nijis

As someone whose interest (and home) is in the contemporary Middle East, I'm pretty over the moon about this particular choice. However, for those who aren't as parochial as I am, I think this is exactly the kind of setting that shows off where CM1 stumbled, which is urban combat. Also, and I don't know if BFC intended this or not, setting the game in situations very close to Iraq allows feedback from folks who have very recently been directly involved in similar operations. Anyone who's interested in CMx2 becoming as realistic as possible should welcome this choice of setting.

Actually, it would be Allahu Akbar, (God is greater/the greatest) with a kaf not a qaf. Allahu Aqbar might mean something like ''God is a bunch of capers.'' Allahu Akhbar means God is News, which I think is a noble sentiment but not, unfortunately, what I imagine folks would exclaim on the battlefield. Sorry for the pedantry, but I don't get that many chances to be a grog on this forum.

I imagine battlefield exclamations would be quite a mix of sacred (classical Arabic) and profane (Levantine colloquial). Will ask around.

A variation on the idea -- allow players to control as units that are as large as they want, but penalize them for commanding anything more than a reinforced company or so. Say, you can control a battalion if you want, but you'll be faced with whopping command delays, or maybe you can only issue commands once every 2-3 minutes instead of once every minute. As I understand it, a battalion-level operation simply isn't going to move as fast as a company-level operation. What you're modeling here is a choice between a small, flexible force or a large, inflexible force. Want to grab that objective fast and move on? Use a company. Want to overwhelm the opposition, even if it means that you lose lots of time trying to coordinate the left flank with the right flank? Use a battalion. Something like this could also be used with multiplayer to simulate armies with centralized command structures and/or incompetent junior officers, fighting armies whose junior officers are trained to take the initiative. The examples I'm most familiar with are the Arab-Israeli wars. For example, a battalion versus battalion in the Sinai in 1967 could have an Israeli force commanded by three company-level players communicating imperfectly but issuing orders every minute, versus one Egyptian battalion commander issuing orders every three minutes. The Egyptian player would have a hard time reacting to getting flanked, columns would stall for long periods as soon as the lead tank was knocked out, strongpoints would fail to come to each others' defense -- all stuff that happened repeatedly with Arab forces in 1967 and 1973. This could be a nice way to model decentralized versus centralized armies, although it might be pretty frustrating for the centralized side. [ September 12, 2005, 03:13 AM: Message edited by: nijis ]

1) More detailed terrain and modelling of infantry doctrine, particularly in urban combat. For example, it's my understanding that a modern US infantry squad could probably advance down a street against a machinegun nest with a reasonable chance of success, using suppression fire, short dashes from street corner to doorway to burnt-out vehicle, etc. I assume a fairly high-quality WW2 squad probably could too, although less effectively because they'd have fewer automatic weapons and less specific training. Meanwhile, based on everything I've seen, heard, or read, even well-motivated and experienced militias and guerillas rarely do fire-and-movement, because they're not really familiar with it. I understand this something like this is already being done, with 1:1 representation and squads broken into teams and all. What I'd like to see improved upon is the ''advance'' command in CMBB -- the squad, a blob on the map rather than some guys moving and some guys in cover firing, will move slowly out to the open, get pinned immediately, try to crawl back to cover (the square house tile) and get shot up on the way back too. 2) Uneditable weapons and vehicle characteristics, but editable (and plentiful) troop quality ''intangibles'' -- even beyond what Thompson and others suggest in terms of differentiating training, experience, and morale. This will be particularly useful when if the system moves beyond WW2 and starts getting into irregulars. Unlike the front armour of a Panther, infantry quality can't be quantified, and for the most part anecdotal evidence is the best you can do. Scenario designers can do this a bit with commander attributes, but the differences don't really seem pronounced enough to make that much difference into how a scenario plays out. Without going into national characteristics, I'd love to see a system which gave infantry lots and lots of attributes -- motivation/morale, weapons handling, tactical maneuvering, officer initiative, physical fitness, stealth/use of cover, situational awareness, something like integration into the larger unit that affects command times and whether or not it relays information -- that scenario designers can tweak to model perceived differences between Mahdi Army militiamen (suicidally brave but can't hit the broad side of a barn), 1967 Arab Legionnaires (good putting rounds on target but don't react to being flanked), Haber Jedir clansmen (usually high on qat and sometimes forget to duck), wily old peshmerga (expert ambushers but have never done a day's worth of tactical drill in their life) to whatever else. 3) Borg spotting Keep: 1) The basics of a great system -- wego, focus on realism, quick battles, the interface, ability to control individual squads and vehicles. I'd sure like PBEM too. 2) Design emphasis on company-level scale. Makes C&C less unrealistic. Hey, I'd say take it down to platoon if we could get true LOS/LOF. [ September 10, 2005, 07:22 AM: Message edited by: nijis ]

Here's a link for the weather in Marsa Matruh, which I think would be pretty typical of the coast from Alex to Cyrenaica at least. http://www.weatherunderground.com/global/stations/62306.html Lived in Cairo for 10 years. It can get really cold at night, esepcially as the houses lack insulation and central heating.

A compromise between the fast borg’s-eye battles we have now and a slow, frustrating command simulator where you don’t know what’s happening might come from an abstraction – global cohesion, similar to global morale. Basically it would represent the unit CO’s grasp of the big picture of the battle. Every time you issue an order, global cohesion drops shortly. The amount it drops has to do with whether or not the squad is in contact with its platoon CO, the platoon CO in contact with the company CO, etc. The more that junior officers take their own initiative, the less of a big picture the senior commander has. Cohesion also drops when units break or are lost, when HQs come under fire, when orders are cancelled, etc. Every turn you do nothing, global cohesion climbs back up. This simulates time spent on the radio, sending and receiving runners, etc. Once you enter into a red zone – global cohesion below 20 percent or something – then there’s an ever-increasing chance that you don’t get to issue any orders at all. This would allow the borg’s-eye battle spectacular overviews of the battle, but make it harder for the player to exploit his knowledge. It also allows limited micromanagement. If a platoon commander walks over a ridge-line, out of contact with his company CO, and comes under fire, he’s not unrealistically restricted to doing nothing. However, it also prevents the player from sending individual platoons over the board willy-nilly without penalty. In addition to rewarding commanders for keeping their plans relatively simple, this also forces each side to stop and regroup after making contact, completing complicated flanking maneuvers, etc, thus slowing down the pace of the battle. I don’t know if this kind of abstraction is BTS’ kind of thing or not, but it might at least be one theoretical way of handling the perennial wargame dilemma of realistic command and control versus a playable game. [ January 15, 2004, 06:31 AM: Message edited by: nijis ]

Ah, you sent me thumbing through my Beevor. Great book that. He describes sniperism as a "cult." Recommend also highly his book on Crete, if you haven't already got it. [ November 03, 2002, 08:32 PM: Message edited by: nijis ]

Soddball's point about sniper spotting is key. They may see stuff well, but according to my understanding they operated as individuals/small teams and wouldn't have made much effort to communicate with other troops on the map, at least not in the timeframe of the game. Under the current engine, their presence would dramatically and ahistorically improve the spotting ability of the side which controls them. Even when relative spotting is written into the game engine, they would probably have to be under the control of the AI like aircraft, if they were to be included at all. On the topic, does "sniperism" as a military doctrine actually have much meat to it, or is the term more a way of suggesting that the success of snipers was in some way related to Marxism-Leninism or the collective? I think this may have come up on the board before, but for whatever reason I had no luck with the search.

Bump

Another vote in praise of boxlessness. CMBO went direct to my mailbox, escaping Customs' notice. If a plump-looking box were to arrive, it would be all hands on deck and hoist the Jolly Roger.

I wasn't trying to suggest that the radios had anything to do with spotting, but with reaction -- that buttoned tanks without radios (and cupolas, now that you mention it) should have very little chance of reacting to a spotted target that's to their flank or rear. Given the amount of time that's clearly gone into the game, however, I'm certainly willing to believe that the armor/infantry balance is the best it can be within the limits of borg spotting. Certainly looking forward to all the cool relative spotting features. [ September 10, 2002, 01:07 PM: Message edited by: nijis ]

I posted this on the Russian infantry thread before, but it didn't get a response, so here goes again. Contains Yelnia spoilers. Lest I be accused of whinging, I'd like to start off by saying that the demo's great, the scenarios show off the changes in the system, the graphics are beautiful and I've learned to quit worrying and love the shockwave-free bomb, or shell as the case may be. My one reservation is that radioless, buttoned-up tanks still seem to have an awfully easy time acquiring targets. I've had the T-34s in the Yelnia scenario motor up and down the line of foxholes, happily acquiring and dispatching infantry to their rear and flanks as soon as they popped up to throw a grenade bundle or whatnot. This means that Soviet heavies can't just break through the German lines (realistic), but can also go about methodically destroying all the enemy infantry on the battlefield (maybe not so realistic, although I can hardly claim to be an Eastern Front grog). The tanks did admittedly have the advantage of an infantry battalion a few hundred meters to their rear borg-spotting for them. Probably until relative spotting can be introduced it will be impossible to get the infantry/armor balance of power just right; some scenarios will favor the infantry and others the vehicles. However, I did want to hear if any other players had the same feeling, if it came up on the Beta forum, etc. I had one idea involving command delays for buttoned, radioless AFVs -- not only should they be stiff, but they should be random. Say, 65 seconds tick down, and each subsequent second there's a one in something chance that the tank finally kicks into action. This makes it much more difficult to coordinate moves. Maybe this should only apply if the buttoned tank is out of visual contact with its commander, and can't see the flags or flares come out of the hatches. Or maybe it's not codeable, or not realistic, or not worth an overworked BFC's while, or some combination of the three. [ September 10, 2002, 12:35 PM: Message edited by: nijis ]

I tried infantry-only and tank-only Russian attack vs the AI. The infantry one, naturally, I lost, but I suffered acceptably moderate casualties (56) and managed to inflict 12, mostly by small arms fire, and pushed the line almost to the German foxholes. If the game were an operation, the push would have netted me an acceptable jump-off point for the next attack.. It felt realistic, anyway. The tank attack I'm less sure about. I lost most of them eventually -- one to the AT guns and four to infantry attack, as I recall -- but I was being deliberately careless, driving up right next to the woods to sniff out infantry and whatnot. Buttoned-up, radioless tanks could still coordinate attacks, even if they had to wait a minute or two due to command delays, and could motor up and down the line of foxholes swiftly acquiring and dispatching any infantry who might pop up to trouble them. I can hardly claim to be an Eastern Front grog, but it doesn't seem to mesh with the descriptions of visibilty from within a buttoned T-34 that you read about in this forum. I hadn't hidden my infantry, however, so maybe the tanks benefited from having a battalion a few hundred meters away spotting for them. It's probably not possible to get the infantry/armor balance of power just right for every circumstance, especially prior to the introduction of relative spotting. [ September 09, 2002, 02:45 PM: Message edited by: nijis ]

I kinda miss the shockwave

Small arms fire kicking up dirt, and the accompanying thwack-thwack noise

Grog question -- Did T-34 brake fluid make for as good a drink as post-war tank hydraulics are said to? If so, were there any preferred mixers, or should it just be drunk with a little umbrella and an olive? [ August 28, 2002, 02:43 AM: Message edited by: nijis ]

One in the Imperial War Museum, too: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/exhibits/ex-corner.htm

Any recommendations for operations that do the pace of battle well, where the front line redrawing problems aren't too pronounced? [ August 25, 2002, 12:42 PM: Message edited by: nijis ]

I gather that the system is supposed to incrementally improve so that a CM game resembles more closely, although never perfectly, an actual battle, examples being extreme spotting for CMBB and relative spotting for the engine re-write. However, BFC has said that a command sim is not what they are designing. I'm sure this has been proposed before, but it seems that a relatively simple system of company axes of advance -- troops are hit with whopping C&C delays to move too far away from them and maybe can't deliberately target enemies that are outside of them -- would help slow down the pace of battle, allowing the player to plan an attack like a battalion commander, micromanage the small-scale firefights like a platoon or company commander, but reduce the effects of the telepathic link between battalion and company commander. Also, if you want a game that really gets into the pace of battle and C&C issues, get Airborne Assault. [ August 25, 2002, 12:21 PM: Message edited by: nijis ]

My impression is that platoon-sized engagements in CM play pretty close to descriptions of platoon-sized firefights, and company-sized battles aren't bad. The bigger the board, the more the player's perfect knowledge of his troops' condition and borg spotting distort results. If you want a more realistically-paced battle, stick to small actions (and use green troops).

Cool. Thanks for the quick response, as always.

Maybe it's just me, but I kinda prefer the Beta demo's treatment of cities. Brussels, Paris, and Belgrade weren't particularly nasty nuts to crack in the war, but they are in the demo, even with corps as garrisons. I understand that maybe Leningrad, Stalingrad, and Moscow needed defensive beefing up, but I'm not sure that changing blitzkrieg into siege warfare is the best way to go about this. Other than that, I thought the Gold demo was a big step up, and look forward to the final version, Festung Brussels or not.

If you're desperate to simulate wasteful or otherwise substandard Soviet tactics, seems to me the best way would be to play Germans vs. the AI, although the AI might arguably coordinate its troops better than your average 1941 Soviet commander. Your average two-player CM battle would represent the engagements when both commanders knew what they were doing.

Off the top of my head, how about limiting invasions to one unit per power per turn, to simulate shortages of landing craft? This includes both friendly and enemy controlled hexes. Everything over that limit has to go through a port. I don't know the figures for the D-Day build-up off the top of my head, but I don't think that either it or any other post-invasion build-up went much faster than this. This could be a house rule, even if not implemented in the final version of the game. [ July 08, 2002, 06:34 AM: Message edited by: nijis ]