Centurian52

I didn't have much luck with the previous tournament. But I suppose I should give it another go before I give up on MP entirely. It will be interesting jumping straight to the end of the war. I'm still in Sicily in my current SP playthrough.

I don't suppose anyone can make out the numbers?

I'll generally arrange my platoons and companies into whatever formation I think makes sense for the situation (line, column, wedge (one up, two back), vee (two up, one back)), and then give group orders for the whole platoon or company, confident that if the group does run into the enemy they'll at least be in a sensible formation. That does a lot to manage the complexity of a large formation in the early 'movement to contact' phase of a battle. But once contact is made, enemy positions are revealed, and I start forming more detailed plans, I see no alternative but to start giving more detailed orders to individual squads and teams. I just accept that I'll spend more time on each turn and play fewer turns per day for larger scenarios.

I've made a Bren vs MG42 thread before. But the subject of that thread was accuracy, so I figured I had better make a new thread if I wanted to do a more general comparison between the two. Before I get started, it's important to recognize that in any Bren vs MG42 debate, we're exclusively talking about the MG42 in it's LMG configuration. The MG42 was what we would now call a General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG). In various configurations it could serve in a Light Machine Gun (LMG) role, a Heavy Machine Gun (HMG) role (though we would refer to it as a medium machine gun in this role these days, since it wasn't firing large caliber ammunition), an anti-aircraft role, or as a tank machine gun (though in practice the MG34 was retained as the preferred tank machine gun). But it's only in its LMG configuration that it's filling the same role for the German army that the Bren filled for Commonwealth armies. Perhaps it might be worth doing a comparison between an HMG MG42 and an M1919 at some point. In its LMG configuration it is mounted on a bipod, and its belt is feeding from a 50 round drum. So it is firing from about as stable of a mount as the Bren, and it will need to reload about as frequently as the Bren. To those of us who have played any of the western front WW2 CM titles, the answer seems obvious. We all know how difficult it is to gain fire superiority over German opponents when we play as Commonwealth forces. And that comes down to the simple fact that the German machineguns are pouring out more firepower than the Commonwealth Brens. So clearly, the MG42 is better. But I'm starting to suspect that the Bren's top-loading mechanism for speeding up assisted loading, which isn't modeled in Combat Mission (I'm guessing it might be difficult to get the engine to account for whether there is an assistant nearby (it's always possible that the gunner is the last man left), possibly making this feature more difficult to implement than it's worth), makes more of a difference than I had previously realized. Both the Bren and MG42 are crew served weapons. Meaning that, assuming the chaos of battle hasn't left the gunner alone, he would be assisted in reloading the weapon by an assistant gunner/loader. Assisted loading might shave a couple seconds off of the time it takes to reload the MG42 in-game. It would shave considerably more time off the time it takes to reload the Bren. When he's being assisted, all the Bren gunner has to do is reach up to grab the empty magazine out of the gun, which will be followed moments later by the no. 2 gunner punching the next magazine into the top of the gun. The whole process takes so little time that it might be mistaken for a regular pause between bursts. Meaning that the Bren can pour out almost completely uninterrupted fire for as long as the section has magazines to keep feeding into it. The frequent pauses in firing we see in-game for loading would appear to almost vanish (the unassisted loading currently in game looks like it might take about enough time to dump another 30 round magazine, so with assisted loading Bren gunners in-game might put out nearly twice as much firepower as they currently do). Anytime this debate is raised, overheating and barrel changes need to be mentioned. The MG42's higher rate of fire meant that it would overheat faster. The Bren's slower rate of fire meant it would take longer to overheat, but it would still overheat eventually. Which is why both machine guns had fast and convenient procedures for replacing a hot barrel with a cold barrel. The MG42 barrel change procedure might actually be a bit faster than the Bren barrel change (haven't timed them, but it looks a wee bit faster), but I think I actually prefer the Bren barrel change overall. Bren barrels had a handle, which made it easy to change out a hot barrel without actually touching the barrel itself. The MG42's barrel had to be taken out with a glove in order to avoid touching the hot barrel directly (though if you lost the glove you could tip the barrel out). Because the MG42 would overheat faster, a German squad would carry multiple spare barrels (I heard they would have six spare barrels, but does anyone know if this is right? Or is this figure for an HMG team?), while a Commonwealth section would only have one spare barrel for the Bren. But carrying so many additional spare barrels apparently didn't encumber German squads to an unreasonable degree. Overall, overheating seems to have been perfectly manageable for the MG42, but it's one more factor that favors the Bren. Overheating and barrel changes, like assisted loading, are also not modeled in Combat Mission. But since barrel changes would be less frequent than reloading, it would probably make much less of a difference than assisted loading (though if overheating was modeled, it would put a cap on how much sustained fire the BAR could put out, since it didn't have a quick-change barrel at all and the gunner would simply have to wait for it to cool down). There are also a pair of myths, which I've mentioned a couple times in other threads, that the Bren was extremely accurate, and that the MG42 was extremely inaccurate. This was the main subject of another thread, so I won't go into too much detail here. But as far as I can tell they probably had about the same accuracy, about 4-5 MOA. Whatever advantages the Bren had over the MG42, apparently accuracy wasn't one of them. As the title of this post implied, there have been arguments about which weapon was better overall almost since they first came up against each other. My current thinking probably wouldn't be very satisfying to either side of the issue. I think they're probably either about equal, or the MG42 is slightly better (but not by a large margin). The MG42 could put out extremely lethal bursts of fire, while the Bren could pour out a nearly uninterrupted stream of sustained fire. In some situations the MG42's more lethal bursts of fire will be more of an advantage (higher chance of inflicting casualties on briefly exposed infantry). And in some situations the Bren's more continuous fire will be more of an advantage (suppressed infantry might be less likely to be able to take advantage of pauses in firing to poke their heads up or make a dash for it). Because Combat Mission doesn't model assisted loading, we only see the MG42's lethal bursts of fire, and not the Bren's sustained fire. Which is why the MG42 appears to be better in Combat Mission. Hopefully CM3 will model assisted loading, allowing us to get a higher fidelity comparison between the two. Even if, once assisted loading is accounted for, one still ends up proving better than the other, I think there can be no doubt that both were excellent machine guns. But what do you think? Have I overestimated the importance of assisted loading? Have I underestimated the importance of overheating and barrel changes? How likely are these factors to be modeled in CM3? Do you think one of these weapons is clearly better than the other?

Ok, that's a fair point. A vehicle pack with some mine clearing equipment would be nice.

I never unbutton modern tanks under any circumstances. I figure their internal optics are better than looking through binoculars anyway. For WW2-Cold War tanks (M60A3(TTS) and M1 Abrams excluded, since they basically have modern optics) I will still usually leave them buttoned up, and mostly rely on positioning and numbers to maximize my chances of spotting. The spotting advantage gained from unbuttoning doesn't usually seem to justify the increase in TC losses. But I will unbutton them if I judge that the small-arms threat is minimal and I need every spotting advantage I can get. The short version. Modern tanks: Never unbutton. WW2-Cold War tanks: Default is to stay buttoned up, unless the situation dictates otherwise.

That's good to hear. I have a couple of David Glanz books that are waiting their turn in my reading lineup. I took a peak at them already and they don't look easy to get through.

CMSF2 is pretty much complete. It really has all of the modules it will ever need. It's one of my favorite titles, so it's not that I don't want more content for it. But it's already got a full roster of forces. It might be nice to add cluster munitions in, though it's not unrealistic for NATO forces to abstain from using cluster munitions at that point in time. There really isn't much left to add to it.

Alright, I'm downloading the CMBN, CMSF2, and CMRT all in ones. But I cannot seem to find the CMFB or CMFI all in one threads.

I've downloaded everything from the Scenario depot, plus all the mods I want. So I thought I had everything. But if there are scenarios and campaigns in the all-in-ones that aren't up on the Scenario depot then obviously I have more downloading to do.

It was probably a mistake to call it a "Battle Pack", since that usually refers to a form of official Battlefront sold content. Perhaps it could be called a "Pack of Battles"? The word reversal would allude to the fact that the content itself is very similar to what you would find in an official "Battle Pack", while also distinguishing it from any official content.

Having off map air defense as a configurable scenario setting, like how electronic warfare currently works, would seem to be a good mechanic to add to get more realistic behavior for modern air support. I generally feel that CM2 does a pretty good job of handling modern warfare overall. Everything on the ground seems to be modeled just as well as WW2. But I'll grant that it does start to break down when it comes to air support. I suspect that getting better handling of air support is one of the priorities for CM3.

I'm happy to see more Cold War footage. But let's save our hype until we know they're getting close (wouldn't want the hype to burn out). All Steve revealed in the 2024 year to come thread is that they're well under way and we can expect some bones soon. Which could, but does not necessarily, mean that they're getting close.

So, after I learned more about how Soviet tactics are actually supposed to work from watching @domfluff's collaboration with Free Whisky, and giving FM 100-2-1 a full reread*, I found that Soviet doctrine actually works really well. I was even able to use it to good effect in CMBS, even against American forces. One of the most important things to remember is that it's not about just lining up and charging forward (in fact I rather got the impression that the founding principle of Cold War Soviet doctrine was "let's not do things the way we did them in WW2" (more emphasis on maneuver and avoiding frontal attacks, and more emphasis on artillery)). The most important part of the Soviet army isn't the tanks, it's the artillery. The tanks come in 2nd place in importance after the artillery, and the infantry come in 3rd place (though the infantry are still important, they understood completely that tanks need infantry support**). It's true that the Soviet army is less flexible than NATO armies at lower levels. It's true that lower ranked leaders (platoon and company commanders) were not supposed to exercise the kind of initiative that lower level NATO leaders were expected to exercise. So from the battalion level down it was a very battle-drill focused army. But from the regimental commanders up there is considerably more flexibility to come up with detailed plans, which should account for multiple contingencies. The lack of emphasis on lower level initiative (in fact outright discouragement of lower level initiative) isn't about stifling flexibility, it's about ensuring the will of the commander is carried out. So how well a given Soviet force performs will depend very heavily on the quality of their regimental and division commanders. Again, the battalions and companies fight according to battle drills. But the regimental commander had a lot of flexibility in how and where to employ his battalions. Assuming the regimental commander is competent (granted, a big assumption, based on what we've seen from Russian commanders), he would try not to just use his battalions as blunt instruments. He would come up with a detailed plan, using deception, maneuver, and overwhelming firepower. In Combat Mission terms, since you rarely have full regiments, you'll be wanting to do this detailed planning with whatever sized force you have available, even if it's only a battalion or company. When it comes time for the main attack you should go all in with everything you've got. But you shouldn't send the main attack in until you're ready. You'll want to spend a large chunk of the scenario just preparing things for your main attack. Think hard about the avenue of approach you want to use for your main attack. The Soviets would try to attack from an unexpected direction (for example: they absolutely will attack through forests if they think their vehicles can get through and it might allow them to emerge on the flank or rear of enemy defenses). So if you think you see an approach that the scenario designer wouldn't have thought to defend, and which you can get your forces through, then that approach is in line with Soviet thinking. A key element of the main attack, when it is finally time to send it in, is overwhelming firepower. The artillery fire plan is one of the most important elements of the overall plan. The Soviets were an artillery army first and foremost. Every attack would be supported by mass concentrations of artillery. You'll want to time your main attack to coincide with a full barrage consisting of all of your guns (the main attack is not the time to save ammunition), hitting both known and suspected enemy positions that might interfere with your advance. And don't just leave it up to the artillery either. Don't wait for your tanks to spot targets, but give them a large number of target briefly commands to hit every potential enemy position you can think of, even if you don't know for certain that it's really an enemy position (my rule of thumb as the Soviets/Russians is that my infantry never storm a town until every floor of every building has been hit by at least two HE rounds, regardless of whether enemy troops have actually been spotted in that building). Again, the main attack is not the time to try to save ammunition. I'll generally chain up multiple target briefly commands for each tank to execute each turn by targeting them from waypoints, sometimes with a 15 second pause order at each waypoint for better control (though firing on the move is probably more in line with how the Soviets wanted to fight). Whether I intend to bypass a position or storm it with infantry, I want to make sure no point in the position remains unhit with HE. And I always endeavor to have my infantry, coming up in their vehicles just behind the tanks, enter the enemy positions mere seconds after the last HE round has hit them (the timing on this can be tricky, but it is possible). Mass is an important component of Soviet doctrine. But it's really about massing firepower, not massing platforms. Massing platforms is merely a means to massing firepower. In a meeting engagement (or any attack that does not start with Soviet forces already in contact with the enemy), they would have an advance guard ahead of the main body, itself broken up into three parts. The first part is the Combat Reconnaissance Patrol (CRP), consisting of one platoon. Their job is to find the enemy. Ideally by spotting them, but if necessary by dying to them. The second part is the Forward Security Element (FSE), consisting of a company minus the platoon that was split off to form the CRP. Their job is to brush aside a weak enemy, or fix a strong enemy in place for the third part. The third part is the advance guard main body, consisting of the regiment's lead battalion, minus the company that was split off to form the FSE. Depending on the conditions set by the CRP and FSE they may try to flank the force that was fixed in place by the FSE, or pursue some other objective that the fixed force can't stop them from taking. In this sort of battalion-sized advance to contact the battalion commander has more of the flexibility and initiative normally reserved for the regimental commander. Technically the Advance Guard main body is still setting conditions for the regiment's main body to do whatever it intends to do (larger flank attack, breakthrough, exploitation). But in Combat Mission terms I think it's good enough to just think in terms of your CRP, FSE, and your main body (the regimental main body behind the advance guard main body is probably out of scope for a single Combat Mission scenario anyway). You may want to have an FO with your CRP or FSE to start calling in the barrage that will support your main attack. Or you will want to preplan your artillery (you can certainly have a more complex fire plan if it's preplanned), with your main attack timed to go in at the 15-minute mark, and the CRP and FSE expected to have done their jobs before the 15-minute mark. When an attack starts in contact with the enemy (they aren't moving to contact, and they already know what's in front of them), the Soviets wouldn't have an advance guard. The attack would go in more according to the 'deliberate attack' training scenarios. Whether you choose to employ a CRP and/or FSE in advance of your main attack, the important thing is that you have a good idea of what you are facing so that you can decide how, where, and when you want your main body to spring the main attack. Again, you are trying to avoid a frontal attack (hit their positions from the flank or rear if such an approach is available), and go in firepower-heavy with everything you've got, when (not before) you are ready to spring the main attack. Do everything you can to prepare the way for the main attack before springing it (recon, fix any forces that need to be fixed, start calling in fire-missions timed to support the main attack). *I had read parts of FM 100-2-1 before. But I had skipped to the parts about platoon, company, and battalion formations and battle drills. But those are just the building blocks of Soviet doctrine, not the actual substance of Soviet doctrine. **In fact they apparently decided that they were a bit too tank-heavy at some point in the 80s. One of their late 80s organizational reforms (which I don't think they ever actually completed before the Cold War ended (the 1991 edition of FM 100-2-3 suggested they were still early in the process of implementing this reform)) was to replace one of the tank regiments in each division with another motor rifle regiment. So tank divisions were to go from three tank regiments and a motor rifle regiment to two tank regiments and two motor rifle regiments. And motor rifle divisions were to go from three motor rifle regiments and a tank regiment to four motor rifle regiments, with the only tank support being the tank battalions organic to each motor rifle regiment. One can imagine how this would have resulted in a much more sensible ratio of tanks to infantry.

Give it a go! I think one of the great parts of CM is that it does such a great job of represent tactical ground warfare across such a wide span of time, so you can get a sense for yourself of how ground warfare has changed in that time. So I'll always happily recommend the modern era to anyone who has only played WW2, or WW2 to anyone who has only played modern. There is a bit of a learning curve (going both ways actually, I was surprised to find a bit of a learning curve going back to WW2 after spending a while in the modern era*), but not as much as when you're learning it all from scratch. Only you can determine if you have the time. But the best way to gain the knowledge is to just dive right in. *It's been a few years since I spent any significant time in the WW2 setting. So I had to relearn how to effectively employ less accurate and responsive artillery (larger 'danger close' area with less accurate arty, so I took a few friendly fire losses early on). And I found I had to concentrate my infantry a bit more than I would in the modern era (leading me to suspect that greater firepower enables greater dispersion at least as much as it forces greater dispersion).

Hmmm, now I'm starting to suspect that I may have misjudged the situation

It looked to me like was speculating about CM3, just like the rest of us have been doing from time to time. He said: Which I think means that he doesn't really know what those timelines are either. I think we all know that CM3 will be coming eventually. But, even though he's in charge of CMCW development, I doubt The_Capt has much more inside knowledge on CM3 development than the rest of us. I'm not even sure if CM3 is even under active development yet, or if it's still in the "we know we're going to need to get around to this eventually" phase. They're in the middle of a major engine upgrade. Plus, even though Downfall is nearing release, there are still three other active projects adding new content to the series that are being worked on in parallel. So does BFC have spare development effort to also be working on CM3 in the background with all of that going on right now? Maybe. But I suspect it's still on the to-do list, and hasn't yet made it to the actively-being-done list. For my part, I hope it doesn't come too soon. It would certainly be very exciting if it brings as much of an improvement in the ability to realistically portray warfare as CM2 brought over CM1. But I would like to see a few more modules for CMCW before CM3 comes along and presses the reset button on everything.

Oh yes! I always thought those late 80s Soviet camo patterns looked interesting. I would love to fight Soviets wearing those later uniforms.

I'm very confident that we'll have North Africa in the next 3 to 4 years. I figure a year to finish up current work and greenlight the next set of projects, and 2-3 years to actually develop a new base game set in North Africa. Downfall will be coming out later this month. After that, there is still plenty more to cover in the late war period. But Battle Packs can take it from here. Battlefront is certainly going to continue developing new WW2 modules and base games. And I can almost guarantee that the next western front base game or module (certainly a new base game, since it's a new theater) will be Tunisia 1943. It doesn't take any knowledge of their internal plans to know that that's the obvious place to go next. With the late war finished, there is no direction to go but back. They can't go all the way back in a single leap, because that would be too much new equipment to create all at once. So the next game will be an incremental step back from what they have right now. The earliest point in the timeline right now is Sicily 1943. What's one step back in time from Sicily 1943? Tunisia 1943. If we're lucky it might go as far back as Torch (that would require adding Vichy French forces, so I'm guessing Torch will be a later module). But at the very least it's going to be Tunisia.

Yes, I definitely think I've picked up a few bad habits over the years. I've read no shortage of FMs and seen no shortage of training films telling me not to do precisely what I end up doing so often. So if they could figure out how to tweak the TacAI and orders system so that managing friendly fire wouldn't be more frustration than it's worth, then this would certainly be something that would be worth tackling. But I suspect this is a problem for CM3.

I'm still not sure what a Sherman hybrid is. I'm guessing by the name and from the context of the discussion so far that it's a combination of features on one chassis that were originally on two or more chassis types. But would anyone care to elaborate on what those features are?

Since I brought up Clausewitz (and I'd be happy for someone to bring up anyone else who has offered opinions on how attack and defense should be defined), it occurs to me that I should define his terms. Positive Objective: You seek to achieve something. You want to change the status quo by either gaining something for yourself (ground, resources, intelligence, etc...), or taking something from the enemy (manpower, equipment, ground, combat effective units, etc...). You are trying to make something happen. Negative Objective: You seek to keep something, or prevent the enemy from taking something. You want to prevent a change to the status quo. You are trying to prevent something from happening. A good way to think about whether an objective is a negative objective or not is to think about whether it makes sense to phrase it with a negation, such as "don't". For example, you're objective may be "don't get destroyed", "don't lose a bit of ground", or "don't let the enemy gather intelligence". Stronger form of warfare: Conducting this form of warfare gives you an innate advantage over an opponent conducting a weaker alternative. They will need to harness other advantages in order to overcome your innate advantage, such as an advantage in numbers, an advantage in fire-support, an advantage in training, etc... Weaker form of warfare: Conducting this form of warfare puts you at an innate disadvantage next to an opponent conducting the stronger alternative. You will need to harness other advantages (numbers, fires, etc...) if you hope to win despite your innate disadvantage. Clausewitz's definitions: Attack: The weaker form of warfare with a positive objective. Defense: The stronger form of warfare with a negative objective. As the son of a logician it is very tempting for me to extend his definitions to get a very nice looking four part symmetry (looks a bit like a two variable truth table if you put ambush at the top, then defense, then attack, then reaction to an ambush): Ambush: Stronger form of warfare with a positive objective. Reaction to an Ambush: Weaker form of warfare with a negative objective. An alternative, which I'm actually warming up to, is to just remove the bit about strong/weaker forms of warfare from the definitions. So an attack is simply defined as having a positive objective, and a defense is simply defined as having a negative objective. It is then possible to acknowledge that defense is usually much stronger than attack, without having to make their relative strength/weakness part of the definitions. The ambush then becomes a form of attack (the exception to the rule that attack is usually weaker than defense, without outright breaking the definition), and a reaction to an ambush becomes a form of defense.

Ok yes, for the purposes of filling out the CM Record spreadsheet I could just use what the scenario is designated as. I usually ignore those designations since I figure they're really more relevant to quick battles, and don't always have much to do with what I actually find in a scenario. In any case, the point of my original post wasn't really about how to fill out the spreadsheet. I was mostly hoping for a discussion about what makes an attack an attack, and what makes defense defense (is it the relative movement vs lack of movement, or is it something else). The rest was just background to what raised the question in my head in the first place.

That thought did occur to me. I will usually try to include ambushes in my defense plans wherever possible. But counterattacks are also a common element of defense. So clearly it is possible for some of the elements making up a larger defense to be forms of attack. And also that. Sometimes ambushes are their own isolated engagements that aren't part of a larger defense. And it is even possible for ambushes to be used as part of a wider attack. The example that comes to mind for ambushes as part of an attack would be Allied paratroopers ambushing German reserves moving up to reinforce a defense or conduct a counterattack during either the invasions of Normandy or Sicily. The more I think about this the more I keep coming back to the dynamic of positive vs negative objectives. I think Clausewitz's definition was half right. I think the core element of an attack is that it has a positive objective. That is the defining attribute that is universal to all attacks. The part of his definition about attack being weaker than defense, while generally true of most attacks throughout military history, probably shouldn't be baked into the definition. From that point of view I'm inclined to think of the side springing the ambush as the attacker, since that's the side with the positive objective.

Well yes I suppose that would be the easy way out.