PzKpfwIII

General Wainwright was regarded - retroactively - as a hero even though he surrendered all US and Filipino forces in the Bataan peninsula. In fact, he got the Medal of Honor for his direction of the fighting up to the final capitulation. There is much speculation as to how politically motivated the award was, but the fact remains the award was made after the surrender (in fact, after the war ended and Wainwright returned home). Conversely, Paulus was demonized for his surrender of the 6th Army at Stalingrad - though much of this may have to do also with his broadcasting for the Russians while in captivity. But he certainly did not get the Knight's Cross. He was promoted by Hitler in the belief that he would kill himself; no German Field Marshall had ever fallen into enemy hands alive. Paulus surrendered the 91,000 remaining men under his command the next day. Different cultures. The Germans seem to have been rather more nihilist; suicide was very common and shooting officers for no other reason than losing a battle was not unheard of - the unfortunate commanders of the garrison at Remagen were tried, convicted and - those that hadn't been captured - executed swiftly and summarily. They had commited no crime nor had they deserted their posts. They simply happened to lose the battle. That is an extreme example and things were rather chaotic in the last weeks of the war but still illustrates well I think some of the underlying differences you speak of. [ October 27, 2005, 04:44 PM: Message edited by: Russophile ]

I hope we will be seeing your Stalingrad maps in CM:C? Would be a shame if all we had to do was steal Charles Kibler's stuff from the ASL modules... Infantry combat in CMX1 was very abstractly handled and so naturally a move to CMX2 would be more - interesting. Being abstract also, it was - well, dull - to watch squads sit in the middle of factories and shoot at each other for several turns with no sweeping movements possible. Not sure if a 1:1 treatment would remedy that or not. For now, though, I think the real fun of a Stalingrad themed CM game would be in maneuvering forces on a CMC map in order to create unbalanced scenarios. The Stalingrad battles in CMBB were - as you point out - repetitive and to me seemed to lack options for the players.

When I said "alleviate" I wasn't referring to the defence necessarily - I was thinking primarily of the ability to infiltrate out of its encirclement, but this could also mean digging in and camouflaging (hiding, if you will, or at least remaining inconspicuous), breaking out, or waiting for the remainder of its battalion or a neighbouring unit to break in. Surrenders at lower levels were probably very tricky to orchestrate; not insignificantly, no army in the world taught its men how to go about giving up. In fact, surrender was discouraged strongly if not forbidden outright in principle if not precise orders. As for the latter, orders to "hold out to the last man" can be dismissed as rhetoric by an Army commander, but to a lowly lieutenant, captain or major, repurcussions for failure to adhere to these orders would have been severe. Executions for cowardice in both the German and Russian armies were probably as common as the issuance of "stand or die" orders. Even for units engaged in less dramatic operations with no such orders, it would have been expected of troops to perform their duties without regard for their lives. One sees in both the Landser and the Frontovik a certain fatalist resignation to the performance of their duties, bordering in some cases on fanaticism. One does not like to generalize, but the intensity of operations on the Eastern Front seems, to me, to be testimony to the dedication soldiers on both sides had. And a reluctance to simply give up in order to preserve human life; this seems inconsistent with what is generally known about the combatants on both sides and the nature of warfare in the East. In fact, every German soldier swore an oath, avowing that "as a brave soldier I am prepared to give my life for this oath at any time." It was expected. An Army commander, on the other hand, would be responsible for thousands of lives. The company commander can morally pledge to fight to the last knowing that he shares the same risks as the few dozen men under his command and will share their fate. I think - without ever having been one myself, naturally - that an army commander may proceed from different moral assumptions when surrendering his command.

That's not a given. And certainly not in the case of many units on the Eastern Front where no quarter was, as the old phrase goes, neither expected nor given. I'd be interested to see an example of a Waffen SS unit who simply "gave up" for "humanitarian reasons." I think you may be confusing larger situations with that of a company. An encircled company was capable of doing and expecting much more to alleviate its condition than an encircled army. If you can present some examples of organized company-sized surrenders, I would be interested in reading them. A company might fall to pieces in action and the men surrender in droves, but an organized surrender, at the decision of the company commander, would have been a rare thing - and probably unheard of in most corners of the Eastern Front. The fight itself would be realistic. If men started to surrender in droves, that would be realistic too. But an organized surrender by a company commander without a fight would seem on the face of it to be something of a fantasy.

What the hell are you talking about? Are you even familiar with the battle of Stalingrad? There were battles for bunkers, factories, apartment buildings, etc. There was also a major feature smack in the middle of town called Mamayev Hill where literally tens of thousands of men died. The combat on that hill was ferocious and never-ending, with each sides sending patrols, infiltrating, assaulting it numerous times as the "lines" fluctuated back and forth endlessly. I believe that they are still finding bones on that hill, when the rain washed the soil away... There was also "Pavlov's House" where a platoon of isolated Russians held off numerous German assaults for two months. These are just a few of the specific encounters that I can think of. (There's also the Grainery...) In other words, the Battle for Stalingrad is chock full of encounters that would make for excellent scenarios in the CMx2.0 engine. </font>

From my perspective this is one of the better posts on this forum to date; historical practice is compared to how things might be portrayed in the game. My only question would be regarding the relation of force density to map size. I am wondering if there would be circumstances, as you see it, in which flanking movements by companies would be portrayed in the tactical games (ie a CMBB map that is wide enough to allow company sized units to maneuver to the flanks of an opposing enemy force)? You state quite explicitly that maneuvering would be done on the operational level map, but the mechanics of that are still not clear; it would appear that such movement will be from a 2km tile to another 2km tile. I'm wondering if infiltration (especially at night) by company or even battalion sized MEs would be possible in the operational layer, and if not, if you don't think that such maneuvers should be possible in the tactical layer?

This was more game than sim, though. IIRC you went into action solo? Microprose's M1 Tank Platoon game had semi-realistic force compositions and the enemy used Soviet doctrine (or claimed to). Some complained about the "vector graphics" in Microprose's game - the Wargamer had an indepth review of Steel Thunder by an actual US armor officer. He hated vector graphics so he turned his nose up at M-1, but gave Steel Thunder high marks because the engine start up sequence was accurate. Having owned Panzer Commaner, M-1 Tank Platoon II, M4, Muzzle Velocity and a couple others, I've yet to see a tank sim that comes close to the sheer fun of M-1 Tank Platoon. Had they simply updated the graphics it would have been a blast to play. The same thing happened when they updated Red Baron II from Red Baron; somehow all the fun got sucked out of it in the process.

Again, my guess is that this is all predetermined by the campaign creator in the editor, using Maneuver Elements of his choosing. For a German division, he might pick as many rifle companies as were present historically in a division, plus FOs, and then decide - according to his historical research, or on a whim - to attach say a ME of a StuG company (or to be more flexible, three StuG platoons). Have you read the FAQ thread yet, incidentally? May be good stuff in there for you.

I don't know any more than you do. I would guess that play would be optimized for division size forces (simply by sheer number of CMBB games that would be generated) but that masochists could design larger battles - rather like CMBB, which is company or battalion sized in scope but some scenario designers can pack a regiment/brigade onto the map if they want. Like everyone else here, we are pretty much waiting to see what develops.

I suspect that "hundreds of square kilometres" is an upper limit, Grisha; campaign designers would not be obligated to make maps that large. Bear in mind that even an average map operational map of say 30 CMC operational tiles (in a 5 x 6 grid) still gives you 120 square kilometres of terrain, with perhaps the first row of tiles never being fought over, nor, if things go wellf or the attacker, the last row of tiles.

HA! You know, I never even considered doing it the other way. You're right, of course. But in my defence, we're talking about doing up 2x2s now so it just seemed logical....however, see my next point... Yes, this will be optimal. I'm looking forward to "historical" campaigns - I've gravitated to historical battles and operations in CMBB not out of snobbery but because the terrain and orders of battle tend to have a better "feel", as intangible as that may be, than some of the fictional creations. Bearing in mind of course the limitations of recreating history in CMBB and the whole historical/semi-historical debate. Exactly. One trend that I am not a fan of that happened quite a bit in the heady days of the Scenario Rush were giant operational areas scaled down by a factor of ten to fit onto a CMBB map, with forces scaled down as well. Interesting concept, but I think the 1:1 modelling (to steal a phrase) has much more exciting possibilities. However, from some of the posts here, one can hear the 10th Power proponents (or was that exponents?) about to work their magic again, scaling down the entire 6th Army to work in CM:C. Or perhaps "Destruction of Army Group Centre". Time will tell how effective it may be. A final thought though....might be an interesting twist to see a set of 2x2 maps made up entirely of converted SL boards...no more hiding dad's pool table or cursing mom's cats. Just remember, Runyan99, it was your idea.

The danger of this is that people get too familiar with the maps, which was what happened with Squad Leader, PanzerBlitz, PanzerLeader, et al. You also don't have the option of "rotating" the maps in CM as you did in those games so not only would the terrain get to be familiar, but the orientation of the map would not differ. There would also be the problem of operations "flowing" from one map to the next - from steppe to rolling terrain to mountains from one map to the next, unless there was some way of codifying by more than just the main terrain type. Lastly would be the problem of creating the operational map from the conglomeration of 2x2 maps one selects at random, which I think would be crucial to decision making. We have not yet heard word on whether the 2x2 maps would be visible to players during the operational phase yet; if not the fidelity of the minimap would be even more important. I think in the case of CM:C we may be counting on the skills of the campaign designers and less able to build "on the fly" campaigns. Even if all the above can be conquered, there would be the matter of building orders of battle that would be reasonably challenging (ie balanced) and suitable (not necessarily matched to) for the terrain - ie mountain troops instead of heavy tanks for mountainous terrain.

Given that the upper limit of the game seems to be a division, I'd say that three or so regiments would have to be pretty badly beaten up before a player would surrender; one would also not see it on the tactical maps. Does raise the question of whether or not auto-surrender will be possible in the operational phase, but like everything, seems like a wait-and-see until the game actually comes out.

Newsreel footage was notoriously unreliable and in the majority of instances shot away from the front line. I would be loathe to use this form of "evidence" as concrete proof of any type of military practice. Given the vulnerability of artillery crews and camera crews alike to small arms fire, I'd suggest that additional sources would be necessary before accepting newsreel footage as indicative of actual practice.

Excellent point; however - and I have no idea if this will be addressed in CM:C or not - you could simulate a prior reconnaissance of fixed strongpoints by simply revealing some, none or all fortifications during the setup phase - which would be a major change to the way the current CMBB game operates.

They never claimed to be a full operational game. </font>

I've posted a couple of times now about how reconnaissance will be done in CM:C and you are correct that having the engine treat intelligence gathering abstractly is certainly an option. I think patrolling is an extremely crucial skill to have in infantry units. There are several types of patrols, though, and you touch on some of them. Contact patrols would be sent out to tie a unit in with a neighbouring unit or subunit. Fighting patrols would be sent out specifically to harass the enemy, deny ground or routes to enemy patrols, or capture prisoners for interrogation/unit identification. These could be squad sized, often were platoon sized, or could even included an entire company, though by then "raid" might be more descriptive than "patrol." All the stuff you mention was integral to frontline occupation - OPs, patrols, etc. From what limited info is available, it may be that this "stuff" will be abstracted - I think CM:C could do that well without going into detail - a regimental commander might call for a patrol to be sent out, but wouldn't pick the squad of men himself, so there is a case to be made for simply letting the CM:C engine "handle" intelligence matters. Were you suggesting that patrols be handled in CMBB during the 60 minute game turns? I'd be against this, but I don't think that's what you're lobbying for. Do you mean to say the player should be able to select squads/platoons from his ME's to perform certain types of patrols? If this could be done it would be certainly interesting and add one more layer of realism to the operational setting. But for all intents and purposes wouldn't be strictly "necessary" if the practical results were simply minor changes in fatigue for participating units, and changes in available intelligence which can simply be calculated and displayed on the operational grid. You're correct in that strict patrol routines do have negative impacts on fatigue, readiness, and even morale if soldiers are left to feel they are being exposed to danger for no real immediately apparent gain. "Dominating No Man's Land" was not just a feature of the Great War.

The whole question of "player recon" has yet to be addressed - mainly I suppose because we haven't seen the game yet, huh. My own thoughts are expressed in another thread, they may bear repeating here. You do make a good point about recon units being used to seize and hold terrain and I suspect this will be an important feature of operations - or hope so. As for information gathering, I wonder how this will be handled? The Operations map seems to plot enemy units, with appropriate Fog of War; will the actions within the CM:BB battles impact what can be seen at the operational level? (ie if your tactical forces discover an armored company on one map sector, will they automatically be added to the CM:C situation map?) Or will there be other ways to reveal units on the operation map other than 'bumping into them' via a tactical battle? If so this would mean recon is being abstracted - I guess it comes down to what the designers have going on with the Operational map. Personally, I would think reconnaissance may be one of those things best simplified by the game engine - leaving the "real life" burden of Intelligence gathering - to the computer and letting the player concentrate on the real world burdens of the combat commanders. In other words, the regimental commander - the player - will let his staff (the computer) gather, collate, track and update information on the enemy. In CM:C I thought this would be done by allowing the player to click on enemy icons on the strategic grid and finding what info is known on the enemy units. You would almost have to let the computer handle this, otherwise a human player will either a) have to keep written side notes on what forces he is up against or have the ability to manually input data into the CM:C operational map in order to chart what unit types and strengths he is able to ascertain by his "recon". I think this is unwieldy and the computer should probably handle recon - it has a better ability to collect the data and realistically, the regiment/battalion/company commanders would have this data "processed" by the Intelligence staffs beforehand. There are certain types of intelligence that can ONLY be simulated by the computer, such as unit identifications. In the real world, you would search enemy dead for insignia, paybooks, identity tags, etc. but in CM:BB - you have no ability to do that. To simulate that type of intelligence, it has to be fudged by the computer. The only real intelligence you could garner by fighting a 60 minute battle in CM:BB would be troop types opposite. Even positions of anything but fixed fortifications would simply change by the time the next battle got set up in the next 60 minutes. Plus the human player would have to make mental notes of everything he saw, and potentially remember it for several days or even weeks if PBEM an engagement during that 60 minute phase. So for those reasons, I'd say the emphasis in CM:C should be less about "recon" and more on the actual fighting.

That's an excellent point, of course. Both players will obviously "see" the terrain after the CM:BB battle is generated during the setup but operationally speaking the defender would see the terrain first, ie by occupying it. (There are exceptions to this too of course...like arriving in the middle of the night and being told to occupy this ground ) Once the CMBB battle is generated, both players have perfect information about the ground - this is a limitation that has always been inherent in CM and will not change now. Tactical players will object that defenders are robbed of an advantage by this. Operational players will argue - as I am - that not seeing the maps in advance will provide an unrealistic burden on their planning. I agree that seeing the maps in all their glory would be to provide information that is "too perfect"; the issue is that at present it seems to be all or nothing - and that "nothing" seems draconian. If the CM:C maps end up being more detailed - with better defined masses, trees etc., - then I would think a reasonable balance has been achieved. So yes - futility is the buzzword here as both camps will be disappointed, unless a cunning plan is put into effect...perhaps we will have to wait for CM:CX2...

No, anyone who uses one-platoon MEs as blocking forces should be flogged. I'd hope a German player in the early to mid-war period would have lots of MEs made of infantry companies and armor/armored car platoons - he could then throw them into different battles with flexibility, whereas his early war Russian counterpart (or mid to late war inexperienced formations) would not have this flexibility and be forced to employ companies or even battalions as single entities - will be an excellent way to model tactical flexibility. No one is saying only one ME per map; think of a German regimental sized kampfgruppe spread out on a 20 km front - pick and choose a StuG platoon here, a half-tracked SPW infantry company there. I think that will be an essential component of correctly modelling a very real advantage "elite" or well trained formations had over newly raised units, etc.

So the solution then is to ensure that either both players see the map beforehand, or neither do. A tournament save feature "locking" the maps will prevent this. So will the coding of the game, either we'll be able to see the maps before a CM:BB battle starts, or we won't. We've already agreed to disagree on whether this should be permitted, I say yes, you say no. End of issue until we actually see the game or hear from the designers; quite possibly they don't know yet how it will be done.

Actually, for Runyan99, here is a clarification from the official FAC on the website CM:C: the game comes with a "Turn Editor which allows for the game to run with several different turn lengths (in hours), " The six hour figure was given in an example by either Moon or Hunter, it would appear at this point this may be onfigurable by the scenario designer.

This may account for our disagreement in the map thread. I get the impression that the OpAI will "handle" recon by the use of icons representing enemy Maneuver Elements on the operations map and that reconnaissance will be simplified. Also, that reconnaissance of terrain will be considered to have been done beforehand (hence my comments about the value of letting players see the CMBB maps before CM:C operational turns). I would think reconnaissance may be one of those things best simplified by the game engine - leaving the "real life" burden of Intelligence gathering - to the computer and letting the player concentrate on the real world burdens of the combat commanders. In other words, the regimental commander - the player - will let his staff (the computer) gather, collate, track and update information on the enemy. In CM:C I thought this would be done by allowing the player to click on enemy icons on the strategic grid and finding what info is known on the enemy units. You would almost have to let the computer handle this, otherwise a human player will either a) have to keep written side notes on what forces he is up against or have the ability to manually input data into the CM:C operational map in order to chart what unit types and strengths he is able to ascertain by his "recon". I think this is unwieldy and the computer should probably handle recon - it has a better ability to collect the data and realistically, the regiment/battalion/company commanders would have this data "processed" by the Intelligence staffs beforehand. There are certain types of intelligence that can ONLY be simulated by the computer, such as unit identifications. In the real world, you would search enemy dead for insignia, paybooks, identity tags, etc. but in CM:BB - you have no ability to do that. To simulate that type of intelligence, it has to be fudged by the computer. The only real intelligence you could garner by fighting a 60 minute battle in CM:BB would be troop types opposite. Even positions of anything but fixed fortifications would simply change by the time the next battle got set up in the next 60 minutes. Plus the human player would have to make mental notes of everything he saw, and potentially remember it for several days or even weeks if PBEM an engagement during that 60 minute phase. So for those reasons, I'd say the emphasis in CM:C will actually be on less recon. But again, I have no idea how the designers will be tackling these issues. The screenshots do suggest that enemy forces will be tracked on the operational map; whether this will include detailed strength and identification, I don't know, but would hope so - and leave the main burden to the players one of fighting. [ October 20, 2005, 09:01 PM: Message edited by: Russophile ]

I think the argument here was that seeing the CMBB 3D world isn't going to find you those small nuances to hide MG nests etc. if the player is prevented from putting units on the map and checking LOS from one spot to another. Since you have military experience, let me ask you - how many deliberate assaults did you plan, and how much reconnaissance was done beforehand? How did it effect the battle you fought? Realizing full well the dictum of plans not surviving first contact, I'm not sure what position you are taking regarding seeing the specific terrain in CM:C before plotting moves. Are you pro or con? The argument isn't just about maps, it is about prior reconnaissance and two key elements a) what did a real life company or battalion commander know about the ground beforehand (as well as his platoon and squad leaders) what is the best way to simulate that in CM:C and CMBB? Given your experience I would expect a strong opinion on the last question and would be very interested to see your reply.

I don't know that this would be especially realistic. Battalion and especially company stores would seem to be an all or nothing affair. On a typical CM:C map, you are dealing with - in the background - ammunition coming up from Divisional supply trains and being stockpiled at regimental and battalion dumps located just off map (within 10 or 20 km of the firing line) with the company quartermasters tasked to move it forward. Generally, at least in the German Army, that was done by horse drawn wagon, truck or sled. I don't think the types of limited penetrations we're going to see in the tactical arena would have much effect on how much ammunition is available to the division or the regiment. The actual mechanism of getting ammunition from Regiment to the fighting platoons was not complex; being small it was easy to hide and generally not easy to disrupt. The Regimental Supply Train had a VI supply train with one Beamte officer on a motorcycle and a two-horse wagon, and a VII supply train with a beamte paymaster, and two trucks, as well as a pack train with two trucks. At the battalion level, the Company First Sergeant had under him a battalion quartermaster sergeant, two 2-horse wagons (Supply Train I) and the paymaster Beamte, a supply sergeant, and two 3-ton trucks (Supply Train II) as well as a pack train with 3 ton truck. These guys would receive ammunition from the regimental quartermaster, store it, collect salvage (empty MG ammo boxes, MG link, etc.), and liase with the company commander as to where the drop points would be. A handful of men at most would be involved in these tasks; at the CM scale, even an operational level game like CM:C, the interdiction of ammunition supplies was probably an all or nothing affair - either the battalion quartermaster got through with the ammunition boxes and grenades - or he didn't. Also at this scale, length of resupply lines is a bit irrelevant; I'd presume regimental and even battalion supply areas to be off map or well away at the least from the contest map tiles. Again, either they were far enough away to stop the daily or twice daily resupply - or they weren't. Ammunition shortages were certainly a problem, but generally not as a result of interdiction in battalion or regimental scale actions. 98th Infanteriedivision reported near Vyasma in March 1943 that the entire division's supplies were being moving smoothly to the fighting men despite heavy rains and mud, "attributable to the small, mobile horsedrawn wagons. All alone, they supplied all the division's needs in ammunition, food, equipment and engineering supplies through day and night action. All the motor vehicles, on the other hand, were silent." The point here being that relatively few vehicles were needed to keep all necessary supplies flowing. Outside of cauldrons such as Stalingrad, or areas chronically interdicted at the strategic level such as North Africa, problems of resupply in German units seem to have been minimal. At the tactical level, adding a couple of kilometres to the route taken by battalion quartermasters seems to be not worth simulating in any way on the CM battlefield. Some would argue ammunition usage is overmodelled as it is, without increasing additional burdens, especially without the historical context to justify doing so.