Austrian Strategist

One Serious Problem I Just Thought Of What with items that were ubiquitous, in relatively small numbers? If they are considered 'rare', that wouldn´t feel right at all. Take German Engineers, for example. Every Infantry Division had them, so they were everything but 'historically rare'. To pay extra for Engineers, just because 'there were more Rifle Squads' doesn´t make sense, imo. According to this logic, Batallion HQs were exceedingly rare (only one per Batallion!), and should only be available for 400% their value. [ June 17, 2002, 11:27 PM: Message edited by: Austrian Strategist ]

Or make the delay increase steeper. In fact, I´d prefer a delay between Batallion/Company and Platoon as well. As is, we are playing the role of all Platoon Commanders, and they are telepathically connected.

Now I am the type who would prefer Command Control as tough as possible. So you know what I will be asking next: Why not making independent tanks be never in command, instead of always? Wouldn´t that be realistic, as well as punishing the cherry-pickers?

As this thread is obviously not going to die soon , I´ll give it a twist. When Snipers operated the way you describe, there was, of course, a legitimacy issue as well. Many would say that such a Sniper operated outside the spirit, perhaps even outside the letter of the Rules of War. If caught, I wouldn´t be very surprised if they weren´t given POW treatment.

Colonel, I actually think both approaches have their merit. Tarqulene has already covered much that can be said for BTS´s system, as of 6 months ago. Anyways, I found this a most interesting discussion, and I would be very eager to hear about the current state of QB Setup alternatives available, and how they work.

I am not so sure about the OOB. Me thinks a sizeable percentage was leg infantry, including some FJ units I think, which are also leg. Horses, I must admit I have no idea if they used them. Probably not, because water was short. But don´t forget there was a railroad. The leg infantry could walk over short distances, and strategic movement would be rail. Also, they could possibly use motorization equipment in turn. There was usually a part of the German infantry not directly involved in an offensive operation, those units with garrison duties at a given time wouldn´t need trucks, let alone anything more sophisticated. But they had to improvise somewhat, and, of course, use captured British equipment. El Alamein -one explanation might be higher losses in lives/prisoners than transport equipment; so the losses themselves made possible the swift retreat of the survivors. Just a hypothesis, one would have to look at this really closely. [ June 16, 2002, 12:00 AM: Message edited by: Austrian Strategist ]

Yyyyes. If you look at it from the viewpoint of technical equipment, that is certainly true. But don´t forget that the troops opposing Rommel in North Africa were all -unlike the Germans- motorized at least, and therefore, in the strictly material sense, more mobile than Rommel´s. However, they didn´t have the doctrine, leadership and experience to make actual use of that theoretical advantage. The same might, quite possibly, have been true in July or August, 1944. Without Air Interdiction, and having nothing much to loose strategically, the Germans could have gambled on this, and even reasonably, because the attrition method used against them was foolproof. They couldn´t win a war of attrition, Jason is right on the money about this.

The mother of all BUMPS! Any news on the topic of Rarity? Or, more generally, how does the QB Creation/Force Selection Process work in CMBB, and what are the differences to CMBO?

Jason, Your analysis is flawless as far as it goes. No real disagreement here. However, if we take this one step farther, Germany couldn´t have won a war of attrition against Poland, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and the Commonwealth combined. But it is easy to see that, in this case, a purely economic analysis simply doesn´t apply. I say that, in 1944, without CAS and Interdiction, the Allies couldn´t have forced Germany to fight a war of attrition in the first place. There is always the possibility of the Invasion being crushed decisively, either at the beaches or in the interior of France after a voluntary -but intact- German withdrawal from Normandy. This is what you would do in a wargame. Retreat, then turn and hit the advancing pursuers. In such a situation, veteran Panzer Divisions would have counted for more than allied HE gun superiority.

I´d say, in that case the Invasion would have been about as risky as Sealion, and would therefore never have been tried. And what gave you the idea the Luftwaffe was defeated before the Invasion? The French Theater was never allocated any much Luftwaffe, neither before the Invasion nor after. Most of the Luftwaffe was tied to the Eastern Front, otherwise Russians would have marched through Berlin in 1944. What could be spared from the East was used in Italy or over the Reich to defend against Strategic Bombers. In the end I´d say the Luftwaffe lost most of their planes over Russia/Eastern Europe, so I fail to see, in this case, the role of Allied Commanders. Anyways, in WWII, the side with Air Superiority over a given Theatre won every Campaign; I cannot think of a single exception; perhaps there is one, but my memory fails me here. I don´t know why the -correct- doctrine that the Air Force is the most important arm has fallen into disgrace lately, given the overwhelming evidence in its favour, from Normandy to the Israeli-Arab Wars to Iraq to Afghanistan. [ June 15, 2002, 06:14 PM: Message edited by: Austrian Strategist ]

Jason, I fully agree with your general idea that, over time, attrition won. But why did it win? It only won, imo, because interdiction kept the Germans in place (operationally pinned them). Without CAS and Interdiction two things could have happened: A) An early Counterattack could have succeeeded in demolishing one or more bridgeheads; in that case Eisenhower would probably have thrown in the towel. Backhand Blow West: Given no Allied Air Superiority, what kept the Germans from retreating intact, then counterattacking the Allied advance once the latter had outrun their own artillery, consequences being entirely open to speculation? [ June 15, 2002, 05:52 PM: Message edited by: Austrian Strategist ]

I'd be interested to hear which troops these were. Always willing to learn something new. Michael</font>

Great article; now I understand the problem. For the time being, this could probably be tackled by a #item limit on auto-cannons: No more than, say, two auto-cannons of any type in any given QB.

Personally I´d say they relied on neither. Is not Air Superiority a bit under-mentioned in this thread? And I am not so much talking about TacAir: I´d call Carpet Bombing and, even more importantly, Interdiction the decisive factor. Certainly willpower has absolutely nothing to do with those, but I wouldn´t call Carpet Bombing 'fire support', either. To destroy a division from above you do not need any infantry at all, so you are not, technically, 'supporting' anybody. And Interdiction: This is what most Germans agree did them in. German Doctrine definitely relied on mobility, and this mobility, and often even the ability to timely receive existing supply and replacements, was denied them by Interdiction. If it comes down to any one thing, I´d say Air Interdiction won the campaign. This is irrelevant to CMBO, of course, but if we are talking about irl, then 'fire support' is not quite the whole story, and 'willpower' is, of course, hilarious. [ June 15, 2002, 03:37 PM: Message edited by: Austrian Strategist ]

Hmmm; this would make them too weak early -and too strong later on.

Sharpshooter, Sniper and Marksman all translate into the same German word: Scharfschuetze. Over here there exists no other word for it, so I´d say the German language implicitly agrees with you. (If I ask a German Officer: >What´s the difference between a Scharfschütze and a Scharfschütze?<, he might be tempted to ask me if I have seen my psychiatrist lately. )

Except for the 88 Flak, I haven´t much experience with AA Guns, yet, so I can´t say if they are over-modelled. As to the 88, I regularly use it in Defence, it hits and kills with nearly every shot, but that´s entirely historical. Germans used the 88 a lot for AT duty, and it was very popular with them, precisely for the same reasons it is popular with me.

I´d say this solution is a tad gamey. Fortunately it doesn´t work either, because you run into the Combined Arms Limit. 140pts maximum allows only 14 Mines, which is not enough to close the map for Tanks and have lots of AP Mines as well.

The answer is: No. OK, jokes aside: The reason why this can´t be explained is that some people don´t have an MLR, either because they are incompetent OR because they are using an unusual strategy. Second, everybody´s MLR looks different, depending on playstyle. Some use 80% of their pts on MLR, some only 40. If you don´t know what 'an MLR looks like', this is ok; no one does. Edit: If you don´t expect anything, no one will be able to surprise you with anything. Always think like a Newbie. If you are a Newbie, this is an advantage. [ June 13, 2002, 02:29 PM: Message edited by: Austrian Strategist ]

Flags are not incidental; they represent your mission, and this is the reason why you exist. I use the terrain, but I defend the flags.

I love "racing the clock" in strategy games - it's a great way to balance almost any game. Have you ever tried "bidding" on the number of turns in a QB or scenario? Given certain map characteristics and force ratios (4000 attacker vrs. 1500 defender, for example) you and your opponent bid on the number of turns necessary to take all the flags (if you design/alter the map yourself) or defeat the enemy. The low bidder plays as the attacker. (Or the high bidder the defender - either way works.)</font>

I stand corrected.

I am actually much more interested in the Nuts and Bolts: Rarity Rules for preventing implausible, 'gamey' buying choices, an AI that makes more sensible decisions in Automatic Setup, even much more restrictive Command Control Limits that do away with unrealistic fine tuning, Fionn style... Quite seriously, I think the 'lag' should be something like 2.5 minutes for (early) Russians, 1 minute for Germans; this would make for much more simple, historical instead of 'idealistic' strategies and tactics... Btw, Battallion and Co HQ Units, as is, are 'gamey'. They should be necessary to create a command chain, NOT primarily to help individual squads. And Tank Platoons should need HQs too, of course... Those are the things that would most satisfy ME in future CMs...