undead reindeer cavalry
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Posts posted by undead reindeer cavalry
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As in real life, the only thing that matters for a unit being targeted and the unit shooting at it is the path between the two. It doesn't matter if there's a thick forest 50m off to the right and a dense village 50m off to the left. Therefore, CM of any flavor doesn't care about that either when examining two units in an exchange of fire. Now, characterizing combat within a map the totality of the terrain matters more than a specific line between two points. But what we're talking about here is fire between two points. The example Adam laid out is about as open as it can get.
let me quote Adam: "The same test in CMSF translates to a 2 or 3 tree tile with brush on one end and the MG being a PK, in a "shell scrape" in that bit of cover.".
i can easily lay out more open scenarios
That doesn't surprise me. 2000m (1.5 miles) is a pretty long distance for the eye to see things without the aid of optics and/or optimal conditions.
20 seconds for a tank in overwatch to spot enemy tank at 2000 meters includes the use of the optics of the tank.
How much of a chance do you think a single, trained and experienced soldier, would have of spotting a MG firing at him over a period of 20 seconds when the terrain is fairly open and cover is not all that good? Let's just say 1 in 10. If he was alone this wouldn't be good odds, but if you have 10 men then statistically speaking the chances of spotting are almost a sure bet. Correct? OK, well... let's say it's 1 in 20 and you have 10 men, you're now talking about at least a 50/50 chance of spotting the MG, right?
a single soldier has 0 in 100 chance of spotting a MG positioned in trees some 300 meters away when he is running in the other direction.
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20 seconds is a long time. If it was 5 seconds or 10 seconds, I would singing a different tune.
20 seconds is about the time you MIGHT spot a soldier standing at the edge of trees, at 300 meters, if you have the time to scan the treeline freely.
but you are not scanning, you are running. you are facing the wrong direction. you are taking fire. and the target is not a standing soldier but an odd muzzle flash. you will hear it, and after a while you will realize that you are taking fire, but you will not spot the MG.
what happens is that you take cover because you are receiving MG fire. then you are returning fire at the treeline while taking cover. perhaps your squad does suppress the treeline, without spotting the MG, perhaps not. perhaps after a couple of minutes someone in the squad will spot the MG, perhaps not. but you will need to at least face the treeline and scan it actively to have chances of spotting the MG.
I think a problem here is the instant ID. We need a "?" marker that the AI will actually react to and area fire against. That way the AI pixeltruppen know that SOMETHING is firing at them "from that area", and they can return fire, even if an exact ID is not found.exactly.
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I don't really see how this is unreasonable, unless they now need to model soldiers turning their heads to please you. Because we all know know that real people just look straight forward like they have massive bolts in their necks fixing them in place. Apparently the soldiers are supposed to be deaf as well.
human eye has accuracy of around 1/60th of a degree. you need to stop and do some active scanning to detect a tiny flash between bushes and trees some 320 meters away. as a bonus you are also taking MG fire.
hearing a MG fire somewhere on your right is nowhere close to actually correctly locating its position.
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I agree with MikeyD that 9 to 13 experienced soldiers wouldn't have to all stop before even one of them spotted the muzzle flash and sound in that open of an environment.
does CMx2 really simulate stuff like "an open evironment", or is it just two points and the line between them? would it really matter if the edge of the map was all covered by trees (on the sides, not between the squad & the MG) and there were a couple of buildings at other locations on the map?
As MikeyD suggests, when you're out walking or driving, see how much you can notice around you without having to stop and rotate. 20 seconds, actually, is quite a long time BTW. To test this out yourself, have a watch handy when doing your real world testing and notice how long it feels.there have been a good number of studies made & papers written about spotting. 20 seconds is about the time it takes for a tank in overwatch to spot an enemy tank at 2000 meters.
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probably be laying down fire from twice that range just to improve its survivability.
back when i still played the game i made some tests with this stuff. if i recall correctly a PKM on a tripod didn't even pin enemy soldiers who were just walking up straight at ranges around what you are suggesting (640 meters).
i am pleased to hear that this stuff has been fixed.
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In soft issues, morale command control etc, I think CM represents the transition of first/second generation miniatures wargames rules to the pc screen. The behaviour of machines is easier to reproduce than flesh and blood, with all the attendant problems. Hopefully CM2 will represent a move towards the latest systems/ideas where simulation of soft issues has parity with hard systems.
what are these latest systems/ideas you mention?
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Like what?
stuff like higher cover & concealment for defenders that haven't moved.
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To get back to the original point, perhaps the individual spotting mechanism, as used in SF, could reflect the difference, by giving dedicated tank troops faster spotting times against targets located by their supporting armour and vice versa
yeah, that was what i was thiking about as well.
I always wondered why a green commander took longer to issue highly complex orders to his men, do they mumble?now that you mention it, thru all these years of playing CMBB, i have never really paid attention to how much HQ quality makes a difference in the delays. i have always pretty much assumed only the quality of the unit receiving the order mattered. for unexperienced unit it would take longer to execute given orders. i'm not even sure if the HQ quality matters for the delays.
I always wanted different command menus for different ability/doctrine troops, green commands would perhaps have most of the commands of an elite unit but would have to wait several turns to access particular options.different quality units already have different commands available in the command menu. for example low quality infantry doesn't have advance.
the unit quality also effects how likely they are to automatically pick a target. that is both cool and annoying. it's cool because it partly accomplishes what a delay for target commands would do. it's a bit annoying because during the command phase you have to manually check wether or not a unit has LOS to some enemy units (with higher quality units you would know they will automatically target the high value enemy unit if they have LOS).
This delay would be affected by morale state and any units out of command control would either automatically try to regain contact or stay put, unless highly motivated or with a history of independent action.might be nice to have such mechanics.
Again, playing Russian infantry is like playing slightly crappier Germans, oh but they can human wave charge!!i'm not sure wether you are talking about your idea or CM.
if CM then there are some other differences, but they have more to do with different equipment than troop quality or doctrine. for example Soviet recon troops have lots of ammo so you can have a bit different tactics with them (trying to utilize superior amount of ammo by opening up at greater ranges for example). then there's the cheap but extremely lethal (at close range) Soviet SMG troops.What role do HQ units, both platoon and company play in SF, do the units out of control magically lose their ability for stealth or fire power discipline?like said i didn't really notice how the chain-of-command made a difference to combat. i think it has most of all to do how long it takes for the given unit to call offmap assets. people on the CMSF forum could answer better. i haven't played the game for a good while now.
Are there command delays, because the game can be played in RTS mode?no real command delays. just delays for calling down offmap fires or setting up a crew served weapon for example.
Do US troops have more command options than the Syrians, to represent far greater battlefield flexibilty.US can split squads into teams. Syrians can't split squads.
Another question, is there any game, both pc or board or miniatures rules that CMers think is a 'realistic' simulator of command and control.Point of Attack 2 (a PC game) has quite interesting rules for command & control. for example you don't necessarily even know where exactly your units are located if there are CC issues.
Thanks URC, I was feeling sluggish after a busy week now I'm a thinking again!thank YOU, i like to talk about game design stuff like this
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Because MG's/PAK's are not overwhelmed by return fire after 1-2 shots gunners can now mutually support each other. If the infantry can see the PAK's they cannot tell the tankers, if the tankers can spot the MG's they cannot communicate with the infantry.
Yes, I do know about the use of non verbal signaling methods but these would be deployed individually, not allowing massed return fire.
while i agree with that specific scenario, i don't think it should be generalized to include all infantry-tank communication.
especially the troops specifically trained for that stuff should be handled a bit different. after all their specific task was that very inter-arms communication (besides direct protection). though they would also fight together with the tanks, not separately like in your given scenario.
i think simulating this type of stuff (together with the effects of having a shared radio net) would do good justice to some early war armor battles.
I know that CM has command delays but I find it strange to penalise a platoon and not an HQ. Most accounts I have read of Soviet platoon actions were full of the use of initiative and quick commands, the trouble seems to have come about when the company commanders got involved, then the incompetence and inertia set in. The, what is an HQ unit in CM for is for another thread though.
one thing about CMBB which i always have wondered about is how much the game would have changed if target orders would have command delays as well. i play a lot of battles with early war Soviets and the huge command delays (in CM perspective) you get with radioless buttoned up tanks with low crew quality feels good to me. reaction times are so short in CM. sometimes i end up choosing to not fire (cause commander to button up) just so i can issue commands faster. anyway, i enjoy how this stuff with radioless tanks adds another layer to the game. if the delays would also effect target orders it would feel even better.
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that post was a pleasure to read. thanks for taking the time to write it.
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So not only is the artillery less accurate, but each shell coming down has far less capacity to cause harm to soldiers in trenches because the shells impact when they hit the ground. You basically have to get a shell into a trench (direct hit) in order to cause casualties OR get lucky to have a shell go off very close to a trench when a solider in it is in a firing position. Otherwise, it's mostly a suppression technique.
it's 99% suppression what comes to infantry.
e.g. when Soviets launched the offensive on the Karelian Isthmus in summer 1944 they fired 354 000 shells in two hours mostly on three Finnish infantry battalions. the arty fires were supported by direct fires from tanks & assault guns (ten battalions).
the three defending infantry battalions were dug in, but the soil prevented true deep dug in fortifications.
anyway, the battalions suffered only ~10% killed. they were totally routed though
artillery just pins, not kills. that's why all sides stressed the importance of assaulting the dug-in defenders right after the arty fires (or when shells were still falling).
the reason why arty is seemingly effective against dug in infantry in CM is partly because infantry is unnaturally bunched up. even in CMx1 a squad has, what, 10x10m footprint? going by the book, with full squads, a squad footprint in defence was around 50m in width for WW2. in reality it was often more and for understrength squads.
if there are 50 shells landing on a 100x50 meter area, occupied by a single squad with width of 50 meters, the chances for the barrage to cause kills are pretty slim. say, you need to hit within a meter of a soldier in a trench, and there is a 10 man squad on the area so that only ten of the 5000 squaremeters are occupied (0.2%) and you get 50 shots -- the chances for a scoring one hit are only 10%. to have 50% chance (5x the previous) to reduce the squad to half (5 hits) you need to fire 1250 shells. these numbers are not accurate, but they reflect the difficulty of using arty to kill men taking cover in trenches.
Now, if you aren't already in sight of the trenches conducting an assault or maneuver of some sort, what's the point of suppressing the trenches?arty is most of all area fire, not point fire. you saturate a large area at once to pin down the defenders for sure. even in well prepared attacks you can't trust to have located all the defensive positions and it may not even theoretically be possible to locate all the positions (LOS blocks etc).
you also fire at potential neighboring positions to isolate the sector you are going to assault, to KO undetected weapons and so forth.
what's more, most attacks are not so well prepared that the attacker would have a good idea about enemy defensive positions.
you may not even have any time for recon and do not know any of the defensive positions -- you are just taking fire from "that treeline" and need to assault "that hill". thus you call down fire at "that treeline", "those woods on the left" and "that hill on the right".
What I'm instead arguing is that the lack of FoW trenches isn't nearly the sort of problem that some have made it out to be.true, but what about adjusting the other stuff a bit to compensate for lack of FoW trenches?
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you might find this blog entry by Dorosh interesting:
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New sub-topic, what is artillery like in SF, are the delays after calling for fire more realistic?
artillery in general is very much improved in CMSF.
on the downside there are no command delays what comes to ground units. to be honest i never really managed to figure out how the apparently highly modelled (???) chain of command had any effect on the ground combat.
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1. Artillery was FAR less accurate in WW2 and, generally, far less effective per shot. You could fire your whole load of ammo on a target and cause almost no damage. Sucks for the attacker if he planned with the assumption that the trenches were going to be taken care of by artillery
yeah, artillery should never be able to clear trenches, just cause pinns and an odd casualty. at least unless you have 100 batteries firing.
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Not if it functioned similar to how bunkers work, ie. you placed it somewhere and then moved the gun team in position.
but how do you do it without an automatical gag reaction?
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Still no good. What happens when you take fire from a location that only has LOS to one set of trenches? What about 155mm airburst with it's massive area of effect?
if you are speaking from the perspective of your campaign, i think you could calculate artillery effects before setting up the CMSF battle. only include some mortar & light arty fire in CMSF.
from artillery realism stand point you won't get very far with CMSF anyway. in real world the Stryker force would 90% of time just be some eyes on the ground, doing best to evade direct action, instead just calling down massed MRLS & PGM fires.
i think the bigger problem for the campaign would be all the missing equipment.
BTW have you thought about doing the ground battles of the campaign with some other game, like SPMBT for example?
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Especially if the Germans also have a couple of freely deployed MG bunkers and pillboxes in their setup. And they better do, because the CMx1 way of dropping ATG's into trenches was slightly strange, and it'd look even stranger with CMx2 graphics. Maybe there could also be some deployable open-top gun emplacements like this:
without FOW terrain, don't you think seeing the emplacements would be a bit of a give away for the enemy, certainly begging for mortar shells etc? and then, imagine the horror for the grogs when the defender totally unrealistically doesn't setup his gun in the emplacement.
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regarding Normandy, what about giving defending "dug in" units a higher than reasonable bonuses regarding cover & concealment to compensate for lack of FOW trenches and such?
it wouldn't require any graphical stuff, just some under-the-hood calculations for "dug in" units that haven't moved (cover & concealment) or fired (concealment).
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I presume the colors of white and blue would be good for you?
white & blue is ok
the trade-off with physics etc is one that i myself would not have made, but then again i am me and you are a succesful business.
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having 2 different worlds to keep track of and reconcile is bad enough, but 48 or so? I'd go so far as to say impossible.
what a weird comment.
is that comment accurate or just something you happened to write?
did Charles tell you something like real trenches would require a separate copy of the terrain mesh for rendering the world to the player?
and now you interpolated on that and thought it would mean that in coop there would be a separate copy to be kept for each individual player?
the problem behind this stuff is that CMx2 would require a separate copy for the player?
you need to keep track of spotted units separately for each player anyway, so that is not the problem.
most likely, then, the problem is that you would need separate copies of the terrain mesh for both rendering (the world as shown to player) and physics calculations (used by the game under the hood).
CMx2 would have real time physics engine directly tied to the terrain mesh.
thus you could not have non-spotted trenches because it would cause the game to miscalculate stuff. an enemy soldier in a non-spotted trench would cause the soldier to be within ground -- the physics engine would not allow it.
you could have it only by keeping a separate copy of the terrain mesh for under the hood real time physics calculations and keeping another copy for rendering the world to the player.
so, CMx2 could not have stuff like real trenches because of stuff like real time modelling of vehicle suspension?
wow.
if true, color me impressed.
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You can see the trenches from all over the map. The whole defense zone. You can see precisely, without even sending in an observer, all the fallback routes that have been planned by the defender. That's realistic? Maybe it is for the U.S. beating up Syria in 2008, with UAVs and thermal imaging. For the U.S. trying to beat up Germans dug in in Normandy? Not so much.
it's not realistic for 2008 either.
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Syrian army, which in ’70s-’80s was receiving from Soviet Union not only modern (at that time) tanks, but quite normal guns and fire control systems.
BTW Syria bought modern artillery control systems from Russia a couple of years ago.
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it was ruled out that Syrian forces would use any other than most basic Soviet style defence.
so what could a basic Soviet small unit defence in urban area look like?
here's some stuff copy pasted from Red Thrust Star (July 1992) article "Defence in Built-up Areas" written by Charles J. Dick of Soviet Studies Research Center.
to prevent this post from getting too long i try to leave out stuff like counter attacks, C3 etc.
Combat in cities is conducted primarily by subunits. Therefore, all battalions, companies and even platoons must be organized as all-arms subunits capable of operating as tactically independent entities. Thus, tanks are not used in mass, but are parceled out to bolster motorized rifle subunits. Similarly, up to half or somtimes even more of the available artillery will be devoted to subunits to act in the direct fire role. Similarly, antitank units, flamethrower, smoke-generating, and engineer elements will not operate en masse but will be divided amongst motorized riflesubunits. It is worth noting the advantage accruing to the Soiviets in combat in cities from the possession of antitank guns, sights on self-propelled artillery which allow for direct fire, a large smoke-generating capacity and a plethora of flame equipment (both manpack and tank-mounted).The defense in a BUA (Built-Up Area) should be so organized as to canalize the attack into fire sacks where the enemy can be destroyed by fire and surprise counterattacks.
The intervals between strongpoints and centers of resistance must be covered by obstacles (in turn, covered by fire) and ambushes to prevent enemy infiltration and bypassing.
All strongpoints and centers of resistance must be organized for all-round defense and sufficiently supplied to fight on from encirclement. No withdrawals will be permitted except on the express order of the senior commander.
Considerable engineer preparation is necessary to enhance the natural defensive properties of BUAs and to create obstacles to the widespread use of armor or infiltration by infantry.
A motorized rifle battalion will hold a center of resistance. This, in turn, will compromise a series of company and platoon strongpoints, organized for all-round defense. The frontage and depth of centers of resistance and strongpoints will depend on the strength of the enemy and own forces, the layout of the sector defended, and the mission of the defending subunit (i.e., whether it is on a main or secondary axis, whether it is acting in the first or second echelon). Figure 1 illustrates a typical center of resistance on a main axis.
A platoon strongpoint will comprise one or two sturdy buildings, with basements or semi-basements. These are usually located at crossroads, on street corners, or overlooking a bridge or open ground such as parks and squares. The aim is to maximize fields of fire and to provide multi-tiered layers of fire where fields of fire are necessarily short.A company strongpoint will comprise one large, four- to five- story building or one to two blocks or groups of buildings. Thus, its frontage will vary from 200-600 meters, with a depth of 200-400 meters. Platoon positions will be mutually supporting.
A battalion center of resistance will consist of two to three strongpoints, in one or two echelons according to the importance of the axis. These will be mutually supporting, with obstacles and ambushes in the gaps between them. The frontage will vary accordingly terrain and echeloning.
The platoon and company strongpoints, the basic building blocks of defense, are worth examining in more detail:
* Converting a house to a defended strongpoint involves the following measures (see Figure 2):
* Time bulding is a adapted for multi-layered fire. Most weapons, icluding antitank and medium machine guns, will be on the ground floor and in the semi-basement. However, snipers and automatic riflemen (with grenades and RPGs) will thicken up fire from other stories. Attics can be used for mortar positions and for air defenders with heavy machine guns or hand-held SAMs.
* Doors and windows are blocked with sand bags, bricks or (earth filled and covered) furniture. Firing is done from embrasures created in the sandbags or cut through walls. False apertures are created to draw fire, real ones being covered by suitably painted plywood when not in use.
* Floors and firing positions are reinforced to reduce the effects of collapse as a result of shell fire. Floors are covered with up to 1.5 meters of earth or two layers of sandbags.
* Stairways are removed to complicate enemy clearing, communication being done by ladders. Outside fire escapes should be denied with wire or booby traps.
* To reduce the effect of flame attack, combutstible marterials are removed or covered in earth. Sheilds can be placed in front of embrasures. Underground shelters have a 15-20 centimeter-high wall of earth in front of their entrances to stop napalm.
o Basements are made into shelters against bombardment, storerooms, medical points, and command posts. Every underground facility must have at least two exits, going in different directions, with at least one in the form of a covered passage whose exit is beyond the possible distance of collapsing rubble (i.e., two-thirds the height of the nearest building).
o Ground floor exits are given blast-proof protection and lead to a communications trench.
* A company strongpoint may look like that in Figure 3.
o The fist and third platoons are each defending a house, and the second platoon (less a squad) is dug in a garden. Each platoon has attached an ATGM, a tank, a howitzer in the direct fire role, a SAM and a company machine gun. Tanks and howitzers, in some cases, are emplaced within the cover of the buildings. In other cases, they, like the squad vehicles, are dug in outside to give enfilade fire on the approaches. There would be two or three alternative positions for each.
o All approaches are covered by mines and wire, and the street by dragon's teeth as well.
o Communications between platoon strongpoints are mainly by underground passage. These are also used to deliver surprise fire from the rear of the attacking force.
* Engineer support for the defense is a theme in its own right. Usually, each motorized rifle battalion will receive a sapper platoon, though most of the laboring work will, of course, be done by the infantry under qualified supervision. The engineer tasks required are (illuminated in Figure 4):
o Execution of an obstacle plan. This will include demolitions and antitank ditching on the approaches, together with the laying of mixed minefields to protect strongpoints and canalize the attack. Within the BUA, dragon's teeth and hedgehogs are placed in likely tank approaches and these are protected against sapper demolition parties by wire obstacles. Cities will, of course, provide plenty of local resources for ditching, the creation of barricades, dragons teeth, and so on. They also open up the possibility of creating more exotic obstacles, too, such as electrified wire or lakes. As well as blocking streets, particularly main ones, engineers will deny the use of parks, squares, and the like to enemy desant forces or, when the enemy has penetrated thus far, to armor or artillery.
o Clearing fields of fire. Some buildings and walls will have to be demolished to give the defenders long-rance antitank shots and sometimes even shorter range engagements. Some buildings may also be demolished because such a move will actually improve their defensibility, and others for maskirovka purposes. The rubble will provide material for barricades and for shelters. Houses not prepared for the defense should be boobytrapped or mined, whether or not they are demolished.
* Creating fire positions. Digging guns or tank into buildings and camuouflaging them is a skilled task. Artillery emplacements will also have to be created in squares, gardens, courtyards, parks, etc., for the delivery of indirect fire.
* Improving communications. Terraced houses are inter connected by "mouseholing" from attic to attic. Separate buildings are joined by communications trenches. Underground routes (such as, tunnels, sewers, drainage ditches) need to be improved and possibly marked (or blocked, if unwanted by the defense and usable by the enemy).
* Improving survivability. Shelters have to be dug or improved (together with routes to and from them) and structures reinforced to withstand fire.
* Rapid obstacle creation. As in mobile warfare, mobile obstacle detachment will be needed for counter-penetration tasks as the attack gathers momentum.
* Route opening. Maneuver, already restricted by the very nature of BUAs, will become even more problematic with rubbling as a result of bombardment and with remote mining. Movement support detachments will need to keep open ruotes for couterattack and resupply.
* Fire fighting. Major conflagrations are a usual hazard in city fighting, compromising the stability of the defense
* Water supply. Damage to a BUA's normal water supply will often require engineer work to create a replacement.
ok, think that's enough for now.
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If you could adjust the force mix for the mission, what would you change?
get rid of the schrecks and the FO. instead get inf guns. perhaps replace the other HMG with a Flak.
How much of the strategy (since it appears you all pretty well agree on essentials) would have been optimal in WW2 versus in Combat Mission? What changes would have to be made if any?
in WW2 i would let go of the other schreck and HMG and instead "buy" trenches.
Does the strategy accomplish the screening mission?report the enemy force and wait for reinforcements. empty the FO on the enemy. fire the HMGs. perhaps ambush a T-70 with the schreck if necessary. if enemy threatens to overcome your positions before reinforcements arrive then fall back to secondary positions and then join the counterattack with the reinforcements.
What effect did the stabilized MG have on rifles?
in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin
Posted
yes you should place them along the flanks facing inward (and it goes for AFVs as well). that's how it was done historically and it also pays off in CM.
if i am playing a gamey battle in CM (facing AT-resistant vehicles) i will do my best to place AT guns horizontally or at even higher angles (e.g. pointing towards my rear). the side that is towards enemy rear needs to be protected by LOS block.