Realistic Infantry formations - would they add realism

[Vinnart]

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.

I think that would be really cool if the AI could be that “I” to do that. It would be nice if it could at least tell the men to spread out too. The AI handling it would be ideal, but that sounds like the AI would need much more situational understanding. I do see squads coming online at times, but sometimes it is as if it has no understanding of the surroundings.

Here is one that stands out, and I am sorry I did not take screen shot. It was in CMFI. I had a squad behind a wall with an enemy tank to their left, and enemy infantry in buildings to the front. On the other side of the wall about 20m are some woods between the squad, and the inf in the houses, but should hide them better from the tank to their left. I tell the squad to run to the woods, and hide. They take some fire from the infantry in the houses, panic right away, and run back toward the wall and STOP on the WRONG side of it. Now their back is to the enemy inf in the houses, and are fully exposed to the tank that kills them. So, it is as if the AI of the squad had no understanding of its surroundings.

As far as a manual control I recall a WW2 RTS I played way back had a toggle that cycled through some different formations for the squad. I liked it. Something like that would be especially useful for Italians as they cannot split. If it were to ever be implemented in CM in this manner I could see it as a small button command in the row with pause, stop, and evade. Each time you click it cycles through the formations. How cool would it be if one were to be able to set a platoon on line with the click of such a thing? Sure would make setups to move out easier.

[Childress]

Films and photos suggest that modern troops spread how a lot more. Due to the fact that they're professional, non-conscripts? Or the assault rifle?

[AntiApplicability]

Of interesting note, different nationalities embraced different infantry formations during WWII, something which is often lost in the NATO standardization afterwards.

The Germans in particular were fond of moving in the file with a machinegun near the front (though not on point.) This allowed for superior use of the terrain and faster movement to minimize their firepower superior enemy's ability to detect the target. When they did make contact, the file would ideally be dispersed enough that the machinegun at the front could suppress (the literal translation being beat-down) the enemy and allow the rear element to either find advantageous firing positions, maneuver, or break contact and not be decisively engaged from the get go.

In addition, well trained squad leaders could rapidly rotate a file or move it to a position where inherently all the soldiers had to do was face left or right to create an immediate line with maximum firepower.

The Americans preferred a wedge-like formation which probably allowed for better overall security than the German file, but was slower, harder to mask with small dips and such, and while provided a reasonable base of fire with the weapons at hand, invariably meant that at least four to five men would be immediately exposed and decisively engaged. Given they did not have a true LMG like the Germans, they probably needed the additional rifles and BAR up front.

In all cases, this presupposed the troops were reasonably well trained and at least moderately experienced. Green troops on both sides often pulled the CM gaggle...it being noted by German defenders in the bocage of their opponents, and in reverse many units defending against the Volksgrenadiers during the Bulge reflected that their opponents uncharacteristically seemed to come in large masses of men.

[Vinnart]

Los, for moving columns keeping an interval one thing I have thought of that I have been meaning to get some graphics together to show is a FOLLOW command. The way I see it it would improve, and streamline logistics immensely. Imagine we have 3 trucks that we want to move down a road with a few curves in it. To do this we have to plot moves and waypoints for each unit to follow that path. The FOLLOW command would eliminate all that except plotting the movement of the lead element.

It would work like this:

Truck alpha (the lead) would be plotted with the necessary waypoints to follow the desired path.

Truck bravo is given the FOLLOW command. Perhaps it would fall under movement, or special commands. Selecting the command will produce an icon change to the curser when over another unit like loading does. Truck bravo is 10m away from alpha when the command is given which sets the interval. When alpha moves out bravo will move to alphas starting position as its first waypoint, and follow along alphas path stopping 10m away. Basically the FOLLOW command copies s the unit it is following movement orders, and keeps the interval the distance from the followed unit when the order was first given.

Truck Charlie is 30m away from alpha, and 10m away from bravo. The player can give Charlie a FOLLOW order to alpha, or bravo to follow the same path, but the interval would be different depending on which is was given to follow.

[Vinnart]

Films and photos suggest that modern troops spread how a lot more. Due to the fact that they're professional, non-conscripts? Or the assault rifle?

Comms are better today. Lots more radios.

[kublakhan]

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

I'm sure in every war before ww2 there were many troopers that found their commanders to be off the rail nuts ordering them to march into the teeth of archers, cannon fire, musket fire, and machine gun fire..

1st post lol long time lurker, first time poster

[Fenris]

Has it been stated whether the graphical representation of the individual soldiers and their position in the game world has a direct bearing on their chances of being hit at all or is the hit chance random or statistical or some such? I can't remember. (Edit - I mean at the squad level).

-F

[Guest]

Position in the game world absolutely has a bearing. And stance, and height, and pretty much every physical factor you'd deal with in the real world. We generally don't do dice rolls.

As for boids: flocking is great. In a military simulator you're going to end up with about seven thousand corner cases, however, *and* extremely intensive / expensive checks for things like separation and obstacle avoidance. As you increase the number of troops in a scenario it would absolutely destroy performance. No way you could run a battalion+ in a reasonably complex environment, not with all of the other calculations we already need to do.

[Battlefront.com]

While I'd be the last one to argue there there's no room for improvement, but the existing system is pretty good in most situations most of the time. I say that comparing what the game does vs. real life not vs. training manuals. Based on the feedback here I see that the majority support this position.

Unfortunately there's no easy way to achieve significantly different behavior than what we have in the game now. The amount of coding and computing resources that would need to be diverted towards fairly modest changes in game behavior are simply out of proportion to the benefit. Or even the need, depending on how far one thinks we need to change to get to an acceptable end result.

Aside from the impracticalities of the coding side of things, there is the UI issues. Explicit micromanagement controls would greatly improve our ability to refine the quality of whatever improvements we could theoretically code. And that gets into an entirely different debate. And that is adding another layer of micromanagement to the lowest level of game controls. Most would not be pleased with having to deal with more micromanagement, some would cheer. We have to side with the majority on this one.

Soooooo... minor improvements would be good, but major improvements are not realistic and therefore not needed. The problem for us all is that even minor improvements require major diversions of development resources (i.e. you'll have to do without other things you probably want more than this) and taxing computer resources. On top of that we would likely be obligated to impose a whole new layer of micromanagement on players that the vast majority would be unhappy about having to deal with.

In short, I don't think this is where we should spend our time or use up your computer's always limited capabilities. And if we're going to burden/annoy players with further micromanagement requirements I think it should be for something that has a lot more real benefit to the game rather than a minor improvement (at best).

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Specific answers to specific questions:

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

From a practical standpoint, no. Not without significant sacrifices in other areas, including ease of use.

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

Absolutely not. The small degree of beneficial change (i.e. a realistic use of formational doctrine) is way out of proportion to the costs of having them.

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

HE effects are reduced, but other than that we don't see the bunching as being excessive. At least not in the average situation in most games, most of the time.

Which gets back to the original question that is, thankfully, the one most people seem interested in asking and addressing. Which is "how did real forces in WW2 act relative to how CM currently simulate them?" I agree with the notion that the answer to this is "pretty close" in terms of absolute realism. But with practical issues surrounding even minor changes factored in I think the current system should be viewed as "close enough" and spend our time on other things which aren't.

Steve

[Erwin.Rommel]

Specific answers to specific questions:

Steve

Hey steve, I recall in the CMSF, infantry team go though open ground in formation line, however in the CMBN and CMFI, they go through all place with formation column. I don't call for the manually changed formation system to be added to the game. But can we get a new feature in the future update that the infantry squad move in line in some open ground then the TacAI can automatically change to column in the narrow places such as the urban area?

[Wodin]

Been asking for this for awhile now..just a skirmish line would be great, esp for moving through woods.

[Battlefront.com]

Hey steve, I recall in the CMSF, infantry team go though open ground in formation line, however in the CMBN and CMFI, they go through all place with formation column.

It's been a VERY long time since I've played CMSF, but I don't remember it working that way.

I don't call for the manually changed formation system to be added to the game. But can we get a new feature in the future update that the infantry squad move in line in some open ground then the TacAI can automatically change to column in the narrow places such as the urban area?

Been asking for this for awhile now..just a skirmish line would be great, esp for moving through woods.

Answering both at once. I've mentioned that I do see some areas for improvement, and this is exactly the one I had in mind. However, it's not so simple. We'd have to implement something that requires user input. Why? Because there are no predictable conditions to reliably determine when column and skirmish should be used.

If we introduced skirmish lines for any specific situation I can guarantee people will not be happy with it. Or at least no happier than they are with it today. Given that adding logic for skirmish lines involves a significant amount of work and testing for us to get into reasonable shape, it's simply not worth the effort given the likely outcome.

Having said that, I do have a design that's been gathering dust for a few years. It basically involves another layer to the hierarchical Commands menu that allows you to specify Column (default) or Skirmish. This works well within the existing UI and doesn't involve extra work for the player except when he wants Skirmish. And even then it's just one extra click to have it work.

As "simple" as this idea might be from a player standpoint, it's a ton of work on our end of things. I think we'll eventually get this introduced, but not for the next Upgrade for sure. Our schedule for that is already overbooked as it is and I don't see anything on the list that I'd bump for this idea. Which is why this idea didn't even get submitted as a possibility for the next Upgrade.

Steve

[akd]

Squads actually default to a wedge or staggered line of fire teams when moving across open ground. It is choke points that tend to force the squad into a narrow column, but this can be avoided to a degree with waypoints on the far side of choke points. Wedge or staggered line is actually a great default formation for the game because it is not particularly vulnerable to fire from any particular direction, and the masking of the squad's own firepower is a non-issue.

Where I do see a problem is with the fire team formations. Each individual fire team defaults to a compressed file that both looks kinda artificial and makes them extremely vulnerable to fire from the front. This is especially apparent under HUNT and MOVE orders. In some cases, it looks like the fire team members are literally hanging on to each others' belts. If they shook out and staggered some (even within the confines of a single tile) it would look more natural and make them less vulnerable to fire from one particular direction. No particular formation within the fire team is necessary (or even desirable I think).

edit: actually there is one other issue where the active tile placement for fire teams shown for intermediate waypoints is often ignored causing 2 fire teams to occupy the same tile at an intermediate waypoint, then move on from the point all bunched together. I think this may be more noticeable with 3-team squads. For example, when you place an intermediate waypoint for a 3-team squad, the colored tile overlays shows a 3-tile wedge or staggered line of fire teams, but when the team arrives at the waypoint, two fire teams cluster into a single tile. The placement shown only seems to be valid for the final waypoint.

[Wodin]

@Battlefront...Big hanks for the explanation..I hope eventually your idea about skirmish line through the UI will become a feature. I do appreciate it will be a ton of work and maybe it's something best left when say both West front and at least East Front Bagration modules are completed. Still good to know it's written down on a piece of paper somewhere in what is probably a big pile of future mechanics and ideas and features you've thought about over the years;)

[womble]

edit: actually there is one other issue where the active tile placement for fire teams shown for intermediate waypoints is often ignored causing 2 fire teams to occupy the same tile at an intermediate waypoint, then move on from the point all bunched together. I think this may be more noticeable with 3-team squads. For example, when you place an intermediate waypoint for a 3-team squad, the colored tile overlays shows a 3-tile wedge or staggered line of fire teams, but when the team arrives at the waypoint, two fire teams cluster into a single tile. The placement shown only seems to be valid for the final waypoint.

Sounds like another excellent reason to keep your squads split into teams to me

[akd]

Excellent if you're not Italian, Russian, Syrian, etc...

[Los]

Los, for moving columns keeping an interval one thing I have thought of that I have been meaning to get some graphics together to show is a FOLLOW command. The way I see it it would improve, and streamline logistics immensely. Imagine we have 3 trucks that we want to move down a road with a few curves in it. To do this we have to plot moves and waypoints for each unit to follow that path. The FOLLOW command would eliminate all that except plotting the movement of the lead element.

.

This speaks to simplifying things for the real time player and allowing the handling of moving larger formations which I like.

[Battlefront.com]

Yeah, FOLLOW has been on my personal wish list since... well, since CM was first thought up

Steve

[LukeFF]

Something like this would be great to have one day:

[Vinnart]

Yeah, FOLLOW has been on my personal wish list since... well, since CM was first thought up

Steve

That's good to know, and hope to see it in the future of CM. It would be a great time saver in streamlining move orders for both WEGO and especially RT play. If it were implemented I could see the players finding it very useful.

[Erwin]

CM1 has an assault command which if targeted on an enemy vehicle would result in the inf unit following the vehicle (in an attempt to attack it). Quite useful.

[warrenpeace]

Steve,

Given that a "Follow" command has been on the wish list for a long time, why hasn't it ever been implemented? Kind of curious.

Warren

[Childress]

Given that a "Follow" command has been on the wish list for a long time, why hasn't it ever been implemented? Kind of curious.

Because it's not as simple to code as imagined? A Follow command would be almost mandatory playing a Huge RT battle with lots of vehicles. In WEGO, useful, but not critically important, imo. Particularly for those now playing the MG module with its plethora of infantry scenarios.

[warrenpeace]

How about a "stay on road movement command"? This would accomplish a lot of the same thing.