Frictions of Contemporary Warfare: What's In It For Ground Forces?

[George MC]

http://www.thestrategybridge.com/the-bridge/2016/6/9/frictions-of-contemporary-warfare-whats-in-it-for-ground-forces

Interesting article - imagine having Rules of Engagement and negative social media reactions enacted in Combat Mission!

[Abbasid111]

Hmmm makes me want think about how you could incorporate this article. One thing I liked about CMSF was the way it restricted BlueFor with preserve objectives and low causality count VPs which governed your ROE.

[Kinophile]

Formal ROE would be a very interesting option.

You could have Operational (set as rules specific to a campsign) and Tactical (specific to a battle). 

Personally as Russian I operate with open season on everything. As UKR I try to avoid demolishing churches,  police stations,  factories,  etc. As US...well I never play as them. 

There is already the ability to give/take points based on objectives/landmarks being destroyed. 

 

[spawncaptain]

I only play against the AI so it's probably a bit easier, but as US I never hit built-up areas indiscriminately. I only order area fire and arty onto buildings when an enemy has either given himself away or there is pre-battle intel. It just feels wrong to go full Dresden on some poor Ukrainian village.

Edited June 11, 2016 by spawncaptain

[Abbasid111]

If it is a choice between say US causalities in a MOUT fight and leveling a few buildings I pick leveling the building. Structures can always be rebuilt but people cannot. Of course this is if I know the buildings are held by hostile forces.

[VladimirTarasov]

I usually lead out some recon guys if my UAVs don't see any armored vehicles on where I'll be assaulting from. If I take fire, I rush in IFVs or tanks in support. Although if I know I'll be facing a US force with Javelins and ATGMs, I level out whole complexes that will pose a threat to my vehicles.

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

ROE isn't as restrictive as you'd think, especially in a highly kinetic war.  Doubly so in a fight that the local population strongly supports your part in (or take France in 1944 as a good example.  Despite devastating the country, the Allies were still overwhelmingly welcomed by the French).  

Restrictive ROEs are much more pervasive in COIN, but even then, like a Mosque is a "protected" target, in that I couldn't occupy it or engage it....unless the bad guys were in it and then I could call in JDAMs until it was nothing but ruins.  I think we've all gotten a pretty hollywood perspective on ROEs thanks to movies that like to use them as reasons why the heroes must clear a village with a butterknife in each hand.

I've had my fair share of COIN, conventional, and even domestic operation ROEs.  I can't recall one that did much more than require an additional level of authorization, or clear identification of enemy targets before I could have put a HEAT round through ancient and honored cultural relics.  

[Kinophile]

Lol butter knife. 

 

[Wicky]

"Despite devastating the country, the Allies were still overwhelmingly welcomed by the French)."

The way I've read it (Ken Tout's By Tank and D-Day Bombers - The Veterans' Story) after preinvasion and subsequent bombing the French were a bit twitchy in immediately expressing their joyous welcomings despite the allied commands best efforts to avoid civilians killed. 

As the allies moved further North into less directly effected areas i.e Belguim & Holland the welcomes became warmer.

Edited June 12, 2016 by Wicky

[Ithikial_AU]

I think it was a bit more front and center for blufor in CMSF compared to CMBS. You couldn't fight a battle without worrying about at least one 'Preserve' objective and/or a low casualty threshold. For modern warfare though it was certainly accurate!

CMBS is a bit more of a modern conventional where both sides have a modern military 'sort of' on par with each other. (At least for this fictional environment), so I guess if you had a large scale ground war where the enemy are shooting back with their own high tech weapons, caring about if that building gets demolished goes down on the priorty list a bit.

As for accurately reflecting outside factors impacting upon troops on the ground, I've half completed a campaign rule set I was trying to get up over at the FGM but alas RL got in the way. In effect the campaign could be won on the battlefield or by reducing the enemies 'Political Point' score to 0. Political Points reflects the 'home front' and theatre command's interpretation of how the operation being depicted is playing out. You could gain points by doing things in game that would 'look good' to those outside of the conflict area such as winning battles by a big margin or destroying enemy taskforces completly. It would be much easier to lose political points by losing battles etc as the effect of bad news is fext 10x more than a good news story. Most interestingly was the idea that both sides would have one off 'Action Cards' that represent specific events that could occur in a theatre that would also affect the Political Point score. For example a secondary mission becomes active to resuce a Journalist in your next mission, successuly doing so may gain 'x' political points as it becomes a major media story back home.

Anyway it would have been a nice idea to test out but work work work.

[George MC]

Good ideas @Ithikial_AU maybe some day

[Kinophile]

Yeah very interesting.