Realistic Infantry formations - would they add realism

[GSX]

I believe that proper infantry formations would add even more realism to the game. What we see infantry do now is move either in a gaggle or moving forwards in a column.

Imagine the infantry moving across an open field and they have not contacted the enemy yet, but we know they are out there. In real life infantry would not as a rule advance to contact in a column. The obvious reason being that if they were engaged from the front they have presented a very concentrated target to the enemy. One single enemy MG could then devastate a whole section or Platoon of infantry.

What real infantry would do in this situation would cross the terrain in some form of line formation, a thing that CM does not reproduce at this current time. Although you can approximate this by splitting up your sections into individual teams and micro managing them, something I'm loathe to do while playing and something that takes the RT enjoyment away.

My question to BF is, and was, why can't there be proper infantry formations? I believe that Steve answered my question a long time ago that it was too difficult to implement at that time, and although more than satisfied with the answer I still think that having Infantry formations would further enhance the games realism.

To counter my argument, others stated several suggestions, chief amoung them was that infantry didn't use formations outside of training. I don't believe that infantry did this in advance to contact situations. No sane commander would move his men towards the enemy in a column or gaggle unless there were specific reasons to do so.

Modern tactics and infantry formations still require that soldiers adopt the same basic formations for the same reasons. The difference in Afghanistan being that when moving on foot the threat from an IED is far greater than the threat from small arms fire and so the column is a preferred method of movement. If it was a general war, say in the Ukraine, then soldiers would revert to normal formations.

I do not doubt, that when in combat, infantry find the best available cover and this results in bunching up at times, I've seen it myself, but this is a different situation borne of immediate necessity.

Below is a link to a US Army publication that explains these formations in much greater depth than I have and it's also basically what we in the UK are taught as well. Having worked with many NATO forces including Germans, in the field, I can confirm that their practices are almost identical to US ones. These aren't new inventions and have been around for a lot of years.

https://rdl.train.army.mil/catalog/view/100.ATSC/04183AF4-34EB-47F0-BCEE-29C93432DA49-1274564010088/3-21.8/chap3.htm

My questions are:

1. Can infantry formations be implemented into the game as it is?

2. Would the addition of realistic formations be worth the effort to implement them?

3. What does the game do now, if anything to prevent the bunched up infantry taking excessive casualties in the situation described above?

[Oddball_E8]

The answer is in the question. Of course realistic infantry formations would add realism.

But that is not what this is about.

What you should be asking is; "How did infantry move in real combat situations, did they in fact use formations and did they stay in formation when the bullets start flying"?

I can, however, agree that this column movement behaviour is not ideal, nor very realistic during combat.

I would settle for a more spread out movement. Not formations per-say but just not a bunched up column.

[womble]

No sane commander would move his men towards the enemy in a column or gaggle unless there were specific reasons to do so.

Neither would they advance to contact in a line. They'd send scouts out or recon by fire.

If you don't know where the enemy is, a line abreast is just as vulnerable (to enfilading fire) as a line ahead is to enemy MGs to the front. If you're advancing towards unsuppressed MGs you're doing it wrong in the first place.

[Jim1954]

You can always use the split squad command and move them a bit apart from each other. Thats what I usually do.

[Hister]

Lots can be done using proper waypoint designations and real tactical movement used at the time. See Combat Mission Tactical Problems by Bil Hardenberger. So when you go through a narrow gap with a whole bunch of soldiers they remain in a straight line which is very vulnerable to enemy fire from the front. What you need to do is to make one waypoint just after the gap is passed and then your little men will go in proper advancing formation again.

[z1812]

Good points GSX. However considering my non-existent experience in the Military, let alone combat, I find I can approximate most of what I need with the tools at hand. Such as scouts, splitting teams and the like.

[Los]

Whatever is done, it should be something that the player doesn't have to micromanage. That's a squad leaders job. The player can arrange his squads however he wants them for movement but the squad ai should determine if the soldiers are moving in column, line, gaggle, spread out or close together.

[JasonC]

Boid algorithms simulate realistic flocking behavior with just a couple of parameters. By tuning those parameter values, you can get tight arrows behind the leader or wider Vs, like flying geese. If the unit leader uses the existing waypoint command and path finding algorithm, but the other men in the squad just boid-flock around him, then this should be possible, with a wide, tunable range of typical behaviors. I would not suggest giving the player another command to issue and more micromanagement, but instead experimenting with such settings and picking a set that seem to work, with less column form than now.

I think I understand why Battlefront went with the existing columns - they ensure that the route found by the leader around or through obstacles (a difficult A* path finding calculation that is expensive to redo) will work for the following men. Boids don't have that built in, but they do "get" obstacle awareness (distance to nearest obstacle can nudge their path etc). The parameters could "drift" toward column when there are obstacles nearby, and "drift" toward wider V when there aren't.

It is just a suggestion, I realize actually implementing it would be significant programming work. But there are code starting points, standard routines you can just pull off the web to get started. FWIW...

[Hister]

That would be a nightmare to code right. But yeah, would be a sweet thing to ahve to avoid micromanaging.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Imagine the infantry moving across an open field and they have not contacted the enemy yet, but we know they are out there. In real life infantry would not as a rule advance to contact in a column. The obvious reason being that if they were engaged from the front they have presented a very concentrated target to the enemy. One single enemy MG could then devastate a whole section or Platoon of infantry.

I suspect that in Real Life™ the primary reason for not moving to contact in column has less to do with what type of target they present to the enemy and more to do with maximizing LOS/LOF of their own soldiers. In real life soldiers cannot see through or shoot through the guy in front of him. In Combat Mission they can.

One change that might be made that would be much simpler than implementing formations would be not allowing bullets to penetrate through multiple soldiers, unless it was large caliber (12.7mm and up).

[GSX]

I suspect that in Real Life™ the primary reason for not moving to contact in column has less to do with what type of target they present to the enemy and more to do with maximizing LOS/LOF

Sorry, but your suspicion is wrong, the real reason is to minimise casualties and provide a far larger target for incoming frontal fire. If you read through the link it explains it in detail. Unless the US Army isn't good at knowing what happens in real life, I'm going to stick with them on this subject.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Try reading your own link.

Table 3-1. Primary formations.

Line Formation

Advantages

Ability to:

- Generate fire superiority to the front

- Clear a large area

- Disperse

- Transition to bounding overwatch, base of fire, or assault

Column/File Formation

Disadvantages

- Reduced ability to achieve fire superiority to the front

- Clears a limited area and concentrates the unit

- Transitions poorly to bounding overwatch, base of fire, and assault

- Column's depth makes it a good target for close air attacks and a machine gun beaten zone

Table 3-3. Comparison of squad formations.

Squad line

When Most Often Used

- For maximum firepower to the front

Fire Capabilities and Restrictions

- Allows maximum immediate fire to the front

Squad file

When Most Often Used

- Close terrain, dense vegetation, limited visibility conditions

Fire Capabilities and Restrictions

- Allows immediate fire to the flanks, masks most fire to the front and rear

[Vanir Ausf B]

3-16. The formations and techniques shown in the illustrations in this chapter are examples only. They are generally depicted without terrain considerations (which are usually a critical concern in the selection and execution of a formation). Therefore, in both planning and executing tactical movement, leaders understand that combat formations and movement techniques require modification in execution. Spacing requirements and speed result from a continuous assessment of terrain. Leaders must stay ready to adjust the distance of individuals, fire teams, squads, and individual vehicles and vehicle sections based on terrain, visibility, and other mission requirements.

.................

[JonS]

My questions are:

1. Can infantry formations be implemented into the game as it is?

2. Would the addition of realistic formations be worth the effort to implement them?

3. What does the game do now, if anything to prevent the bunched up infantry taking excessive casualties in the situation described above?

1) Of course. And while we're on the subject of cost-free decisions; I'd also like a pony. And an Aston Martin.

2) No.

3) Quite a lot. There is the non-masking of friendly fire (noted above) as well as the nerfing of distance effects for HE (which is more complex than a simple linear degradation, so don't go there) to mitigate the effect of bunched targets. The game also allows squad splitting.

[JasonC]

Hister - a web reference

http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/

Really nice behavior and really short code...

[JonS]

3-16. The formations and techniques shown in the illustrations in this chapter are examples only. They are generally depicted without terrain considerations (which are usually a critical concern in the selection and execution of a formation). Therefore, in both planning and executing tactical movement, leaders understand that combat formations and movement techniques require modification in execution. Spacing requirements and speed result from a continuous assessment of terrain. Leaders must stay ready to adjust the distance of individuals, fire teams, squads, and individual vehicles and vehicle sections based on terrain, visibility, and other mission requirements.

Good quite Vanir. Assuming that BFC can get the pixeltruppen to perfectly behave like a flock of birds (who move in an environment notable mainly for its lack of obstacles), then that would still be unrealistic because in the real world leaders constantly screw up their terrain assessments, are surprised by change in terrain they can't see until they get there, and soldiers constantly seek the oral and psychological support of their mates regardless of what their leaders tell them to do.

tl;dr: formations work great in training and on parade grounds.

[GSX]

Good quite Vanir. Assuming that BFC can get the pixeltruppen to perfectly behave like a flock of birds (who move in an environment notable mainly for its lack of obstacles), then that would still be unrealistic because in the real world leaders constantly screw up their terrain assessments, are surprised by change in terrain they can't see until they get there, and soldiers constantly seek the oral and psychological support of their mates regardless of what their leaders tell them to do.

tl;dr: formations work great in training and on parade grounds.

Oh I agree there, I once led a whole platoon into ambush and capture on an exercise in Germany because I screwed up both my terrain appreciation and my night navigation (pre GPS days).

However, I did learn from this debacle...

I try and recreate formations by splitting up the sections into their composite parts with the gun group to the rear and off to one side or the other but do get frustrated because I probably equate real life with the game too much.

What gets me going is that if I'm crossing open ground with my Platoon or Section and they take fire, even when split the entire group tend to just lie there waiting to die, where as in reality, a line for example probably won't all be taking fire and the remainder can carry out their IA Drills.

It tends to spoil the immersion for me a wee bit, in what is a good infantry simulator.

[Hister]

Hister - a web reference

http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/

Really nice behavior and really short code...

Thank you - it's cool! :eek:

[Freyberg]

I love the individual modelling of CMx2 - a big step forward over CMx1. I'd also like to see more variation in team/squad behaviours - especially that troops should act generally more spread out, but little bits of "cover me while I kick in the door/throw this grenade" and so on will be cool - looking forward to the ride.

[GJR144]

No need for formations. Split the squads and spread them.

[Freyberg]

I always split squads, but the pixeltroops do seem to bunch together quite a lot. It's not a big deal and I'm sure the game is going to get constantly better and better.

[Childress]

Judging by some of the WW2 photos I've seen they don't seem to bunch up enough. I even question the ability of sub-regular squads to divide up and present a wide frontage.

[Freyberg]

Yeah, I'd assume troops of different abilities will/do behave differently.

[Vinnart]

The type of formation a squad assumes in reality is dictated by the terrain, and likelihood of contact. The same goes for the game, but as others have said splitting the squad is the only way to achieve different formations albeit with a bit more micromanaging. Perhaps the following will help some understand different formations better:

COLUMNS: If you are moving through a gully, or down a road this would be the formation used since the movement is through a narrow pass. The disadvantage as others have also said is firepower is very limited to the front. Columns are used mainly for traveling, but not good for fighting.

LINE: Split your squads with a little space between to achieve a line. This maximizes firepower to the front, and would be good along a ridge, wall, boccage, or for a mass assault. To advance the line one should move in bounding overwatch toward the enemy. Don’t use lines to move toward the enemy when you don’t know where the enemy is. If you walk into an ambush, or a MG the whole squad is vulnerable. Use a wedge instead, which gives a point scout element, and flexibility to switch to a line easily.

WEDGE: This is good for moving though forest, wheat fields, or open ground where enemy contact is likely. Put a scout as the point of the wedge, put alpha and bravo teams on the rear corners of the triangle. When contact is made alpha and bravo move up on line to maximize firepower to the front. The scout takes the initial fire exposing the enemy. If it is an ambush the scout will trip it minimizing casualties. To advance forward once contact is made move the line using bounding overwatch.

VEE: This formation is used more in defensive posture. For ambush often it is more a “L” shape. Put the heaviest weapon at the rear point of the “V” shape. When the enemy enters the kill zone you can hit him from the front and side, or sides simultaneously.

ECHELON right/left: This formation is best when the enemy concentration is either to the left, or the right and will maximize firepower either left, or right. It basically is diagonal line using only one side of a wedge formation.

Hope this helps some understand different formations, and their uses.

[Los]

Some additional thought. I think it would be best to study ww2 combat footage as an adjunct to the study of manuals. You can see how troops move in open terrain as well as in built up areas and thick terrain. (As Vinnart says)

This is modified by imminence of contact. Troops moving up in a combat area are very spread out. You can see footage of infantry companies moving up on roads in columns where they are spread out at least a kilometer. Distance here relies upon the competence of the junior leaders and training. In Die Frontschau episodes where the Germans are crossing large open areas they are in long deep spread out columns.

Troops get to the final point where they will be under direct fire and the squads may be seen to close up. This closing up ( not bunching up) is a function of control. One must maintain firm control of ones troops under fire. Even in this case they are often seen moving very spread out in columns or small groups.

I don't think movement in CM is that bad, perhaps troops could spread out a bit more in open terrain (5m intervals). Not doing so probably results in more pxeltruppen casualties than is needed. I'm not sure how it would be implemented without micromanagement.