[PBEM in CMx2]

come to think of it, i don't know a single CM player who wouldn't play CM just as PBEM or TCPIP (sometimes). AFAIK none of them post or even read these forums, and are rather casual than hard-core players.

[A couple of statistics]

the part of the article i quoted dealed with individual soldiers, so the scale was company level and below. i think most of the posters here agree that Germans were extremely good on this scale. perhaps not 1:7, but still extremely good.

operational level is a world apart and deals with entirely different subjects.

i find the comments on early war a bit strange. German early war victories were real against-the-odds achievements and certainly not something to write off just as expected success against very bad opponents.

[A couple of statistics]

didn't find anything with google. IIRC the Swedish study had modelled in CAS, artillery etc, which most likely covers the high 1:7 ratio. the use of CAS, artillery etc of course by no means means lesser efficiency. a bit like the classic misused "US soldiers needed 100 000 bullets to kill each single NVA soldier".

found this though. somewhat interesting read. quotes studies that state Germans were only 20% more effective than British & US forces.

2.2 WWII armies

Modern militaries, as we’ll see, are most successful when they can recreate many of the elements of the egalitarian tribal ethos notwithstanding the reality of highly formalized hierarchical command and control. The trick is to minimize the psychological difference between desperate drama of modern combat and the similarly desperate acts of offense and defense that were probably common in the intertribal anarchy before 10,000 years ago. (Those taught to believe that tribal life before the origin of states was peaceful must read Keeley, 1996.)

Military traditions in different countries have very different attitudes toward the leadership and formation of bodies of the bodies of troops that actually fight together. Their performance in WWII also differed significantly. Dupuy (1984, 1987) has conducted a quantitative historical analysis of relative combat effectiveness of soldiers that have faced one another in battle in WWII. Controlling for equipment, surprise, and many other factors as well as possible, Dupuy found large differences in the effectiveness of soldiers. In WWII, German per capita effectiveness was highest, followed by Americans and British with about a 20% handicap relative to Germans (all else equal, it would take 120 Americans or British troops to accomplish the same objective as 100 Germans). The German advantage relative to Russians was approximately 2 fold. This difference persisted until the very end of the war despite a steady diet of defeat after 1942 for German units, very heavy casualties, and a poor supply situation. Many indices of German soldier’s military effectiveness accord with Dupuy’s analysis. For example, comparatively few Germans from ordinary divisions surrendered when defeated, most soldiers making their way rearward, even in chaotic defeats that reduced the soldiers of other armies to helpless passivity. Similar factors apply to the relative advantage of Israeli troops over their Arab enemies in 1967 and 1973.

More ethnographic analyses of the performance of the German Army relative to the Western Allies were conducted by Shils and Janowitz (1948), van Creveld (1982) and Fritz (1995). Cockburn’s (1983) account of the Cold War Soviet Army is similarly detailed. Shalit (1988) gives an interesting account of the psychology of combat based on his studies as a member of the Israeli Defense Force. All observers, van Creveld and Fritz most explicitly, agree with Dupuy’s evaluation of the relative superiority of the German Army against all its enemies, and with the relative inefficiency of the Soviet Army. It cannot be objected, these analysts hold, that the German loss of the war is ultimately the test of the combat effectiveness of their army. Lose Germany did, owing to the greater numbers of their enemies, especially the Soviets, and their superiority in material, especially due to American production. Controlling for such factors, German troops were more effective fighters than the Allies. Four aspects of modern armies seem to explain most of the German advantage in soldier’s fighting power, modes of recruitment, training, leadership, and treatment of individuals.

German doctrine placed great emphasis on developing a sense of cohesion and solidarity among the members of small units (squads, platoons, and companies). To begin with, troops were recruited on a territorial basis, so the men served with fellows from the same towns and villages of their birth. Recruits were trained by elements of the same regiment in which they would serve in combat, and sent as a body to the front to make up losses from their regiment. A German soldier always served in the company of comrades, whose bonds of loyalty and fellowship were deliberately designed to cumulatively increase from the day of induction onwards. At the opposite extreme, the American system gave recruits basic training in temporary groups, and sent them on to advanced schools, and eventually to combat, as individuals. Socially isolated neophyte soldiers suffered considerable psychological turmoil during their long, lonely journeys to the front, and were disproportionately likely to become casualties in their first weeks of fighting. Not until actually incorporated into their final destination units could recruits begin to develop a sense of cohesion with any of the comrades with whom they would fight.

German basic training, conducted at the hands of non-commissioned officer drill sergeants, was extremely rigorous physically and mentally. However, this training was explicitly legitimated as preparation for battle, and instructors were typically fair as well as hard. After the beginning of the war, most instructors were veterans with whom the trainees would return to the front. Most drill instructors earned grudging admiration or better from recruits. Training of commissioned officers as well as NCOs emphasized the responsibility of officers for the welfare of their troops, and very often enlisted troops responded warmly to the paternalistic concerns of their field grade officers. At every level, soldiers were trained to seize opportunities and act on individual initiative, rather than await orders.

It is interesting read advice manuals for junior officers in modern Western armies (e.g. Malone, 1983), where leadership by remote command through a chain of command to troops, backed up by extreme coercion for disobedience, ought to be most manifest. Malone advises leaders of small units to display such traits as humility, justice, tact, and selflessness as well as more conventional military virtues as courage decisiveness, dependability, and loyalty. Under several different headings he encourages leaders to conspicuously recognize the contributions of subordinates, downplay their own roles, and defend their subordinates against unfair treatment from outside and from up the chain of command. Ideally at least, modern armies seem to expect leaders to behave much the same way an influential man might in an egalitarian society. More formal studies of bureaucratic leadership, of which military leadership is only a special case, emphasize similar points (Van Fleet and Yukl, 1986; Taylor and Rosenbach, 1992). According to Fritz and van Creveld, the German emphasis on the prosocial traits of NCO and field officer leaders along the lines Malone suggests was a good deal stronger than in the American Army of WWII. No doubt, the chain of command exists, and no doubt it is widely resented. Nothing is more familiar to all of us than complaining about superiors. Without dedicated small-unit leaders that can inspire common action by the same deft force of personality the informal leaders of simple societies use, it is doubtful that soldiers could be inspired to their customary desperate deeds.

American and British training and leadership practices were less meticulous versions of the German system, but Soviet practice was very different according to Cockburn. Recruitment and training were haphazard. In the Soviet Army, the NCO system was very rudimentary; lacking the long-service career NCO cadre that is one of the key components of German, British, and American armies. Commissioned officers were socially remote from recruits, who were informally ranked in terms of length of service (recruits serve 2 or 3 years). The effective face-to-face leaders of Soviet soldiers were typically young, inexperienced draftee junior officers. As a consequence Soviet units not only lacked effective small unit leadership, but the recruit experience engendered divisions between older and younger soldiers within units rather than the strongly felt solidarity of Western European, especially German, small units. Blind obedience to orders coming down from a remote high command was the rule, and local initiative was discouraged. German practice was at the opposite extreme in this regard. German orders to subordinates were drafted to emphasize the mission to be accomplished, with the subordinate expected to devise the means to accomplish the mission, right down to the level of squad and section leaders and individual enlisted men.

According to van Crevelt, the German command system was constructed to seem fair and just to individual soldiers by catering to their psychological needs for strong fellowship and sensitive, if tough, leadership. The German system went to considerable extremes to move the best officers to the front lines, at the expense of leaving rear areas under- and poorly staffed. German procedure greatly simplified reporting by field commanders in the interest of reducing the paperwork burden on fighters. The Americans had a much more manage-by-numbers approach, which tended to keep talent men in rear-area jobs, and which imposed a much larger paperwork burden on front line commanders. The German system for awarding medals was more prompt in its recognition of merit, and more strongly restricted to actual combat accomplishment, than the American system. The development of a very efficient field postal system kept soldiers in touch with their families, and hardship leave (e.g. when the family home was bombed) was common. The Wehrmacht thus went to considerable extremes to demonstrate an interest in a soldier’s personal well-being, minimizing conflicts between soldierly duty and personal interest. Significantly, Fritz describes, a German soldier was very unlikely to face extreme discipline from his normal superiors. In the catastrophic, anarchic retreats of the 1943-5 period, German Field Police units dealt summarily and extremely harshly with stragglers for relative misdemeanors, and the element of raw coercion in the system became very plain. In such circumstances, a soldier’s best option was to rejoin his unit as quickly as possible. Intact German units, even when very badly mauled, continued to be well led and well behaved and didn’t attracted attention from these dreaded detachments. German soldiers felt well cared for despite the fact that service in combat led to the death or maiming of most of them. Russian soldiers, contrariwise, were subject to extreme discipline by their own officers, with attendant lack of intense feelings of fellowship between superiors and subordinates.

There is debate over the role of Nazi ideology in explaining the effectiveness of WWII German soldiers. Shils and Janowitz substantially discount its impact relative to the details of training and leadership. Fritz argues that Nazi ideology underpinned soldier’s attitudes in several respects. First, the Nazi ideology of national solidarity was explicitly built on an analogy with the deeply felt front-line solidarity of small units in the face of a dangerous foreign enemy, a topic on which front-line WWI veteran Hitler could expound with genuine personal familiarity. Army service was endowed with an idealistic demonstration mission for the whole German Volk to a greater degree than in other armies. Fritz elaborates considerably on Hitler’s charismatic appeal to at least some considerable minority of soldiers. Second, the anti-aristocratic element in Nazi ideology served to reinforce attempts to bring officers socially closer to the men they commanded. At the end of WWI, dispirited German soldiers mutinied in large numbers, hastening the end of the war. The deep division between a largely aristocratic officer corps and working class enlisted ranks contributed to the mutinous behavior. No such mutinies occurred even in the last, desperate days of WWII. Van Creveld attributes this difference to a dramatic democratization of the German officer corps, including, much promotion from the NCO ranks, after 1933. Since the American and Soviet societies had ready access to egalitarian ideologies that could have served to reduce the social distance between officers and their troops, perhaps the most plausible explanation is that Hitler’s enlisted man’s experience in WWI gave him an intuitive sympathy for and appeal to ordinary soldiers’ motivations for fighting. In Hitler’s concept of soldierly solidarity, an ideological linchpin of his regime’s claim to legitimacy, happened to work rather well when applied to small units, and his glorification of it sustained soldier’s idealism remarkably well. And, he had the dictatorial power to enforce his ideals of leadership upon the traditional officer class. This power was exercised with sufficient vigor to result in von Stauffenberg’s 1944 attempt on his life, organized by aristocratic officers. In any case, average German performance was better than all but the best units of the American and British armies, whose organization, training, and leadership norms resembled that of the German Army in many respects. It does seem plausible that these differences in training and leadership could give rise to the large differences in per capita effectiveness measured by Dupuy.

It is highly ironic, as van Crevelt, an Israeli not likely to romanticize matters, notes, that a criminal, totalitarian nazi regime managed to find the most successful formula of the period for meeting the conflicting demands of command and control at the nation-state level with the need to provide feelings of egalitarian solidarity and just, prosocial leadership at the psychologically most salient level to ordinary soldiers.

Complex Societies: The Evolutionary Dynamics of a Crude Superorganism

[A couple of statistics]

i read about some extensive Swedish study about 5-10 years ago in some Finnish military mag. it stated something like that German soldiers were 7-12 times more effective than Western Allied ones.

does anyone know the study i read about? references?

[Accuracy of modelling?]

i noticed that T-72s have snorkel tubes modelled. will we be able to use the snorkels in the game and do deep fording?

[Accuracy of modelling?]

Originally posted by Rade:

I've seen few screenshots and some details on T-72 model doesn't look very accurate, there is no gunners periscopes and those smoke dischargers look a different than on a real tank.

some variants had smoke dischargers layed a bit like that, but the lack of gunner's periscopes is a bit puzzling.

perhaps the T-72 variant is fictional as well?

[1:1 Representation; What WILL be 1:1?]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

I am one of the hopeful, and my confidence is high, BUT if there is NO 1:1 LOS and LOF and you have your squads spread out real thin so arty won't get them ALL with one round then what other spotting or firepower advantages will this squad realize when you have them spread out for their own protection?

you still have very valuable data such as:

1. knowledge of the formation the squad is on

2. knowledge of the role of each man in the squad

3. knowledge of what kind of terrain (cover) each man is on

4. knowledge of what's their distance to the LOS point holder person of the squad

5. what's their distance to a given enemy unit

6. knowledge of some recent successful LOS checks to certain locations

these will allow you to have spread squads without 1:1 LOS and not screw up the 1:1 representation and modelling (for most situations).

key issues are: knowledge of which man holds the squad's LOS point (decided based on formation and each man's role in the given formation), the ability to calculate the spread of received fire within the squad (based on things like distance and simple terrain type based cover value) and the ability for the AI to change squad's formation (and thus LOS holder) based on events. theoretically you could even calculate LOS holder changes without changing squad's formation, because you know the point the firing enemy unit just had LOS to and the position of each member of the receiving squad, but it may get tricky if the squad is receiving fire from numerous units.

i don't have time to explain this deeper right now, but spread squads are 100% doable with the given system. you should be able to figure it out with the above points. the tricky part is having each man receive cover from buildings and objects like tanks, because the cover is not based on distance calculations & terrain type the man is on, but on a LOS block and thus you can't simply calculate how enemy fire is spread within the squad - you need LOS checks. however without objects blocking LOS the system is relatively simple to code and doesn't require heavy calculations.

most of it is simple vector maths + terrain cover variables.

tho you need to store some recent & succesful LOS checks to make the firing unit maintain LOS to their target even in a situation in which the LOS holder of the target squad is already in concealment. you could do it even without storing some succesful LOS check locations, but it would in my opinion get too abstracted especially if the target unit is receiving fire from multiple locations.

but i really need to go, so bye for now.

[CMBB - Soviets in the worst of 43]

utilize the superior maneuverability of Soviet tanks. buy light tanks instead of KVs and T-34s. they are dirty cheap so you get hordes of them. flank fast behind the StuGs from a number of directions. StuGs turn real slow and are easy target. keep moving. go for medium or large maps. call in lots of smoke if necessary.

your cherry picking opponent is likely to quit the game in disgust and anger as your tiny tanks swarm his clumsy formations and KO his precious Nazi junk. rememer to type lots of LOLZ and OWn3d.

[1:1 Representation; What WILL be 1:1?]

i have read only some posts on these threads, so perhaps this is already covered, but here it goes anyway.

i have understood that each soldier's cover & concealment is modelled, but their LOS is not modelled? how can this be? for example if you have two men hiding behind a tank, surely LOS/LOF is the crucial factor that defines both cover & concealment for these fellows [in relation to the enemy they are hiding from]? or is it just that you can't manually check the LOS of each soldier, while it is modelled under the hood?

another question that i haven't seen a definite answer to is: will LOF be real 3D lines instead of 2D point objects of CM1? e.g. will we have machineguns that can lay down realistic horizontal fire across a field instead of just point fire? will we finally be able to shoot at houses that are located on higher terrain than us? and dear god will tanks be modelled in real 3D so that e.g. turret size begins to matter?

i think both of these questions deal essentially with one and same thing: 1:1 3D modelled LOF/LOS.

BTW sounds like a real killer game. amoeba like squads was what i liked the least in CM. keep up the good work and ignore the whine

ah, one last thing: it sounds like a WW2 game is the first to come out. any chances of covering the early war?

[Will there be Finns?]

i hear Finland is going to sell her Soviet equipment so i think it's better to accept the rotten nature of life and start digging NATO doctrines.

or better yet, become a wannabe Bosnian

[missions reflect real battles?]

first of all, i do notice the story is a fictional one and i haven't read all info from the website.

still, any chances that the terrain will become more realistic (judging from the screenshots it looks more like Afghanistan than Balkans at the moment)? will BattleFront touch such aspects of the game?

any chances of covering the Croatian "Operation Storm"? what about fictional land conflict at Kosovo (Serbs vs NATO)? or in general: do the missions relate to real world battles in any ways?

will buy anything as long as it covers Operation Storm...

[Is SMOKE CM's great underrated tool?]

Originally posted by GreenAsJade:

Why is it gamey?

it just feels gamey. i think it's mostly because it only works because you know that enemy is just about to attack, what his target area and strenght is. in reality you wouldn't know any of them and it would make more sense to have a usual defence setup with strenches and all that.

[mounted infantry tactics]

i play infantry heavy battles, of mechanized or at max combined arms type.

i use halftracks as a mobile overwatch that follows 100-200 meters behind infantry.

halftracks offer superior response time if compared to machineguns or mortars that are moving. that's crucial if you get ambushed. halftracks respond "immediately", where as it may well take a minute to get a machinegun or mortar to fire. of course ideally you would have your mortars & machineguns sitting on some hill, but i rarely play on a hilly terrain.

halftracks are also well protected against non-heavy machineguns and mortars. they don't get pinned and thus return fire much more effectively. they are rather resistant against ATR fire - it takes 1-2 minutes for a single ATR to take out one halftrack, where as you can take out a spotted ATR quite easily. heavier guns are a real threat, but you just have to live with it.

halftracks also carry godless amounts of ammo. non-halftrack machineguns usually run out of ammo about in a half an hour. halftracks keep firing for an hour. it really starts to show after the first 30 minutes in infantry heavy battles. and those German mortar halftracks are simply super sexy - mobility, good load of rounds and you can still fire indirect fire.

some other natural functions for halftracks is moving guns around, doing recon and recon overwatch.

i love halftracks, but i think one needs to have a long, infantry heavy battle to have a real use for them.

[Is SMOKE CM's great underrated tool?]

Originally posted by 37mm:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />i have smoked my own defensive positions a couple of times to create a massive ambush. gamey, but satisfying.

Could you explain in a bit more detail... sounds interesting. </font>

[Is SMOKE CM's great underrated tool?]

Originally posted by HarryInk:

1. Who out there uses smoke a lot, like me?

i use a lot of smoke when i am playing Soviets. it's so cheap i can't help it.

3. What do you do when you've got a nice defence set up and the bugger smokes you. Run? Maneuver?

i tend to reposition. infantry falls to fallback positions, while machineguns & mortars move to positions where they can hammer the enemy infantry that is about to enter your previous positions. then after a couple of minutes of hammering i launch a counter attack and take back my primary positions. it usually works very well, but you must have had patience to place a good share of your machineguns, mortars etc a bit further back.

i have smoked my own defensive positions a couple of times to create a massive ambush. gamey, but satisfying.

[Any 1 knows where i can get some eBooks about WW2]

hmm. what about going to some divari and buying some good old korkkaris? :|

[ August 16, 2004, 02:38 AM: Message edited by: undead reindeer cavalry ]

[Any 1 knows where i can get some eBooks about WW2]

Originally posted by Retigade:

i want to find books about finland against russia and some book about german infantry`s in russia

ewwh, get your lazy ass to the library. any library in Finland will have meters of books about those subjects. the central library of Vantaa most likely has at least a couple whole shelves about those two subjects.

[Jagdpanther...]

Originally posted by FM Paul Heinrik:

You think the jagdpather is good....try the jagdtiger. I've never seen that sucker destroyed. It will usually get immobilized or run out of ammo, only after it destroys every moving vehicle on the map.

yeah, Jagdtiger was a real monster.

Jagdtiger and Jagdpanther were quite different beasts. Jagdpanther was actually quite fast and mobile, and could be used both to defend and attack. Jagdtiger was more like a bunker on tracks - a thing that could be used only on defence. it was extremely slow and broke down even faster than King Tiger.

i wonder if vehicles can get immobilized in Combat Mission just by turning to new direction?

[Jagdpanther...]

Originally posted by Jack Carr:

Is it me or is this thing nigh undefeatable. Put one of these babies on a hill with some open terrain in front of it and watch the black smoking hulks appear. Unless it gets hit by a 122, frontally its hard to beat. Your only hope as a Russian player is to damage the gun or immobilize it. If CM is accurate in its portrayal of this vehicle why didn't the Germans produce these things like crazy?

IMO it's the best TD of WW2, having not just a great gun & armor but also great mobility. Germans tried to produce them like crazy, but couldn't.

single Jagdpanthers are easy to destroy though, because they have those horribly slow turning rates. just flank it.

[Russian tanks and TDs.....]

most German tanks are good only on a front-to-front duelling, as German tanks have truly inferior armor on their sides & rear and have serious mobility issues. all German tanks, save the superheavy ones, can be destroyed even by light tanks. just make use of their weak sides & poor mobility.

[Got my #$$ kicked by a veteran…]

Originally posted by Bone_Vulture:

I was going for that when I said "especially in larger battles".

i see.

The problem is that Soviet light tanks lack both cupolas and sufficient crew, so most of the time they're forced to acquire targets blind. It takes incredible skill and fortune to outflank German forces with Soviet light tanks, unless your opponent is completely unprepared for this tactic. Otherwise, light PAKs will usually dismantle any Soviet tanks that attempt flanking maneuvers.

i don't know how likely that is in a ME, especially if terrain has lots of cover or the map is not a small one. it's likely that you'd need to tow the PAKs halfway the map.

actually most of my successes with Soviet light tanks have not come from full flank moves, but from situations in which enemy tanks have moved on the flanks to new firing positions (usually now facing to the center areas of the map). i have then quickly sent the previously passive (but forward positioned) lighties to wreak havoc on the Nazi armor. coming from side or rear, they cause serious chaos for turretless targets with abyssmal turning rates.

often the lighties have been more succesful in dealing with StuGs than IS-2s and such. often a single light tank can cause a lot of damage.

the serious downside is that it's damn annoying to watch the StuGs turn so ridiculously slooooooowlyyyyy, even if you are playing the Soviets. i don't like it, but it works well.

[PAK's in the streets]

Finns preferred 50mm AT guns to bigger ones for that very reason. Finns would have bought 50mm guns rather than 75mm ones, as in practice 75mm AT guns could not be moved in Finnish terrain. lot's of 75mm AT guns were lost just because you couldn't take them with you once things got too hot.

[Got my #$$ kicked by a veteran…]

Originally posted by Bone_Vulture:

Don't the Germans have a bit of an unfair advantage in ME's, especially in larger battles?

They can order flexible 150mm bombardment on the field any time, while the Russians can barely drop 76mm shells without having to wait for ten minutes and pray that the spotting rounds fall anywhere in the vicinity of the targeted spot.

if you play Combined Arms battles, Germans can't even buy 150mm arty unless you have larger battles. too expensive.

i think MEs balance the game a lot against the Germans. MEs have more room for maneuver, and thus you can easily reach position in which fast light Soviet tanks wreck StuGs and such.

[Got my #$$ kicked by a veteran…]

Originally posted by Berlichtingen:

The true test is how someone handls a tough situation, not how fast someone can race the center

i have played some 30-40 PBEM/TCPIP MEs. i think i have lost 3 of them and i have only once raced to the center/flags.

all the games have been combined arms operations on maps with lot's of cover. perhaps others play with different settings. other than that, i can't figure how rushing to the center would not lead to the total annihilation of one's troops.

EDIT: one of the games was a draw.

[What are recon troops for?]

Recon units have rifles and quite a lot of ammo, which makes them quite good in ranged infantry fighting. i usually use them to make advancing enemy infantry stuck early in their advance by forcing them to fight forward positioned recon units.

the recon units will withdraw to second line positions once they have stalled the enemy advance. to make this more effective, i usually give the recon units a mortar (use HQ to direct mortar fire so that the mortar has chances to pull back) and LMG. they are good for pinning the enemy infantry once they have been located, giving the recon squads much needed time to pull back.

i usually have a tank or two located so that they can move fast to support the withdrawing forward units so that they don't get overrun. these tanks usually have favorable positions to knock out enemy tanks that may come after the recon units.

and if one is lucky enough, one's enemy will waste some artillery rounds on the recon positions. by which time the recon units have of course already pulled back to their secondary positions.

usually recon units manage to escape with only light casualties. if you have reason to expect that your enemy will have support vehicles with their forward infantry, you may want to give the recon units light anti-tank weapons. but if enemy is real strong in armor, it's better to try to hide your forward positioned recon and let the enemy forces pass their positions. enemy armor won't be able to support infantry once they have advanced enough, because it would make them too vulnerable to your tanks.

recon units are also good for securing the flanks.