Bil Hardenberger

Here is the link to the 37th minute Battle Log

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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

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

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)

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.

Ahhh, I get where you are coming from.. yes, there are several periods that we each would love to see. I know Battlefront listens to all of these requests, they just don't have the same priorities the rest of us do.

What's wrong with the game we have? Sure, it could be improved, but it is pretty damn close to "the game that I want to see".

Look forward to it!

Right you are.. fixed. Thanks Bud.

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. INTRODUCTION DEFINITIONS BASIC RULES C2 RANGE COMMAND TASK HQ TASKS UNIT TASKS INITIATIVE TASKS AREA FIRE RECON BY FIRE DIE ROLL TEST TANKS IN AN INFANTRY SUPPORT ROLE LOSS OF FORMATION HQ TASK DESCRIPTIONS COMMAND TASKS HQ TASKS UNIT TASKS HQ and UNIT TASK TYPES IDLE-RESERVE MOVE SCOUT ENGAGE MOVE & ENGAGE (ATTACK by FIRE (ABF)) ATTACK DEFEND DELAY WITHDRAW RESUPPLY ENGINEER INTRODUCTION TO THE THE BATTLE LOG FORCE COMMAND TAB COMPANY COMMAND TAB SETTING UP THE BATTLE LOG ASSIGNING TASKS REINFORCEMENTS ASSIGN NEW TASK USING AN INITIATIVE TASK NEW TASK

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

Okay I will put together some clarification for what the different tasks are supposed to mean... sorry for the fuzziness of the rules, and my not-so-clear descriptions.. it's still in Alpha. Yeah, that was the intent anyway. My reasoning is that area fire is outside of the normal task constraints, and requires an on the spot leadership decision. I will work on the rules and post a new set in the next day or two to help clarify some of the misunderstandings.

Pretty slick Slim... thanks for doing this. Haven't watched the whole thing yet, but I do have a few comments: Command Task - the reason you only want to change this task in an emergency, is because EVERY formation will have to change their task to support the new Command Task. Remember this is the formation's mission for the scenario you are playing, whether it be Attack, Probe, Defend etc... all of the sub-formation Tasks in support of that mission must support it in some way.. there is wide latitude for you as the commander to use whatever orders are required for your formations in order to complete the mission. However, if you change the Command Task, say from Attack to a Defend task (i.e. your opponent's force is stronger than thought and you cannot complete your original mission)... you must change all sub formation tasks to support the new Command Task. Note: this happened to c3k in our Market-Garden BETA AAR, he changed his mission from attack to defend.. in his case there was no Command Friction and he could simply change all orders, easily and instantly. Using the Command Friction rules, changing focus like that can be hazardous, as all units might not be in C2 Range, those out of C2 range cannot even receive the new tasks, others might receive the task, but not be able to implement it for several turns (due to failing the die roll check), thus their neighbor units might withdraw leaving the formation out on a limb. Engineer Task - you have given your engineer squad an Engineer Task when it really might just be moving behind the formation it is attached to (should probably have been an Idle-Reserve or a Move Task instead). Engineer Tasks should only be given when a unit needs to Mark Mines, Breach, etc., something Enginneery... Area Fire - I know you say in your post that you used Area Fire wrong (and you did) but I want to make sure everyone understands why... Area Fire can ONLY be used against an enemy contact, but you have to use Initiative to do it... however, in the opening minutes of your play through, you were on an Engage Task, but you shouldn't have used Area Fire direct targeting as you did... you should let them fire on their own (or direct targeted a firm enemy contact), and assign an Initiative Task to enable them to use Area Fire. I'll add more as I watch your video, fun stuff. I think what I am learning is that I have not been clear in the rules.. I will work on editing them so they make more sense. EDIT: Slim, I hope you don't take the following as criticism... I only want to clarify your play through with my intent for these rules: I know you were trying to rush things along.. but all those New Tasks should have been rolled for in the next turn, just wanted that mentioned in case someone watching this gets confused. at the 16:40 minute (or so) you give 1st Tank a new task. but you just change his task, without going through the New Task procedures... note: I see you realized your mistake at minute 21. It looks like you are using Unit tasks for every formation... you could just give the Platoon HQ a task, and as long as all of the sub units (squads in this case) are within C2 Range then they can maneuver with the HQ.. so at the 19th minute, if you had only given the HQ a task, leaving the squads blank, the entire platoon could have moved off with the HQ...

Granted I don't play a lot of games that feature bunkers... but my example above is from a H2H game, and I can attest that the MG v bunker tactic will work regardless of whether the opponent has a gray-matter or a binary brain. My intent is not to outright kill the bunker with MG fire (Pericles' example is interesting), only to suppress it, so an infantry team can close with it safely and close assault it. In my example above, these bunkers had no support, that had been cleared previous to my unit's arriving on scene.

Close assaulting them with infantry is the best solution, as I did in my CMFI "Eye of the Elefant" BETA AAR: I also discovered during that same AAR that MGs are the most effective weapon against them. MGs are the best weapon to use to keep the occupants suppressed so you can more effectively close assault them. IMO using tanks against them is a waste of ammo in these games. From the AAR (note, this is a different bunker than the example above shows):

38th minute (counting down to zero): 1st Platoon - 1st Squads B Team successfully withdrew this turn after using Initiative in the last Orders Phase. Still under their scouting order they continue to move toward the St. Martin Farm. A and C Teams encountered more enemy contacts, which moved forward following the contact last turn. Note that these movements are still within their original Unit Tasks.. C Team will keep an eye on the new contacts while A and B Teams move up to get eyes on St. Martin Farm. 1st Platoon's other two squads, as they are both within C2 Range (red command links) will both be assigned New Tasks to move up and engage the enemy contacts. Though I am identifying the New Tasks for these two squads this Orders phase, they will not be rolled for until the next Order Phase. One note on command teams.. a Command Team is always free to move as it likes within it's unit's area of operation in order to maintain C2 links assign tasks etc. Here is the new Battle Log for this turn. Note the New Tasks (Unit Tasks) assigned to the two 1st Platoon Squads. Also note that I have removed the New Task for the tank platoon.. I am going to use the rule we just discussed with them. But I will wait until the Company HQ arrives on the scene in a few minutes to illustrate that. Also, note that this spreadsheet now contains the new DIE ROLL column that favors rolling higher numbers... small numbers are still possible, but much harder to attain. Also I have added some conditional formatting, so now if you assign a New Task or Initiative it will shade orange, while the HQ or UNIT QUALITY column will shade red or green to indicate whether the unit passes its test or not... the templates I linked to previously also have this new programming. 2nd Platoon - I really wasn't thinking when I gave this formation its Tasks when it came in as reinforcements.. I would like to stop them and send them somewhere else, as I think 1st Platoon can handle this AO, but as they are not in C2 Range (no Company HQ on the map yet) they cannot change task so must carry on with their original orders. THIS is a perfect example of Command Friction by the way.

How about this: any infantry HQ unit (in the Company that has the Tanks attached) can give a Tank Platoon, or even single tanks (if they already have Unit Tasks assigned and are acting independently) a New Task. Don't think getting into runners, etc. is a good idea... maybe one complexity too far.

After reading the above link, I am thinking of making it thus for any tanks supporting an infantry unit (for a supported unit up to Company size, Battalion HQs should be able to communicate with all its formations).. so in the example of this scenario, the Infantry Company HQ will have to be co-located with the Tank HQ (same Action Spot) in order to change the Task... I like this and I will make it so for my AAR game to see how it plays out.

Good thoughts.. however tanks in WW2, I don't believe (ready to be corrected by anybody with information showing otherwise) and infantry could not communicate directly via radio (different crystals, it was not as simple as adjusting the freq).. tanks had telephones on their rear to facilitate infantry-tank comms. This is why I said the infantry in this case needs to be right next to the tank, as in the same action spot. Found a good topic on this subject - Tank - Infantry Communications

I wanted to quickly make an explanation, that I just realized I failed to do during the AAR so far... in this scenario, and I assume many others, the support formation (in this case the Tank Platoon) is not directly subordinate to the Infantry Company, yet is obviously intended to be in support of the infantry. There is also no HQ higher than the Company in this scenario. In these cases, as long as both the Company HQ and the Tank HQ have functional radios we can assume that the Tank Platoon is in C2 Range. Even though in reality they would never be on the same network and would be unable to communicate via radio. Lose that radio link, or lose the Company HQ team, then we have problems... we cannot assume that whichever team takes over would automatically have comms with the tanks, alternately, lose the Tank Platoon HQ then the Tanks would lose their link to the infantry (Tank Platoons at this time had a Platoon network only, the Platoon HQ Tank would have an extra radio to communicate with Company)... thus in those situations I think the current Company HQ must be right next to the current Tank Platoon HQ in order to give a New Task. This is a special case and opens a can of worms... Please let me know your thoughts.

Please let us know in this thread how it goes if you do use it.

Bud, it really isn't.. it may seem like that, but explaining how to use Google Sheets I think, makes it look more complex than it really is... download one of the templates and play around with it some. Have any on-going AARs I need to catch up on?

It's my pleasure, I enjoy this sort of thing, sometimes more than playing the game. I do really enjoy the design and problem solving aspect of work like this Command Friction project. I should be able to get back to it this weekend. I had been doing the geo-bachelor thing for the past year and a half; my wife, son, and the dogs just moved to Virginia Beach with me (from Richmond) this past weekend (messing up my beautiful house ), so my free time this week has been fleeting. Maybe you and I could play a small email game using the rules after I finish this? MOS, that offer is open to you as well.

Apologies for not updating this for a few days. If you are playing with the templates, please download these new versions, I have changed the DIE ROLL so higher numbers are more prevalent. This will help insure that the worse led and poorer trained units will have a harder time getting a New Task or using Initiative versus the better units. These are a work in progress and I will improve them as I think is warranted. AXIS TEMPLATE ALLIED TEMPLATE