Recon Units and Spotting

[Guest Big Time Software]

Man, about time you showed up Los

Gotta agree with everything you say, not only because you have the experience to know what you are talking about, but also because it fits in nicely with what this bookshelf next to me says So, here is CM's take on Recon...

Dedicated Recon troops can be made more alert, "smarter", and more stealthy (Ken, this is another attribute improved with quality).

However, most units, especially Company sized or scratch KG/BG formations generally lack specialized recon troops. So instead they must utilize whatever it is they got, and that might not be much

Tactics are more important than the units being used. You can do good recon with a poor unit, or you can do poor recon with a good unit. Moving in leaps and bounds and using terrain to your advantage, while keeping your main force at the right distance, is far more important than if Sgt. Badass has a knack of smelling a Jerry fart at 200m Combine the two and you should kick butt!

Los, as far as the "everybody is on alert" statement I made, I realize that this is not true all the time, but it would be more often true than not in CM as battles are often no surprise to either side (i.e. CM starts you out on Day 2 of a tussle over a village). It is realistic that once the shooting started units would be on their guard, especially if moving into unknown territory. I know that units can still be sloppy about this, especially if they have been in the line too long (we have a really good book on combat exhaustion BTW). We want to do more with this in the future, but for now the designer can change unit's starting state to simulate shellshock or what have you. Not as detailed as we would like, but can't do everything on the first round

And as you say, most units have their guards down most of the time. I have some horrible pics here of 2nd PzDiv's recon units that were surprised while all neatly parked behind some trees in a small village. The vehicles have lots of big holes in them, and some are even on their sides. In theory nobody should have got the drop on these guys, but theory has a problem with reality far too often. However, if they had posted even a tired bunch of guys in the right place (i.e. the rear from the looks of it!) they might have been able to escape some of the carnage. As it was they were pretty much wiped out within minutes. And this sort of thing can happen EASILY in CM.

Robert, yes, we thought about having crews be able to pop out and do some recon, either for a firing position or whatever. We actually had this in the original game design for all vehicles and all team weapons. But we felt its use was limited at CM's scale, so it got tossed onto the back burner. We were also concerned about cheating. Imagine one unit going up and having the crew run around to a dozen places to figure firing positions for 2 platoons, then hopping back into the vehicle and now 2 platoons can advance knowing the exact spot, to the meter, where they should set up shop. As I am sure Los can tell you, rare is the day when a squad would be given orders from the Battalion commander to advance along such and such a root and then stop at coordinates 33.333333 by 56.9993483 and arrive there with a perfect field of fire

Bobb, thanks! I really hope we can get lots of fun, realistic scenarios made by lots of people which wouldn't work in other games (or not work as well). I am itching to play a game where I am given a platoon and a couple of armored cars, several possible advance routs, and about 30 minutes to figure out where to have my main force go. I think that would be VERY cool.

Steve

[Guest Big Time Software]

Cripes! I forgot to talk about recon by fire...

I think Los is perfectly correct. In fact, we tried to make the TacAI be smart about not always getting up and moving when the crap starts to fly at it. The better the unit being shot at, the more of a chance it will stay put and stay hidden. Terrain and the nature of the enemy fire are also very important here. Oh, and if the unit is Hiding, it will try even harder to stay in position, but in some other stances the unit doesn't feel so attached to its current location and might get up and move (this is what Fionn was experiencing with Martin's guys. Low morale, adhoc positions, being hit with serious stuff)

There is also the US tactic of recon by anhilation See that village over there? Blow it to bits and see if you can find any pieces of the enemy in the streets after to find out if there were any Germans in tehre. This was even easier to do as the war went on and the German troop quality went way down, as did their willingness to die for a hopeless cause. Lob a few rounds into a house and the next thing you know, white hankies and shouts of nicht schiessen all over the place. However, the US paid DEARLY when they fired the couple of rounds and assumed the coast was clear, only to find some grim and determined teenagers in there with MGs and PFs. So sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and if it doesn't...

In Hedgerows recon by fire was the rule rather than the exception. The US would knock through a hedge, whack the key defensive positions regardless of if they knew something was there or not, and then finish off the attack with infantry. This is why it was SO effective. The Germans could hide in good positions all they wanted, but when HE, WP, Smk mortar rounds started hitting them sight unseen it really didn't matter. Once the Allies learned how to handle hedgerows the German's ability to defend them diminished to practically nothing.

Steve

[Los]

I know this is probably above the scope of the game but...

I'm not sure but I believe the game has victory points and whatnot? It would be nice in the pre-deployemnt phase of the game (before you start playing but where you are setting up the units and what not) for a player to be able to convert VPs into recon points.

The player could then establish a picture of what lies ahead, with varying degrees of accuracy (NEVER PERFECT) depending on how far it is from the front line. This would represent patrols or leaders recon perfromed during the planning phase.

I know it's probably undoable, but the desired endstate is to make the player consciously decide to either execute quickly (and risk running into unknown stuff) or spend more time in planningand recon, (but time costs VPs so there is a balance). It wouldn't work for every scenario, of course. You could even expand it say that instead of a blanket area recon the player can focus along one route or at some point (the objective). He selects his recon type and how many VPs he's willing to gamble away ahead of time. ZONE RECON would buy you the method described above. ROUTE recon has him selecting a number of waypoints along an axis of advance. AREA recon has him selecting one area on themap where everything say 500 or 1000m around it will get looked at. Then he click etis is only as good as when the game starts.

Defnsively could be the same way though maybe the defensive benifit or recon is twofold. Enemy assembly areas and OBs.

The hard part is that the defender must set up first before the attacker can run his recon. It's probably not a big issue in single player games where teh AI has been (resumably?) pre-ordained to set up somehwre.

Of course the player would also have recon units in the game that function as have been described in other posts, IF they were made available in the scenario.

If terrain conditions are also variable then recon could clarify tehstate or roads and whatnot.

Anyway, I know it's probably undoable but fun to talk about.

Cheers...

Los

[Rick]

Los,

I like your idea. I usually feel that games try to make it seem like there was no recon done before your assault, not even a flyover by an L4. I find this especially frustrating with modern games, all the sophisticated recon and intelligence gear out there today, yet I haven't a clue what I'm about to face. I know there's probably no way this info would be very specifice, but you might know something like a large armor force in your vicinity etc.

However, I also agree that your idea will probably be difficult to implement, except maybe in scenario briefings.

[Guest Battlefront]

Los, actually this is well within the scope of CM. In fact, Charles and I discussed a similar plan some time ago. The problem was deciding which units you got the poop on, and how much did you know. As I am sure you woill agree, some things would more likely be found out than others, depending on terrain, unit type, length of time in positions, the action it was doing at the time of recon, what was engaged in previous battles (i.e. a Tiger is hard to forget ), etc. Trying to figure out what to do with this makes our heads hurt

So what we decided to do is what Rick mentioned. Leave it up to the mission briefing. For example, in the current AAR game going on, the story line suggests that Martin should have a very good idea what is in the village as he had been slugging it out there for days. So I told him roughly what was in there and roughly what was NOT in there (i.e. heavy weapons). Thus Martin had a decent idea what an infantry assault would run up against. Not perfect, but I think it will add the realism level the designer wishes to achieve.

Steve

[Guest Bobb]

The mission briefing has potiential for creativity in going beyond Victory Points for defining mission completed as well as setting the stage for battle. I can imagine a campaign scheme in which a whole scenario is devoted to recon with a fairly well guaranteed VP tie or close to it. One side to screen its positions and the other to seek them out. The scene would be then set for the next phase in which the two antagonists would seek to better their situation by going on the defensive, or combination defense-attack for spoiling effect or a main thrust attack. Sometimes VP requirements get in the way of warring for the sake of game.

I would like to see in the future some additional or different ways of handling the situation. In reality victory assessment was quite a problem at times too. Some agressive types "won" but at an unacceptable cost, - the praises for courage and taking the hill etc. more representing gravestones than success.

In a recient exercise that I joined, success was defined as turns the enemy was delayed before you were annhilated. One player kept at that scenario until he actually had the last living unit on the field at end. It took some 30 attempts. Interesting in that the designer had full confidance that that was impossible. It damn well nearly was.

I find a very strong creative challange in using Victory Point positions in ways that provide a battle with more interest than merely capturing and holding a position.

Higher echelons defined victory by mission assignments; hindsight often came up with a different answer. For the soldier on the field, survival, while perhaps not being entirely everything, generally was enough.

[Guest Big Time Software]

There is much that can still be done with victory conditions in future releases, but we have a pretty good set of concepts that allow a decent number of possible types of scenarios.

If you wanted to to a force elimination game, then give the defender a very small VL to hold on to, with very little value. Then set the suggested end of the scenario at the number of turns you want, and let them have at it. Since the bulk of the final score is determined by casualties you will pretty much get what you are looking for in this way.

And in the current game being played out, I don't think Fionn has a chance of gaining a "vicotry" because of all his losses. We shall see though

Steve

[Guest Bobb]

One way I have used VLs is set up a bunch of minimum locations along with higher ones on the actual objectives. That way the AI did a better job of holding road blocks and making progress to the objective an attack instead of a meeting engagement as all the AI units left their blocking positions in an uncoordinated attack at my advancing forces.

I am most curious to see how the AI is handled in CM. I expect it is rather different. At least I hope so.

Blazes, I think I finished this one in under 500 words.

[Guest Big Time Software]

CM's AI takes VLs into considderation much the way the human does. They are things that need to be got, but they aren't the sole focus of the battlefield. It looks at the VLs as being the overall objective, not as the only place that all forces need to wind up occupying. Thefore, you don't need to "bait" the AI using the Hanzel and Grettel approach to VL marking (i.e. breadcrumb trail for it to follow).

Steve

[Guest Bobb]

Would the AI set up roadblocks and ambushes using the hide command somewhat in the manner of Martin?

[Guest Big Time Software]

Good question. I don't know, but it should be able to. The ambushes that Martin set up were part of the initial scenario deployment, although Martin did move some stuff around. So the forces would be used by the AI to do ambushing. Just not sure if right now it is smart enough to use that order. I will ask

Steve