Haggard Sketchy

Playing these games ruins so many movies...

Hello, my name is Matt and I have a concept designed for an operational level WWII war game that can use tactical games (like CM) to resolve tactical battles that develop in my game called Combat Operations: Overlord (COO). I have been in contact with BFC for several months and they know I am “pimping” my project on their forum. Hopefully that gives you a certain level of confidence in what I am about to propose. BFC has no current designs on developing an operational level game, and they tell me they are not interested in taking a risk in COO till it is further developed. BFC also wants some indication that it will be a somewhat profitable venture. So if the CM community (and hopefully a greater market) desires an operational level game that can be used with tactical games, this has got to be a grass roots movement. I have a game design, but I am not a computer programmer/mobile developer. Nor do I have large amounts of personal wealth that can be spent to fund a project. That is where we all as a community will have to band together in order to make it happen.

Here is what I am proposing:
I am being “guided” towards developing COO as a mobile app. As the game name would imply, I will start off with June-August in Normandy ’44. If you are a computer programmer or mobile app developer and you are interested in participating in this project, please send me a list of verifiable qualifications to cmbnrocks@gmail.com. For the rest of you, we will need financial backing. At some point I will notify you all that I am going to post a project on Kickstarter to solicit funding for this project. For those of you unfamiliar I would invite you to check out more on kickstarter.com. Once the game gets developed (and if it appears to gain solid support) BFC tells me that they will strongly consider pursuing versions of the game that will be more integrated in to CM. If you are interested in seeing this project succeed, please join the forum I have set up to further discuss my project: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/combat-operations-overlord-game-group

Key Game Points and Features
Initially this game will be strictly independent of CM. The game will ALWAYS be a standalone game, but my eventual goal is to allow it to interface with CMBN (similar to what CMC attempted in 2005)
COO players will receive data from my game that can be used to manually set up a CM battle they wish to fight out. Otherwise battles can be fought quickly using an in-game battle resolution system
If battles are fought using CM, results will be entered manually back in to my game, and play will continue
Players would command anywhere from Regimental size to multiple Corps or troops
Unit size is primarily Battalion, with some Company sized units.
Players would issue orders to their forces during a game pause using a “wego” style of play
Multiplayer
A fully functional Scenario Editor would be included


In conclusion, please help get the word out regarding this project so we can generate enough excitement to make this project a reality. The support from the CM community will make or break this project, so I hope you will consider supporting this effort. And finally, please join my forum listed above for further discussion.

Thanks,
Matt

Some of the responses here have been as dumbfounding as the actual issue posted!
 

 
 

If I have to be puzzled about something which has been talked about on this thread, I would say that the antipersonnel warheads on RPGs/RPOs are a little weak.
 
Specifically, the thermobaric ones, I would expect to cause horrible casualties, in situation where the rocket actually manages to penetrate the building (I would imagine that such rockets will explode inside only if they passed through a window, a door or another opening - if they hit a wall their load would splatter against a wall). Basically, the in-game effects imho should be that if you have a squad holed up on a floor, and a RPO explodes inside that floor, no member of that squad would be able to keep fighting - think about the pressure effects the warhead has on a man's lungs, without considering the incendiary effect.
 
Also, I was expecting the thermo warheads to have some sort of effect of their own; in WW2 CM titles we got the flamethrower effects, but in BS thermos seems to go up just like normal HE/frag to me. Are they planning to add some proper explosions or are we gonna make up with the current effects?

My personal CMBS testing has shown both RPOs and OG-7/TBG-7 to be quite underwhelming both in the open field and particularly in closed spaces where they should be quite deadly. I also find in-game RPG/RPO accuracy to be much lower than in real life (even when used by crack troops with no wind or other limitations). At the same time, I find US anti-personel infantry munitions (i.e. M25) to be much deadlier which would seem a bit questionable given their much smaller caliber. Those are just my personal observations, but I have heard others voice the same concearns here as well.
 
Again, I don't blame BattleFront devs for any kind of biass; but perhaps more play/balance testing can be done with those before the next patch comes out..

In Steel Beasts (which had opinion of being a very realistic simulation) and western tanks (M1, Leo2)  the time between lasing and shooting could be be  just a fraction of second.
After lasing the gun tube elevation was automatically and almost  instantaneously adjusted by FCS -  so lasing & shooting were almost simultaneous actions - IIRC it usually it took about 0.5s between lasing and shooting.
The target would have absolutely no time to react, it could manage to launch it's smoke grenades but the APFSDS would be on it's way (and it's not guided, doesn't care for smoke).
At least when shooting at stationary targets it was that fast. It could be a little longer if the gynner after lasing had to correct in azimuth against moving targets.
Is it the same in real tanks ? Is it the same in Russian tanks like T-72B, T-72B3, T-90 ?  Never played Steel Bests 2 or SB Pro unfortunately. 
IIRC in T-72M (which really didn't have a true FCS) after lasing only the aiming mark moved, so the gunner has to correct gun elevation manually - that could take a while, let's say  2-3 seconds. 

It'd be great to have a bocage mod that lets you see where the gaps in the bocage are.

GaJ

As a scenario designer I always put a different terrain tile under any gaps in the bocage to make them easier to pick out.

The grenade throwing is an abstraction for the sorts of placebo-effect weapons that infantry had too, like the S.T. bomb, Hawkins mine, Tellermine, etc. These weapons were all of varying effectiveness and never guaranteed a kill but hey were better than nothing. They don't really warrant specific modeling effort because any way you cut it close assaulting tanks was a really crappy job.
 
I remember in CMFI I lost most of a platoon of riflemen to a Tiger who succeeded in immobilizing the vehicle, but failed to knock it out. They *all* expended every grenade they had, this result while frustrating, is what keeps the game exciting to me. Because just the previous scenario one grenade from a team of 4 guys knocked out a Panzer IV. The game is all about hedging bets and working with what you've got. Not demanding and expecting specific results according to what you read in a Jane's guide 20 years ago. 

While this is true, the range at which they can "close assault" from cover is very short. Frankly, if a tank is that close, it deserves a good kicking from the infantry that its owner couldn't be bothered to screen for. Sure, sometimes there might be an MG42 that would, if every motion of every pTruppe was explicitly modelled, provide overwatch and scratch the fleas off the back of the armour, but 30m is too damn close to cover, and it only takes one bit of covered approach the MG can't reach for the grunts to ruin the tankers' day.
 
As an incentive to keep your arms combined, it works real good.

I recommend to play only in the turn-based system - in real time - we will have a slide show on the screen.
 
Besides, very cool campaign 

demo's fine for me

Coming Soon - Colonel Nosov's March on Germany - an 18 scenario campaign for CMRT (Allies vs AI).
 
All battles are in playtest or AI Tweaking mode, every scenario will have at least three AI plans...
 
Core Units are as follows:
22nd Motorized Rifle Brigade
  HQ - Lt. Col. Nosov   2IC - Major Bebchuk   Tank Plt. HQ - Capt Yeltson   1 Co Hq - 2nd Lt. Lachkov   2 Co HQ - 2nd Lt.  Obolensky   3 Co HQ - 2nd Lt.  Repin   MG Co HQ - 2nd Lt. Ruchkin   Mortar Bat HQ - 2nd Lt. Dudnik   4th Bat HQ - 2nd Lt. Arshavin Scenarios basically contain a company from above with attachments, I would say most are small to medium in size and range from 50-90 minutes. See attached sample PDF Manual for area and flowchart of battles.
 
Here is a small video trailer-
 
https://youtu.be/ccqxWqvldrs
 
 
After release this will be followed up with an Axis vs AI Campaign and also all 18 Scenarios in a Battle Pack modified for H2H play...
 
I still could use a play tester or two, you can contact me at my website below...
 
I will update as release time gets closer...

I think the whole CMx2 family is great, but I would probably pick CMFI and Gustav Line if I had to choose and move on from there. I think Black Sea is great (I particularly like playing Russians against Ukrainians), and certainly worth buying eventually. I think CM games are best when the forces involved are slightly scrappy and you have to be creative with them, which is why I like CMFI. CMFI also goes earlier than any other game and I think a lot of the maps are really fantastic. 
 
Still, I would generally say the only way to go wrong is by only buying one CM game.

Minute 11 -13 (By the way, all times are relative, because I can't seem to count backwards --plus, I'm not sure what minute Phil turned this battle over to us!)
 
Overall plans, just as before:
 

 
...2nd Squad runs right into at least one Trooper amongst that gaggle of contact markers in the above shot.  Should be easy meat...
 

 
Hmmm, I recall mentioning what poor shots my men are...
 

 

  Later, a single Trooper causes havoc in 1st Squad on the right...       ...as 2 men of 1st Squad are hit, possibly from the same Trooper that was shown surrounded above.        On the left, in the woods, 2nd Squad encounters more resistance, and a grenade battle breaks out.  I can't tell if I hit anything, though.       But at least I gathered some important intelligence for this little battle...it appears that many Troopers were hit while descending or injured upon landing.  I count 8 down in the field east of the woods, and I am pretty certain my men didn't hit any of these.   

Sitrep Minuten 3-5
 
First, an act of kindness and mercy:
 

 
 
Zonderz's men did manage to pick off one Para at least:
 

 
 
The Paras are making for the buildings toward the SE. Brauer needs to get the men moving and try to catch as many as Paras while they are on the move. But he has to be cautious in those woods.  There is some light undergrowth in there.  The Paras will rip his men a new one if they aren't careful. Here's the overall situation:
 

Hi Jaeger,
 
I recommend you swing on over to the CMBN forum and CMFI forum where we have had a few run throughs and you'll see the big picture in a jiffy.
This would be a new thing for CMRT so no threads in CMRT forum to explain it."yet!"  

Downloading now, this sounds like EXACTLY the sort of campaign I want to see more of. Leading a medium sized force through a campaign that has a personal element to it, with an actual narrative. So much more enjoyable to me than the ones where it's Mission 1: Company A and B attack town X, Mission 2: Company C Attacks crossroads Y, yadda yadda. Those can be fun, but the game greatly benefits from having some emotional attachment to what's going on. Also, bravo on using the mod tags and it seems including everything needed in one download.
 
Thank you!

The ranges would be quite close (urban. mountain and forested terrain) which would lessen the disadvantages of Chinese/North Korean tanks. The paddy fields would also be a problem in a summer campaign. In the more likely winter war the paddies would freeze but US/SK air power would be more limited.
 
If defending the best NK move would be to fall back into the urban and mountainous/forested terrain making Coalition dforces fight there on MNoth Koean terms. The North would still lose the conventional war but would still have to fight gainst fanatical insurgents based on NK Special Forces remnans and People's Militia

Pre planned artillery is mapped out in the editor the same way you map out waypoints for AI groups.  You paint the area on the map that you want the artillery to land in.  It will always hit at the beginning of the game and there is no way to delay it and no AI forces need to have LOS to the location in order for the artillery to begin firing. 
 
Your plan could work, but the AI would have to decide to use the artillery on its own without any intervention on your part via pre planned artillery strikes.  You could possibly help the AI decide to use the artillery by placing TRPs (target reference points) but ultimately the AI needs to do it on its own.

B.R. Meyers' Cleanest Race (what Panzerguy mentioned) has an interesting take on this. Basically the DPRK's propaganda style emphasizes racial & moral purity, regardless of material well-being. See 34:22. So there may be no such shock to them. North Koreans are quite aware of their inferiority in such respects.

EW level would effect the effectiveness of airburst artillery shells.

Some thoughts on this fascinating topic. Let's start with NKA SOF. I don't know what they have now, but during my time at Hughes Aircraft Missile Systems Group (early 1978-late 1984), NK SOF were a nightmare. They were constantly running cross-border and from-the-sea raids via surface craft and subs into ROK territory. Worse, they had no less, per the DIA, than 400 Russian-supplied An-2/COLT single engine, wooden bladed (very important detail), practically all wood transport aircraft, each capable of carrying a squad of highly trained commandos. Because, except for the engine and a few other oddments, there was very little for radar to reflect from, starting with the inconveniently for us missing rapidly spinning metal prop, these birds, big as they were, were practically radar invisible. Big problem. Just thinking about the havoc such a force could wreak made me cringe. Pretty much how the DIA viewed things, too. The language was more measured, but it was absolutely clear DIA viewed the NKA SOF as a major threat. A fanatical one at that. Happily, NKA SOF today are nothing like as grim a threat as when I was a military analyst. Despite their special status, all but the cream of NKA SOF is finding things falling apart across the board, to such an extent there've been defections to both PRC and ROK. Just as well, since the last thing we need are 30,000 well-fed snipers who get plenty of firing practice, rather than current meager allotments. Speaking of meager, ROKA SOF has suffered some painful force size reductions, because of budget cuts. The An-2s are now vulnerable because ROKA now has the means to detect low flyers, whose pilots, I'm happy to say, are not getting many flight hours. Here's a deadly serious look at NKA SOF training for the elite 124th Army Unit from which The Blue House raiders to kill ROK's president Park Chung-Hee came. Two years of training and two weeks on a full scale mockup of The Blue House, ROK's White House. So far, I've yet to encounter anything about recruiting young boys into SOF, but it is a very militarized society, and I have no doubt talent spotters are out there. 
 
One of the people I worked with back then was a guy named LT COL, Ret. Bob Siegrist, a battlefield commissioned WW II officer who was instrumental in getting the Hughes TOW missile into the Army. He was the TOW guy at Hughes when it came to what's what , particularly when it came to effectiveness modeling. Back then, things were ugly. NK forces were huge, the weapon technology gap was nothing like today's, and the ground forces were not expected to be able to hold on ground where, in a real sense, there was no defensible terrain. Consequently, the expectation was the defense line would be the Han River. If this looks familiar, it should, because that's pretty much the bind Ukraine's in, except it's the Dneiper River.  Defending on largely flat, featureless ground vs an armor heavy force coming in huge numbers just doesn't work. Consequently, something had to be done. The solution was I forget how many (quite a few) Hughes 500 helos, each with 4 x TOW. On them lay the burden of taking the steam out of the NK drive to the Han.  You'd be amazed by how much a few feet of TOW sight height affected helo survivability. The difference between chin and rooftop was considerable, but going to mast mounted made a huge difference, which is precisely why the OH-58 Kiowa is configured that way. It really matters. As I recall, the NK didn't have much in the way of SAMs, but they did have AAA, lots of it, including ZSU-23/4s. This was 6+ years after the NVN used them in combat there. Also, for quite some time, TOW had only 3000 (later extended to 3750) meter range, placing it inside the envelope of radar controlled 37 mm and 57 mm guns. But wait. There's more.
 
Unlike today, NKA artillery and MRLs based in caves were practically invulnerable. At best, even the mighty Maverick could hope for jamming the 3' thick sand filled (effectively, siliceous core armor) armored sliding doors covering the tunnel entrance. There were no I 2000s, no JDAM and very few LGB. We fully expected the NKA to sleet Seoul with artillery and rockets and didn't consider it defensible at all against ground attack, but the Seoul of then was nothing like today's Seoul, which might very well be something like Stalingrad with skyscrapers for the attacking NKA. We fully expected Seoul would fall but would be retaken after we'd (ROKA & US) beaten the NKA forces down enough to be able to counterattack. Precisely how it had previously occurred during the Korean War. Had NKA gone chemical, we would've gone nuclear. Or so I was told. 
 
We were also worried, and with very good reason, about NK tunnels under the DMZ. As I recall, the SECRET level Army Corps of Engineers study I read said there were 10, with many more suspected. It was assessed the first tunnel found, Infiltration Tunnel #1 could funnel 2000 men/hr into ROK. but the three monsters discovered later were enough to make strong men quail. These four are the known and officially admitted ones, some of which can move a Division/hour. Unsurprisingly, ROK officials haven't been at all receptive to a retired ROKA general who's been talking 84 tunnels.
  I don't recall what sort of tanks ROKA had, but I do recall seeing a pic of what was then called ROKIT (Republic Of Korea Indigenous Tank), which looked something like a scaled down Abrams. It was smaller because the men crewing it were, allowing very good protection without the vast weight of the larger US tank. I shall have to take a look at that study of what NKA artillery and MRLs could do to Seoul these days. I found something likely to be of interest. It's a site (NK NEWS.org)  intended to be a nonpartisan clearing house for all things NK. This is the link to the Intelligence part, which is replete with martial goodness.
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

The scenerio I always used for when I played microarmor was that the DPRK had a fairly quick coup, before the ROK and US could intervene (basically the ROK gets 80% mobilized, additional US troops arrive, enough to call them both war mongerers), new DPRK government gets snuggly with Russia, exchanges goods (labor really) for weapons claiming it needs to protect itself from American imperialism.  Russia obliges as it has more than enough tanks and semi-obsolete (but way better than North Korean's current fleet!) equipment and could use the manpower to work in Siberia (which is already a thing).  DPRK brings in outside investors, plays the "we're authoritarian but business friendly!" card, and then a year or so later launches itself across the DMZ because reunification is the divine mission, but hey suckers, thanks for the tanks and money!
 
Old habits die hard and all.
 
*Edit* I consider the scenario well below Battlefront's standard.  Basically it was an excuse for me to play with the newer GHQ miniatures South Korean tanks, and fight out battles in places I knew of.
 
 
Me too!  I'd love to have a circa 2018ish fight in Korea, largely because the equipment wouldn't be so changed from when I was there, and it'd be fun to play at "if it really did go down"  I'm just picky about the scenario for obvious reasons.
 
 
 
Oh god are they angry at everyone for everything.  Also huge racists (read "The Cleanest Race" for a good summary).  They hate pretty much everything that's not North Korean, and the mythical legions of South Koreans longing to be North Koreans.
Nope.  Camp Casey is in the less adventurous part of Korea in terms of cuisine.  Think like...the sort of stuff farmers make.  Mostly hearty, not especially sophisticated, but delicious (eat you some bulgoggi son, and you'll agree).
 
On the other hand, go to Seoul if you're visiting.  It's full of insanity and awesome.  Stay out late, if you're anglo with short hair, you'll get an extra special prodding from the US and Korean MPs to make sure you're not a soldier breaking curfew, but you'll see some epic stuff.   

Having lived in Korea...eh.  The government is so in the pocket of those businesses I think you'd be hard pressed to see a shift left to a meaningful degree.  And the nationalism of South Koreans (Koreans in general!) is something to behold.  
 
And you're really underestimating how BAD DPRK is these days.  It's not simply a matter of giving them several dozen Type 98s, and some rations and you're good to go.  The primary use of many military formations is not training or even military tasks, but has been more or less turned over to fishing, harvest tasks, or mining.  Reports from defectors indicate that 10-20 rounds per soldier per year is the accepted training standard for rifle marksmenship, and much of the "advanced" gear claimed exists in a secure magic bunkers that their commanders swear exists hidden under the base that no one is allowed to see ever.  
 
You would really have to see a disastrous catastrophic fall with an equally meteoric rise from the North before you see anything sort of resembling parity.
 
When I was over there what we worried more about wasn't them coming down, it was the more likely possibility that we would have to go North.  There's no happy ending to a sudden collapse of the DPRK government, and the reality is someone would have to go in, secure the dangerous stuff like nuclear or chemical weapons sites, restore order, put down the various "True Korean Republic" or "Juche State of Joy and Love" fiefdoms set up by the various DPRK generals, and do it all in a country so improvised that simply dealing with all the disease and total lack of functional infrastructure was going to be a bigger roadblock to mission success than the former DPRK forces.  
 
Also just the reality of working with a population and infastructure so badly degraded and managed to be called maldeveloped vs underdeveloped.  There's virtually nothing remaining in terms of efficient or practical industry, and the people's education is amazingly poor which precludes a rapid handover of much of anything advanced.  Most estimates show that in the event of a ROK takeover, the best way to keep running the country would basically be the same, only without deathcamps for several years simply because it's too hard to change so much so fast, so it's going to have to run very badly for some years to avoid having everything just collapse into dark(er?) ages.  
 
This is really the question of what China would do comes in.  China hates the DPRK.  With a passion of a thousand suns.  However right now they're happier to have it contained and on a sort of leash than in a state of turmoil.  If the DPRK starts a war, China is almost certainly not coming in to help the DPRK (and depending on the circumstances may actually fight nominally allied to the ROK and US).  In a collapse situation thought it might be something modest, like invading in a few KM into the DPRK to secure a buffer zone, to a more ambitious plan to go all the way to Pyongyang while the US and ROK try to claw through the DMZ, install a recently discovered son of Kim Il-Sung who's shockingly pro-Chinese and call it good.  
 
China is pretty opaque about what it would do.  I think the  buffer state option is most likely though as it presents lowest risk to China, offers a high degree of control, but leaves the cost of putting North Korea back together again in the hands of the US and ROK.