Melchior

The wide open steppes of Russia and Eastern Europe are nothing like the craggy hills of Italy and the conveniently arranged hedgerows of Normandy. In order to fight in the East you need to get used to the fact that infantry don't actually do much of it. Armor does and when that's not available heavy weapons.

Everybody is just too crazy about micro in the game. Set your force up and think way more generally and larger battles won't nearly be so intimidating. Also JIEG JEON

Most of the things you've read sound to me like they were written from sources of questionable authenticity and interest. These infamous "colossal" disasters in the Soviet Union were followed up by years of unprecedented growth in all sectors of the Russian economy. Yielding a state that did the lion's share of fighting in the biggest armed conflict in history emerging immediately afterwards as a world super power. I'm not denying that the 1930s were a rough time to be living in the Soviet Union, just that accuracy of accusations are suspect due to the highly political nature of west v east politics. I'm not clear on what you're talking about here, but if it's that the Soviets had been aligned with Hitler before he turned on them you might want to read up how sleazy the League's conduct was over Czechoslovakia and Spain. Two countries that fell to fascist brutality out of what I wish I could say was just negligence. Oh so this is all based on the fan fiction you've written already. Maybe you might want to point that out sometime so we can be aware that you plan on just hand waving away various circumstances and details to fit your premise when it suits you. Yeah definitely reading from those questionable sources. Barbarossa was delayed to June because it was still the rainy season in Russia and decidedly not a good time to invade a country that had few roads paved or rail.

The Soviets were not experiencing a worse manpower crunch than the Germans were. Not even remotely as bad. After Kursk and D-Day their was no chance for any kind of agreement or armistice. By unilateral agreement among the Allied powers and no small amount of rage on the part of its leaders. Churchill and Stalin did not break in the dark days of 1940-41. They weren't going to give up with everything going their way in 1944. Peace or alignment with the fascist menace was definitely off the table by 1942 and probably had been earlier. Really everybody had attempted to negotiate or even collaborate with Hitler in the 1930s and that worked for precisely no one because Hitler just betrayed everyone sooner or later. If by some colossal disaster the Soviet Union found itself unable to sustain the tempo of its operations than all that would happen is the Allies would pick up the slack, and it'd be American and British forces besieging Berlin in 1945 instead.

Moreover, you are expected to be sitting on that terrain within an explicit time table. It is implied to me in the scenarios and campaigns that these objectives must be seized violently due to a strategic window of opportunity. Circumstances dictate its immediate seizure. Storming an objective with infantry is yes costly and hard but for one reason or another The Brass have told you it must be done here. If they could've neutralized a given objective with corp artillery or mines or trained ninja chimps they would have. Fact is those assets are not available for various reasons beyond your control but this damned hamlet needs to be ours by tonight and it's not because Pvt. Timmy heard they serve great croissants.

Combat Missions's scenarios aren't designed for textbook applications of tactics. They're designed to be challenging. In that light terrain objectives and short mission timers make perfect sense. I could see QB essentially being the place to go for a by-the-numbers approach. The scenarios, campaigns, etc should not be so easy.

The map/scenario editor community is big anyway and those guys churn out loads of stuff for free. Like whole DLC packs except with the nickle and diming of DLC.

What bite and hold is is cautious. The British were loathe to repeat unprecedented disasters like the Somme. The British saw armor like metal cavalry for too long and often just charged tanks into heavily fortified (and mined) defensive positions. The British believed through the entire war for some reason that the German defense line was always just a thin crust of gun positions with nothing behind them. That the German defense line at Alamein wasn't 1 km, or 5km, or even 25km but 50 kilometers of overlapping positions was what the British failed to appreciate. Note the Germans ran into the same kind of problem at Kursk. You can stop armor with a thick enough defense line but that calls for the enemy to sit totally idle while you prepare it. (Which the Germans obliged to thanks to Hitler's delays.) At circumstances like Kursk the most successful vehicles were usually the heaviest ones and suddenly the value of weapons like the Tiger or even partial insanity like the Maus suddenly don't seem so crazy anymore.

The war shows that tanks are very good at mutually destroying each other. Especially when the tanks were of like-tonnage. Major engagements between Division size armored formations during the war usually resulted in heavy losses on both sides. The Americans and Russians usually coming out on top anyway thanks to their ability to just somehow repair tons of vehicles fast and keep their tank formations at full strength all the time. While a smashed Panzer Division was out of action for months and then only came back at brigade strength.

Their is clearly a method to the madness in the DPRK that isn't just checking off that "conclude 60 year old war" bullet point. The nature of the DPRK's power structure probably just requires Kim to do something toward the South every now and then. Fart in their general direction if he must. It's so hard to tell because of how secluded the country is, but somehow I doubt Kim Jong Un is completely without some kind of internal check to his power. There must be consequences for appearing to slacken off towards the South. Even the most powerful Dictators in history have never been truly all-powerful.

I would expect terrain immobilization to be pretty similar for all armored vehicles during the war with the maybe exception of the Tiger because it's tracks were just so gigantic. Mechanical immobilization like the Panzers would've had more problems with are generally outside the scope of the game.

"Insert George Broussard quote here."

Yeah, one of the issue with Deep Battle is that it requires a high degree of readiness in order to function. Investments in upkeep are very high. This is part of the reason no one was lining up to buy the ex-Soviet Air Force in the 1990s even though the Russians were offering everything at clearance prices. Also why the the Soviet-client states of the Warsaw Pact have de-mobilized much of their Eastern weaponry in favor of western backed stuff. It hasn't performed very well without the customer support of the Soviet Union standing by on the hotline. Deep battle simply requires the spending party to make all or nothing investments with no in-between. This is a big weakness if the opposition can force your hand into picking that "All" option more often than you'd like. Weapon systems the Soviets could cheap out on in 1945, like anti-aircraft, had to become major investments by 1970 because ground forces couldn't just tough-out air attacks anymore. Disastrously huge levels of military spending were a big factor of the Soviet Union's premature death. However i'm personally cautious of western-prime causes of the USSR's demise though. It's fraught with political convenience and confirmation bias. Reagan and his ilk loved to act like the Holy Dogma of the Free Market finally triumphed over Hippie Socialism. The Soviet Union was largely brought down by internal problems that its leadership was either unable or unwilling to solve. Like its unsustainable agricultural network and disastrous breakdown of relations with China.

There is much to be admired about the Red Army's manner of fighting I think. It is crude and it is ugly but it ruthless, a force of nature even. Tacit in the Russian manner of fighting is the admission that war is hell and many people will die in name of victory. The Russians are not intentionally cruel though. They just understand that war is horrible and the only right way to do it is to seek victory in the surest possible manner. It's not like western thinking that prioritizes force preservation and low casualty figures, even if the battle is a loss. The Russians use as you emphasize, the Trafalgar-esque mentality that stresses simply outfighting the enemy. Maneuver is only used as a means to an end, to eventually force the enemy to battle or see his advantages slowly and surely eroded away. Western Armies* are obsessed with "getting inside the enemy's head" so to speak. This is the nature of the recon pull and why battlefield intelligence is so important. It's to capitalize on an enemy's mistakes, or prevent your own forces from making one. The Russian concern is purely about their own force. They couldn't give a crap what Fritz is thinking. You'll know what he's thinking after you've parked your force where he doesn't want you to be. A history of balanced rivalries between powers in Europe has led western forces into pursuit of the infamous "Decisive Battle"**. The go-for-broke engagement that allows you to triumph over an equal or superior opponent without a large investment in lives and time. Hard won victory is not really seen as victory in the west after all, it needs to be easy. Even defeat can be more rewarding than victory as long as the cost was low. The lead up to the battle usually requires western forces to disseminate much and operate with natural complexity. Intelligent and headstrong leaders are placed at low levels in the command chain and expected to capitalize on opportunities at their level. The advantage is a gamble, a good opportunity can lead to a cascade of victories that works its way up into better circumstances for the Great Battle. A bad or misread opportunity leads to infamous disasters like Kampfgruppe Pieper , or Pickett's Charge. The gamble is a major character of war in the west. Because the historically low populations and fragile political climate of Europe essentially required you to triumph over the odds. While the results from this can be spectacular they can also very easily lead to many wasted lives. I don't like everything about Deep Battle. It's predictable and it's unsophisticated. It doesn't seem to have answers for a direct encounter with an equal or better force. If the enemy can match you strategically and tactically it seems it won't work as well. If the war is distant it's just impractical. The Soviet Union was usually not successful in its overseas adventures. Where Deep Battle clearly does work is against the backdrop of a major conflict with a state that can take what it can dish out. The best thing about DB to me is that it clearly takes war seriously. Western thinking seems to think of war too much as adventure. A card game with the potential to yield big payouts. This thinking has too often been used by men of questionable morality and intention to sell bad wars and hurt many people. *It's not necessarily accurate to describe all of Europe's Armies as one kind of character. They aren't. **More appropriately known as the Decisive Campaign. Single pitched set piece battles have not characterized war since the end of the 19th century.

As the Russians though you're not looking for a "safe route" though. That's a western thing. As the Russians you look for a fight. Then just pummel whatever is dumb enough to try shooting at you. Everything is purely about your own objectives and if you get lucky and the enemy happens to be somewhere else that's all well and good. His loss.

Deepwater Horizon Does anybody wonder why Russians feel like they're constantly judged against the backdrop of a double standard? Because there clearly is one. It's just so normalized after years of rivalry that we're totally oblivious to it.

I'm not really talking about the test. I'm talking in more of a macro sense from sort of the perspective of all the CM games. I think that's biasing many people's expectations and perceptions of the test results.

I think most people just high-ball troop quality in the game too much. Green troops of middling to low motivation seem to pretty accurately reflect the average rifleman in World War 2. I think we run into those "fanatic" and "crack" modifiers a bit too often.

Well some of what needs to preserved here is the challenge and drama of the battle. That more scenarios could reflect more realistic circumstances is not impractical but in some ways the knife fight should survive. I think what JasonC is getting is that the scenarios should be approached with more of a sandbox-game mentality with something of a freeform approach. The scenarios need to be less top-to-bottom with less of the designer saying "go here do this then go there do that." It should be more "here's what you've got, here's what we'd like to see, go do your best." It would be interesting if some kind of mechanic enabled exterior circumstances to affect the battle. Random Event: A Coy succeeded in taking nearby hamlet, will be sending platoon to you down road from the East ETA 20min./Minefield discovered in off map area to North. Avoiding skirting map edge./5th Battalion made a wrong turn at the T junction, 40% chance they won't show up./Division Artillery misunderstood orders, covering your sector instead of planned. Bonus artillery.

Sorry then. The infamous "Germans fought better than everyone else" shtick is usually influenced and supported by archaic Nazi master race rhetoric surviving through people's unwitting repetition of Goebbels myths and propaganda. There is much minutiae that people get involved over in relation to battles and fighting and much of it is moot or irrelevant. Repeating Nazi race myths is not and I tend to jump on that at slightest provocation.

If that is a yardstick you measure something with such scale, consequence, and implication as a world war you should rethink your attitude. Does who's army killed a few million more or less than another really matter in a war that saw the death of millions of everywhere?

It's not even worth answering anymore, the tank minutiae battles. That the T-34 was common enough to be present usually and effective enough to be obviously better than 90% of what it'd run into was what mattered. The same story goes for the Sherman, the vehicle that near-universally equipped the Allies and won the war for them too. Running into a Tiger or even a Panther was up there with getting struck by lightning. Sucks for the guys it's happening to but the fact is they're a tiny minority in a war full of elaborate weapon systems that are having a much bigger effect on the fighting and its consequences.

Which drives me nuts too. I think the overall problem I have with the game and I think what you're getting at is that the maps are usually overpopulated for the given force allotment. The sides should be picking and choosing what objectives they want to pursue than just knowing they need to either capture everything or hold everything. Isn't this already in the game though? Knowledge of casualties and losses already moves up and down the command chain and can lead to Rattled status on units that haven't so much as fired their weapons. It sounds to me like overall, we need to broaden the definition of the conditions for "victory" and "defeat" in the game.

Results like this are why I love the game. Truly anything can happen.

Ok ok how about this. How many Germans can dance on the tip of a pin???