Los

Hey MERC, Go on over to the combat engineer thread and answer some questions about breaching operations under fire. Cheers... Los

I have been to Aberdeen a bunch of times. They are slwoly (very slowly ) refurbishing armor (they just have so damn much of the stuff over 200 tanks!). Two interesting things they did was send both a Tiger and an 8-rad back to Germany on a ten year loan and rerfurbishing. It's no so much a tanlk museum as it is a old tank park. The small arms museum is well kept up. If you want a decent tank museum in the US go to Fort Know. Lost a cools tuff well kept in there. Los

Breaching minefields and other obstacles under fire IS something that Engineers do as a primary mission (at least nowadays.) It does help that there is a whole new range of "funnies" attached to them to help this such as mineplow tanks, Mine clearance vehilces and other CEVs. However in light units they normally don't have access to this fancy stuff and have to do it the old fashion way. Most every deliberate attack entails the clearance of obstacles or breaching operations under fire. Obviously the best answer is to go around said obstacles but any halfway competent defender would place stuff in a way to make that diffuicult or impossible to do while still getting at your objectives. Blasting the area prior is another method though too many times that has proven partially successful particularly with regards to wire. Just a few things about breaching operations "under fire". This is a major operation which is planned for in some detail and requires extensive rehearsal. The first phase of the operation calls for sealing or and suppressing the point of breach. In the movies you see the lone guy or squad running forward while everyone else hugs the dirt and maybe a couple of guys pop off with their garands. Bull****. First the area being breached is sealed off from supporting defensive fire with Indirect fire, direct fire and most overall overriddingly importantly (get my point?) the use of smoke! Then the area covering the spot to be breached is deluged with direct fire from dedicated supporting units. Once all that is done, then the engineer squad and accompmanying assault guys go forward to either blow a way though the breach or use some other means to quickly clear and mark a narrow lane through the mess (A good Artillery prep or carpet bombardment on the area really helps.) Units just don't march people across minefields they know about. (maybe a few isolated incidences on the Russian front or Iran Iraq war) Because after the first guy or two gets blown up everyone stops moving forward. It does seem reasonable to presume in most deliberate attack CM scenarios that the designer has had the clearing oeprations happen earlier(usually at night before the main attack or through other infiltration techniques) though just doing a pure breaching scenario using a company with engineers/pioneers attached would be an interesting scenario in its own right. That being said I would support engineers/pioneers having some sort of superior ability to clear or mark/cross a mined area (and to clear wire quicker) even if it happens at a slow pace. If someone wanted to know what that pace was I could probably ask some engineer friends. Cheers... Los

That's not a good example to use for a number of reasons not the least of which was that it was not a true block clearing operation. The Americans were trying to move or flee through an area having already snatched their prisoners when they were beset upon by the Somalis. They were not per se there to secure houses of blocks in a traditional block or hosue clearing operation as the kind we'cve been talking about on the list. "I have seen the topic of house to house fighting and extreme casualties come up from time to time - thought I'd share some semi-contradictory info.....The Americans, considering the force it was up against, lost relatively few casualties compared to the estimated compared to the estimated thousands of Somali wounded and dead (Red Cross estmates, actual figure not known by anyone). " So in this one passage we see that a single day long battle resulted in perhaps THOUSANDS of casulties. That sounds to me like fighting in built up areas can be relatively bloody! And compared to the percentage of Americans that were in the fight most had been killed or wounded in some fashion or at least rendered combat ineffective as a unit for some period of time after the fight. In fact a more interesting case is that of the 10th MD infnatry company that was the QRF for the relief. They fought a ten hour battle through the city trying to get to the Rangers and that is a pretty interesting story too.(They came through pretty good) Perhaps a better example would be the hundreds of documented bloody battles and skirmishes fought during WW2 (plus throw in a few from Vietnam, Grozny, Iran-Iraq war) where MOUT combat was incredibly bloody. Cheers... Los

21 years US Army, (Active and Guard) 82d airborne, 1/505th PIR as an infantry scout then REMS specialist Drill sergeant (2 years) The rest in SF (5th group and 19th) as a commo guy, then ops and intel sergeant, then a team sergeant. (all team time) Hoping to retire in the next year. (Been to plenty of places real and training, most you wouldn't wanna take your kids to) cheers... Los

Don't worry, I'm sure they got the stupidest guys they could find to do the testing. Los

I know this is probably above the scope of the game but... I'm not sure but I believe the game has victory points and whatnot? It would be nice in the pre-deployemnt phase of the game (before you start playing but where you are setting up the units and what not) for a player to be able to convert VPs into recon points. The player could then establish a picture of what lies ahead, with varying degrees of accuracy (NEVER PERFECT) depending on how far it is from the front line. This would represent patrols or leaders recon perfromed during the planning phase. I know it's probably undoable, but the desired endstate is to make the player consciously decide to either execute quickly (and risk running into unknown stuff) or spend more time in planningand recon, (but time costs VPs so there is a balance). It wouldn't work for every scenario, of course. You could even expand it say that instead of a blanket area recon the player can focus along one route or at some point (the objective). He selects his recon type and how many VPs he's willing to gamble away ahead of time. ZONE RECON would buy you the method described above. ROUTE recon has him selecting a number of waypoints along an axis of advance. AREA recon has him selecting one area on themap where everything say 500 or 1000m around it will get looked at. Then he click etis is only as good as when the game starts. Defnsively could be the same way though maybe the defensive benifit or recon is twofold. Enemy assembly areas and OBs. The hard part is that the defender must set up first before the attacker can run his recon. It's probably not a big issue in single player games where teh AI has been (resumably?) pre-ordained to set up somehwre. Of course the player would also have recon units in the game that function as have been described in other posts, IF they were made available in the scenario. If terrain conditions are also variable then recon could clarify tehstate or roads and whatnot. Anyway, I know it's probably undoable but fun to talk about. Cheers... Los

Whoa all the sudden a lot of crazy ideas. (some good, some bad) Let's think about some of these... First off I think Steve's point that specialized recon elements just being a notch better quality or experience than average troops on your side will fit the bill just right without adding complexity or added coding. This will make them better at spotting and terrain utilization. However it is true that there is more to recon than just the troops that do it. Recon has to be seperately palnend for and executed just as counter recon. "Los, as far as your point about the scouts being better fighters than an average infantry (or light armored) unit, I suspect you may be right about that." It's not that they're better fighters, they're better scouts. It's not their job to fight. (Unless they have too) And when you have scouts on OP the last thing you wnat them to do is opern fire at enemy when they see them or when the enemy pops some rounds in their direction. "In modern warfare, they might have better equipment than regular soldiers which would justify a "spotting" bonus, but during WWII they had no more than a pair of binoculars. And units with binos (and magnifying gun sights) are already modeled in CM." For chrissakes there's a hell of a lot more to proper and skillfull recon than just peering through binoculars! (this has nothing to do with modern times or beinga scout in the 1870s on the high plains) Though at this hour I don't feel like launching into a another diatribe about the ins and out of aufsklarung (or recon.) Maybe some other time. BTW keep in mind that there will be plenty of times particularly in company or smaller level games, where you won't even have specialized scouts or any recon but teh point squad. Also you do not have to crawl about on your belly to be an effective scout, there's more to it than that. While a scout element might move slower, (vehicular units by bournds or whatever) we're not talking about your dirty dozen type of snoop and poop or even long range surveillance type scouting, which is assumed to have happened well in advance. "It is worth remembering that in WW2 nine out of ten engagements were not meeting engagements but some form of assault." That's BS. What you mean is that nine out of ten engaements that you see on TV documentaries or read about in books about great battles are some form or assault. Combat units spend the majority of their time not fighting in set piece battles but in actions like meeting enagegements or other such activities or just suitting around. "Oh yeah, recon by fire can be very effective." In real life and real history , recon by fire makes the firer feel good but accomplishes much less than you would think. In anything but poorly trained or inexperienced troops in defense they will not jump up like scared rabitts or return fire just becasue someone is shooting in their direction. Units will try and probe by fire in an attempt to specifically cause you to shoot back and give away your position. Trained or experienced units are not stupid, know that this is exactly what the enemy is trying to do and do not just shoot back and give away their positions until you have walked into whatever killbox or killzone they have prearranged for you. "Yes, pretty much a CM battle is something where all units would be on FULL alert." Again that's what you would think, but it may not always be the case. Full blown battles usually take a lot of time to develop. WHile something is happening over there five miles away (or one) you are sitting around dead tired probbaly sleeping or dreaming about food. Then the word comes to move out. Everybody sets off (say on foot). For the first few minutes youa re carrying your rifle at the ready finger on the trigger looking around up and down like they taught you in infantry school. Then the heat and teh 60-80 lbs of **** on your back and the blisters on your feet begin to reassert themselves as your main priority. Supposdely somebody up front is watching out anyway right? Or there you are in your sherman tank. The tank is stopped, one of the guys is on alert while the rest doze. The hum of the engine lulls you to sleep which you haven't had more than two hours of in a week. Stress can actually be a great fatiguer. It's why you see so many guys with a non chalant look about them on combat footage. It's not that they aren't scared, they're just too tired and have been around it too long to give a ****. SO the word comes to move out. Everyone is alert for a while but after a half hour of creeping along with nothing everyone's senses are dulled again. Until the tank in front of you blows up. And the one behind you. Now you ARE awake!!! Cheers... Los

My Favorite SPR Quote: "Yo don't touch me wit those little ****in' rat claws." Los BTW Fred re: SST you must check out the new CGI animated series Ropughnecks the Starship troopers chronicals. A good mix of movie (Different bug classes a skinnies too!) and the book (POWER ARMOR! need I say more?) ABsolutley incredible graphics, excellent writing and storylines and acting. And the guys that developed eth series have a wargamers attention to detail. In my market (CT) it's on at 0800 on WB (M-F). Others have seen it on SCi Fi in the mornings. It's a well kept secret... Cheers... Los

As an inverse to what Steve said, there are plenty of Armies in the world with weak NCO corps and they pretty much all suck. Los

Well, here I go again. I was an infantry scout for most of the infantryman portion of my career. We used to have gun jeeps back then which were a hoot to rat patrol around on (No armor though) I think what needs to be addressed in a program to capture the spirit of recon is that they have superior spotting ablilities, can make better use of terrain while moving, and are of a higher quality than their normal counterparts. Soldiers for a the battalion recon platoon are normally hand picked from the line companies (in some armies there are specialist courses (There was in the US for ahwile an MOS called 11D infantrys cout and I believe still is 19D cavalry Scout). For a lieutenant, the most prestigious position in the whole battalion is to have been selected to lead the scout platoon and that always goes to your best junior officers, normally after they have been given a go at running a regular infantry platoon. I suspect it's much the same in Armor. Scouts in all armies are general considered better troops due to the nature of the work (Remember LRRPs in Vietnam?) and to be in a Divisional or Corps level LRRC (Long Range Recon Company) is a big deal. There is never any shortage of volunteers for the scouts regardless of its hazards. As far as equipment goes, when I was doing it (before NODs were in general use), we always had teh best equipment, starlight scopes, NVGs and even huge bipod and tripod mounted thermal detectors and viewers. There were ground surveillance radars and sensor teams attached. ALl this is obviously after teh fact but it goes to show the emphasis put into recon. Clearly the Germans made heavy use of their divisional recon forces as spearheading assaults, fire brigades and other uses which shows you the emphasis tehy put on teh quality of their recon unts. It was a plum assignment for them too (read Kurt Meyer's book caleld Grenadiers or von Lucks' Panzer Commanders. Both were recon commanders for a lot of their careers until they were promoted up to bn or regt command.) It's dangerous work, but but not as dangerous as it is in most computer or war games. Becasue the designers usually don't understand the capabilities and qualities of recon units Thys just look at the hardware they drive around in. Los [This message has been edited by Los (edited 09-13-99).]

You'll be getting an article on troop leading procedures and mission planning shortly.

"I guess my question is how were prisoners handled in real life?" Prior to any operation there is designated a prisoner collection point, either at bn or brigade. This is normally staffed by MPs but it depends on their avavilbility. Fionn or whoever was right, MPs don't accompany infantry into combat front where they have two enemies to contend with the germans and their own front line infantry who they're busy busting all the time in the rear). MPs are normally a divisdion-level assett that's parcelled out to the various brigades on opertaions while corps and army level MPs normally do things like HQ security and POW camps etc. Once prisoners are taken they are supposed to be searched, silenced, segregated (officers, NCOs, enlisted men into different groups), safeguarded and sped to the rear. The situation on ethground for the capturiing untit at that time dictates which, none or all of these they can do. However it is almost always the job of the front line captors to take these guys back. The guarding of these prisoners is almost always a porblem that has to be dealt with by the commander and it is best to consolidate yoru companies POWs into oen group and head them back under a half squad or so. The thing about sending them back on their own is normally something only done in breakthrough or pursiut operations where the enemy has been thoroughly defeasted and is on eth run. It's not a wise thing to do in pitched battles, neither for your safety or the prisoners. I think it is correct that some sort of effort has to go into thinking about what to do with poisoners. It's a big aspect in a commanders bag of bs to deal with, and it does impact operatins on the spot in that it takes at least some people away. Just to bring up ASL for a minute, I liked how you had to desugnate a half squad for prisoner guards but then they could take any number of POWs back. Regarding killing of prisoners, I also like the No quarter rules in ASL. Yes a player could kill prisoners, (usually it was a concern about losing valuable half squads to guard prisioners even for a short time before you consolidated them) but then the flip side was that this automatically invoked the fnatical rules for the other side (I'm going from memory here so I may be rong) which caused the enemy to be less likely to surrender. As an aside we learned in SERE school (Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape) that 50% of all soldiers captured don't survive the first day. While it would be difficult to back that up empirically it makes a good point towards the hazards of surendering. After the initiallly attempt at surrendering the next most hazardous part is that walk back to the collectin point and beyond with a couple of keyed up, pissed off, scared privates guarding you, with shells and **** still flying all around. Cheers... Los P.S> I have to say Fionn's "Just to make things clear" post regarding his handling of POWs reminds me of some Nurenburg trail proceedings.

"Yes you will be able to edit textures like this if you want. But ours look awesome so I don't know if you'll want to bother!" Maybe I wanna cut and paste Wittman's face onto my TCs... Fear factor, you know... Los

BTW per US Army and other nations I suspect also SOP, there are minimum open area square footage requirements for the different anti-armor weapons. Meaning say if you are going to fire of a LAW inside a room, then you need (for example) say at least 64 square feet of open window/door/hole space or else you will do a number on yourself and others in the room even if they are clear of the backblast. Los

Actually I wasn't talking about fiddling with the models only the skins on them. These are nromally Pcx files or whatnot that are wrapped around the models. Which apparently in CM you will be able to do. Gotta fix that bonesack Los

Good idea about the list of events/AARs. I second that. One minor picky point. The Fallschirmjaegers should have their camo smocks extend down to their knees to simulate bonesacks. It'll make them look better. BTW will we be able to mess with skins for the models ala Quake or other 3d programs? I could see a whole movement of people working on more realistic uniforms etc etc. Los

Well, First off, Mike D, hows about adopting a strategy of BREVITY in your communications? Yeesh. The second post gets down to the meat of your proposal. First off, I like the general idea of your three reserve pools. I don't necessarily agree with your notion that my success should translate to success for the entire war or battle since that's not how it always goes (Ask the Germans themselves) Though obviously that's a gameplay issue. Re: Local reserves,. the times and percentages work but will probably need tweaking (as you say) to see if they work. Personally I'd try and limit the control a player has over requesting reserves within the scenario being palyed at the time since usually the commander himself usually does not request his own reserves. He transmits the SITREP up the chain of command, that info is put together with his peer commanders SITREPs and the overall situation and then the overall commmander tells you whether you are getting reserves. Also most engagemnets you're fighting are not the end of the world type operations where you are the focal point of the attack or defense. SO your cries for help, may go unheeded. (Which BTW, as far as local reserves go, you would know what's more or less available in the task organization before you jump off). The world does not revolve around you as the company or bn commander as much as you would hope. But then again the percentage of release simulates those fudge factors to some extent. These factors could also be porgrammed in at your scenario designer reserve pool screen. Some programs (I'm thinking Interplay's "Descent Freespace" mission designer for example) create a number of arguments in the scenario design to set up conditions for reinforcements. So once the designer creates the scenario he designates performance meassures (i.e casualty or VP locations/conditions) which may trigger or influence the release of reserves pools (if requested?). Example: Bridge X is the designer's location he has specified as critical to the campaign. It is the overall commander's intent that this bridge be preserved for whatever reason. (Now keep in mind that local comnmanders, particularly allied commanders, at he time often were not given a commander's intent as part of their mission statement. This was something subsequently adopted by the US and others from Germany long after the war.) So your mission in say Game 2 is to hold onto a hillmass a few klicks in front of this terrain feature. If you are pushed off and the scenario ends, the system makes a check: If enemy is within 1000 meters of bridge X, then release 25% of division reserve for inclusion in the local reserve. (OR just allow the user to tap into it.) Heck IF THEN ELSEmight even decide to preempt teh standard scenario flow and launch a counter attack scenario against that bridge right away. The point is that from a scenario designer point of view the addition of Boolean(?) if-then-else statements could allow a campaign to be crafted with a little more control of hpw you want the campaign to be because after all the scenarion designer is god. However since he's not there to be god once the campiagn begins then he needs the AI to do the job for him, with guidance. BTW a nice feature would be for a password portect campaign design which allows a ongoing moderated game. The campaign designer could get into the guts of his campaign ONCE IT IS UNDERWAY, and make changes based on the tactical situation. Hence these "moderated" campaigns would not be locked in place once they start. Cheers... Los RE: Divisional resevres, perhaps it should take a lag time of one whole GAME to get them. So if I request them in between Game 1&2, then I may see them between 3&4 something like that.

I'll vote for Maleme (Crete), Monte Cassino, La Fiere, and Stonne. Los

Though I personally wouldn't rank Stalingrad near the top of a best films list, (SOmething about the lack of technical accuracy in the infantry actions mostly), I have not seen the DVD version. Have more scenes been added in? Is there any reason to get it if one already has the VCR version (other than better picture/sound quality?) Thanks in advance. Also I got a chuckle out of Herr Jung's observations of Winter War but I see tss has already set the record straight. Having read several books on the Winter War, the Finns were severly strapped for almost all weapons and equipment. Maxims were in short supply. (There are some MG scenes in the flick) One of the points of the film is to see how these guys dealt with massed Russian numbers (Albeit moroniclly led) using a few automatic weapons (inc the rare Lahti (sp?) automatic weapon they show in the film) and virtually no anti-tank weapons. With a little reading and research you will see that the Winter War is a pretty accurate film of a specific part of the WW. Both equipment wise, tactically as well as the overall situation. (Probably because it wasn't made in Hollywood it skips over a lot of typical war movie conventions) ANyway I'm glad the IHF site was posted. They also have "Die Frontschau" there, which I spoke about before. Cheers... Los

Yeah a hull down jumbo and a low lying STuGIII are both small signatures. Seems to me crew quality rules all (all has been) esp since both tanks are physically capable of knocking each other out. Was it ever stipulated what units are fighting? Vet's ?regulars? etc etc. Los

"One last question for your opinion, LOS: As for the spotting of tracer rounds by the assistant gunner. Wouldn't the snow be kicked up by the muzzle blast from firing of bursts." Yes as Steve said dust is a bigger problem than snow. It woudln't be too big a factor though loose blowing snow would obscure sighting over distance. And yep packs, firing from skis (not an issue in the Ardennes) or what not is something that is trained for. UNless it's very light powder, you just don't get that kick up. Another nice thing about snow is it's a quick way to keep your MG from overheating... Los

"But... If rounds were coming in, then I am sure the tank commander would pull back in the cupola until the firing stopped." Two thoughts: the TC could be sitting in his tank and bullets are flying around and **** is occsaionally going off here and there, still, he needs to be outside his tank and would not neccesarily button up. It's dangerous but this is war after all. However you are correct in that if rounds started pelting the tank, he'd be down that hole like a scared rabbit. But I guess making a button attempt check on the fly is one of those little details that's to small to plug into the game. (Together with every other little detail then you have to draw the line somewhere.) Of course the vehicle suppression is basically the same thing. "1000m, you would be firing at an area target, not neccessarily a 1' by 1' target of his head. I even have a hard time hitting a target of that size at 1000m with a nice scoped(leopold) bolt-action 30.06." Believe me it's easier to hit a target with a few burst of machinegun guided by tracer and a good assiatant gunner (AG) than it is for the casual person to hit it with a scoped rifle. Anything over 600 yards and ballistics take over. You are talking Kentucky windage and environmental conditions not the simple accuracy of the optics. The gunner is flooding a piece of ground with 6-20 rounds at a squeeze (hopefully less)and with a semi-decent assistant gunner, is guiding the bursts in via tracer and AG guidance. If you fire off 50 rounds at a time ala the movies you are correct in that you won't hit ****. But 6-9 rounds bursts (a little more a little less) and the things are pretty good. STill a klick is a long way but 700 meters in no porblemo. The downside is that tracers work both ways... "The conditions of this game being played would have a great effect in my opinion. On the snow, the bipod would sink from vibration and heat, causing major adjustments to be made at every burst. And after many bursts the melting snow from the heat would cause other problems for the operator to aim accurately." A few quick points here. Just because there is six inches snow on the ground doesn't mean there aren't shallow parts, or that there aren't logs, rocks etc ets. The Machinegun has telescoping bipod whcih means you could make it any length from 6" to almost 12". Nor does the bipod itself get hot enough to melt anything. More over, soldiers are no more stupider than anyone else, they would prepare their firing position, hastily at first, with more detail the longer they stayed there, to ensure that their weapons woudld continue to function. And yes you are very correct that a tripod increase range and accuracy. (more table better optics (in the German model that is). By the way the problem youmention with sinking is actually a bigger porblem for the mortar since the more you fire it, thedeeper it sinks into the ground until it occassionally becomes unfirable since the bipod won't function. Then you have to dig the thing out and start over. Plus teh sinking effect (especially in soft terrain), throws of your solution to the aiming stakes and degrades accuracy, but it's suppression your really after anyway. Cheers... Los

"As stated before, all of the US tanks have been spotted while in good cover and in hull-down positions. That makes the silohette much smaller and harder to spot. From what I could tell, only 1 german tank spotted all of the US tanks." This seems to me a function of training and experience, (in real life, but I'm assuming it's factored into here also) together with some luck. "Do all German infantry carry binoculars?It is hard to see anything at 700-1000m especially when it is not moving. And if I remember only one of the shermans fired at anything." I would imagine most squad leaders would probably have binos, or at least many of them. Even if you are not issued them they are the first thing you snag when you get the chance. "By the way at 1000m the mg42, especially a bi-pod mounted one, would have a hell of a time hitting the little head of a tank commander sticking out of the cupola." It's not as hard as you think. ( I have hit things at that range with both an M60 and an MG3) Again of function of experience more than anything. The hard thing about hitting anything at that range is spotting the targte. The guys sitting on a tank which is very easy to see. Several adjustments could rain rounds down on top of the tank very easily and if the guy is sitting out there he's just as apt to get hit as not. And if the MG is on a tripod a halfway decent guy could nail him in just a few short bursts. Cheers... Los

I don't feel that they went down too easily given their isolated position and massive fire against them. 100 meters is not that far away. If you are going to surrender, the longer you wait (meaning the closer the enemy has to get fight to surrender to you), the less chance you have to survive. ****, in the gulf, some of them started surrendering as soon as we entered the same time zone! <grin> Of course the may just as well have routed and hauled ass but despite what we watch on TV not everyone is cut out to be Audie Murphy. I wouldn't make any single isolated incident into a design flaw. Los Los