Will infantry be fixed in CMx2

[Rustman1980]

I get the OP's argument; the troops are very close together.  In real life I'm a mechanized infantry squad leader in the US Army, so I'm more familiar with modern tactics than WW2 era, though I imagine a lot of the survivability stuff is pretty close.  While there are exceptions (MOUT, crew served weapons, etc), IRL spacing is generally no closer than 5m between any two troops.  That would make squads in game, if accurately spaced, occupy, at minimum, 5 action squares.  I figure it isn't like that in order to simplify things for the user, and, besides, I'm not sure that, by itself, is the cause of high casualties.  More so, I think its just that everything in game is very compressed.  IRL, a mechanized infantry or tank platoon with good dispersion and fields of fire can easily occupy an entire gridsquare (1k x 1k) themselves.  That makes even the 4k x 4k limit very, very small for the amount of troops that can get fielded; that is barely the limit for a mechanized company operation, much less a battalion or more.  My assumption is that it is just to increase the pace of the action.  Well, with that many troops in that small of a space you inevitably get high numbers of casualties.  I'll have to test it, but I think if you cut the number of troops down to what you would actually see maneuvering on the amount of terrain you actually have to work with, the game casualties will more accurately reflect real life.

Edited June 29, 2016 by Rustman1980

[Michael Emrys]

3 hours ago, Rustman1980 said:

IRL, a mechanized infantry or tank platoon with good dispersion and fields of fire can easily occupy an entire gridsquare (1k x 1k) themselves.

But that's with modern weaponry with its much higher lethality. Historically, every time that the lethality of weaponry has increased, so has dispersion. Depending on terrain and other factors, in WW II an entire regiment or two might occupy that same grid square. On the CM battlefield things are as you say compressed, but time far more than space.

Michael

[Battlefront.com]

Some quick comments...

Before anybody criticizes CM's infantry handling, it would be nice to be compared to what else is out there (past or present).  There's only a handful of games that have even attempted to model things down to this level of detail and I know of none that come close to CM's TacAI capabilities.  I can criticize my car for not getting 80mpg or flying, but that's not very useful as a gauge when it comes to buying or using a car.

This is not to say the TacAI can't be improved.  Of course it can be.  The day someone makes a perfect game is the day before someone finds it isn't.  That's always the way it will be.  Even in SciFi films where the AI is a hundred years ahead of where it is today it's still making basic mistakes.  That's usually the only realistic thing about those movies

Time compression was mentioned.  This is a very complex subject and is mostly due to the player having the God's eye.  Time drags on in real combat because uncertainty is the norm and units that are uncertain hesitate.  Commanders that are uncertain hesitate.  This has a ripple effect that slows down combat in real life vs. simulated combat.  The only way to really fix this is to have each Human player commanding a single unit at ground level and then screw up all communications between him and everybody else.  Even then because the player is commanding many men there will be more certainty than there should be and therefore even in that extreme situation I'd expect combat to proceed faster than in real life.

I also chuckle when players berate us for realism problems and then only highlight instances where they believe their guys did something unrealistically stupid rather than unrealistically smart.  Because on balance I'd say that even Conscript forces in CM perform more predictably, more realistically than similar units in real life.  Which simply exposes the player's true intentions for complaining for what they are... mad that things didn't go unrealistically favorable to them.  And of course the player's actions are never, ever part of the problem in the minds of such complainers

I'd also suggest that if a AAA game company was given a huge chunk of money to improve AI they would simply swap out an equal amount from their existing AI budget and put it into graphics or marketing or anything other than AI It is a long standing truism in game development that AI programming offers the least return on investment.  People will happily play an exciting game with mediocre to poor AI, so where's the incentive to developers?  Especially now that games are so heavily multiplayer based.

Anybody that has been with CMx2 since the CMSF days knows how far the game has come in terms of improvements.  It would have been nice if all the great stuff in CMFB were available in 2007 when we first launched the game, but if we'd had tried I can promise you CMSF would never have made it to market and we'd have long since had to move onto other jobs.  There's only so much that this niche can support.  Which is why nobody else even tries.

Steve

[shift8]

7 hours ago, Rustman1980 said:

I get the OP's argument; the troops are very close together.  In real life I'm a mechanized infantry squad leader in the US Army, so I'm more familiar with modern tactics than WW2 era, though I imagine a lot of the survivability stuff is pretty close.  While there are exceptions (MOUT, crew served weapons, etc), IRL spacing is generally no closer than 5m between any two troops.  That would make squads in game, if accurately spaced, occupy, at minimum, 5 action squares.  I figure it isn't like that in order to simplify things for the user, and, besides, I'm not sure that, by itself, is the cause of high casualties.  More so, I think its just that everything in game is very compressed.  IRL, a mechanized infantry or tank platoon with good dispersion and fields of fire can easily occupy an entire gridsquare (1k x 1k) themselves.  That makes even the 4k x 4k limit very, very small for the amount of troops that can get fielded; that is barely the limit for a mechanized company operation, much less a battalion or more.  My assumption is that it is just to increase the pace of the action.  Well, with that many troops in that small of a space you inevitably get high numbers of casualties.  I'll have to test it, but I think if you cut the number of troops down to what you would actually see maneuvering on the amount of terrain you actually have to work with, the game casualties will more accurately reflect real life.

Keep in mind however that the space a unit can theoretically hold is predicated as much by the weapons and fields of fire as is the enemy disposition etc. For example, you arent going to hold that grids square very long with one platoon if the enemy sends a battalion through the same space. Concentration of troops is entirely dependent on a nearly infinite series of factors, not least of which how many men you expect to have to deal with. 

[Duckman]

Frontages were quite small in WWII. There's a list here:

http://balagan.info/infantry-unit-frontages-during-ww2

As you can see company frontages were as little as 275 m in attack, and I assume that's for full sized units.

 

 

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, Duckman said:

Frontages were quite small in WWII. There's a list here:

http://balagan.info/infantry-unit-frontages-during-ww2

As you can see company frontages were as little as 275 m in attack, and I assume that's for full sized units.

Interesting stuff.

From your link:

"Infantry Squad

When in (Skirmish) Line the the men spread out in a ragged line. In attack the Russians kept 6-8 paces (5-7 m) between men (Sharp, 1998) and the Germans 5 paces (4 m) (Gajkowski, 1995)."

 

Seems to match quite well with:

10 hours ago, Rustman1980 said:

IRL spacing is generally no closer than 5m between any two troops.

 

Edited June 29, 2016 by Bulletpoint

[Michael Emrys]

10 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Time compression was mentioned.  This is a very complex subject and is mostly due to the player having the God's eye.  Time drags on in real combat because uncertainty is the norm and units that are uncertain hesitate.  Commanders that are uncertain hesitate.  This has a ripple effect that slows down combat in real life vs. simulated combat.

All very true. On a related topic, I bitch a lot about the workload necessary to get optimum performance from my troops, and yes that part of the game I am not a fan of. But at the same time, I know that one of the reasons I play wargames in the first place is that they give me that kind of control over the forces involved. And while dropping some of the detail that presently requires a player's attention would make play smoother, it would also lose some of the characteristic granularity that makes the game "feel" so realistic.

10 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I also chuckle when players berate us for realism problems and then only highlight instances where they believe their guys did something unrealistically stupid rather than unrealistically smart.  Because on balance I'd say that even Conscript forces in CM perform more predictably, more realistically than similar units in real life.  Which simply exposes the player's true intentions for complaining for what they are... mad that things didn't go unrealistically favorable to them.  And of course the player's actions are never, ever part of the problem in the minds of such complainers

Yep, also very true. I think I have by now trained myself to accept that fact and when something doesn't turn out the way I wanted/expected it to, to either just accept that my pixel soldiers are after all "only human", or to stop and analyze why my orders to them weren't really such good ideas after all.

Michael

[A Canadian Cat]

2 hours ago, Michael Emrys said:

Yep, also very true. I think I have by now trained myself to accept that fact and when something doesn't turn out the way I wanted/expected it to, to either just accept that my pixel soldiers are after all "only human", or to stop and analyze why my orders to them weren't really such good ideas after all.

Words of a wise man.

I'll skip the part about being old

[Michael Emrys]

4 hours ago, IanL said:

I'll skip the part about being old

It takes one to know one.

Michael

[A Canadian Cat]

16 minutes ago, Michael Emrys said:

It takes one to know one.

LOL old, yeah, it's true. I'm getting up there. Wise not so sure.

I had a hair cut today. It was a astounding to see so much grey hair. It has happened so fast too.

[Michael Emrys]

7 minutes ago, IanL said:

It was a astounding to see so much grey hair. It has happened so fast too.

It always does. Wait until it starts to all fall out.

Michael

[Rustman1980]

On 6/29/2016 at 2:13 AM, shift8 said:

Keep in mind however that the space a unit can theoretically hold is predicated as much by the weapons and fields of fire as is the enemy disposition etc. For example, you arent going to hold that grids square very long with one platoon if the enemy sends a battalion through the same space. Concentration of troops is entirely dependent on a nearly infinite series of factors, not least of which how many men you expect to have to deal with. 

Meh... not really.  Physical massing of personnel and equipment isn't generally a good answer to any tactical question; you're not building a physical wall of troops and armor.  It's how well you can mass fires onto a desired space, at a desired time, to effect a particular target.  Terrain dictates, but the ideal is to maximize concentration of fires with as little physical concentration as possible while still being able to maintain command and control.  In almost no situation would a platoon be able to hold ground vs a battalion, regardless of dispersion simply because a platoon doesn't organically carry enough firepower to adequately mass effects on a unit of that size (Though that isn't a hard rule either.  I actually experienced a case study on this exact thing at the National Training Center this month.  Granted, we were set up about as perfect as we could be for it, but my platoon, in the defense, knocked out 2 companies before OPFOR secured a bypass around the valley we were holding.  That would, in theory, have rendered that battalion combat ineffective.), but... armor forces, even in World War 2, could engage at least out to a km.  You take my platoon's gridsquare... and the gridsquares held by the platoons to the left and right and artillery... now you're massing a company + support worth of firepower into that same engagement area with the same broad dispersion of friendly personnel and equipment.  If that battalion is canalizing into a one gridsquare front, which is how you're describing it, that is about an ideal setup for the defender as possible.  That company should be enough to give the attacking battalion pause and, if they pushed on anyway, my money would be on the defender to at least knock the battalion out of further combat if not hold the ground entirely.

[Rustman1980]

On 6/29/2016 at 2:13 AM, shift8 said:

On 6/29/2016 at 5:00 AM, Bulletpoint said:

Interesting stuff.

From your link:

"Infantry Squad

When in (Skirmish) Line the the men spread out in a ragged line. In attack the Russians kept 6-8 paces (5-7 m) between men (Sharp, 1998) and the Germans 5 paces (4 m) (Gajkowski, 1995)."

 

Seems to match quite well with:

 

Yup... the rationale is that 5 meters is the averageish kill radius of a grenade.  If your squad takes a frag you're not having an entire team knocked out. 

[shift8]

3 hours ago, Rustman1980 said:

Meh... not really.  Physical massing of personnel and equipment isn't generally a good answer to any tactical question; you're not building a physical wall of troops and armor.  It's how well you can mass fires onto a desired space, at a desired time, to effect a particular target.  Terrain dictates, but the ideal is to maximize concentration of fires with as little physical concentration as possible while still being able to maintain command and control.  In almost no situation would a platoon be able to hold ground vs a battalion, regardless of dispersion simply because a platoon doesn't organically carry enough firepower to adequately mass effects on a unit of that size (Though that isn't a hard rule either.  I actually experienced a case study on this exact thing at the National Training Center this month.  Granted, we were set up about as perfect as we could be for it, but my platoon, in the defense, knocked out 2 companies before OPFOR secured a bypass around the valley we were holding.  That would, in theory, have rendered that battalion combat ineffective.), but... armor forces, even in World War 2, could engage at least out to a km.  You take my platoon's gridsquare... and the gridsquares held by the platoons to the left and right and artillery... now you're massing a company + support worth of firepower into that same engagement area with the same broad dispersion of friendly personnel and equipment.  If that battalion is canalizing into a one gridsquare front, which is how you're describing it, that is about an ideal setup for the defender as possible.  That company should be enough to give the attacking battalion pause and, if they pushed on anyway, my money would be on the defender to at least knock the battalion out of further combat if not hold the ground entirely.

Proof is in the pudding, I think.  Historically units concentrated well beyond the "standard" doctrinal concentrations. They also at time concentrated well below that. It entirely depends on both the terrain and how many troops both sides have to throw at a problem. Yes, you generally want to have as much dispersion as possible. BUT, that is often a luxury dependent on how much force you will need to repel and assault, OR how much ground behind you you can afford to give (allowing for the defense to be further in depth etc). Just because your weapons can reach out 1km doesn't meant you will have enough firepower to resist the weight of whatever comes your way. Or you might. It just depends. As the other post showed, ww2 frontages were quite a bit more dense than a platoon per kilometer. Same thing can been seen in any reading of most ww2 campaigns, particularly any offensive. Although reading your post I am not sure you got my point, since you said that the battalion would most likely crush a platoon: which is what I was saying. The textbook frontage has always been sort of a useless cookie cutter misnomer in my opinion, since the situation will always dictate. If the enemy sends xxx troops into an area, you will need to put a sufficient number of troops in the area to stop him: regardless of the "ideal" frontage. So If I have to stick a entire company in the space of 1km or even a brigade to have enough firepower to accomplish an objective, so be it. Event he example you gave was a company per km to resist a brigade per km. Which was kinda my point, that you cant sit on a platoon per km if the situation disagrees. The only true limit on troop concentration is physical space. This is why there are tons of historical examples of (see above) of troops concentrated much denser than a company per km. If we were just generalizing, the textbook definition is ok, but I dont consider a scenario unrealistic simply because it is "un-average"

Edited June 30, 2016 by shift8

[Battlefront.com]

This is correct.  Density in WW2 was less than WW1, WW1 was less than the US Civil War, the US Civil War was probably the same until you get back to the days of people hacking each other to death.  But for sure WW2 was far more dense than modern times.  Off the top of my head Korea was probably similar to WW2, Vietnam more similar to modern times.

Just quickly looked up some statistics.  A German Division was supposed to defend no more than 10km of frontage, which would be in a 2 up 1 back triangular division 18 companies on line, which translates to 500m per Company.  I found this website that gets a little more specific:

http://balagan.info/infantry-unit-frontages-during-ww2

German Rifle Platoon frontage was about 200-300m in defense, 100-200m when on the offensive.  Note that the British is even lower.  This is because the German Squads had far more firepower than the British, thanks to the LMGs embedded in each.

Let's also keep in mind that there's a big difference between desert and terrain like Normandy.  The opportunities for interlocking fire over distances is radically different.  In Hürtgen, for example, soldiers often couldn't engage anything more than a few dozen meters away.  I checked a US military study that stated that one REGIMENT of the 4th Infantry Division had a frontage of 500m!  That's right, a whole REGIMENT in the space normally manned by a company or battalion.  The terrain dictated such concentration of force.

I wish had more time to read this report.  Looks very interesting from what I did read:

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.691.7783&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Steve

[Rustman1980]

2 hours ago, shift8 said:

Proof is in the pudding, I think.  Historically units concentrated well beyond the "standard" doctrinal concentrations. They also at time concentrated well below that. It entirely depends on both the terrain and how many troops both sides have to throw at a problem. Yes, you generally want to have as much dispersion as possible. BUT, that is often a luxury dependent on how much force you will need to repel and assault, OR how much ground behind you you can afford to give (allowing for the defense to be further in depth etc). Just because your weapons can reach out 1km doesn't meant you will have enough firepower to resist the weight of whatever comes your way. Or you might. It just depends. As the other post showed, ww2 frontages were quite a bit more dense than a platoon per kilometer. Same thing can been seen in any reading of most ww2 campaigns, particularly any offensive. Although reading your post I am not sure you got my point, since you said that the battalion would most likely crush a platoon: which is what I was saying. The textbook frontage has always been sort of a useless cookie cutter misnomer in my opinion, since the situation will always dictate. If the enemy sends xxx troops into an area, you will need to put a sufficient number of troops in the area to stop him: regardless of the "ideal" frontage. So If I have to stick a entire company in the space of 1km or even a brigade to have enough firepower to accomplish an objective, so be it. Event he example you gave was a company per km to resist a brigade per km. Which was kinda my point, that you cant sit on a platoon per km if the situation disagrees. The only true limit on troop concentration is physical space. This is why there are tons of historical examples of (see above) of troops concentrated much denser than a company per km. If we were just generalizing, the textbook definition is ok, but I dont consider a scenario unrealistic simply because it is "un-average"

Actually, I put 3 platoons across a 3km front as my example, but yes, that assumes that each can observe and mass fire into the desired EA.  If they can't, either due to limitations of the weapons they have or because of the terrain, it would have to be contracted... or expanded... as necessary.  

 

That being said, the discussion has actually piqued my interest in looking at WW2 armor doctrine, which is really eye opening.  By all means, if I'm reading something wrong correct me.  Not my forte... just really interesting... and you guys are probably more up on the history than I am.  From what I'm understanding, the Germans used organization and tactics that I'd be more familiar with in modern operations with their mechanized formations, but nobody else fought like that.  The US doctrine, in particular, put the focus of armor specifically on direct infantry support and tasked regimental and division tank destroyer assets to the tank fight.  In addition to being a colossal failure in general, in my mind that would mean that tanks would be being used primarily on the light infantry scale of microterrain and hundred meter engagement ranges instead of the big armor scale that I associate with modern mechanized warfare with big bounding movements over entire kms at a time.  Kind of gives context that I was missing before and explains why things were compacted.  Light infantry definitely don't operate on the same scale and the 1 plt/km piece absolutely doesn't apply there, so if you have tanks in support at the squad and platoon level, that's a lot of stuff being put in a relatively small space.

[Battlefront.com]

Doctrine changed a lot over time.  The prewar doctrine was quickly found to have sucked eggs, so it was abandoned pretty much by the time the Allies landed in France.  Tank Destroyers were more or less used as mobile ATGs in support of infantry operations instead of the prewar concept of being employed en mas to challenge enemy tank forces.  As anybody can tell playing CM... that sort of matchup is very unlikely to happen.

As the war went on the US doctrine began to look more like the German doctrine, then towards the end of the war it was what the German doctrine had aimed for and missed.  There's a huge amount of details to fill in here, but basically the US out organized and out implemented the concepts Germany largely pioneered at the same time that the Germans found it nearly impossible to operate in real life as they did on paper.

At the tactical level the German Squads retained the edge in terms of stand off capability and AT capability, but the larger American Squad armed with all semi or full auto weapons offered vastly better close in capabilities.  Especially if the German Squad lost use of its LMG.  The Sturmgewehr would have switched this around with a huge advantage to the Germans, but thankfully they bungled the implementation of the revolutionary weapon that it was merely a significant annoyance rather than a tactical game changer.

Back to troop densities... CM's stock battles are pretty accurately laid out.  It's up to players to sensibly control their unit positions so as to maximize combat effectiveness while minimizing risk to mass casualties from enemy fire (in particular artillery).  The TacAI is not tasked with this role.

Steve

[shift8]

Steve is absolutely right. US doctrine in WW2 was very capable. Also, the doctrine never really put the tanks in a infantry support role. This is a myth that has been propagated but is actually refuted by reading the actual manuals themselves. The following is a excellent video that explains this, and it is done by a current US Army Tank Company Commander  

 

 

[LUCASWILLEN05]

On 29 June 2016 at 8:13 AM, shift8 said:

Keep in mind however that the space a unit can theoretically hold is predicated as much by the weapons and fields of fire as is the enemy disposition etc. For example, you arent going to hold that grids square very long with one platoon if the enemy sends a battalion through the same space. Concentration of troops is entirely dependent on a nearly infinite series of factors, not least of which how many men you expect to have to deal with.

Maybean improvement could be an "Open Order" command that lets an infantry secton or team spread out more albeit with the cot of takinga little longer to respond to new orders, Ability to select squad frmation eg chelon, line abreast, column, etcwould be a good improvment to have. Assuming it can be done with the software

[Warts 'n' all]

Introducing all those formation commands would need 1, A whole new game engine. 2, A UI so cluttered that it would become a pain in the derriere. 

Those types of formation commands work perfectly for large scale Napoleonic or US Civil War games. But the way CM works we can already split Squads and set them in any formation we like either during the set-up phase, or during the course of a battle.

 

[Duckman]

On 2016-06-29 at 0:00 PM, Bulletpoint said:

Interesting stuff.

From your link:

"Infantry Squad

When in (Skirmish) Line the the men spread out in a ragged line. In attack the Russians kept 6-8 paces (5-7 m) between men (Sharp, 1998) and the Germans 5 paces (4 m) (Gajkowski, 1995)."

 

True, but looking at films and photographs (which have their own problems as source material, of course) the only times I've seen spacing according to regulation is when troops are near the start line or on some kind of approach march. Of couse that may be due to various reasons, but you do get the impression they tended to bunch up more.

E.g. these: 

look quite typical of the photos I've seen of troops in position.

Edited July 1, 2016 by Duckman

[Bulletpoint]

1 minute ago, Duckman said:

True, but looking at films and photographs (which have their own problems as source material, of couse) the only times I've seen spacing according to regulation is when troops are near the start line or on some kind of approach march. Of couse that may be due to various reasons, but you do get the impression they tended to bunch up more.

E.g. this: 

looks quite typical of the photos I've seen of troops in position.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but it can be difficult to estimate distance in photos like that. If they are taken with a tele lens, distances seem to compress, so looking down the line makes it seem like troops are close enough to touch, where they might have been many metres apart.

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

I'm not saying you're wrong, but it can be difficult to estimate distance in photos like that. If they are taken with a tele lens, distances seem to compress, so looking down the line makes it seem like troops are close enough to touch, where they might have been many metres apart.

Er, no   First, if you saw the photographic equipment used by WW2 photographers you'd understand that just isn't a physical possibility.  They had simple click and shoot cameras pretty much always.  Nothing fancy.  Second, it's pretty easy to distinguish a compressed perspective from one that is not.  Third, there's no shortage of photos that show this sort of thing.  Film too.  And I'm not just talking about WW2 but also modern warfare right up through to today.

We've had this spacing discussion on this Forum more times than I can count.  The bottomline is that CM's spacing is more realistic than it is unrealistic.  Sure, it doesn't conform to theoretical by-the-books doctrine... but what in war does?  Almost nothing.  And why is that?  Because what the book says and what makes sense in real life are almost always in conflict.  That's as true today as it was back in WW2. 

For example, I went to a conference and heard a US Army Battalion CO talk about how he cleared streets in Iraq during OIF.  He ordered his tanks down streets ahead of infantry to act as "poop magnets" (he used a different word, obviously!).  The trailing infantry would then see where the RPGs and small arms fire was coming from and then engage.  This greatly increased the exposure to harm for the tanks, but it greatly reduced the risk of harm to the soldiers.  By the books?  Hardly!!  Effective?  Yup.

In past discussions I've linked to combat footage from Iraq and Afghanistan showing what CM would consider Veteran or Elite troops operating in various environments.  5m spacing?  More like 5cm spacing sometimes.  But I don't have time to go to YouTube and find examples.  Any one of you can do it and you'll quickly see that I'm 100% correct.

In previous discussions I've also mentioned why closer spacing is often worth the risk.  Comes down to better coordination and support.

That said, of course CM is more restrictive on spacing than in real life.  The same squad in real life that is shoulder to shoulder in some place like Fallujah one minute is spread out over 40m another.  CM is incapable of extreme spacing as the maximum is 24m frontage unless the Squad is manually split apart.  The maximum for an individual Team is always 8m.  Can't ever be anything but that because of the way the game engine works.  And it works that way because for most of CM's lifespan thus far that is the only way we can have the detail of terrain and thousands of individual soldiers on the map and have the game still run at an acceptable framerate.

Steve

[RockinHarry]

The problem as I see it is much less during deployment, than it is during movements. This is actually where these by the book 5m (and more) spaces between single soldiers come from.

[Rustman1980]

11 hours ago, shift8 said:

Steve is absolutely right. US doctrine in WW2 was very capable. Also, the doctrine never really put the tanks in a infantry support role. This is a myth that has been propagated but is actually refuted by reading the actual manuals themselves. The following is a excellent video that explains this, and it is done by a current US Army Tank Company Commander  

 

 

That is a very informative video.  Than you for posting it.