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Chelco

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Posts posted by Chelco

    Scenario Editor: Triggers?

    in Combat Mission Shock Force 1

    Posted

    This is really needed. Perhaps in an update. I was sort of expecting the editor to be like this as SB 2, with all the various triggers so you can do things like tell a unit when it should fall back or release reserves.
    .

    Exactly! Otherwise we would for example create attacking plans that go forward no matter what.

    Now, given how short the battles I'm interested in are, it may not be too much of a deal breaker. But I am a bit worried that so far I haven't seen the enemy TacAI reasses the execution of its orders, like trying a different avenue of approach when you are beating the crap out of it.

    Thanks,

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    For Me, If WEGO Goes, I Go

    in Combat Mission Shock Force 1

    Posted

    Ey Tinjaw!

    You have been around wargaming for more than I can remember and I'm a bit surprised to read about your reservations with CMSF.

    Do you mean this game CMSF has been toned down in realism to cater the RTS crowd? Or you miss some commands from the old CMx1 engine?

    I don't want to sound like a fanboy, but I'm having a great time with real time and I'm just interested in your feedback. Regretably (understandably too), you are not willing to push forward in this thread. So PM or e-mail me if you feel like.

    FWIW, the first pages of the manual have a section entitled "Unlearning Combat Mission".

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    So what's wrong with TOAW from a CM'ers standpoint?

    in Combat Mission - Tips and Tricks

    Posted

    It is somebody's movie of what they think a bit of the war might be like.
    Woah Jason! You made me spill my drink over the

    keyboard with that absurd statement. All that after playing an 8 year old demo?

    The ironic thing is that when somebody elsewhere would say that in HttR and COTA you are just watching as an spectator I would quote the following post of yours sometime in 2003.

    JasonC , 2003 at one of Battlefront.com’s Combat Mission forums.

    Real tactical combat is excruciating, not fun. Nothing works. Everything is friction. Nobody can coordinate the simplest things with each other with any reliability. Half the men engaged haven't the slightest idea what is happening, and many of them have no effect on the outcome other than as victims.

    When a low level tactical commander manages to get enough information to form even a tolerably accurate mental representation of what is happening, he rarely has any ability to modify it. Most of his attempted interventions will simply fail. He won't be heard, the man who receives the order will be injured before he can carry it out or pass it on, will make his own mistake, will ignore it as based on innaccurate information, etc.

    Of the few that do have an effect, half of them will have unintended effects, good or bad, that had nothing to do with his original idea. Most of them will change the behavior of only a tiny number of units. When widespread effects are actually achieved, they will make no tactical sense for half of the units affected.

    This does not go on for 20 minutes. It goes on for hours at a stretch. Giant units frequently remain practically motionless for days due to little more than indescribable confusion. The level of contact the men will actually put up with against one another is nowhere near as high as depicted in CM.

    Losses CM players would consider trivial in a single QB often led to abandonment of positions by entire divisions - under orders, not against them. Ammo expenditure was far less rapid than CM depicts, but occurred on a far vaster scale to achieve significant effects.

    Above all, the range of variance of combat effects was vastly wider and less certain than the fairly dependable outcomes seen in CM. Riflemen who shot 70% hits on rifle ranges would excel if they hit 0.5% of the time in combat, and the average losses inflicted per bullet fired was 100 times lower again. That is, the likely (expected, not just randomly "rolled") effect of pulling a trigger varied over something like 4-6 orders of magnitude from one occasion to the next.

    Everything took longer, was much more confused, much more random, and was much less controlled. Combat is a train wreck during an earthquake at a riot. Not chess.

    I understand your preference over games where you are more in control. To each is own. But as for your conclusions about the AA games: you gotta be kidding.

    Julio

    Disclosure: I beta test for Panther Games and I moderate, research and write for the so-called "Panther War College". All comments above written are my personal opinion as a wargame/military history and theory enthusiast.

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    Bersaglieri

    in Combat Mission: Afrika Korps

    Posted

    My grandfather was a Bersaglieri.

    However, by the time WWII started he already had emigrated to Argentina. He died in the 1950's. I recall a big portrait of him with his military cap full of dark feathers.

    Ey! I also recall a saying my grandma got, I suppose from him: "Avanti Bersaglieri, la batalla e' nostra! "Sorry for the misspelled Italian (and English). She used that thing for making me eat my soup. I don't know if she made that up, but it made my tongue sore of hot soup!

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    There is no such thing as "Blitzkrieg"

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    That awesome book is on my "to read" list. I browsed Cooper's book in a store a time ago but decided not to buy because I still have so much unread material at home.

    You are referring to the lines you put in the first post?

    I really think that those lines in Cooper's book are a bit of an overstatement. Being the human will the factor that mostly shapes the battlefield, in war is always difficult to translate theories fully into practice. So, you are left to real life operations that best resembles the theory. IMHO, the drive of PzCorps XIX during the invasion of France very closely resembles Guderian's ideas of armoured warfare.

    Another important thing is if we are referring to blitzkrieg at the tactical or operational level. For instance, at the tactical level the Germans applied the blitzkrieg during the first two months of the invasion of Russia. However, their argument that they could encircle and destroy the Russian Army (first at Minsk, then at Smolensk) was a flawed one. The Germans found themselves never reaching the real back of enemy lines.

    What is kinda of interesting is that we insist on trying to find a rigorous and procedural definition (me included) for an style of warfare that was based on total flexibility. I think is not a coincidence that the word blitzkrieg comes from the allies (with a command style relying on phase lines and strict time tables) and not the Germans. The very word blitzkrieg would have appeared as an abomination to the German military staff, at least at the beginning of the war. Kein Schema! (not a formula) was the common preaching in German military academies during the interwar period. Heck! That thing comes from times of Frederick the Great.

    But anyway, definitions allow a common ground for further discussion. Based on the definition that I posted earlier, my vote goes for PzCorps XIX in France 40 as the only real blitzkrieg both at the tactical and at the operational level.

    Cheers,

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    There is no such thing as "Blitzkrieg"

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

    I thought it would stimulate intelligent debate, but when you phrase it like that - well, there really wasn't much debate with Comical Ali, either, was there, so I should not be so surprised the thread shot so far of the mark. I just put it down - as Comical Ali did - to being completely correct yet again. Are they at the airport, yet?

    Relax Michael, I was just trying to continue the cool off people initiated a couple of posts ago.

    You're useless to me as far as Mortal Enemies go. :mad:
    That's totally OK with me. I don't need you love :D . It just surprised me how well you took somebody grabbing a pic from your website and posted it to make an ad hominem argument.

    Hmph; I feel like such a cyber-trollop because after what was obviously a meaningful exchange for you, I have no recollection of who you are or what type of intercourse we achieved.
    I never forget the names of who I have offended and the names of who have offended me. I have either a good memory or a profound sense of accountability when I engage in cyber-discussion.

    Indeed. So why did your mother name you Chelco? :D
    Touche!

    The reason for that nickname is to avoid people posting pictures of me in the internet.

    :D

    Finally! A nugget of conversation. So why do you feel this way? [/QB]
    IMHO, Blitzkrieg is the style of warfare Guderian conceived during the pre-war years. Obviously he didn't name it like this, but his conception of how war should be conducted with the new armored force pretty much reflects what I think of blitzkrieg.

    Blitzkrieg is IMHO, a combination of armor concentration supported with specialized infantry, mechanized artillery, close air support, heavy use of radio and a command style based on low-level officers initiative would break the enemy lines and drive through its rear breaking their will to fight.

    The German military establishment stubbornly heavily resisted this style of warfare in preparation for the Poland invasion. IMHO, that resistance is reflected in the fact that the 19th Guderian Corps was assigned to the relatively easy sector of the operation under the 4th Army and not to the really hot sectors of the 8th or 10th Armies. During that operation, the Germans showed bad tank-infantry coordination and the air support was also not stellar, many times limited to pre-war planned targets. The materiel was there (tanks, mechanized forces, etc), but the guy was not at the schwerpunkt. Not a real blitzkrieg.

    However, Guderian's 14th Corps cross at Sedan in May 1940 is the tipping point of the fall of France. You are familiar on how much Guderian had to fight with von Kleist regarding where and how to use the 14th Corps. They even had issues with the air support!

    Ok, gotta work. I'll post later.

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    There is no such thing as "Blitzkrieg"

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    The title of the thread is so categorical that it sounds like a phrase from the ex-Iraqi Information Minister. smile.gif

    No intention to offend Dorosh, though. Indeed I'm sorry he had to endure a personal attack of such incredible intensity. Even when I had attacked Dorosh in the past, and badly, I felt utterly disgusted at these new heights of personal offense. The anonimity of the web is the worst enemy of civilized discussion.

    The Iraqi Information Minister fun page

    IMHO, there was only one blitzkrieg in history: the one Guderian's Corps have done in France 40.

    Cheers,

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    Interest in CM tactics article?

    in Combat Mission: Afrika Korps

    Posted

    Just posting to:

    -Provide encouragement to the writers. A less than mediocre player here, I will wait patiently. Thanks for doing it! From a guy that never contributed anything useful to this forum (me).

    -State my disconcert regarding the posts about JasonC. The guy is very smart and contributed much to this forum.

    [Edited here for flammable content. Man, I must have some kind of PMS today]

    Even if JasonC sucked at gameplay, I would love to read more of his posts, or even a tactics guide.

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    How would you rate the AI??

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    Originally posted by Redwolf:

    Must be what I have seen then.

    This is a more fundamental flaw then it appears on first sight. You cannot "tag on" artillery behaviour later.

    A systemd designed without fire support in mind is totally one-dimensional. A system designed with it in mind is a system developed around the tradeoff detween dispersion and concentration and, more importantly, around the change that this tradeoff goes through over time. In other words, the programmed opponent needs to have a sense when to concentrate and when not. The one-dimensional opponent on the other hand, while it sees changes over time, does not see its fundamental tradeoffs change over time.

    The absence or arty could be pointed as flaw, yes. But they are trying to model a single "toy problem", and it appears to be tough enough.
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