (a second line) their set up zone goes clear to the back of the map.

This still allows a repeated retreat but requires delaying the attacking force - e.g. with some sort of rear guard - to get the rest off. It also means a supported unit - with an operationally second line - is much less likely to be penetrated rather than driven back. A fast attack can however catch the defenders and not let them get away.

[PzKpfwIII]

Don't presume, though, that units will always be prepared to engage in a pursuit, administratively or otherwise. Logistical concerns, or even timid sub-unit commanders, won't be simulated in the game but were very much a restraint on real life commanders. I think there should be some restriction placed on the ability to pursue beaten enemies, adjustable by the scenario designer, based on the historical performance of the unit in question. In other words, you should find that Russian units in 1941 ill-equipped to pursue units, but a German or Soviet mechanized unit in 1943 would be fully prepared.

[JasonC]

Eh, I think they can manage on this scale. I look at things like the narratives of the first couple days at Kursk, and they make 10 km in a few hours after local resistence weakens. That is hard to do in campaigns that make you fight for every op square, unless you allow something like pursuit.

Campaign layers have a tendency to turn into fight for these 1-2km, OK now fight for these 1-2 km, OK now fight for these 1-2 km, each entirely like the last. Real operations weren't like that, they had periods of much more fluid movement.

One way to achieve that is to rate defenses point-wise, and only let them cover so much front, forcing some "sub-squares" to be bare (unopposed). Another is to allow exit VCs and award multiple locations to winners that exit enough force through the enemy on a given tactical map.

Real defense schemes needed layering and depth because one front was far too easily pierced at tactical scales. With, really, no assurance another stand could be made 2 km farther back by the same worn men.