Xenophile

LOS is probably the single most important element in CM. Elevation is generally the single most important element in determining LOS. Although the LOS tool is essential for plotting placement and movement for individual units, forming an overall plan requires an overview of the terrain. There are already subtle hints as to relative elevation from elevated viewpoints - but especially on flatttish terrain, it is difficult to clearly see shallow depressions and gullies. I'd like ideally to see lighting and shadow used to indicate more clearly diferences in elevation, or if that's techically too involved, to at least be able to emphasise the colouration differences that exist.

Given the time at which it was written, I think Barbarossa still stands up very well. He gets much more right than wrong, and I think his analysis is pretty sound. Too many authors get bogged in detail: Clark does look at the great 'what-ifs' of operational choice but finally dismisses them with strategic reality. As an example, discussing Stalingrad, he goes over the dispostion of the weaker satellite forces and the misuse of the German force in urban conflict; but his conclusion is that 'In essence, though, the miscalulation of the Germans went deeper than this. The hard fact was that they were attempting too much. They were relying on entirely on superior leadership and training to compensate for material deficiencies.'

There's another thread, but to repeat: Russia's War, Richard Overy The Forgotten Soldier, Guy Sajer Stalingrad, Antony Beevor The road to Berlin, Antony Beevor Barbarossa, Alan Clark Panzer Battles, Mellenthin Panzer leader, Guderian These will tell you more about the strategy, course and politics of the Nazi-Soviet struggle rather than exclusively giving advice on tactical level combat, but they are all excellent reads nonetheless and will give anyone a broad view of the conflict and why it ended as it did. To continue my current campaign of enlightenment, get anything by John Keegan if you want to develop a deeper understanding of what war, especially in the 20th Century, is really like.

Unless soldiers in the 20th century were very different to men in the 19th, perhaps this may be of some use. "Near that spot (La Haye Sainte crossroads) they formed columns of companies and stood, occasionally having to form square, until the general advance was ordered over four hours later. During these four hours, over 450 of the regiment's 750 officers and men were killed or wounded, in almost every case by the fire of cannon several hundred yards distant or by [...] French skirmishers in concealed positons." Admittedly, these are men exhausted by previous fighting and marching, men who slept through the early hours of the battle. "...many Battalions had nevertheless to spend their day under direct fire." "...the Enniskillings, who stood their ground, drew their wounded into the square, threw their dead out and closed their ranks, were destroyed." I too find this account almost unbelievable. Men stand for over four hours in the open while their unit is bombarded by guns within their sight and sniped at by enemies even closer; two-thirds of their comrades are killed or injured; and they stand. This not a WW1 assault lasting a fraction of an hour behind an artillery barrage and with the promise of victory - this is BEING A TARGET for hours. How can anyone can doubt that green troops can advance into MG fire without breaking or seeking cover, if men can endure this more terrifying ordeal a hundred years before?

This is the title of a book by John Keegan - military historian who lectures at Sandhurst Military College in the UK. I think it's excellent - most of his books are - and I'd like both to get other opinions on it and to recommend it to anyone who hasn't read anything by the author. It tries to give an idea of what combat involved in four eras, from Agincourt to the Somme; and what motivated the combatants (rather than concentrating on the commanders as most military histories do) to risk themselves in warfare in each period.

Let's accept that the casualty ratios vastly favour the Axis, especially in the early part of the Eastern campaign. Let's also accept that this is a game, albeit a simulation of real events. So German MG teams mowing down Soviet wave attacks isn't going to be too much fun for anyone. Nor would 60 turns of off-map Soviet artillery against a German infantry company. Combat Mission can already model some of the problems junior Soviet commanders faced - poor command control radius, few command units for large numbers of poorly trained troops, low ammunition levels. Yes, we can expect scenarios that pitch fairly evenly equipped forces against each other. But we should expect some that try to model the more common combats that occurred. Relative costs may be one way to adjust the balance - have very cheap units available to the Soviets early in the war - bad Green regular troops, worse conscripts almost straight from the farm, awful 'worker battalions'. Even without this I believe that it's up to scenario designers to come up with balanced games that reflect knowledge of the history of this campaign. The key to early German success was the recognition by many of their commanders of two essential truths of that time - the tactical defensive was superior to the offensive - so they must force their opponents to attack; and that a breakthrough should be pushed near it's logistical limit before becoming an encirclement - when the defender than must attack to survive. So at least early in the war in the east German success was due to operational command at a higher level than can be modelled in Combat Mission. I envisage scenarios where thin screens of Panzergrenadiers attempt to hold against mass attacks of Soviet infantry; where Soviet tank units with no infantry support attempt to stop elements of Panzer Divisions exploiting breakthroughs. Later, I expect scenarios where German scratch forces (security squads, anti-aircraft units, cooks) attempt to delay Soviet armoured breakthroughs; where well-armed, veteran German units but with almost no ammunition or support must defend. As realistic and challenging as I expect these scenarios to be, in the end, I do not think that they will be as much fun as those where the Axis and Soviet forces are more matched - Panzer Companies against Guards Tank units and the like.

'Barbarossa', Alan Clark. Written, a little surprisingly, by an English conservative in the mid 1960's, it's still stands up quite well as military history - it must have been outstandingly original at that time. It follows the conflict mostly at the strategic and operational levels but never forgets the nature of the political background. It's a long passage but this sums up what I feel about the Eastern Front better than I ever could: "An element of tragedy pervades the German defeat in Zitadelle. Perilously close to annihilation at Moscow, dreadfully mauled at Stalingrad, this magnificent army had twice recovered. {...} If tragedy is too strong a word, no observer can avoid a sense of frustration at the persistent abuse of this wonderful machine. And so it is all the more important to remember that just as the Nazi state rested on a basis of total brutality and corruption, so the parts of the army machine, the actual weapons with which the soldiers fought (...) came from the darkened sheds of Krupp and Daimler-Benz; where slave labour toiled 18 hours a day; cowering under the lash, sleeping 6 to a 'dog kennel' 8 feet square, starving or freezing to death at the whim of their guards." 'Forgotten Soldier', Guy Sajer. I don't much care if this is a conflation of truth with anecdotes or fiction: too much just seems to ring true to ignore it as a personal description of this war from a naive youth. 'Panzer Battles', FW von Mellinthin. Written in the mid 1950's this suffers a bit from the author's preoccupation with the war he expected NATO to fight with the USSR. Nevertheless he wants to give good advice, so I tend to regard him as basically truthful about military matters. In any case, his service record is amazing - staff officer, mostly at corps level or above, in Poland, France, the Balkans, Western Desert(PanzerArmee Afrika) , Eastern Front (48th Panzer Corps and 4th Panzer Army), Western Front (Army Group G and 5th Panzer Army. Almost anything by John Keegan is worth reading but he hasn't written much about the Eastern Front. So it's a little off-topic, but 'Six Armies in Normandy' is excellent. Some of the accounts he uses cast light into very unusual places. The tale of Staff Sergeant Summers is worth the price of the book on it's own - not for what Summers did, brave as he was, but for what his men wouldn't do and what the Germans did let him do. 'Russia's War', Richard Overy. As it suggests, this is the Eastern front, told by a westerner, but from the Soviet point of view. Worthwhile to see it this way.

I'm thinking about signals intelligence here. Battlefield and air reconnaisance seem fairly limited in comparison to the scale of the game and in any case I'm unaware of any great difference in capability between the opposing sides. Signals intelligence - cryptanalysis/cryptography - is an area of research to which the Allies (at least the Western ones) devoted a great deal of effort and from which they sometimes reaped substantial advantage. (I'm aware that even with good intelligence, battles were lost - Crete is an example; others were won) Quite how this effort might be modelled in the game I'm undecided - it might reveal enemy dispositions, or conceal friendly ones. It might operate tactically and give the beneficiary a combat bonus. It might reveal an enemy's production or research allocations and offer the chance to negate them. I imagine that even if this idea is considered worth inclusion it is far too late an input to affect the 1st release but I hope it might be considered for 2.0. In any case, I'd be inerested in contrary thoughts.