Apocal
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Posts posted by Apocal
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20 hours ago, Pelican Pal said:
Relating this back to Combat Mission. I wonder if defensive scenarios would be more fun to play if the eschewed realistic force densities in order to give the player the experience of a defense against a stronger opponent. Aim for a realistic experience rather than a realistic setting.
No, because it isn't a question of bodies that makes the AI succeed. It is the fact that it doesn't know how to do even basic combined arms. By packing a bunch of guys on their start line, the most likely outcome is the player (having a brain and all) simply maximizing the effectiveness of every weapon system they have available, to ludicrous degrees. We're talking machine guns that kill numbers in the high double-digits, rifle squads easily accounting for half-platoons, tanks that knock out a half dozen of their counterparts, etc. The next most likely outcome is that the player is overrun having run most of his forces completely out of ammunition in the process of stacking a massive number of bodies.
Try it in a quick battle. Pick the map, "Wax Museum," it is the last in the list of stock QB maps. Make it a huge point pool, then give the AI +150% points to boot. Only spend half your points -- but do so intelligently -- then lay out your defense. Include generous amounts of large-bore artillery (105s and 155s) along with TRPs. Lay out mines in places you want to "snag" their attack up. Include a modest reserve, maybe just half-tracks and some infantry, maybe add a pair of medium AFVs to that.
Build a competent defense in other words.
Then watch the AI blunder its way through all that mess, as if it doesn't understand that it should not sit under 155mm treebursts, walk three platoons in series through a minefield, that supporting fire should be kept up close enough to the scouts that anything that threatens them is instantly silenced with the corresponding threat being discovery. Place your armor at keyholes and watch as it racks up whole platoons over the course of a minute. Move your reserve literally anywhere, doing anything, and watch as the AI fails to respond in any fashion except shooting at you -- and not always then.
It takes a lot to make the AI attack well in CMx2, far, far, far more than in ArmA.
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1 hour ago, RepsolCBR said:
Does the guns in CM have a large enough ammo-load for this to be a problem ?
The SP 105mm battery the Americans get comes with 400+ rounds of HE, so hell yes.
Even without that much, large bore guns heat up just the same as machine guns but with far fewer rounds involved. That's why artillery pieces have a maximum and sustained rate of fire. In CMx2, those little green or red dots indicate when they will drop down to their sustained rate. When all the dots are red, they slow down their rate of fire. For larger pieces (155mm or higher, or thereabouts) the sustained rate can be as low as one or two rounds per tube per minute. And since the really large bore American stuff comes in two tube batteries, well, if you're counting on them delivering a ten minute long shellacking, you're going to be very disappointed after only a third (or less) of the elapsed time when they switch to low rate of fire.
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8 hours ago, domfluff said:
Yeah, I don't think so.
It is a shame. Broadly, there seem to be two kinds of CM scenario - narrativist ones and simulationist ones. The former tries to tell a story, typically with an unusual situation, or use of reinforcements, and the latter is more of the "You have a rifle company, secure that hill". Clearly there's a spectrum, and both extremes can be excellent. Some even manage to do both fairly equally, as with the excellent "Green 9" for CMSF.
The really nice thing about FMB's campaigns is that they are campaigns revolving around a small group, which means you can easily see the damage and ammunition limitations carried over from one to the other - even without the narrative fluff in between, you're telling more personal stories, because you can get to know the individual guys.
One challenge is writing stories at a small enough scale - it's tough to write a continuing story about an individual platoon in WW2, for example.I dunno, FMB managed to mix both narrative and "simulationist" elements pretty well. He didn't do anything to hold your hand beyond a briefing, but definitely missions were carried through with a narrative aspect. The most frustrating thing for me is that the first mission of the Allied campaign (Courage Conquers, I think?) seemed like something FMB would have whipped up. There was nothing really hard about the mission as long as you pushed your recon forward and saw what you needed to see, but the emphasis on no reinforcements, no resupply (other than off-board artillery). But the second crept up in scale and I was getting nervous. Finally, the third mission (I can't remember if I won the second or not) was basically stacking up everything in the task force onto the map, including two companies of tanks, I think three platoons of infantry between two companies themselves, mortars, etc. and it became a chore to manage it all. That was disappointing, because it was shaping up pretty nicely.
Anyway, I'm still futzing around the map editor. I made a few missions before, but either went with very simple maps or recycling QB maps and that definitely won't fly as far as players now are concerned.
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I loved the scale, narrative and layout of his campaigns, From Dawn to the Setting Sun (CMSF) and Devil's Descent (CMBN). They were like gold to me because of the way I was forced to care about losses but not in an overly punitive way; the scenarios within weren't puzzle games and simply a presented a plain, understandable tactical problem that could be overcome without mashing my forces to the nubs or having foreknowledge from previous playthroughs. I looked through the repository, nothing. However, with the search function here presently broken (something about rebuilding indexes for the last few days) I can't find anything on the forum either.
So now I'm asking in this thread. Has FMB made a campaign for Final Blitzkrieg?
If he has not, I would love a steer in the direction of any campaigns made at a in his style (company core force, narrative and decision branches, persistent losses, few replacements, limited resupply) covering any force or period in CMFB.
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4 hours ago, Col Deadmarsh said:
I guess I can see how some things could have a range of damage.
But what about something like tracks? Isn't either working or the track is thrown off the tank and thus, not working?
No, you can sometimes tell when there is something wrong with a track. Not always, to be sure, but often enough I don't think it is weird to have multiple stages of damage before getting to the point the track is immobilized.
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23 minutes ago, Combatintman said:
My bold ... there is a scenario editor ...
But making maps is a cast-iron bitch, so most people get burned out after only a few missions.
Anyway, the one thing I want is some kind of omnibus edition of CMx2. It is a bit weird having all these years and months to choose from and yet only like three or four of them are available to be selected in each title. There is already a way of switching around regions, so why not whole theaters of war. As an added bonus, it would help bring the MP community together and maybe spur someone out there to make a dedicated matchmaking program so we could find opponents easier.
To say nothing of fantasy match-ups like late war Soviet tank regiment vs. American armored infantry company on the defense.
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Yeah, units can pass spotting info either vertically (up and down the chain of command) or horizontally (directly unit to unit). There was a big topic on it somewhere, I can't remember which forum though, since the general CMx2 stuff is scattered all over the place.
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On 6/23/2017 at 6:21 AM, Sgt.Squarehead said:
It's not just the vehicles though is it, it's how those vehicles fit into the Soviet TOE.....Looking forward to having them though.
As far as I know, the LL vehicles were slotted into the existing TOE in exactly in place of their Soviet equivalents. Certainly, the Soviet Shermans weren't running around in platoons of five and companies of eighteen like in the US Army.
16 hours ago, MikeyD said:A few months ago I was arguing (debating) with Steve over inclusion of Valentine IX. He was of the opinion that attrition had so reduced Valentine numbers that by war's end their impact would be insignificant. I was lucky enough to find some late war Russian vehicle lists on the internet that showed a surprisingly robust Valentine presence. It appears Valentine attrition was quite low. They were as reliable as a hammer with a frontal profile the size of T-70 making them hard to hit
In a game with Jagdtigers?
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On 6/15/2017 at 2:31 AM, Sgt.Squarehead said:
Trust me fella, even in the current CM:SF low experience UnCons meet properly trained troops in the same way a sentence meets a full-stop.....It's their tricks & traps that get 'em the kills.
Yeah, I remember one scenario was pretty easy-going until I put about a half-platoon of Marines into a building that was wired to blow...
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11 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:
... My prior isn't criticizing CM or BFC btw; they have given us the toolset.
Designers looking to game out smaller portions of larger operations simply need to be intelligent (sometimes creative) in representing the on-map effects of off-map portions of the action.
An off-map direct fire option would likely be panned by players used to map-edge runs. People already complain about mines in that area during RT MP matches; I can't fathom the howls of incandescent rage that would emerge from unspottable, unsuppressible AT fire.
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On 6/23/2017 at 0:11 AM, Kaunitz said:
I don't know if Combat Mission games should try to grow towards the operational level. I don't think so (we'd need games with durations of 6+ hours... phew). But perhaps it's worthwhile to think more about operational plausibity, both on the level of scenario-design, but also concerning game-mechanics (or rather additional options for scenario-designers).
Just to be clear, when I say "operational layer" I'm not referring to expanding the scope of on-map CMx2. I mean something like Close Combat 2's campaign or Graviteam Tactics, where the operational level moves are made through a separate interface, with the actual tactical game only beginning when forces clash. People already do so with CMx2 via other games as the operational layer, but the implementation is difficult (particularly in terms of accounting) and it is restricted to head-to-head play over long periods of time.
Example here: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/118958-operational-level-campaign-completed/?do=findComment&comment=1597228
There are more examples stretching all the way back to CMBB, at least, and possibly earlier.
On 6/23/2017 at 0:11 AM, Kaunitz said:On the other hand, situations that are plausible if you consider the operational background tend to be situations in which one side has decisively more power on the field. And this, in turn, makes for rather dull, highly asymmetrical games on the tactical level. It's just a matter of executing the inevitable. Perhaps you loose a bit more or less in the progress, but still, the result is already clear. With highly asymmetrical forces, the best one player could do is to delay, but that's not really a lot of fun from the player's perspective.
I disagree with the bolded portions. Delaying isn't necessarily dull, particularly because it demands more from players tactically than does straight-line brawling. I'll agree that more of the fight happens before the first turn, when planning the fight and contingencies, but that doesn't make for bad games. At least not in my experience. Most importantly, however, is that looking ahead to another fight and another and another really changes the outlook players have on losses. An attacking player might be paranoid of losing his best armor and shy away from attacking an inadequate defense that presents itself boldly or similar shenanigans. And ultimately, the point of delaying is usually to bring reinforcements to bear in superior circumstances, so players still get the satisfaction of "victory" when they've held back attackers long enough that now they have their own iron fist of combat power to throw back at them.
If nothing else, it would get players closer to understanding the advantages and disadvantages of armor on the attack, the kind of energetic operations possible when you're riding two dozen or more tons of tracked combat power into the fight. They would realize exactly how devastating a breakthrough could be and what pursuit fighting entails, the ways in which an armored thrust can be neutered, etc. A lot of things that single scenarios and even the stock campaigns don't do an especially good job of catching the flavor of.
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On 5/30/2017 at 8:15 AM, John Kettler said:
Ithakial_AU,
Very few battalions are square, for most have three infantry companies, not four. Consequently, the usual mode is "two up, one back." Love your idea for additional VP for early mission completion. Am curious how you would handle the interplay between that implementation and own force casualty limits.
Regards,
John Kettler
Strip a platoon from both leading companies or use the engineers, recon troops, etc. as a fourth maneuver company. You have to fight your companies flatter, without their own reserves, but generally it is hard to have a trailing platoon commit to the action in a meaningful manner without getting blasted in the same way as the first two, at least in my experience. So I'm not losing much doing that.
The downside is that I usually don't care enough to run battalion-level scenarios.
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On 5/20/2017 at 2:55 AM, Erwin said:
It may be that the issue is the scale of the scenarios. Due to relatively small maps there is little need for "maneuver" in terms of vehicular recon down miles of roads until one finds an enemy defensive location. In CM2, that sort of maneuver has taken place, and we know there is an enemy directly in front of us. So, in just about 100% of the time, one has to use infantry to probe and locate the ATG's and destroy them with mortars/arty BEFORE exposing one's vehicles used to hammer enemy defenses.
Where I think CM2 scenarios may be deficient re design is that there is something missing... What is missing is the information about the locations of enemy strongpoints which should have been located by recon. In CM2 scenarios one is literally dropped into a situation where one knows that the enemy is within a few hundred meters, but one has no info as to what and where.
So one is forced to conduct very rapid, almost suicidal recon, before an urgent assault.
Armored formations are best suited for wide open terrain where they can move rapidly and in force, not just a couple of tanks or even just one platoon as we generally are given in a CM2 scenario. CM2 forces us to fight is highly restricted terrain which is NOT suitable for armored warfare. This btw is why CMSF is still a great game as it generally allows for more open terrain and much longer LOS opportunities.
Eh, it isn't just scale. You really don't get the full gist of armored warfare because in pretty much every scenario, that attackers running into an intact, prepared defense capable of repelling armor. That certainly happens, but after a breakthrough, it was the exception rather than the rule. If that weren't the case, none of those bold, grandiose advances would have happened because the first village armor rolled through guns a-blazin' they would have gotten blown the hell up. In the real deal, there were a very great number of very hasty attacks made against scattered remnants of fought-out units that could hardly have mustered a trio of panzerfausts between them. Even so, their small arms (particularly machine guns) represented a very credible threat to things other than AFVs. So those sort of holdouts might be able to delay dismounts and force them to expend time, effort and ammunition rooting them out but against tanks there was, in essence, sweet f***-all they could do. Frequently they didn't even try -- preferring life over a glorious death, natch -- and instead slithered away in darkness or surrendered , either outright or to follow-on forces.
I thought there was one scenario depicting the above in CMRT, but it turns out the briefing was misleading and the Germans had nearly as much armor as the attacking Russians, and an arguably superior mix as well. I understand why, certainly, but it sort of takes away another dimension to tactics, battle command and decision-making. It isn't a perfect analogy but you're holding a straight and working the entire table, figuring the odds are against anyone holding anything better and seeing how much you can take from them. Most fold, but some don't and it is up to you to decide whether to back down or call their bluff.
That's kind of why I wish there was an operational layer because you could see this sort of thing crop-up organically and give a feeling for what is typically doable for an unsupported infantry force against meaningful amounts of attacking armor. There are ways for the infantry to win that fight, but they are exceptions to the times when the defenders simply make sure the juice isn't worth the squeeze for marauding armor, such as intelligently prepared defenses that leverages poor terrain against the tanks, channelizes them with obstacles and mines, takes away the attacker's combined arms by separating tanks from dismount protection and the dismounts from the firepower of the tanks, mortars/artillery and mines to deny movement foot mobility, etc. A lot of times, an "operational win" can be had just by delaying the armor or giving them a "pop to the mouth" and making them gun-shy about brazenly assaulting your positions. Other times you might present them with a "soft spot" for easy penetration that is actually your chosen killing ground with plenty of defenders backed by anti-tank firepower that results in the typical CMx2-style blowout losses that a hasty, highly aggressive attack with armor endures.
That being said, I agree with most of the rest of what you wrote.
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On 6/21/2017 at 3:40 AM, DreDay said:
Thank you for your colossal and thought-provoking material. I just have one question - who exactly was implementing those far superior operations in the West at the same time?
Nobody else had armored formations, with AFVs numbering in the triple digits, fall apart inside of a weak with only minimal enemy contact. For all their failures, I don't think any French armored formation had over ninety percent of its tanks lost while just moving around on the map like the Soviet 15th Mech Corps.
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11 hours ago, IanL said:
No one has said that is not in the plan. What is not clear is what is next and what is after that. I am sure they will get there...
Alright, but waiting years for DLC is a bit unusual. It seems like porting over a vehicle pack would be quicker and easier than an actual full module.
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I remember the plan was for another DLC that would take CMRT to the end of the war but it has been years waiting at this point. So now I'm just asking if there will be something like the vehicle pack, where we can finally get the Lend-Lease equipment, even without scenarios or campaigns to match.
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On 6/17/2017 at 2:35 AM, Mark_McLeod said:
Lastly being able to see how many kills your forward observer gets with the call ins is pretty neat.
My reason for getting it.
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16 hours ago, cbennett88 said:
The current listing of the Russian Army has 12 Armies(NOT divisions) in 4 districts. That would give them what...1 TOS-1 per Army?? Hardly realistic...
Given that this was fielded in the late 80's into 90's, their military wasn't feeling the budget squeeze they do now. So...isn't it far more likely they discovered an issue in the design and operation of the weapon that caused them not to build more?
The armies wouldn't get one TOS, the guy with however many BTGs currently busting open a fortified city or thick belt of defenses would get all twelve. But they can't really concentrate fires in the way tube and rocket artillery can, due to short range. So they are essentially forced to babysit the launchers during employment. At any rate, there probably isn't any problem with the system beyond limited range, since the Russians actually bothered developing an upgrade about ten or so years back, the TOS-1A, which extended the range to six kilometers.
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On Saturday, June 03, 2017 at 2:39 AM, cbennett88 said:
Correct. They are listed as having about a dozen.
It was actually listed as first being used by the Soviets in Afghanistan.
The real question (IMO) is...why didn't they build more? Budget issues notwithstanding, it is not a grossly expensive system. No expensive FLIR or radars. Doesn't require a large crew to operate. Although it has been sold/given as trade to several countries, it doesn't seem to be something the Russian arms industry has had much success in selling. I find the fact that China never bought even one to test...and maybe "clone" to be interesting. They tend to buy "everything" unusual/new on the market to see if they should build their own.
It has a maximum range of only six kilometers and how many massive urban battles or fortified strongholds do you expect your army to face simultaneously?
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On Sunday, May 28, 2017 at 6:00 AM, Erwin said:
"...if only the morale model was a bit more brittle and units more inclined to flee than fight..."
I don't really use off-board artillery, so I didn't notice the issue you pointed out.
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2 hours ago, IICptMillerII said:
A full editor is provided with all CM games that allow for each user to create/modify scenarios that they want to play. If you want a long exercise that doesn't involve much contact with the enemy, you can make it yourself. Further, there are a handful of community members that create scenarios and campaigns that are extremely historically accurate, thus giving you scenarios that reflect real battles.
So you can either make your own scenarios, or download scenarios made from other community members. There are plenty of options.
I know. I have made scenarios. I also played through a pair of mini-campaigns that did the trick in CMSF.
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13 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:
Nice graphics? Yes. Realistic combat? Not based on those screenies...
13 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:Point blank Caliope fire FTW.....Or not.
SD is substantially more realistic than Panzer General was in its day, and we all considered that a wargame, right?
CMx2 can't really throw too many stones regarding unrealistic behavior though. I still remember when MG teams were basically toothless and couldn't fulfill their real life doctrinal role in CMBN or CMFI, even when placed on a pool-table flat map against rifle-armed infantry walking upright and not firing back.
More importantly, SD gets the important bits of reading the battle, command decision-making and application of combined arms correct. If you go for symmetrical matchups (i.e. tanks on tanks, infantry on infantry, etc.) you wind up taking outsized losses. What the game (and other players pointing out) teaches is the idea that for every tactical problem, there is a counter. ATGs stop tank rushes. Infantry provide defensive "staying power" in close terrain. Machine guns deny movement to dismounts and soft-skinned vehicles. Tanks give fire support as long as they are protected. The application of combined arms isn't about gathering all the constituent elements into a ball of combat power and throwing them wholesale into whatever the enemy puts in front of you but rather looking at the enemy in the same way a mechanic would an engine to be disassembled; carefully picking out each tool, as needed in turn. If the existing problem is insurmountable, the correct solution isn't to try to pull a tactical rabbit out of your combined arms bag, but instead either back off or escalate. It is kinda cool to see that in action, particular when playing on a large 10v10 (player) map.
I think CMx2 offers something a bit different, more detailed and such as far as modeling goes, but less realistic in some aspects, such as tanks being better able to spot infantry (for the WW2 games) than real history suggests is the case, thereby harming the historical balance of combined arms. Overall I would say CMx2 is a better simulation if only the morale model was a bit more brittle and units more inclined to flee than fight after casualties, while missions were re-jiggered to make losses hurt more than taking objectives helped.
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16 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
Absolutely, but where's the fun in that?
The fun is being presented with plausible military challenges a modern commander might face and his likely options, regardless of the sexiness -- or lack thereof.
Think of it as a boxing game and the clinch. Clinching is pretty unexciting and arguably unimaginative. Certainly no one wants to watch twelve rounds of it. But it represents a valid counter to certain moves and can be integrated into a wider strategy for winning matches, so pretty much every boxing game that goes beyond the most ridiculously cartoonish depiction includes the clinch. Most any wargame with a persistent force mechanic can offer the same dilemma facing a real commander, who does have to make command decisions such as when to break off a fight going bad or when pushing harder through a tough defense is desirable, rather than simply having to reach deeper and deeper into his bag of tactical tricks until he's expected to pull a rabbit out.
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I use them as overwatch on probable enemy dismount locations, since they are better at spotting infantry, IME. Other than that, on the attack, they are sort of redundant in a lot of cases, since there are not really collateral concerns to the same degree as in CMSF.
Sherman's and 50cals.
in Combat Mission Final Blitzkrieg
Posted
This might be a question for the hardcore treadheads. Anyway, in CMBN, most of the Shermans had the TC's fifty mounted in the entirely sensible front and center position, right where he could pop out of the hatch and use it. As far as i know, this was originally a field modification. But I've started to notice that this arrangement is much rarer (I can't recall which models because I don't cherry-pick armor) in CMFB. Not only is the ideal rare, but it has been replaced by the useless (literally, since it won't fire on aircraft) rear-facing AA mounting in most cases, with only the occasional loader's fifty arrangement.
Can someone explain this to me? And tell me how to get the commander to use the AA fifty for anything at all?