Infantry canonfodder in CMRT

[Pike]

Why is it so big difference from CMRT to CMBN when it comes to the infantry? The poor soldiers in CMRT die too easily. Almost always the leader dies first as well. Foxholes and trenches doesn't help much.

 

WHY?!!!

[z1812]

That has not been my experience.

What were you playing and what was the situation.

[Bozowans]

Because of the lack of hedgerows I would imagine. Hedgerows made for such fantastic cover in CMBN. They are almost indestructible, and a pain to deal with, especially if there are well motivated troops hiding behind them, like the fanatical Germans in the Scottish Corridor campaign. Normandy also has a lot of strong stone buildings that provide good protection from small arms fire. 

In CMRT, the maps are often much bigger and more appropriate for big tank battles. There are a lot of scenarios in which the infantry seem like little more than bodyguards and spotters for the tanks. You might have only trees and shabby wooden houses to hide in, and that nearby platoon of IS-2s with their enormous 122mm guns will blow you to pieces the moment they spot you. Your foxholes might as well not even be there when one of those shells explodes on top of you.

Each CM game plays a bit differently. Playing with powerful US airborne infantry in Normandy and Holland is gonna be different from playing Soviet troops in Poland. The Italy game plays differently from the others as well. 

As for leaders always dying first, well that happens in every CM game! You just have to embrace the inevitable death of your officers, and tell them to charge into battle, leading from the front. They have to set an example for their men. 

[spawncaptain]

Actually, since the release of CMRT I do not find that leaders die first anymore. They probably secretly fixed somefink.

[Luka]

As Bozowans said, in RT infantry has often has much different role than in BN. Its just the nature of the different tactical environment you find yourself in. Armour has a lot more influence here and can decimate infantry if given the opportunity. Thats not to say that infantry is almost useless and only good for their eyes and ability to soak lead. Often they are invaluable screens for your Armour and suppress enemy AT. Many scenarios have forests which must be scouted and  secured by infantry. You need to be careful with your infantry to limit their exposure to enemy armour, especially since many maps are quite open and allow for some long range shots on infantry spotted running around in the open.

 

As for the squad leaders, Murphy's law mate just accept it 

[womble]

As for the squad leaders, Murphy's law mate just accept it 

Or a combination of confirmation bias and the fact that leaders get assigned the best places to keep an eye out from, and do their job, so are more exposed, perhaps, than the rest of the squad.

[Melchior]

The wide open steppes of Russia and Eastern Europe are nothing like the craggy hills of Italy and the conveniently arranged hedgerows of Normandy. In order to fight in the East you need to get used to the fact that infantry don't actually do much of it. Armor does and when that's not available heavy weapons. 

[Bulletpoint]

Also, the changes in version 3.0 includes changed rates of fire for automatic weapons, if I'm not mistaken. Not sure what the changes are, if weapons fire faster or slower, but it might have something to do with infantry casualties.

Edited October 12, 2015 by Bulletpoint

[DLaurier]

Russia was more of a meatgrinder, but i find that i can still keep infantry casualties within reason.
There is less cover, and so you have to be more carefull.

[JasonC]

I think people are just playing very tank-happy scenarios, frankly.  That wasn't the real war, it is just a cherry picked slice of that war.

For a different reason, I was looking over the weekend at the distribution of German forces across all their commands and sectors at the end of 1943.

One eighth of the German force consisted of mobile divisions at that time, 43 out of 343 divisions - only half of those mobile divisions being actual panzer, incidentally, the other half being panzergrenadier.  AG South and Italy had 30-35% mobile formations, AG Center 13% and France/the west 9%.  AG North and the Scandanavia had 2% mobile formations, each, while all other army groups (Crimea and Kuban, Balkans, Greece) had none whatever.  2 army groups representing less than 30% of the overall force had about a third mobile, another third in 2 big AGs had one in 9, and the rest - over a third - didn't have a prayer of seeing a German tank within 300 miles.  This includes huge sections of the eastern front - from Lapland to the northern edge of AG center and again from the Crimea to the southeastern extremity of the Kuban position - combined - there was one (count 'em, one) panzergrenadier division.

Cherry pick a sector as the most active around the whole war, pick an army within it for heavy representation of armor, pick the formation within that army, and then pick the KG within that formation - in every case you have only a chance in 3 of finding any tanks.  Objectively speaking, you need to roll boxcars to get even modest amounts of armor support, and roll well again to get an actual balanced force with as much armor as infantry.  Some of the places with no armor were good infantry terrain or at least poor armor terrain (forested northern regions e.g.), but some were wider open steppe than even the terrain of AG South by this point (Kuban region e.g.).  They just didn't merit armor concentration as not being the hottest contested sector recently.

I realize that the original poster's concern is tactical and CMRT focused; he is seeing his squishies get squished a lot and it bothers him.  I'm just pointing out that scenario designers are pretty much off in fantasy land about the prevalence of armor in WW II combat, even late in the war, and on the active Russian front.  Huge parts of the war were infantry vs infantry affairs with plenty of artillery, and either no armor at all of eyedropper amounts of it, frequently only on the locally attacking side.  We should have more scenarios that reflect that, in my opinion.

[RockinHarry]

In defense a leader is actually somewhat safer from direct fire, particularly at ranges beyond 200-300m, as he´s not easily revealing his individual position by firing his weapon (SMG in most cases). If one can afford, split teams and let just team B (C) do the shooting job. Doesn´t work for stray bullets, HE and enemy snipers off course.

In the attack, split teams and echelon the leader section somewhat back and put the other teams up front. NKWD style so to say. 

Bunching up is always a problem. For the future I´d like to have the ability to compose teams individually during game play. In example just make a small 2 men MG team (gunner & loader) and have the remaining soldiers distributed to 1 or 2 other teams. Or just make a HQ team with just the leader and assistant and distribute remaining soldiers to your liking. That coupled with custom squad formations....Just dreaming.

Anyway, the split team system in CMX2 doesn´t quite coincide with real life WW2 squad compositions and tactical employment, at least not for all WW2 armies. In case of germans one could compare the normal infantry squad and its individual teams with the prewar compositions and tactical doctrine, which was abandoned right after the Poland campaign in late 1939. Prewar squads still had a seperate rifle and lMG team of roughly equal size, as well as a squad leader and a team B leader. From october 1939 this doctrine was abandoned (to simplify squad leadership and make it more flexible and powerful). From the french 1940 campaign onwards there was no two seperate teams in german infantry squads anymore. It was up to the squad leader to employ his squad in any manner he finds appropriate. He could employ the lMG alone and keep the rifle guys in cover. In that case the squad leader would be with or near the lMG. He could employ all of the squad to engage targets the same time, or just assign a single marksman and keep everyone else in cover. This flexibility is hard to pull off in CMX2, but I understand BFC had to make some compromises to get their split team system work in the game, in a somewhat generalised manner though.

[c3k]

I think people are just playing very tank-happy scenarios, frankly.  That wasn't the real war, it is just a cherry picked slice of that war.

For a different reason, I was looking over the weekend at the distribution of German forces across all their commands and sectors at the end of 1943.

One eighth of the German force consisted of mobile divisions at that time, 43 out of 343 divisions - only half of those mobile divisions being actual panzer, incidentally, the other half being panzergrenadier.  AG South and Italy had 30-35% mobile formations, AG Center 13% and France/the west 9%.  AG North and the Scandanavia had 2% mobile formations, each, while all other army groups (Crimea and Kuban, Balkans, Greece) had none whatever.  2 army groups representing less than 30% of the overall force had about a third mobile, another third in 2 big AGs had one in 9, and the rest - over a third - didn't have a prayer of seeing a German tank within 300 miles.  This includes huge sections of the eastern front - from Lapland to the northern edge of AG center and again from the Crimea to the southeastern extremity of the Kuban position - combined - there was one (count 'em, one) panzergrenadier division.

Cherry pick a sector as the most active around the whole war, pick an army within it for heavy representation of armor, pick the formation within that army, and then pick the KG within that formation - in every case you have only a chance in 3 of finding any tanks.  Objectively speaking, you need to roll boxcars to get even modest amounts of armor support, and roll well again to get an actual balanced force with as much armor as infantry.  Some of the places with no armor were good infantry terrain or at least poor armor terrain (forested northern regions e.g.), but some were wider open steppe than even the terrain of AG South by this point (Kuban region e.g.).  They just didn't merit armor concentration as not being the hottest contested sector recently.

I realize that the original poster's concern is tactical and CMRT focused; he is seeing his squishies get squished a lot and it bothers him.  I'm just pointing out that scenario designers are pretty much off in fantasy land about the prevalence of armor in WW II combat, even late in the war, and on the active Russian front.  Huge parts of the war were infantry vs infantry affairs with plenty of artillery, and either no armor at all of eyedropper amounts of it, frequently only on the locally attacking side.  We should have more scenarios that reflect that, in my opinion.

My bold.

JasonC makes some good points about the prevalence of infantry on the Eastern Front. Two minor nits: German tanks may be rare (outside OKH designated offensives), but that does not mean there was no AFV about. (I'm talking the StuG's and Marders.) No, they wouldn't be common, but just because there isn't a Panzer division about, doesn't mean there's NO chance of an AFV showing up.

The bold: The designers are not (in the main) in "fantasy land". Instead, a lot of the battles in-game are focused on the clash of armor, not the daily drudge of tossing a few shells across no-man's land, raiding, and trying to adjust the trenches a few dozen meters. Yes, that was far more of the war. (See Rzhev for, what, 2 years?) Players like toys, for the most part. Designers try to meet that market.

Ken

[Bozowans]

In the attack, split teams and echelon the leader section somewhat back and put the other teams up front. NKWD style so to say. 

Yeah, but that's not as much fun as having the officers personally lead the attack. Lately, just for fun, I've tried throwing not just squad leaders, but my higher level HQs right into the thick of the fighting, leading from the front. Like Lt Col. Robert Cole's bayonet charge in Normandy or something. Sometimes it actually works because there are so many SMG-toting officers.

If they die, well, it's better they die on their feet at the head of their men than cowering in the back! 

A while ago I had a game where I made my US airborne company HQ personally lead an assault on an enemy trench line and Flak gun position. Not only did it work, but the Captain himself personally shot a surrendering German right in the face with his M1 carbine, at point-blank range. He was shot the instant he put his hands up.

[JasonC]

c3k - that doesn't amount to the designers not being in fantasy land, only to alleging that the players got their first.  

The infantry part of the war was not static or uninteresting or unimportant.  It was most of it, on all fronts and times.  And plenty of it, even in the times and places where armor was occasionally around.  When armor was around, it was rarely an even match of the best vehicles from both sides, or even a near-even match of the vanilla ones. 

What I am saying is that we'd be better off with more diversity in the matter.  Fights without any armor, and fights where only the attacker has barely a smidgen of the stuff, are inherently interesting and important for tactical lessons.  Similar "asymmetry" in amounts of heavy fire support, or the presence of obstacles or difficult terrain, are also inherently interesting.  Especially so with force to space levels considerably lower than the battalion every 600 yards scale in too many of the included scenarios.

I am reacting to those who told the original poster, in effect, sure infantry is unimportant, it was so in the real war.  (Some instead told him useful lessons about how not to get his men killed, which is great - not what I am reacting to).  This just isn't true.  And the OP desiring to see scenario conditions in which infantry isn't just cannon fodder, when it can survive and fight, and its handling matters for the outcome, is justified, IMO.  (That range of conditions may indeed be wider with best play - separate issue).

FWIW...

[Luka]

You could always arrange to play some quick battles focusing on infantry with someone if you feel there aren't enough scenarios that don't emphasise armour. Also if you have the time for it, try playing around and making some scenarios giving a larger role to infantry. It can be good fun making scenarios (and there's ample help on how to do it on these forums and some on armchair general) and people would certainly appreciate the variety, as you say. Sorry if this comes of as "well then do it yourself" I didn't mean it to. I'm acknowledging there's room for more variety in scenarios so to say, but also that if its not what most people want than the ones that do gotta work on it ourselves. Actually, I think I might have just found my project for the holiday

 

Edit: Though I would like to point out there are quite a few scenarios where Infantry has a big role to play, but I guess there always is quite a bit of armour present so it doesn't solve your itch. 

Edited October 13, 2015 by Luka

[womble]

Yeah, but that's not as much fun as having the officers personally lead the attack. Lately, just for fun, I've tried throwing not just squad leaders, but my higher level HQs right into the thick of the fighting, leading from the front. Like Lt Col. Robert Cole's bayonet charge in Normandy or something. Sometimes it actually works because there are so many SMG-toting officers.

If they die, well, it's better they die on their feet at the head of their men than cowering in the back! 

A while ago I had a game where I made my US airborne company HQ personally lead an assault on an enemy trench line and Flak gun position. Not only did it work, but the Captain himself personally shot a surrendering German right in the face with his M1 carbine, at point-blank range. He was shot the instant he put his hands up.

I tend not to put the PltHQ right at the front, but if the Assault teams are going in, having their boss backing them up is more important than having him safe with the firebase. So Lieutenants are generally a handful of AS behind the "first men in".

 

 

 

 

 

[BletchleyGeek]

In defense a leader is actually somewhat safer from direct fire, particularly at ranges beyond 200-300m, as he´s not easily revealing his individual position by firing his weapon (SMG in most cases). If one can afford, split teams and let just team B (C) do the shooting job. Doesn´t work for stray bullets, HE and enemy snipers off course.

In the attack, split teams and echelon the leader section somewhat back and put the other teams up front. NKWD style so to say. 

Bunching up is always a problem. For the future I´d like to have the ability to compose teams individually during game play. In example just make a small 2 men MG team (gunner & loader) and have the remaining soldiers distributed to 1 or 2 other teams. Or just make a HQ team with just the leader and assistant and distribute remaining soldiers to your liking. That coupled with custom squad formations....Just dreaming.

 

Let me second those dreams... and the advice at the beginning, especially with the Germans, as the MG remains with the squad leader. As Harry says, the whole German tactical system pivoted around those three guys  (the leader and MG crew).

[RockinHarry]

I tend not to put the PltHQ right at the front, but if the Assault teams are going in, having their boss backing them up is more important than having him safe with the firebase. So Lieutenants are generally a handful of AS behind the "first men in".

Employing leader teams in their usual historical role, is always a good idea in CMX2 too. Beside their generally important role of preserving cohesion and COC, they´re most the time the best passive spotting and scouting units in the overall force, due to them having at least 1 Binocs or more and beeing of small size. Otherwise employing HQ teams in frontline combat can only be risked as emergency measure and/or if they have very positive soft factors, incl. leader ratings, or as mentioned by Bozowans, if you´re dealing with enemies that have morale broken already. A mopping up job.

I had one situation lately (no HQ involved) where a US squad close assaulted a german pillbox, destroyed it  with the panicked german left overs rushing out and receiving effective fire from the only german panicked guy with a SMG. Result was several US soldiers incapacitated and 2-3 US guys surrendering in the face of the still panicked germans who were keeping up their rout. Kind of funny situation somehow, but I like that anything can happen in the game. 

[RockinHarry]

Let me second those dreams... and the advice at the beginning, especially with the Germans, as the MG remains with the squad leader. As Harry says, the whole German tactical system pivoted around those three guys  (the leader and MG crew).

Yup. You can´t realistically recreate the situation with the leader directing the lMG team alone. You always have some rifle guys who expose the whole bunch to enemy spotting and likely return fire. In real life the leader would by use of the Binocs spot for the target to be engaged by the lMG and observe fire effects, providing correction data to the lMG gunner as appropiate. This would be for the ideal lMG engagement range from 300 to 800m. This makes the split team feature a not so good idea for lMG employment, as this most the time also splits the leader with the Binocs from the lMG, who is now dependent just on eye sight, limiting his longer range (300m +) engagement opportunities noticeably.

Edit: Thinking about it, I´d wish for a further split team option that just includes the lMG guys (gunner & assistant) and leader. Call it just "split lMG team". This way you also achieve the ideal team size for the 8x8m action spots (dispersion), which I figured is about max 3-4 guys. The remaining squad then can be kept hidden in another action spot. Nothing for those who hate micro managing though.

Edited October 13, 2015 by RockinHarry

[Melchior]

c3k - that doesn't amount to the designers not being in fantasy land, only to alleging that the players got their first.  

The infantry part of the war was not static or uninteresting or unimportant.  It was most of it, on all fronts and times.  And plenty of it, even in the times and places where armor was occasionally around.

I'm pretty sure in most areas of the front infantry were lucky if they even had their assigned weaponry. Something like a machine gun was an extremely coveted weapon where ever it went and despite building millions of them there just weren't enough to go around.

When you read about how hard it was to so much as get men food and water in some of the most god-forsaken regions of the war you start to pick up on how big the war was. These armies were huge and did not have their allotments even in peacetime. So when the war hit and everyone's forces ballooned in size 1000% it's really not surprising to picture most fronts on most sectors just being lots of infantry.

Building 30,000 T34s sounds like a huge number, but that's over a 4 year stretch of war and distribution to a frontline measured in thousands and thousands of miles. It's not much. Then you've got closet-fascists and Wehrmachtophiles who love to brag about Nazi super tanks like the Tiger but when you only build around 1,300 or so of that tank that's just, well, nothing. It is statistically irrelevant  in a war of such scale.

Edited October 13, 2015 by CaptHawkeye

[kevinkin]

Tactical warfare in WWII was infantry based. In combat mission afvs serve as support when a scenario is designed with history in mind. Every try a tank vs tank battle on a large map? It plays out very quick with losses no rational commander would accept within the hour or so time frame alloted. Infantry losses to fire are hard to avoid in the east. Positions are often obvious and death traps. Careful play is the only remedy. I am tending to design longer battles with major penalties in points for friendly losses. The design technique of a battle resolving on the last turn is exciting but not that realistic. With enough time the player can develop the position and avoid ambush. 

Kevin

 

[c3k]

...

What I am saying is that we'd be better off with more diversity in the matter.  Fights without any armor, and fights where only the attacker has barely a smidgen of the stuff, are inherently interesting and important for tactical lessons.  Similar "asymmetry" in amounts of heavy fire support, or the presence of obstacles or difficult terrain, are also inherently interesting.  Especially so with force to space levels considerably lower than the battalion every 600 yards scale in too many of the included scenarios.

...

This describes my favored scenario type.

[JasonC]

Re making my own or using QBs, I do use QBs, but the typical sizes are still too big for what I like, even on the smallest settings.  I appreciate the map makers every time I try my hand at editing - I just find the current editor much harder to use than the old CMx1 I used extensively.  I appreciate, again, that it gives much finer control and can make the gorgeous maps I see the dedicated designers turning out - kudos.  I just don't have the time a good job with it requires and haven't gone up the editor learning curve.  I pretty much have to rely on other people's efforts for non QB scenarios, therefore.

Re KevinKin's comments on loss avoidance, I agree with the goal, but I don't think the proposed solution gets there.  Big penalties for friendly losses encourage the other guy to inflict those penalties upon you.  Victory is a symmetric thing, and just changing the victory conditions therefore cannot alter player behavior in the matter to any significant degree.  Unless it fools them, I suppose.  If they understand or know that the other guy also has loss avoidance as a prime objective, then getting half your own force killed to kill 80% of his is still a winning outcome.  You just drive him farther into his penalties and its all good.

The only way to force *both* players not to mash their forces together so aggressively is to make the pixeltruppen stop obeying their orders at some point, when they try.  Lowering unit quality (play greens for realism, a standing recommendation) can move in this direction, and so can requiring a ceasefire offer if global morale is low enough.  That way a battle can end in mutual exhaustion rather than being pressed to annihilation of one side or the other, and the commanders have an incentive to wait for some of their men to rally before pressing, which slows things down in a natural and realistic way.

But there needs to be an involuntary component to loss avoidance requirements, or the symmetry of victory as a "thing" just trumps any designer concern to make players keep losses lower.

FWIW...

Edited October 14, 2015 by JasonC

[Erwin]

+1 to having friendly casualties having more penalties.  Maybe I got used to playing CMSF where friendly casualties were heavily penalized (at least for the western nations).  But, the WW2 iterations of CM2 all seem to almost encourage profligate friendly casualties. 

[Bozowans]

+1 to having friendly casualties having more penalties.  Maybe I got used to playing CMSF where friendly casualties were heavily penalized (at least for the western nations).  But, the WW2 iterations of CM2 all seem to almost encourage profligate friendly casualties. 

Especially for the Russians. The briefing for the CMRT Russian campaign outright tells you to ignore friendly casualties, and just focus on overrunning and killing as many Germans as possible. So you just charge in going URRAH while annihilating whole companies of Germans down to the last man.

I know that real life battles often end when one side thinks they might lose. It doesn't matter if that's true or not - the moment they think so, they quit, and the whole force retreats, or calls off the attack, etc. A single tank getting knocked out might be considered the turning point that completely drains the will of one side to continue. I suppose that's why you have forces like the Taliban and the Islamic State rapidly capturing entire cities with few losses, despite being vastly outnumbered. Morale is a dangerous thing. I remember an old CMx1 scenario about the Germans attacking a village with a platoon of Tiger tanks. It was based on a real engagement, but in real life, the Germans called off the attack after losing one of the Tigers. There's no reason for a player to do that in the game. You might as well use the other Tigers if you have them, until you either win, or they're knocked out. Why put the toys on the field if you're not gonna use them?