Tero

Originally posted by Battlefront.com: Adjusting the soldier's actions in the game to match what one expects to see on a battlefield is easy. Well, in theory anyway ;D What we have to do is identif the different action types, then assign them to various ingame conditions. For example, a unit assaulting would look a certain way compared to a unit on the march. A unit on the march getting shot at would change state to a unit taking cover. Note that the action seen by the player is directly tied to the current order the unit is following (be it a player order or a TacAI order). This is identical to how CMx1 works, though infinitely more tied to graphics and animations. As for use of weapons not inherently assigned to a soldier. In general a squad is cross trained on all the weapons within the squad. A crew served weapon/vehicle is also the same way. So, in theory, everybody within a unit knows how to perform the function of every other member. Obviously this doesn't always happen and certainly some members will show better skill at one function compared to another soldier. So if a squad member carrying the LMG goes down, someone else will pick it up. There is no reason in the world for the player to care WHO picks it up, only that it is (within reason, that is). In CMx1 the LMG within a squad tends to stay functional even with losses. When the LMG gunner is "hit", CM checks to see if someone in the squad recovers it. That someone is generally a rifleman, but if there are no riflemen available it will be someone else. Rules within the system, as is, reduce the chance of retention as the squad reduces in size simply because there is less ability to keep a LMG, and the unit itself, functional as manpower diminishes. We will do something similar in CMx2, but hopefully a bit more detailed (delay to recover, for example). In CMx1 if a crew served weapon loses a crew member the units rate of fire is affected and, in some cases, ammo reduced (if the unit moves). I forget the exact rules, but generally the more men in the crew the less that first loss or two matters. Any chance of having the enemy ordnance (both arms and ammo, even separately) being picked up during game play ?

Originally posted by Battlefront.com: I can't afford the time to get sucked into a conversation about it right now. ....And that was my earlier point... if you have a good plan, but it can not be carried out competently by the lower elements, then the plan is in effect not good. (i.e. it won't work). Getting off the side track and back to the CMX (or "zen and game designing" in general ): How does the 1:1 modelling in CM2 tie in with the already existing CM1 competence features like morale and experience ? How can a player in CM2 plan differently for the same tactical situations when playing with troops of different levels of competence ? If 1:1 control is essentially out then how does one cajole the less competent troops into acting the way one wants them to act ? Also, will the player in CM2 actually KNOW the level of competence of the troops he purchaces ? Going by your statement above I would assume the player/commander should be wary about the level of competence of the purchased troops since if RL commanders could really not know how competent the troops would be. How do you plan on getting the mix between training and actual competence woven into the game ?

Originally posted by Battlefront.com: Just to clarify for Tero, the operational plan to defeat a German invasion was brilliant and it eventually worked. Trading space for time was/is the time hounoured Russian defensive strategy. As such it was however a strategic plan, not an operational one. I do admit Stalin had a plan going when he was getting the buffer zone outside the Soviet borders in 1939-40. But by the same token he also killed off most (all ?) of the higher commanders who were able to competently wage the war as envisioned in their pre-war strategic/operational plans. What is more, the modern style armoured formations were disbanded and the doctrine of mobile warfare was shoved aside. All these combined spell out (to me at least) the operational genius was in a state of flux from 1938 to ~1942. IMO Stalin was left with no other options but to trade space for time when he had rendered his own army inoperable with his own actions. And the army was inoperable from the neck up. The small units did what they could as well as they could. What you describe is not IMO a genious operational plan, it is a desperate last ditch effort to save what can be saved. Moving the production facilities beyond the Urals was part of this genious operational plan. Unless of course it is to believed the victories at Nomonhan and Lake Hasan and the failure during Winter War were all parts of the same ingenious operational master plan to lure the Germans (who had worked with the Soviets to develop the basics of mobile armoured warfare) into attacking prematurely. However, they needed several more years to get the plan ready and therefore the plan nearly failed because the attack happened sooner than hoped. And that was my earlier point... if you have a good plan, but it can not be carried out competently by the lower elements, then the plan is in effect not good. (i.e. it won't work). True. But you did not make it clear that by lower elements you meant everything below Stalin, including STAVKA. Stalin came up with some pretty disingenious plans in his time, like the attack to take Kharkov in 1942. And when it went sour he refused to deviate from the plan and this lead to a serious of set backs and disasters which did culminate in the success at Stalingrad. Check out books on the subject by Glanz and Fugate. One of the most interesting aspects of WWII IMHO. Any specific work(s) ?

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: Yeah, but CM (well, CM I) itself is devoid of undergrowth.... So it may be accurate in that sense. Of course since no one knows what CMX2 will really look like any speculation on that on my part would be silly, so you may have a valid point. In the 1:1 representation the role of undergrowth is essential in the sense that while you may spot a man in the bush you never know if it is a team or a full platoon you are facing. Or you may spot all but one man which happens to be the one fielding the SAW and positioned in a way which will ruin your day when he opens up on your flank when you are making your way towards the spotted positions. The placement in the trees isn't really a huge concern - the three man fighting positions (?) seem odd, as does the regular disposition along the squad's front - the Germans often had a single team out front - to stop the enemy and make him deploy - which I gather was the opposite of Allied practice. Certainly their positions were dug at irregular intervals. That is IMO dependant on the terrain. To get the optimal FOF and fire sectors you may have to space them out this evenly. But I agree with you, the position seems way too clean. The lack of camouflage is not a concern, for a game, though of course in "real life" most MG positions were invisible - getting back to your underbrush point. I refer you to Charles Cromwell Martin's autobiography BATTLE DIARY in which he laughs at an "official" photo of a Bren Gun team dug in. The photographer made them scoop away the underbrush - infantry in battle are generally invisible. Kinda makes arguments about their animations seem beside the point too... This does raise the point about wether or not there should be blood visible when the cyber warriors get hit. "Hey Willie - I can't get closer to the ground, me buttons are in the way..." "Is that your ammo poutch or are you just glad to see me ?"

Originally posted by Battlefront.com: Indeed, CMx1 is inherently all about micromanagement because the element that makes or breaks a battle is the optimal and/or imaginative use of the lowest level units (i.e. Squads, Teams, and individual vehicles). Good Company or Battalion level planning doesn't mean a hill of beans if the lowest level units do the wrong thing or fail to do something ingenous. Therefore, the player's best interests lie in getting those little bits to do the right thing AS WELL as planning on when and where those bits engage in relation to all the other little bits. Think of Soviet doctrine, especially in WWII. The lowest level elements were commanded by the least imaginative, flexible, and (very often) trained leaders in the Soviet Army. They were, depending on the period of the war and location, little more than cannon fodder. The real thinking took place at higher levels. Sometimes very brilliant plans were disasters because when it came time to execute everything went wrong. This is the single biggest reason the Soviets ALMOST lost the war in the beginning stages of Barbarossa. Brilliant strategic and operational planning were ALMOST not enough to compensate for the horrible state of the lowest levels of command. I have always thought the fault in the Red Army was with the highest level of command. It was after all the highest ranks of officer corps which was decimated during the purges, not the lowest ones. Even the early performance of the Red Army was a mixed bag. In Nomonhan and Lake Hasan the "unrevised" machine worked brilliantly enough to convince the Japanese not to try anything fancy later on. Poland was a no-contest situation. The failure during Winter War was due to faulty overall planning more than execution of the plans at low levels. The reforms instigated by the experiences during Winter War had not yet taken effect when Barbarossa started. However, at no point did these reforms entail freedom for the small unit commanders beyond a very narrow margin at the very lowest tactical level. They were free to sacrifice their men while executing the plan. High casualties were not detrimental to a junior officers career, failure to fulfill the mission was. IMO the point is the low levels of the Red Army was never really revised from 1938 to 1945 beyond adobting new and improved small unit drills and procedures. They were restricted to executing them in strict accordance of the plans drawn up by the higher echelons of command. At no point were the small unit commanders even ALLOWED any latitude for deviation from the local master plan unless it was within the confines of the global master plan. And even then if anything they were allowed to finish their bit of the plan ahead of schedule. Compared to other armies noted for their level of individual initiave at the low levels of command the entire Red Army structure was planned according to different criteria and different scale. The small parts of the structure were not expected to perform above and beyond the call of duty unless it was in order to make the master plan work. How many of the Red Army operations failed because the plan was sound but the small parts of the machine failed to perform ? Off hand I can not think of any. Even such spectacular failures like the attack of Kharkov it was the plan which was inherently flawed (in addition to the fact the small units had no lattitude to deviate from it once things started to go sour), not the performance of the small units as such. Even at the lowest ebb of the tide in the summer of 1941 it was the small parts of the machine performing their tasks mechanically while the higher echelons of the structure crumbled which saved the country.

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: The defensive positions are something out of a comic book....a mortar FO's dream, catching a whole squad that close and in the same holes, with nice trees to turn into tree bursts... IRL the Finns and the Soviets preferred to position their defensive positions in this manner. At least the Germans and AFAIK the Western Allies preferred to position theirs in front of the tree line. My gripe is the drawing as such does not seem realistic because there is no undergrowth. It looks like the forest is in the UK or some such central European place where the forests are groomed and cleared of unseemly excess vegetation.

Another related issue is firing beyond the visual range (night, fog etc visual conditions). IRL doable but how will it be modelled in the new engine as in the current engine it is denied.

Originally posted by Philippe: Using longbows against cavalry charges in the 15th century is gamey. If someone spreads out a squad to keep concentrated fire from hitting all of it, and if, for some reason, the person firing at him wants to spread his fire evenly across all those targets, all he has to do is tell one clump of men to fire at one target, another at another, and so on down the line. And I'm not describing the game. That's how late 17th century rolling volleys worked in Marlborough's army. The fact that you can simulate that response by splitting your own squads proves that the tactic isn't gamey. Unless real life is gamey (which it is). I'm not sure it's a good idea to make gamey synonymous with 'something I don't like'. In fact, the moral hit the units take when they are split up is gamey.

Originally posted by Michael Emrys: Depends on the army and the unit. But I daresay if a squad on patrol in the average unit of most armies, and certainly the ones with less esprit, took serious casualties, their first priority would be to get their wounded safely back. In deed. But can we assume any and all units going MIA are out on patrol and not in the process of performing some pre-appointed task related to the battalion task at hand ? As I stated, a unit of extraordinary morale and determination might well behave as you describe. True. But they might also be under orders to outflank the enemy positions on that damned hill yonder and they have not gotten the word the general assault was cancelled.

Originally posted by David Chapuis: I am assuming all of this would be calcualted abstractly at the squad level but played in detail in the 'movie'. The way I imagine it, if a squad were to take a casuality, here are examples of possiblities - depending of an array of variables: 1. Bandage script (light wound) - squad firepower drops for 30 seconds (that is CM bandage time) while two guys quickly bandage their friend 2. Checks man who is KIA 3. Pick up comrade - squad halts its move/advance to gather their friend 4. Call for medic (serious wound) - firepower drops for longer as men treat a more serious injury. An medic appears and takes over. 5. Retrieve wounded man - (this could happen when a unit starts advancing but then becomes pinned and a casualty happens at same time) 6. Wounded man left behind (when squad routed) 7. Man wounded but dies while being treated 8. Man wounded and then helpers get wounded To be true to life one set of options is missing: the treatment of friendly KIA. 9. Mobility/firepower momentarily sapped because buddies retrieving the body of their friend. 10. Buddies getting hurt/killed trying to retrieve the friendly KIA 11. Platoon firepower and mobility lowered due to members carrying the injured/fallen with them (especially when retreating).

Does this 1:1 representation mean we get to see mobility kills of vehicles due to the driver becoming a casualty ?

Originally posted by Michael Emrys: While it is in the MIA state, the player has no control over it, AI takes over and its priority is self-preservation. The unit will seek cover and usually try to head back to friendly lines. [NB: Exceptions to this rule can be made for special do-or-die Commando type units.] That does not correspond to RL very well. IRL the unit would have what you might call master plan orders to fulfill. Going out of CC and getting fired at is not grounds for abandoning these orders very lightly. What would be needed in the game are two levels of orders. The master plan orders the unit follows by default and ad-hoc (or initial fragmentary orders and supplemental) orders to counter the developing situation. To be able to countermand or change the initial master plan orders the unit would have to be in CC. Should the unit fall out of CC it would continue to act according the last standing master plan orders it received until in CC again.

Originally posted by Glider: Back to "fire at 300-500m" issue, do I gain anything that way? With games of 30+ turns he has more than enough time to rally and push forward from cover to cover. I look at the problem slightly differently. His success is dependant on how you have placed your defences every bit as much as it is dependant on his plan of attack. ANY delay in the opponents plan works against him. That means that in order to have the assets in place for the final push he needs to manage them closely. If you take pot shots at his exposed units it means he has to use terrain which takes that much longer to traverse. A well placed barrage or a few on-map mortar shells will send his units ducking. Recovering from that will take precious time. Also, if the half-squads bunch up they will merge. Make that work FOR you. You can ruin his plan by simply forcing him to commit heavier assets earlier than planned. Or by forcing him to divert from his axis of advance. The half-squad rush works only if he can attain local superiority when he wants where he wants.

Originally posted by Glider: Open fire at 300-500 metres with inf squads? Would it not be just a waste of ammo? Depends how you see it really. The idea is to suppress the oncoming half-squad infantry hordes, right ? The half-squads have already sustained a morale hit when they were split up so in theory suppressing them will not take as much ammo as it would take to suppress a full squad. At 300-500 meters the ROF is not that great so the ammo used should not drain it all out too fast. The Borg makes all half-squads fire at your spotted full squad(s). If you have set up your zones fortuitously your squads will suppress enough of them so your units will not get suppressed too much. CAVEAT: any oncoming armour must be dealt with other means. They are sure to ruin your day if you let them advance alongside the horde AND engage your defending units.

I have a couple of PBEM regulars who like to spring the half-squad attacks on me. Defending against the half-squad hordes I usually keep my squads fairly close together, all in CC. I place the defence positions insider woods whenever possible so the attack must traverse open ground before reaching my positions. Reverse slope works also but it is harder to manage in case the plan crumbles. A LMG or HMG to lace up the platoon is preferable too. The key IMO is to issue cover arc zones rather than direct fire commands. Normally I do not overlap the zones so I can cover more ground. I do plot them all the way to the LOS limit or 300-500 meters, which ever comes first. That way my units switch fire from supperessed units to live ones more likely. And the attackers are more likely to stall far away from the defences. Works great on on rushing (running) half-squads too unless the overwatch fire is withering. Oh, almost forgot: split squads take a morale hit. That is bit of data is worth its weight in gold.

Originally posted by Battlefront.com: But yes, if you want a "perfect" Battalion level simulation the player would be limited to ONE role and the hundreds of others would be handled individually by other players, specialized AIs, or a combo of both. Can the human player, in your opinion, sit anywhere else than on the top if playing alone ? The more one tries for perfection, the more one has to accept the necessity to restrict the player. The less restriction inherently means less realisim. It is a dynamic that can not be worked around. Could you envision a simulation where the parameters (like lattitude in making decisions and how they take effect) the human player is playing along would be controlled dynamically by the AI ? Would that work in a commercial strategy/tactical simulation ? Don't confuse how a sim is designed from how it works once it is "played". In a sim design there is nothing that is random. From the design point of view, yes. Being a simulation it would have to mimic RL where the chances for (seeming or genuine) random occurances are infinite. Randomness is nothing more than a design with a wider array of possibilities. The simulated world is perfect.

If I'm reading this right you are talking what amounts to a RPG with X number of commanders in multiple levels of command and at least one of them is the human player. Where does the human player sit ? On the top or anywhere in the chain of command ? BTW: where, in your elements hierarchy, does the randomness (for example the mechanical functionality/reliability of the element, random changes in the environment, random factors in the interaction and timing of the decision) fit in ?

The first time I saw actual footage of the flak drilling SdKfz-251.

Originally posted by jim crowley: So using company/battalion level battles to determine the course of a campaign (Normandy, Italy, Sicily etc.) seems entirely wrong to me. The thing is it seems every campaign has a "make or break" king pin moment where the deciding battalion/company/platoon/squad/individual action has the success/failure of the entire campaign/action is hanging in the balance. In some cases it seems there were several such moments.

Originally posted by Sergei: While an individual unit might occasionally make a difference at a certain time and place, the likelihood of one unit decisively changing the outcome of a whole campaign is low. Well okay, I guess if the Finnish StuG Battalion hadn't stopped the T-34's in summer of 1944, then Abba would probably have sung Waterloo in Russian. But I think that mostly these individual factors affect things like "when" and "at what cost", not whether the overall outcome would be attained. Take the Cook's case, for instance. What difference did it make? Germans got Arnhem anyway, and then kept it for some months. XXX Corps didn't open the road to Berlin. Of course, then there's the chaos theory. If a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, could it cause an early winter in Russia? The Finnish Stug's are the most obvious and notable operators. But looking from a different angle, their operations WORKED in the framework of the Finnish master plan while they threw a monkey wrench in the Red Army master plan. So what has to be looked for is success/failure in relation to the master plan. The Finnish defenders of Viipuri in 1944 failed miserably but that did not affect the Finnish army master plan as the loss was only a prestige loss of little military importance. If we take the defenders at Kollaa, those companies/brigades/battalions had a huge overall effected on the larger theater of operations. Not to mention the units along the Raate road. IMO a suitable non-Finnish example would be for example the various Kharkov operations. The induction of DAK elements in Africa in the early stages another. The defenders of Tobruk spring to mind too. The units keeping the Falaise gap open could be included in this cathegory too.

Originally posted by sand digger: During the Reign of the Matilda the game is unfortunately skewed against the Axis. Play a QB against a competent opponent who has Matilda's and you can't win. Due to a number of factors. One, big HE is way undermodelled in its effect against armour. Two, the German tanks are given no chance at all of inflicting damage and behave through the TacAI accordingly. Three, you can't indirect fire on map artillery nor can you dig it in. It is interesting how easily (relatively speaking) the 50L60 takes down the Red Army Matildas in CMBB as opposed to the British Matildas in CMAK.

Originally posted by Michael Emrys: Someone remarked back when AK was first introduced that the North African war is best appreciated at the operational rather than the tactical level, and it's possible there may be something to that. There is no fuel shortage to stall your armour any minute during the game. and omissions (where's the LRDG and the SAS?) In the same place where they placed the Brandenburgers and the Finnish LRRP's ? You can model these with appropriate force selections but a huge map all infantry LRRP action in CMBB is TEDIOUS. And a LRDG action simulated with infantry on trucks makes for a fast game.

Originally posted by JonS: See Fendick and Blackburn. Both had to use German maps of Germany at times during late 44/early 45. They thought the maps were very poor. And that was likely as good as German maps ever got. On this I have to agree with you. It would seem indeed all the years the Germans spent occupying France they never did any cartographical survey even in the most likely invasion areas. Also, numerous anecdotes exist regarding Germans preference for English maps in NA. I am aware of this. The Germans did use captured maps whenever possible. But doesn't that mean (by the same token) the maps German used in NA were at least as good as the English (WA) maps ? Yes yes. We all know that the Finnish army won WWII single handedly. Temper, temper. However, even those dummies in the RE and RAF managed to figure out how to take strip photos, and grid both vertical and oblique photos to make them useful. As did most armies. But how many army besides the Finnish army had the cartograpical service specifically developed and operated by the artillery arm. How many armies had a single camera do the work like this camera ? http://foto.hut.fi/seura/members/lofstrom.html LOL. You want me to give you a succinct exposition on global training of the British, CW, and US armies? Piss off. Or try reading something like Harrison-Place, Before pissing off, I trust you are aware then of his conclusions concerning the quality of the British training and the success of the artillery heavy tactics and doctrine of the British army in his book "Military Training in the British Army, 1940-44" ?

Originally posted by junk2drive: I am fairly sure that if the UK was occupied by the Nazis that things would have been different in the USA. The election results in the above link were fairly close. If Wilkie stayed with his pro war platform, with an occupied England, maybe he wins and Congress has to follow his lead. The thing is Hitler may not have opted for a direct occupation but a "honourable" peace.