RecceDG

Yup. And that isn't the fault of the engine, or the maps. It's the writing of the scenarios and the campaign. Try me. Given that this appears to be your personal ox I am goring, go ahead. Make you points. I would not have posted such a lengthy AAR if I were not willing to discuss the design points. I'm tired of crappy campaigns and I want to help the scenario designers improve. So hit me. Explain to me your design decisions in the missions you wrote. Actually, I'm totally OK with that, as it turns out that the arty don't shoot every single time you call, and sometimes the birds aren't flying. If you aren't the main effort, you may not get the guns. There aren't as many of them anymore, and they may be needed elsewhere. Or the FSCC may decide that your target just isn't worth the ammo. It happens. I'm talking about things like using recce and a platoon of engineers to do a cordon and search op on what is a combat team sized objective - as the opening mission of the campaign. Or an airfield attack where a good sized chunk of the defenders occupy a position where they have no influence on the defense of the airfield and make no move to counterattack once the attack goes in. Not at all. Take, for example, the gravel pit mission. Blue is handicapped here by a poor assignment of troops to tasks. That gravel pit is somewhere between a platoon and company sized defensive position. At a 3:1 attacker to defender ratio, that means attacking with a company to a battalion, with a combat team being a decent sized force that can deal with the expected range of enemy. Blue is helped here by having a position of dominating ground overlooking the objective. Why does he get that ground? What commander in his right mind would allow the enemy to have a perfect overwatch position? And then the layout of the position is such that there is no mutual support between positions. It is tailor-made for a left flanking and then clearing the position in detail. So here's how I would fix that mission: 1. Give Blue his full combat team - but make it the same combat team he did Mission 1 with to help set the expectation that he is going to have to shepherd this unit through the whole campaign and he cannot just absorb losses willy-nilly. The Mission 1 cordon and search should not have inflicted much in the way of casualties so there shouldn't be much need for resupply in terms of units - just bomb up everyone who survived. 2. Either rotate the map so that the high ground is in the REAR of the enemy position (giving him observation for HIS spotters and runup positions for HIS zulu BMPs) or make the high ground a trap - mine the crest, and have it under observation and a planned fire mission that smashes the whole top of the hill once someone works up to it. 3. I like the whole "shot up convoy" angle - that makes it different from a pure set-piece and gives the mission a little life. But I would have TWO tanks there, and I would make them very aggressive. 4. Start the mission with Blue having 2 Recce Scimitars entering the map. They get a couple of turns alone, where ideally they will bump into the 2 tanks and spend those turns trying desperately to stay alive. The tanks should be written to chase the recce around until just before Blue's next set of forces arrive, and then turn tail and head for the main defensive area (this simulates them seeing the next forces coming up and making the wise choice - dealing with maps with hard edges is always a pain) 5. Next Blue forces to arrive are the first two tank troops and the OC and his wingman. Ideally from a scenario POV the tanks arrive to find a pair of smoking recce elements (or if the player has been lucky, the reward of the Calvary arriving in the nick of time to save the recce. He now has the opportunity to chase the tanks... in which case he should blunder directly into the anti-armour defenses of the main defensive position which should rip up those tanks. (Smart player sits tight and waits for the rest of the Sqn because he knows that gravel pit is well defended) 6. 2 turns later, the rest of the tank sqn shows up - 2 troops and the BC. As well, the inf coy OC, the FOO, and the engineers arrive. And now the player has enough forces on the ground to start probing the defenses and come up with his plan. 7. 5 turns later, the rest of the coy shows up and the player has all his forces. The tanks should have made contact and the plan should be shaking out - firebase established, an idea if the attack is going to be left, right, or frontal. 8. Another 5 or so turns in, the attack should be well underway. At some point, Red should commit the zulu BMPs and the intimate support tanks (1 per Pl and the two from the start of the mission if they survived) and try and get some kills with the saggers and main guns... but really, the Blue tanks will probably just hammer them, and that's fine. The Red position should be set up with HMGs and RPGs sited defilade to produce enfilade fire, interlocking and mutually supporting arcs between positions, and generally be a tough nut to crack. But a player who sets up a firebase, assaults from an intelligent direction, and keeps his head should do fine - where a player who just rushes in should get mauled. 9. And then... Red fires a smoke mission along the left edge of the map. This is a BIG FREAKING CLUE as to what is coming next... and depending where Blue is in his attack, he may be either in a good place to re-orient, or he might be in the middle of his assault. 10. And through the smoke comes the Red counter-moves force - say 2 Pl of tanks plus a command tank, plus maybe the regimental anti-tank Pl (missile BRDMs or some such) Small enough so that if Blue was thinking flank security and/or reoriented when the smoke started landing, he'll be OK, but if this comes as a surprise, he's going to get hammered. Plus maybe we reload Red's arty just as a bonus. 11. Scoring: Blue Total Victory: Objective secured, recce preserved, no to light casualties Blue Major Victory: Objective secured, recce killed, light to moderate casualties Blue Tactical Victory: Objective secured, recce killed, moderate casualties, some vehicles knocked out Red Tactical Victory: Blue moderate to heavy casualties, many vehicles knocked out Red Major Victory: Blue heavy casualties, many vehicles knocked out Red Total Victory: Blue heavy casualties, objective not taken Basically, Red assumes he is going to get rolled over and wiped out - but that's OK because this is a delay/attrition mission for Red. Blue is going to take the position; what matters is how skillfully he does so (where "skillfully" is measured by how many casualties Blue takes) Recast this way (and assuming Mission 1 was rewritten so Blue used this same combat team in it): 1. We achieve the goal of "Continuity of Narrative", given that we have the same "main character" from Mission 1 to Mission 2 2. We achieve the goal of "Campaign Narrative Makes Military Sense" because combat team sized actions against delay strongpoints with small local counterattacks fits the expected progression of an invasion (Blue cannot afford to leave these strongpoints active in his rear so they must be reduced, Red seeks to attrit and delay while setting up a large-scale countermoves) 3. We achieve the scenario goal of "Scenario Force Balance Makes Military Sense" because we have a combat team attacking a combat team appropriate position, but Blue doesn't get all the advantages - Red should have advantageous ground, should have his forces positioned as strongly as possible, and should basically make Blue work for his victory, notwithstanding Blue's massive firepower and quality advantage 4. And finally, we achieve the "Fun" objective, because Red isn't static, but neither does he cheat. It's tough without being cheap, and you have to think a little or you get mauled - which is fun to me. See? It is possible to be both realistic AND fun. They two concepts are NOT mutually exclusive. DG

OK, this is the start of my AAR for the Combat Mission - Strike Force British Forces campaign. It is, I'm afraid, somewhat long and detailed, but I have reached a critical mass of frustration with CM scenario and campaign design and it is time to pass my observations up the chain. Firstly, a few words about "campaign" design vice "scenario" design - a "campaign" is a narrative. The intent of a campaign should be to tell the story of a unit as it progresses through an operation from phase to phase. This is different from a "scenario" which is a single, stand-alone engagement that occurs in a vacuum. The size of the unit is a design consideration that could vary from Corps to Platoon. In a CM-SF context, there is a "happy place" in and around the combat team level. Squads are too small and too fragile to build a story around. Brigades are too large and impersonal. But we'll get to this later. There are a couple of major considerations involved with campaign design: 1. The unit the player controls will be carried forward from engagement to engagement. Accordingly, casualties now matter. There will be a certain amount of repair and replacement between engagements (which could be "zero" if an engagement follows right on the heels of a previous engagement) but it is assumed that replacements will never be to 100% capacity and that replacement troops will be of lesser quality (the troops themselves may be fine but there is an efficiency loss that comes with being the "new guys" 2. The results of engagements set up follow on engagements. The player should be rewarded for success and punished for failure (with opportunities for redemption provided) Accordingly, the definition of "success" and "failure" matters and needs to be clearly spelled out. The "victory" or "defeat" message should NEVER be a surprise to the player. 3. The arc of engagement to engagement (complete with branch points) needs to make military sense, both from a tactical and a narrative perspective. The player should be able to see WHY he is doing this particular mission and how it fits into the overarching campaign. Both the mission goals and the force mix assigned must be aligned so that it makes sense from the bigger picture. 4. Finally, from an immersion point of view, the player needs to be able to identify on a personal level with his pixeltruppen. He needs to care about them and their success - and this is all about narrative. What you as a campaign designer are attempting to do is replicate "Band of Brothers" (the TV series) As a campaign designer, you are first and foremost a STORYTELLER - the better the story, the better the campaign. OK then, if we are going to tell a story, who will our "main character" be? British doctrine (Canadian too since it is mostly shared) provides an excellent unit structure for telling a campaign story at the CM-SF scale - the combat team. A combat team is an ad-hoc combined arms unit that is about the smallest organic combined arms element used in offensive operations. For full-spectrum ops you can go much smaller (and that works as subelements of the combat team can and are detatched on occasion for independent operations when the mission demands it) but if you want to invade someplace, a combat team is the smallest unit that will operate under independent command. A combat team's composition is not a fixed thing but the generic version is: A tank Squadron (4 troops, the OC, the BC, and the dozer, plus the Sgt Major and the A1 Ech) An infantry Coy A FOO (with some measure of guns in support) Some engineers (total number varies depending on where the higher main effort lies, but a couple of field sections as a minimum) And while not organic to the combat team, they will be constantly working with Bde Recce, who precede them on the move and are constantly handing over contacts to them. The combat team can be commanded either by the Sqn Commander or by the Company Commander - I've seen both. Who is in command doesn't really change the tactics at all, but someone has to be in charge (and no, it doesn't move back and forth between the Armd OC and the Inf OC) This is a very powerful and flexible organization; small enough to be controllable by a single player, but big enough so that it can absorb some losses (the way a platoon cannot). It can be subdivided into smaller chunks (temporarily) if the mission requires it (and there is a command structure there to support it) or it can fight as a unified whole. And the size of the unit fits well within the CM scale. So let's assume a combat team is our "main character" for the time being. Next is the mission arc. In the sort of greater CM picture of the fictitious invasion of Syria, the grand arc goes something like this: 1. Invasion 2. Destruction of Syrian combat power 3. Seizing of key infrastructure 4. State-sponsored asymmetrical warfare over the control of infrastructure (last gasp) 5. The collapse of the state 6. Provision of security until the new state gets on its feet and assumes control 7. Mentoring of state elements in a counterinsurgency environment 8. Withdrawl In terms of actual missions, this might look like: 1. Combat team crossing the border 2. Combat team quick attacks against Pl sized defensive positions (with counterattacks) as Syria attempts to delay 3. Combat team meeting engagement against large armoured formation (Syrian counterattack) 4. Combat team assault against prepared defensive position 5. Combat team seize of an infrastructure item, with a constraint of minimizing damage 6. Convoy escort mission with QRF/EOD deployment 7. VCP defense against SVBIED attack with QRF deployment 8. QRF response to SVBIED attack on police station 9. Coy cordon and search of suspected IED factory 10. Pl patrols in support of local security forces. For the "failure" missions, you basically have: 1. The remnants of whatever failed holding out against a counterattack, subsequently rescued by the Americans 2. Relegated to some sort of rear area task 3. Another rear area task with a surprise visit from a Syrian main force (this is the redemption mission) 4. Back to the success track With all this in mind, let's look at the campaign as provided: SPOILERS ABOUND BEYOND THIS POINT Mission 1 - The Border Station Right away, we start off with a mission that makes no sense what so ever from a military good sense perspective. We have a border post that needs to be seized and searched. The need for the search is specious at best (important documents? In a border post?) but that isn't really all that important, as I can buy the need to seize it with minimal damage to the infrastructure (as NATO gains experience with failed state reconstruction, the lesson "don't destroy all the security infrastructure because you will need it later" is starting to sink in) So I'm on board with "seize the border post and break as little as possible" as an opening mission. What I am not on board with is the assignment of troops to task. This is the opening mission of the campaign. Everybody is at full strength. The staffs have had tons of time to recce and plan out this mission. Of all the missions in the whole campaign, this is the only one that will be - for sure - fully planned and have full strength forces assigned. There is no "make do" here. And this is a combat team sized objective as a minimum. The border post will have known that an invasion is coming. They are sitting right on an MSR and know they are going to get it. They are a tripwire whose primary purpose is to ID the forces crossing the border and get the counter-moves armoured attack moving in the right direction. Depending on the quality of the troops, they will either be intending to hole up and delay as much as possible, or make a decent show of it and get the hell out of Dodge. That means minefields running across the frontage and some sort of block or obstacle on the MSR itself, along with counter-armour ambushes on the position. Were this my combat team, I'd be conducting a pair of minefield breaches on both sides of the installation. I may not know where the minefields really are, so I'm going to assume a deep one along the border, drop the plows on the breaching tanks, and cut some gaps. I'll then send 3 troops to the far side of the installation - 2 troops facing out to keep a counterattack from getting in, and 1 troop facing in as a cutoff force to keep anyone from escaping - and the last troop to escort the infantry in and act as intimate support. From a game perspective, the game starts with a pair of recce vehicles securing the LoD, the next turn has 2 troops of tanks show up (plus the OC and dozer) the engineers, and the FOO. The following turn has the last 2 troops of tanks and the BC arrive. 5 turns later (or so) the Inf Coy arrives, and the breach should be done by the time they show up. Enemy has a huge wire IED on the MSR and gets points for detonating it. Player gets points for preventing the detonation, not taking recce casualties, and clearing the buildings without damaging them. But that's not what we have. Instead, Recce and the Engineers (!!!) are tasked with clearing the installation - and that is simply ludicrous. Maybe - MAYBE - in an under-pressure, nobody else around, things are not going well later mission / failure track mission OK, but as the opening mission of the campaign? No general is going to use his most two valuable and irreplaceable units (recce and engineers) to carry out a cordon and search as the opening move in an invasion. What next, a frontal assault led by the FOO and the ambulance? ENGINEERS ARE NOT INFANTRY - they are far, far too valuable to be used in assaulting buildings (except blasting holes in walls/obstacles) Mission 2 - The Gravel Pit This opens up well enough - recce stumbles across a convoy that got shot up OH **** THERE'S A TANK STILL MOVING! Awesome way to open up this scenario; this could happen in real life. But that tank, who should be hungry for revenge and should chase down that poor Scimitar like the crunchy target he is, just sits there passively (this will be a reoccurring theme) and I bring forward a Javelin (WONDERFUL missile; boo ERYX) and that's the end of that. And as other forces arrive... it's a partial Infantry Coy, no tank support. For a deliberate attack on a prepared position. Again, this is a combat team sized objective. Luckily though, the defensive position is sited with no mutual support between weapons and no artillery support. I drop a linear barrage into the left forward trench line and do a left flanking that clears the objective. There is another tank back there, but instead of popping forward to wreak havoc on my assault force, he just sits there until I can bring the Javelins up to deal with him. The enemy has no reserve, no counter-moves force, and exposed positions do not attempt to counterattack. He is cleared out in detail. Mission 3 - The Crossroads AT LAST we have something like the right force mix - 2 troops of tanks, plus the OC and the BC (huh? Who is minding the store? Well... maybe that's supposed to be the dozer) plus some infantry. Having the command element present means I can build 2 x 4-tank troops (the way God intended) and the infantry gives me a combat team minus. Except - that the ground here has the objectives laid out crossing the axis of advance, instead of in line with it. That is OK (it happens) except now there is a flank protection task for when the advance swings right. The CT- grouping is OK for serialized objectives, but any combat team commander worth anything would have seen that ground layout and kept the team whole so a troop (or maybe a full half-squadron) would guard the flank - and the mission brief makes if very clear that I am going to see a surprise from the North. So once again we are understrength for the tasks assigned. I do, however, have those Javelins - they will have to do as flank security. So we set up 2 troops up with the infantry tucked into the low ground in an RV, just like the book says. 1 troop stays set as the firebase, the other swings out for a left flanking. There's some high ground to the left of the crossroads I want to seize as it dominates the whole map and sets up my subsequent objectives. The firebase shoots holy hell out of the crossroads, and when the assault troop crests the ridge.. hey, recce party! A whole bunch of enemy recce vehicles! Crunchy! Now I can think of a hundred different reasons for those recce guys to be there - most of them involving getting lost, but perhaps they were to sieze the crossroads and were holding it until relieved. But with the first tank round fired into the crossroads, any recce guy worth anything would have realized his position was untenable and beat feet. If he was really hard core and had access to a bunch of RPGs, a reverse slope RPG ambush could have made my life difficult... but nope, he just sits there and dies heroically. With the high ground secured, the infantry move forward into the low ground behind it, the firebase moves forward to join the other troop, and we get into a firefight with a bunch of vehicles that appear in the east. But I have a perfect battle position and we maul them. A troop moves forward to the next high feature, I move a platoon onto the crossroads, I shoot up some more late arrivals, and then the rear troop leapfrogs through the lead troop to take the first bridge - and then the cheap surprise shows up from the north flank. But I have Javelins in place for this very contingency, and they slaughter the surprise (although not before I lose a Warrior and a tank to flank shots) Another total victory.... Mission 4 - Airport Recce I play this one 4 times, ending in one tactical defeat and 3 draws (that the campaign engine treats as defeats) In this, I determine that: 1. The only units who can see anything are the snipers. 2. Touching all but 2 of the OP locations (all of which suck) and scouting out the trench system, the control tower, and the radar dome still isn't enough to win. 3. Given that the enemy never stands to and never seeks to chase down spotted units, it is impossible to discover when you have been discovered, and 4. 30 min to accomplish what would be a 4 hour patrol sucks. This is a key example of a poor scoring design. A perfectly successful patrol (in an unrealistically short timeframe) still generates "failure" Mission 5 - Airport Assault So this is supposed to be a heliborne assault, but we have vehicles? Huh? And the enemy has TONS of arty that he just dumps randomly on the first turn and that's the end of it. I use the helos to sweep the field clean of vehicles and then it is just one building at as time. In the direction I come from, they all have huge walls behind which I can take cover - the engineers blow the wall right opposite the door, the HMGs and the 40mm on the vehicles suppress the target for a minute or so, and we clear out each building. Because CM doesn't seem to differentiate between a combat entry (in which Pte F. Grenade is the first guy through the door) and an admin entry, I take some casualties... but nothing too bad. And notwithstanding the huge force sitting in the trench area, the enemy never counterattacks and I just walk through the place. Mission 6 - VCPs OK, so we have 2 VCPs to do and only a Pl to do it with... Ideally, we'd want a Pl per VCP (each end of the VCP uses 2 vehicles to block the road in a chicane and the search area is in the middle) but one CAN do snap VCPs with just two vehicles per CP... so that's what I do. And by breaking up sections into fire teams I can arrange the VCPs into something resembling the standard layout. Then the westernmost VCP opens up on a truck on the other side of the bridge... well. that's a little far for an ROE escalation... but I'll roll with it. They get hammered, whoever they are. Then someone appears in the SW corner... and the W VCP hammers them too. Going to have to talk to the Pl Cmdr about his triggerhappy boys.... But it is all quiet on the E front, and I get nervous. Spidey sense is tingling. So I nudge a vehicle forward over the crest (normally you want to be behind the crest so you surprise people and snatch them up, like a speed trap) but HEY! WHY ARE THERE TANKS ALL OVER THE REAR AREA?! Leave a section on the crest, hidden, to keep eyes on. Didi mau the two vehicles back to the saloon to hide. Start calling for the Apaches (7 minutes?) And then Deus Ex Machina, a tank troop shows up. On the high ground. That utterly dominates the tanks. And they shred the attacking force. And I don't take a single casualty. Boooooo. Mission 7 - Police Station VBIED at a police station - circle the wagons and dispatch the QRF! This one is near and dear to my heart because I have dispatched QRFs for real. Odd all these militia guys I get to control... let's just call them "ANP" and hope they aren't all stoned this time. Set up defenses of the station. Get all the militia into places where they can cover access routes. Plot the route for the QRF... wow, robust QRF. Move in through the "waste land" to give me standoff from buildings. Shoot up some baddies on the way in. Start probing routes to the station - whoops, there's a road block on that one (nice touch) so go left instead. Thread the recce vehicle and one other warrior through the space in the other roadblock to set up a cutoff on the other way in. Set up an outer cordon facing out. Dismount the QRF and start clearing buildings. And then watch as WAVE AFTER WAVE OF INSURGENTS RUSH DOWN THE EXACT SAME ROAD, RIGHT THROUGH MY CUTOFF KILLZONE, AND ARE KILLED EN MASSE! Final score: I have 9 KIA, 11 WIA. They have 111 KIA, 97 WIA, 17 MIA. Somehow this is a "Tactical Victory". I call it a bloody slaughter. Shades of the Somme! I thought this was supposed to be a tough scenario? Not to mention that not in a million years would the stupidest, highest insurgent commander have attempted a mad rush like that. Once the QRF is on the ground, they'd all just melt away - or strike elsewhere. And that's as far as I have gotten. So to sum up, the campaign so far has suffered from: 1. A lack of a central "main character" (meaning a unit, not a person) to hang the narrative on; 2. A lack of continuity mission-to-mission in most cases; 3. A gross misunderstanding of the sequence of tasks involved in an operation; 4. A further misunderstanding of the troops assigned to tasks (both type and amount); 5. A passive AI who does not react to opportunity, nor commits reserves, nor even makes effective use of artillery. Furthermore, on more of a game engine / UI tack: 1. There needs to be a way to differentiate between a combat entry of a building (where troops will lob in grenades, seek to get clear of the fatal funnel, charge the corners, etc) and an admin entry where everyone files in fat dumb and happy. My suggestion here is that the UI for selecting the floor of a building be extended, so that when you click a move order on a building, you first are presented with a list of floors, and then are presented with "Combat Entry" and "Normal Entry" as a secondary menu. 2. The A1 Echelon (Sgt Major, a fuel truck, a bomb truck, an ambulance, a mobile repair team, a fire control systems/gun plumber truck, and the ARV) needs to be modeled. These are not "rear area" units; they are a bound back of the Sqn and they do replenishment under fire if required. Specifically, there needs to be a way to do ammo replen for tanks and IFVs within the time frame of a CM scenario. Fuel isn't a concern as it isn't modeled (is it?) and some repairs (thrown tracks particularly) may be fixable in a CM-scale timeframe - plus it would be good to model vehicle and pers casualty management as it turns out to be really very important in real life. But ammo resupply is really very badly needed. The start of it is there with troops being able to bomb up from stores on their IFV/LAV, but reloading vehicle weapons is really very badly needed. I'm sorry if this seems overly critical, but I have been with CM since the beginning and its major downfall has always been the scenario writing, and I've reached the tipping point on my frustration. Consider it "tough love". And if there are questions about some of the points I have raised, I'll be happy to discuss them in more detail. DG

I have little issue with the campaign system as it exists right now. There are some small improvements that would be Nice To Haves (post-battle ORBAT management comes to mind) but for the most part, the systemic flaws in CM-SF are tactical in nature, not the campaign system. The campaign writing, on the other hand, is horrific. At that it what Lt Mike was posting about in the first place. DG

I'm of a completely different opinion. I agree that having maps based on real-world locations is a real plus, but that's about as far as it goes. The troops to tasks assigned in the campaign are totally at odds with any sort of military good sense - at least in the first few missions. I have a very detailed AAR I'm working out on my head to discuss this, and will start a new thread once it is ready. DG