JasonC

JK - sure the Glantz study is a classic. Unfortunately, it is mostly focused on the actual use of the Russian airborne in true airborne operations, whether small early drops in support of infiltration missions in the first winter, or the later cross Dnepr drops. He also covers the early doctrinal development stuff and some special uses in small numbers for intel and partisan support and so on. In other words, if it used a parachute, he covers it. If instead it used an infantry formation with an airborne designation, he barely does. He makes only the most passing mention of the waves of airborne used as ground units, their transformation to Guards Rifle Divisions, and so forth. Once they've made any such change, he isn't interested. It would be like writing about the US airborne in WW II and covering Sicily, Normandy, and Market-Garden, but leaving out the battle of the bulge because the men went there on trucks. Except worse, because the Russian airborne force spent most of the war fighting that way, and very little of it conducting parachute drops. It is still worth reading, to be sure. But it is far from being true coverage of the arm or branch of service, or the full history of the formation ever designated "airborne".

Amizauer - I've looked for actual battle loss reports and there are quite a few from the Russian side, on causes of battlefield losses of IS-1s and early IS-2s. A full company of Panthers from ambush at 700 meters - 5 dead IS-1s. Tiger I hits to the lower front hull. Tiger I hits from the side at medium range (1000-1100 meters). Tiger front hits multiple times at 1500-1800 yards, no damage. Then from the flank at 500 meters, KOed and brewed up. StuG ambush from the flank, engine compartment hit from the side, brews up. Multiple cases of Tiger I hits and kills. 3 IS-1s lost to an 88 Flak battery at medium range. Plates hit not specified. 2 IS-2 earlys hit by a "battery" (who knows what that really means?) of PAK40 at 150-200 meters. 8 hits on 1, 4 hits on the other, both knocked out. More StuG engagements with all frontal hits ineffective, followed by side hits up to 800 meters that KO, including another engine compartment hit with fire. Another hits the turret ring but does not penetrate, after which another side hit at 500 meters KOed the IS-2. A Tiger I that bounces shots off the nose at 800 meters, then get a front-side hit that penetrates and kills. Frontal kills by 75L48 in the reports I've found, only the 200 meter PAK battery *maybe* (angle not actually specified, number of hits is). 75L48 kills from the side are confirmed. Some frontal kills by 88L56 are confirmed but appear alongside bounces at 1500 meters or more, and specifically nose armor bounces closer than that. Plenty of 88L56 side hit kills confirmed. Panther hits and kills from the front confirmed, routine. Kills at 1 km plus by 75L48 from the frontal aspect - nowhere to be found. Absence of evidence is not by itself evidence of absence, but when it appears with that many reports of tanks killed by common weapons, it would at least be strange to see none by the most common German weapon type from the most common battle orientation. And there *are* 75L48 reports in the set, they just always kill from the side, or at 200 meters in one case. Nobody is reporting the turret front as an especially vulnerable spot. Make of it what you will.

Sorry, melm is right here and the depiction of JS turret vulnerability is kind of ridiculous in CM. It already was in CMBB, still is in CMRT for the early model ISs. The late ones are fine. The issue is the way the game handles "round" armor - it gives it a high probability of a flat hit with no slope effect to speak of. In real life, the Russians used IS tanks as breakthrough fighters because they could approach dug in antitank guns like PAK 40s frontally, and shell them from medium range, with impunity. Stronger armor on the turret was only needed to handle threats like Panthers and up. Vanilla long 75 German AFVs were greatly outranged, and with the towed version the tank could pick the range (normally, some keyhole and terrain exceptions of course). In CM, only the "late" IS-2s have those characteristics. I've run even number duels between Panzer IVs and IS-2s earlier model and the Panzer IVs are favored. Which is completely ridiculous. Of course the IS-2 gun is sufficient against the Panzer IVs armor, but it has a very low ROF. The IVs get ranging shots then follow ons faster, and easily find not only the turret, but flat hits on the turret that kill IS-2s. In reality, the place where the slope is least is almost all covered by extra mantlet thickness, and the majority of the surface with "only" 100mm of armor has significant slope. A Panther should be favored in that sort of duel, until the late model IS-2s appear. But that even paper thin Panzer IVs with 75L48 guns are better tanks than early IS-2s in tank vs tank fighting is something only CM has ever suggested, and historically is just not remotely credible.

LukeFF is more right on this one. Soviet Naval Infantry was mostly a matter of releasing men drafted for the navy to serve in a ground role because there wasn't enough sea fighting going on to justify a massive commitment of manpower to the navy proper. There were a few prewar formations - one brigade in Leningrad, a few regiments later - that were more like elite marines, but they did not form the bulk of the naval infantry. Only about 10 battalions worth out of something like 40 brigades in all, fit that description. As for the paratroopers, they were picked men and excellent potential material, trained etc, but suffered from being underarmed, rather than having the best of everything. Basically the paratroop formations were light infantry with very minimal artillery support, not really heavily armed enough to stand in the line for long as a rifle formation. They got fire brigade, reserve roles in the ground fighting, sometimes being airlifted to a threatened sector. A few battalion to brigade sized drops supported infiltration and raid tactics by ski brigades, horse cavalry, and partisans in the winter in the northern areas. The famous failed landings during the Dnepr crossings were only about a single division's worth of men. What mostly happened to them, though, was that a wave of paratroop formations would be created (10 divisions worth at a time), wouldn't have actual airborne employment, and before being thrown into the ground battle they'd get redesignated as guards rifle divisions and topped off with the artillery and medium mortars they needed to fight in the line, then got added to combined arms armies wherever the fight was thickest. 3 of the divisions that fought in Stalingrad were former airborne formations, for example. A few of them fought in this manner before such a redesignation - the airborne division at Ponyri in the Kursk battle, for example. Neither was a true elite of the Soviet ground forces. In terms of being overequipped as well as having select manpower. Overequipped actually describes the mechanized component of the army instead, from midwar on at least. Guards formations in all branches won that designation in action and got somewhat more equipment and better replacements than others, but weren't selected enough to be an elite, and had loss rates too high to remain full of veterans (though they all did have veteran cadre). The other selected component of the Soviet infantry arm was the foot recon guys in the rifle armies. These were very small groups of picked men and veterans, and distinct from the motorcycle recon within the mechanized portion. They had night infiltration and intel gathering as their normal missions, plus pathfinding in some assaults. They were the forerunners of the post war Spetznaz - not the wartime airborne. (Though the two roles did merge somewhat, in the postwar period).

History of 1st Infantry division from Jason Pipes, Feldgrau, in relevant part. Poland, France (lightly engaged), then AG North for Barbarossa and Leningrad fighting. But then the continuation - "until October 1943 when it was seconded to Heeresgruppe Süd as part of XXXXVIII.Panzer-Korps. Here the Division saw heavy action in the battle of Krivoi Rog in the Dnieper campaign, and was later encircled with 1.Panzer-Armee between the Bug and the Dnestr rivers in March 1944. The Division managed to breakout as rear-guard of XLVI.Panzer Corps, suffering heavy casualties. Rested and refitted, the Division was next sent to the Central sector of Heeresgruppe Mitte. Escaping piecemeal from the overwhelming Soviet Summer 1944 offensive, but still relatively intact, it remained with what was left of Heeresgruppe Mitte, later ending the war in early 1945 fighting in it's native East Prussia." Thus, 1st Infantry left the AG North sector in the fall of 1943, foguht on that part of the front until March 1944, when it was essentially destroyed. It was rebuilt from the cadre that escaped encirclement at the end of that period, to be thrown in to AG Center for the Bagration fight, which it ran from in pieces. 2400 MP44s would not fully replace rifles, if it was brought up to strength in the rebuild between March and June. It was a large 3 regiment pattern infantry division, which Pipes still showing 2 grenadier and 1 fusilier regiments in its 1944 TOE, plus a divisional recon battalion (fusiliers) and a pioneer battalion, as well as the usual panzerjaegers. This would mean up to 11 infantry type battalions. 2400 rifles won't fully equip 11 battalions with an MP44 for every rifleman.

There are way too many SVT-40s in Red Thunder. It was a 1941 weapon, most of them actually made prewar and the large plants switched away from them by the end of the spring of 1942. With other prewar SVT-38s added, there were only 1.67 million Russian semi autos made through the end of the war. In comparison, there were 8 million SMGs (6 million PPsH and 2 million PPS-43) and over 20 million Mosin Nagants (wartime production 17.5 million, but also millions on hand prewar. Total production of Mosins back to pre WW I era is 37 million rifles, making it the most common firearm in history by a long way). Most of the SVTs were fielded in the prewar army or in the mobilization waves that trained during 1941 and reached the front by December. Production was less in 1942 (the large plants all switched to simpler Mosin production to maximize output in terms of weapon count) and field losses very high, far higher for small arms for the Russians, through the fall of 1942, than at any other time for them, or for any other army in history. There therefore would not have been many left even in mid 1943, let along mid 1944 at the time of Bagration. Low level production was not replacing losses, it was only allowing continued use in specialized roles like designated marksman and sniper rifles. Production ceased completely in January 1945. As a whole war average, out of 100 men equipped with small arms only 5 or 6 would have SVTs, 28 or so would have SMGs, and 67 would have Mosins. And that mix would be weighted more heavily away from the SVTs and toward the SMGs in the summer of 1944. The notion that the Bagration era force would have any increased quantity of semi autos as a late war upgunning development is just completely wrong. Upgunning instead took the form of more LMGs per company and especially many more SMGs, including full SMG formations (in the mech arm especially), and more SMGs per platoon in the line rifle formations.

Ban away, brave one. You don't rule the internet, but feel free to wall off your little corner and stick fingers in your ears. There are players who know more than scenario designers, and their are customers who know more than publishers. The latter are frequently in the dark on the point, confusing role with an expertise. Feel free to take your ball and go home at any time. Until then, I will think what I actually think and say it too. Thicker skins improve learning, thinner ones stagnant. Entirely up to you.

So how would this be done right? Double the length of the front. Double the time. Double the depth of the map, Russian to German side, with most of the extra depth on the German side of the river. Cut the initial Russian force to 2/3rds of that shown, despite the wider front. The frontage should include at least one bend of the river toward the Russians - that shown is sufficient - and a neighboring sector that might have less of that. The initial German force should be 4/3rds as strong on the wider sector, and deeper. The Germans should get another 2/3rds at the back of the map 30 minutes in, as their reserves and deeper lines. But the Russians should get a force as large as the initial one around the 15 minute mark, arrival staggered over 5 minutes to make it easy to control. And the same again at the 30 minute mark, similarly staggered. The last 5 minutes of the prep barrage should be shown within the scenario, as low quality but large caliber Russian FOs using "map fire" missions. This enables the Russian comnander to shape the battlefield as the prep fire concludes. Notice the cumulative effect of those changes. The Russians have their whole, real toolkit of supporting fires. They have choice of areas and times of main effort. They have a deep attack. They are not overcrowded at the start line. They have managable command soans and force to space, albeit at the cost of eventually needing to command a larger force in the second half of the clock. But they also have the depth to absorb losses and continue the mission, in that second half. Nothing has been changed in total forces depicted per linear meter of frontage. But the scale being right, and the limits of time and depicted forces being less falsified by playability concerns, the result is that the Russian player is in actual command of his attack, instead of the scenario designer having shoved him into a stupid approach with only half his tools. That is what I meant by getting the scale and the fire support wrong.

Sgt Joch - you don't even understand what I am saying, so it is completely unsurprising that you don't get it. You claim the scale is "correct for that part of the front", but don't notice how impossible that claim is. What part of the front? Why that part, in left to right distance? Why that depth front to back? Why this amount of time? You say the 3 hour prep fire is clearly out of scope, without noticing that this destroys your claims of accuracy at the outset. Saying "I realize this is pants" in the designer's notes doesn't change the fact that it is pants. You are left presenting the player with the task of crossing a defended river with direct fire support from a flock of SU-76s at point blank range and some 82mm mortars. The actual attack never had that. It had major fire support for hours on chosen points to affect a crossing, and those arms to follow up and deal with holdouts. No, you don't depict that accurately by pretending that the fight starts after it happened. The whole point of that step was to nuke specific points needed to cross obstacles, not just to evenly reduce defenders. How was the time pacing of the actual attack? Let there be X forces per yard of front line - how deep were they layered, front to back? Hint, ignoring the actual prep fire step makes local force concentrations that appear liveable completely false. Under hour long 152mm fire you can't bunch up, you must spread front to back and go deep in holes to survive it. The attackers don't mush their entire strength behind the frontage into the first 60 yards either, then bums rush forward. Why? Area effect weapons. Instead a thinner wave set by the frontage must be sent, but there can be nine of them in a row, one behind the next, spread back half a mile. Pathfinders start forward during the actual barrage. It doesn't lift uniformly in all sectors, instead lifting fifteen minutes early just here, so the Germans stay in their holes while the pathfinders get forward just here. That forms the base of the planned set piece after the rest of the barrage lifts. Where? At loops and bends in rivers and streams, where the defenders can't easily line the bank without making a great arty target and having MGs sited across their position from 180 degrees. Nuke one of those loops with 152s in the last ten minutes of the barrage, then pathfinders across mark routes, then the main body at jump off time, but one wave at a time. You aren't showing any of this, because you don't know enough tactics. You have taken everything out of the attackers real toolkit, in timing, fire coordination, choicd of sector of the frontage to use what. Instead you have applied a mindless even mathematical division of the total attacking force, to an equally mindless even mathematical division of the length of the front, shown only a third of the relevant depth front to back of that much front for formations of this size, scooped out all the bigger artillery weapons, shaved off most of the relevant overwatch fire in the time domain as well - and think it must be accurate, because you looked up 3 numbers and did a couple of arithmetical divisions. And I'm here to tell you and anyone else that the result is unhistorical stupidity, not accurate anything. You have not only sat in the Russian attacking commander's chair, you have imagined and "managed" and divided and abstracted him into the biggest brain dead fool since Pickett's charge. You turn the result over to the player with the effect of "here, I've decided that you are a witless idiot, please play that part in my movie script now." Pound sand. Nobody deserves this treatment as a player.

Lille - I know I can win it, and how. I just have zero interest in such nonsense. To Sgt Joch I call historical BS. Map scale and Russia side fire support in that scenario each have nothing to do with history.

Since he wouldn't get out of my chair, it was all labor lost, in my case. Lessons for other designers - don't write scripts. Don't try to force the player to do this or that. You can't force him to do anything. Reduce the force to space you were thinking of by a factor of 2 or 3, and look at the map again that way. To see whether you need to do it again, not to undo it. You get one chance - screw it up and you will never get another. Scenarios should be playable. Set up shouldn't take 3 hours. No, your set up isn't perfect and doesn't help - see above under "get out of the player's chair". If the units are on top of each other you are doing it wrong. If the units have to move on top of each other you are doing it wrong. If hitting "split squad" results in units on top of each other or unmanagabke command spans you are doing it wrong. Players can command forces a few at a time with arriving reinforcements. But only use this if the real situation is attack offbthe march or similar. In a set piece, the commander must have command of his forces and knowledge of what he has to work with. But you can't exceed playable command soans, for any reason. There is nothing dumber, cheaper, more "low", more stupid than trying to make your AIs job easier by channeling attackers through narrow chokepoints devoid of cover. "Higher ups demand an unprepared attack at the stupiest possible location" is not an excuse. i could go on. But those are enough to prevent monstrosities like this.

Personally, I took a look at the starting situation, briefly reviewed the overpacked number of units, saw what the script writing scenario designer expected, and closed the file. Just stupid beyond words, and not something I was going to indulge.

Doc844 wrote in relevant part " i couldnt get LOS into the copse until i was pretty much on top of it, 30m i think". If you don't have LOS into the patch of trees farther than 30 meters, and your halftrack can't see it either, what are the odds that the position actually matters? Positions that can't see anything don't threaten anything. You shouldn't be spending time or lives to take them. Positions that can see things can be seen from a distance, themselves. This allows heavier overwatch assets to bear on them. There can be "keyhole" firing positions that you can approach out of LOS using the "shadows" they rely on to mask your overwatch, to get near them safely. But they still need some long range pencil of field of fire or they just don't matter, they are "defeated" by their own lack of LOS. If they do have penciled, keyhole LOS, then they need to cross it with some other long thin pencil or you just stay in the shadows. Overlapping pencils can interdict wide areas, but you only need to "blind" a few to get through them. The rest can just be left out of position as irrelevant. The other time a position without long LOS can be something you do have to reduce is a reverse slope situation. A reverse slope position can have highly relevant LOS, blocking all approach routes in conjunction with others on the same (enemy) side of the hill or LOS break. Those need to be approached behind fire, or better still turned out of position, if at all possible. The slope acts as the attacker's shield to pick whether, when, and where to engage. Fundamentally, you need to create fire and movement problems for your opponent more than focus on ground control yourself. Especially the fire problem "I can't see anything from right here", leading to the movement problem "I have to move, myself, I can't just wait for him to come to me" - because you never will, because you don't need to. There can be a need to get close enough to a firing position that matters to get good full spots of stealthy shooters there. That happens all the time. But that doesn't require running right on top of them - cover at 200 yards often suffices, 100 yards at the closest. It is certainly true that you can't kill to the last man, enemy squad infantry forces in solid cover, from 200 meters using just small arms, yourself. But you can't do it from 5 meters either. If you have heavier overwatch weapons, the drill is infantry close enough to get full spots, overwatch works them over, infantry leap frogs down to SMG range. That should make the pin on them permanent, if you have the numbers attackers need to be attacking infantry in solid cover in the first place. If, after the pin looks permanent, you leapfrog a half squad or three to 30 meters to toss in grenades, that is as much "finishing" as the drill calls for. Leave bayonet charges to dead Spartans. They are just unnecessary here, practically always a mistake. You've already seen why - they hand leftovers who are already defeated and ineffective if not charged to point blank into full squad killers, without any effort of their part. Just sitting there to exploit your mistakes and your solving their fire and movement problem for them. To review, the right thing to do about an ATR team in a copse of trees that your armor can't see and that your infantry can't see into until 30 meters range is (1) ignore it. It is out of position, it might as well be on the moon. (2) second best, put a squad at 30 meters and first LOS (split), and leave it there. If they open on anything, they are dead. if they move, they are dead. They are in a jail cell, it is cheap, pressing further is as likely to get that many killed as to clear the spot cheaper. Revert to (1) if you need the squad back, if the enemy doesn't blink first. Get passive-aggressive with your infantry, is the broader lesson. Go to a reasonable spot near him, and dare the enemy to move. You don't need to go into his hole. I hope this helps.

That's your view on it, and you've clearly got stacks of bodies to prove it. Meanwhile, commanders who understand fire correctly and who lower their expectations of the role of movement, their men are still alive. If you can't see the enemy from right here, or the enemy is winning the firefight from right here, movement is possibly called for, purely in order to create the conditions for successful fire. If you are working hard to create conditions enabling 1 shattered enemy soldier to kill 7 of you in command and coordinated soldiers, you are doing something wrong. That's the enemies job, which you should be making as hard as possible, not doing for him. An imaginary ATR isn't going to immobilize a Panther. One, it is imaginary. Two, if it weren't, it is still just an ATR. Three, it doesn't have LOS. Four, if you are really worried you could leave one half squad at the edge of the trees, stationary, facing the renmant deeper in the woods. If he moves to get LOS, you will kill him. Five, you only need even that watch for the 2-5 minutes your Panther is supposedly nearby and supposedly vulnerable. Six, it would only actually be vulnerable if it were a halftrack, not a Panther, and it still would be a heavy favorite to kill the holdout, rather than the reverse. Seven, against the actual surviving tommy gunner, it would be so heavily favored the fight wouldn't happen. Eight, what you enemy actually needs to make one tommy gunner effective is your infantry up close, and moving not firing back. Oh yeah that's what you are giving him for free. You just can't make that smart. Pretzel away about imaginary circumstances, you are still doing the enemy's job and giving him the best combined arms match up he could ever dream up, free.

My normal method is different. I shoot up the woods. Then I ignore the survivors and go elsewhere. Very modest firepower into the open areas around any small copse of trees like that suffice to render any broken leftovers completely irrelevant to the rest of the battle. There is very rarely any actual need to run up on top of the enemy. If you see them take off running, fine. Movement doesn't take ground, fire takes ground.

LukeFF - Having started the thread, and written extensively early in its course, when I see new post listed I check in to see if anyone is still talking about its actual, initial subject matter. Someone might have an actual question about something I said, for example. Common courtesy. When nobody has in several pages, my humorous verdict is "this parrot has ceased to be".

Weapon2010 - I think there is a misconception here about the physical layout of things. The gunner is always looking through his telescopic sight, whether the tank is buttoned or not. Buttoning only affects the tank commander, a different crewmember at a different station within the turret. The tank commander does not have a telescopic sight, whether inside or outside. Inside he has cupola vision blocks letting him look out of the turret in any direction, with only a few blocked areas between those. On the better, cupola equipped tanks at least, including most German models. The tank commander generally has hand held binocs, which he can use from either, but are somewhat easier to use outside. Those give him a wider field of view but less magnification than the gunners telescope. He can also just use his eyes, for wider awareness, but no magnification. Things are a bit different on older tanks, early in the war, allied models especially. Two man turrets require the tank commander to act as the loader, meaning they button to fire and lose wide situational awareness once in a gun duel. Single man turrets have the commander acting as gunner too. That is the only case in which being buttoned means access to a gunsight inside, that isn't available outside. But also requires buttoning to fire etc. In the typical German 3 man turret with cupola case, the best spotting happens unbuttoned, with the gunner fixing on the current target, as the commander uses binocs to scan for the next, and calls directions to the gunner. Both have optics, and the gunners narrow straw at high mag, unable to scan actively, is covered by the commanders binocs doing that for him, first. The TC passes spots to the gunner, who trains to the called azimuth, and magnifies, etc. I hope that helps...

So what does it actually say? What is the extent of its focus, in time, space, and forces? How many days, miles of the front, which units? What do the tables tell us? Is there more there than in e.g. Ketterling's book which gave us the AM German tank strength returns and daily dividional personnel casualty figures, or Glanz who gave us the before and after tank strengths of the various Russian formations engaged? You have twenty minutes to read it and tell us... (grin).

What topic? The thread is as dead as a Monty Python parrot, folks...

Sgt Joch - I was heavily involved in those discussions, as you may recall. And the reason I say things like the initial brittleness or regulars or greens is about right is, precisely, that company scale approaches into fire get some distance and then stall out due to morale failure, before their firepower can suppress the defense but also without getting themselves killed. But the reason I also say that recovery is too fast is that eventual full battle casualties come in at 5 to 10 times historical levels, for comparable scale actions. The reason being the men keep going far more than their historical counterparts do, after first shaken by fire experiences. Ammo consumption comes in far too high and running out is far too tactically important for the same reason - because it takes extreme bullet throw weights to sustain even marginal suppression against overly strong rally power.

To sgt Joch re "control" - well I can influence it as a player, by playing greens. I can't actually control it, though. See, I think the level of initial brittleness under fire of regulars or greens is about right, but they all still recover from dinged morale way too fast. And I cannot control that. If I had all the parameters in my hands like knobs, I'd need to experiment, of course. But the first thing I'd try is slowing rally by a factor of three. Not a small tweak, you see.

Early December when Typhoon fails. The other operations up to that point are all still part of the Barbarossa campaign, to me. When the objective of defeating the Red Army in one swift campaign is formally abandoned, by a forced transition to a defense posture in front of Moscow, Barbarossa is over. Whatever the German army is trying to do after that is following other plans, and goals, and expectations. There are operational and tactical adaptations before then, but no change in the goal, nor in the continuing hope and planning expectation that it can and will be achieved.

ASL Veteran - would it slow down the game? It might. But less rally power might also reduce "board stalls" that occur when each side has enough firepower to suppress the enemy, but the men shot at rally from those effects and the battle continues as a result. With lots of further fire exchanged because of it. My diagnosis of the cause of high losses is that the men "last too long" under fire, in a morale sense rather than an actual men hit sense. Brittler troops don't obviously equate to less decision. They might lead to more decision, to a side giving way at a lower level of losses received to date. I will agree that some of the other measures I've discussed, more modeling of confusion and command delay, would indeed tend to slow down the game. Realistically so in my opinion, but I can see that being independently undesirable for a broad group of players. That is also the only set of the recommendations that can't be implemented without code changes. (Turning down rally power could be done more thoroughly with code changes, but a start can be made in that direction just by making a heavier use of green troops). As for the loss threshold cease fire option, on its own it would tend to end fights earlier than they end now ,which would tend to reduce the number of game turns played per scenario (and losses with it). It might slow fights down by more tentative play by the commanders, within the turns played, but overall would probably make games go faster, even if less death happened per game turn actually played. Fair question...

Sonar is undoubtedly right in his points about bunching and the tac AI being responsible for excess bloodiness even with careful play, and ASL veteran is basically agreeing with me (whatever his other intentions) in pointing out that the game gives godlike player coordination and rapid execution of commands, that real commanders did not have, especially under WWII conditions (vs modern headset-linked comms and such, I mean). I don't think those alone, even combined, actually explain the phenomenon, however. I agree they both do play a role. It is clear to me that morale recovery is simply far faster in CM than anything realistic. I think the men hit per shot are about right (some weapons too high perhaps), with bunching the only issue raising those unrealistically. I think the suppression effect immediately, from fire applied, is also fine, and better than most previous games. Men and units do pin and pin realistically, a company is stopped in the open by morale effect not physical destruction, and the like. But they just snap out of it and continue the mission very very rapidly and reliably. I read AARs from WWI really dumb attacks, for example, including ones that resulted in casualty levels approximating those routinely seen in CM. But the historical result is that the attacking and struck unit goes to ground *and never gets up again*, slinking to the rear at nightfall and in 1s and 2s. In CM, the same fire outcomes and initial suppression would commonly lead to units going heads down for 2 minutes (if not routed) to 5-10 at most, then continuing the mission. This also creates a standing invitation to press. The window in which enemies are made ineffective and vulnerable by prior fire is so short that either one closes with them to finish them, while that is happening, or they will recover and the whole process will need to be gone through again. I also see this fact as linked to the much greater ammo expenditure and firing frequency we have in CM, compared to reality. At bottom the "rally power" of infantry is set far too strong. That may be a concession to player expectations, and it may be that players like Terminator pixeltruppen more than they'd like flesh and blood ones. But I think there are at least different audiences on that score, and I second the idea of allowing each to have what they want through setting differences (akin to the :veteran" etc levels now available). As for the comment that we can't tell, or can't tell from "theater wide casualty levels", we can tell, and the places of disagreement between CM loss rates and real world ones come in much sooner than that, at a much lower unit size and time scale. If you take heavily engaged divisions in an attack stance in the largest attrition battles of the war, you see loss rates around 300 casualties per division-day. I see that in CM with battalion-hours. (Company level fights have a smaller mismatch but still a mismatch - another reason I prefer those, personally). When a battalion-hour in CM is a division-day in real losses, this cannot be ascribed to aggregation questions. We have two distinct dimensions of order of magnitude misalignments, compounded. One of those two powers of ten might plausibly be "covered" by "worst case" or most intensity time or area of effort focus, but not both of them, and especially not with the consistency high losses occur in CM. As for JonS's snark, read the thread title, and review the original poster's lament. People do care that CM is far bloodier than real combat, and not because of imaginary tenderness for electrons, but because it palpably detracts from their playing experience. Both in how believable it is, in tactics effects and roles, in the perceived role of infantry within the combined arms mix, etc. I didn't invent the issue and I am not making it up - I am explaining where I believe its origins lie, and therefore where solutions are possible.

JonS - no, the problem is that typical CM battles, played rationally, have 10 to 100 times the casualty rates of real battles. A pure realism problem. When people pretend it isn't a realism problem, but is just caused by the players playing "wrong", it is necessary to point out that this explanation is false. When people suggest it can be easily corrected by changing victory conditions by making losses more important, it is necessary to point out that this suggested solution does not remotely address the issue. The issue remains one of realism. The game's fault, not the players'. All the morale and confusion and suppression recovery etc aspects I described above, are wrong in CM today. Pixeltruppen are mindless Terminators, compared to actual soldiers, etc. This can be addressed somewhat without code changes. It could be addressed better by code changes. It cannot be addressed by pretending the issue does not exist, or blaming the players, or blaming the VCs scenario designers picked. When instead it isn't addressed, we are left with something halfway to an arcade FPS, rather than am accurate simulation of small unit tactics in WWII. And the people denying this would defend the realism of power ups and medical kits if they were in the game today. They'd blame players for using them if someone pointed out how unrealistic those are. But it is just hopeless.