WriterJWA

I had hell with this scenario, and wound up calling a ceasefire on the back third because of shock and casualties. That said, though, I got up half the map with split squads providing covering fire for each other, direct lay with 60's, and LOTS of arty work. Best thing I can think, and is working for me in the third scenario (which is scarier than the second) is mass your firepower on a small front and blast the living piss out of the hill with artillery.

Yeah .... not to troll this thread, because I think it's informative and shows the level of dedication people have to the game ... but the existing "band-aided" Co-Play system just screams for the need to have an in-game one. Reading through 11 pages of text, learning a file naming format and CoPlay rules, and downloading and learning third-party software is all a bit much just to have two friends and I play on the same team. The 20th century called.... it want's its dice, to-hit tables, and PBEM back! (I keeed.... )

Not a bad call! But instead of auto-panicking, which to me sounds extreme, perhaps they go to a nervous state at the lowest grade, and maintain their composure at the highest (which would reflect better training, etc...). Otherwise, I think you're on to something!

Ahhhh yeah ... it's basically a dumbed-down five paragraph order, which in full would be a bear to write for gaming, especially for a multi-company operation. One game where it was particularly necessary is Uncommon Valor: Campaign for the South Pacific, a localized precursor to the War in the Pacific line of games. If you didn't draft some kind of an operations order, you'd end up dead in the water, so to speak. I printed out an 11x17 theater map and laminated it and would plot future moves with dry-erase markers. There is a program out there (the name escapes me right now) but it allows you to load game maps and draw out operation plans over the internet with a few friends. Not sure how it would be done, but it would be cool to import CM maps into it. I may even get into the habit of printing off maps (the problem is, though ... translating elevation on a 2d map).

That smells like company/battalion operations. I'm always surprised how narrow company and battalion fronts are in attacks. Do you have a link/source for that white paper (provided it's even published)?

According to this post, which is leaning on the 1942 Brief Notes on the Italian Army "[A rifle platoon] was divided into two large Squads, each of twenty men, which were further split into Rifle and Light Machine Gun groups. The Squad was commanded by a Sergeant or Major Sergeant, who controlled the LMG Group. This was made up of two detachments, each of a Corporal gunner, an assistant gunner and two ammunition bearers. Each detachment served a Breda Modello 30 light machine gun. The balance of the Squad was found in the Rifle Group of eleven men, which included a Corporal Major and Corporal." If you look at the diagram, the squad leader is assigned to the "group" with the LMG teams (fig. 1 and 2). The game uses a separate leader element, which is against doctrine, and can also be used as a separate element in-game, one that wouldn't exist on the battlefield. Team One: Nine men, two LMG teams plus the Sergeant or Major Sergeant. Team Two: Eleven men, all riflemen led by a Corporal Major and a Corporal. No additional maneuver element present....

In the game, an Italian rifle squad is broken down into two nine man sections, one of all riflemen lead by Caporale Maggiore and a nine man weapons section lead by a Sergente, with a two-man leader element lead by a Sergente Maggiore. According to this Italian infantry manual, as posted here, the table on the last page shows the same two sections, but with no center leader unit, the MG section lead by the Comandante di'Squadra, the squad commander, and the section section lead by a Vice Comandante di'Squadra. Each squad is 18 men per Italian TO&E. The game shows it as 20. Why the difference? C2 was a problem for the Italian Army, especially without radios and other "modern" C2 implements of the time. Was the addition of a seemingly fictional leader element designed to alleviate that for play balancing, or designed to abstract Italian C2 problems with extra elements? Would a more realistic alternative seems to be to have a single 18 man squad than can be divided into two separate elements per Italian doctrine, much in the same way an American rifle squad can be divided, without there being the addition leader element as a separate unit on the map? For reference:

What I think when I lose a scenario... Warning .... hint of language.

I just finished that scenario! The canister was BRUTAL!

From what I could tell, and if I understand you correctly, it seems they are. I had two waypoints set for a squad and selected the middle one and adjusted it to where I needed it. (DCS A10 rocks, BTW!! Do you have the Warthog joystick set?)

Here's a few screenshots from the tutorial campaign, mission one. "Follow me!" "Figlio di una mignotta!"

The space bar contextual menu looks and works great!

My excitement made me fail at life....

He wasn't lying....

I just got my email!!! DOWNLOADING! This is not a drill!!

Is it me, or does the CMFI forum feel like calm eye of the hurricane right now? That place between announcement and release...

Here's a feature I'd like to see: The ability to create rolling barrages with artillery and larger-caliber mortars. This is a rolling barrage for the uninitiated: http://europeanhistory.about.com/od/worldwar1/p/prcreepingb.htm

Boom! Head shot!

Though I personally think the game could benefit from some sort of expanded multiplayer system/support, some of what you're asking can be done outside the game. Voiceover IP programs like TeamSpeak can be used to create the community aspect of a lobby as a place to congregate, talk, and set up games. The program is free to download and use, and setting up a dedicated chat server (where everyone would log in to and talk) costs about $80 a year for 24 slots (users), which could be mitigated with donations, etc... The only thing it doesn't have, obviously, is the in-game ranking and matching, or leader boards. It's an alternative....

I think this sums up the WeGo v. RT debate really well!

Ahhh.... that's a cool piece of insight! Four questions: (I ask only for my own edification only.) 1. Do you think the decision that ASL couldn't be translated into a computer game was a direct result of programming and graphics limitations of the time period (96-97)? 2. Would that be different today? 3. Are ASL tactical aspects (flares, jams, etc...) looked at as a model for what features you might develop in the long term? 4. Does he still have all the ASL swag? That's worth a pretty penny today!

I read this somewhere, too, actually....

I see where you're at here.... if you've got your market cornered, then you've got it made, so to speak. Has there been any thought of a potential military market? Let me describe what I mean... U.S. Navy War College and the U.S. Army Command & General Staff School use tactical decision games to teach officers C3I skills (command, control, communication, and intelligence). One game, Scourge of War: Gettysburg, which is basically a Civil War equivalent of CMx2 (though not nearly as expansive or clean) and built by a small indie company, offers players the ability to control brigades and divisions on the same team and either fight (a weak) AI, or against other human players. The Army has licensed this game ... a game depicting 150 year old combat ... to teach officers command coordination in a real time environment. When I think of things like CoPlay ... this is what I think of: three or four guys playing the role of platoon and company commanders and working together (or not, depending on personalities ... which is the beauty of it) to accomplish a mission. Scenarios like "Purple Heart Draw," and others would be perfect for this. The added human command and control element could, potentially, make the game lucrative to services looking to train officers in coordination. Think about when CMSF2 hits the streets.... BUT! I don't want to dive down the rabbit hole of CoPlay ... it's been beat to death. I just wanted to show where that feature could possibly pay dividends. Moving on.... When I said this, one point I meant to make, but didn't (thanks work!!), is that playing the company commander in real time has one chief realism aspect to it that WeGo could never have. It forces you to make split second decisions and presses on you the need to work faster than the enemy, which is something combat commanders have to deal with in the chaos of combat. It makes you work to get inside the enemy's decision loop and gain the initiative, or die trying. That is a crucial factor of real time.

Good point! In ASL, the player has the option to react, whereas in CMx1 and even moreso x2, they may not. The 1:1 aspect also creates a wide space between the mechanics of ASL and CMx2, but I also think that is in part an extension of technology just adding in what we really wanted on the game board, but couldn't have at the time. There is definitely an "unforgiving minute" feeling in WeGo. I think mid-scenario savable TCP/IP WeGo is a must. That is a definite bonus of WeGO, one I often forget about in during gameplay. I usually wind up anxious to see what happens next. Plus ... I've played RT for so long that I've gotten used to not having that function. I've been playing WeGo more often lately, though, just so I get re-educated in what that type of gameplay is like. Timing is a huge thing ... much larger than in RT. When I seek out and play games like these, I usually come at it with the question — "Will I be able to experience the same tactical problems as the field commander on the ground?" In CM I like playing at the rifle company/team level, so I'm essentially the company commander. The little details about a particular squad's disposition I sometimes overlook because I'm more focused on what my whole platoons are doing. I sometimes tire of the constant micromanagement, but that's more of a TacAI/C2 problem and CERTAINLY NOT limited to any Combat Mission game.

Where I personally see the direct line leading back to ASL (and other hex-based board wargames) is the turn-based, WeGo, style of play. BFC did a heck of a job revolutionizing turn-based tactical gaming with CMx1, but it pulls from the wargame/board-game market for the nucleus of that method. For those not savvy with basic Advanced Squad Leader rules, each turn was broken into phases, some of which allowed opposing players to react to players conducting turns (reaction firing during a movement phase, etc...). WeGo simplified those opposing phases by dumping all unit reactions into the "center" of the turn, the one minute where the action happens. It's a great merge of board game-style of play and technology. In ASL, there is a strong tendency to focus on the micromanagement of the individual unit ... simply because you have time to do so. Between slow planning, attention to detail given to your troops, and the calculations needed to compute ToHit numbers and other administrative details, fifteen minutes of scenario time could take hours of real time. In CMx1 and x2 WeGo, it doesn't take hours ... but there is still that micromanagement, that focus on the small unit details. The only difference is there are no computations to make. You're under no REAL rush of a clock ticking behind you ... just like in ASL. Note: There is nothing wrong with playing this way! Don't start yelling! I'd argue, however, that the majority of the players use this method to play the game (perhaps a poll??). It's too strong a statement to suggest that RT feels like a throwaway game mode, but it does feel like a stepchild.