Differences Between Troops of Different Nationalties - Why There Should Be Some

[brucer]

Re ASL Veteran's compilation:

You only missed that the Finns, supposedly because of their higher degree of personal initiative (sissu), could self-rally and deploy into half squads at will. Because both their fighting styles deemphasized leader direction (for different reasons) they and the Japanese had a different leadership bonus structure.

The SS had some pretty profound differences, as did the US Marines. Oh, yeah, and Canadians and Anzacs and Gurkhas were better than your average Brit, and other colonial troops were worse.

Also there were big differences in ELR, the rule ASL imposed largely to reflect the burning out of soldiers who had seen too much combat (changing elite soldiers to regular under fire, and so on). Each nationality's ELR changed year to year, with for instance the British and Germans taking a big hit in 1945 (war fatigue setting in), while the Americans and Russians were still coming on strong.

It was a fun system because taken all together it really did make every fighting each nation's soldiers feel just a little different from every other one. Not better or worse necessarily... just different.

BruceR

[LuckyShot]

>>Unlike the Anzac cavalry that rode with them, they shied from any frontal assault... now in CM, would that make them Green, or Conscript?<<

THAT is the joy of CM buddy, _*YOU*_ get to decide! - no one making broad generalizations for you, no one imposing strict guidelines - freedom is a bit scary at first, but trust me, it grows on you.

It is absolutely ridiculous to impose numeric restrictions on 'people' based on culture/world view - IMO the only reason board games resorted to such practices was because they weren't able to come up with any easily accesible method to vary the troop quality (eg: how annoying would it be to have to refer to a graph to determine your ASL units stats, rather than have them clearly marked [in stone, effectively] on the unit counter).

That said, hopefully CM2 gives us even more freedom with regards to modelling troop quality - I just hope they keep the base units equal as they are now.

MW

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"CM is a game of battles that happened - People who wanted to surrender would have done so before, or hid in a cellar" - PeterNZer

[This message has been edited by LuckyShot (edited 10-29-2000).]

[Major Tom]

I am pretty interested in what Steve and/or Charles might have to add to this. I pretty much think that experience and morale cover all the aspects about a unit's ability to sustain itself under fire.

Not every unit surrendered when it was deemed to be 'hopeless'. The problem with these national morale things is that they tend to over generalize.

It is a historical myth that the French army was weak willed in 1940. The main unit that was pierced and destroyed by the German Blitzkrieg attack was the 9th Army, probably the worst formation in the French army. Its best units put up wonderful fights (most fought better than their German couterparts), or, were nullified by being cut off. So, generalizing all 1940 French morale as shaky would be incorrect.

The Italians in Ethiopia but up a brilliantly determined fight. Both the Allies and the Italians experienced heavy casualties in this engagement. Ranking Italians as sub-par in morale would also be historically incorrect.

Were the British always very hard to break? What about the easy fall of the 18th Division in Singapore? The collapse of the Gazala Line in 1942? The fall of Tobruk in 1942? Etc...

Did every American force stand against all odds? What about the rout at Kasserine Pass? The destruction of the 103rd Division (?) in the Ardennes?

Were German formations surrendering en-masse late in the war? What about the dogged defense of Germany (as many Russians were killed in 1944-45 as there were killed in 1941-42). German resistance stiffened the more they were pushed toward their homeland, not the opposite as has been proposed. The reason that the Allies captured so many formations, is, they were totally cut off, without supply and equipment and could offer no resistance at all.

Your documentation, or whatever generalities have been put forward will only serve to paint a distorted picture of how the war actually went.

Just because ASL, this guy Dupuy, and a bunch of social theorists say some things doesn't make it the total undeniable truth.

[Guest Andrew Hedges]

Dupuy, of course, was talking about combat efficiency; I believe his number are the ratio of casualties caused to causualties suffered by different fighting units. While German troops had higher efficiency ratings than allied troops, on average, I think it's quite a stretch to make call this a "cultural" difference. The KV-1 was a better tank than the Pzkw 35(t), but that is entirely because it was better designed, not because it reflects a cultural difference between the USSR and Germany (or Czechoslovakia). I think that the (generally) higher level of combat efficiency for German units doesn't reflect any German national trait, but simply reflects better training and doctrine. In fact, I believe these efficiency numbers tend to cut against a "national morale" model, as German combat efficiency remained higher than allied combat efficiency through the end of the war.

Now it may well be that to obtain realistic troop behavior in CM2 or CM3 that there would need to be certain tweaks to the morale system (although I haven't designed any scenarios, so it maybe there are ways to model troop behavior without making changes). For example, maybe troops in certain scenarios would be Veterans, but would start off Rattled for any number of reasons (and maybe this can already be done). However, I don't think the best way to imitate any additional morale models would be by having a national morale level.

[Schrullenhaft]

I tend to prefer CM's "generalization" of troop quality and leave national characteristics in the OOBs. Admittedly many of us want an "historical" experience in our play and statistical generalization can show some national differences over the course of the war. However there are many factors involved in this and any hard-coded change to any nationality will lead to endless discussions and arguements as to what is accurate.

My preference would be for CM2 to have a characteristic much like the "fanatical chances" currently present in CMBO. You could essentially consider it a pre-battle morale state. In this case it would vary from highly susceptible to surrender/retreat to the fanatical. I guess several levels of percentages and applicability to the quality of troops would help round it out for a lot of possibilities - keeping things a bit more unpredictable.

[brucer]

Writes Lucky Shot:

"THAT is the joy of CM buddy, _*YOU*_ get to decide! - no one making broad generalizations for you, no one imposing strict guidelines..."

You've got it backwards... CM is the one making broad generalizations. The game's implicit stance on human psychology in battle is that we're all the same, everywhere in the world. Your culture and your society and your army's doctrine have no influence on your actions in the heat of battle. In CM, bushido and sissu and esprit de corps and "the digger spirit of 1915" are all exactly the same thing.

And by the way, as for ASL, with all the subtle variations of nationality, troop quality, and ELR, you got much more variation in individual human behaviour than you do with CM's 6 broadbrush categories. It was never cut and dried, either, only subtle variations on the probability curve... not all ASL Italians surrendered, not all Japanese fought to the death. National differences were at most a minor influence on the results compared with equipment, terrain, numbers, leadership, and the commander's ability... as was no doubt also the case in Singapore, Kasserine, and East Africa.

It was like that because the makers of that game concluded that whether you grew up in Berchtesgaden or Topeka, and were in the Boy Scouts or the Hitler Youth, or prayed to God or Allah, to name just a few influences, could have at least a small probability of exerting some effect on your behaviour patterns, even (or especially) under conditions of extreme stress. It's possibly true that political correctness has made us less receptive to those kinds of ideas today, though.

BruceR

[Guest Madmatt]

Let me drop in a quick point:

First basebal351 said:

Secondly, commaders (players) will be able to see which units are "panicked" or "broken." Most good leaders will relegate these units to the rear of their lines, as not combat fit. In this case, though, the players will have an ADVANTAGE that real commanders did not. A real commander could not accurately guage the feelings, or the desire to fight of any single squad at any one moment. "

Well I strongly disagree with this statement and anyone who has led troops in the field I think will go along with me on this. A GOOD commander WILL know the mentality and combat ability of the men under his command. Well, he damn well better or else he won't be a commander for long.

Being a competent CO goes far beyond tactics and procedures, it's also a fair dose of human resource management, of knowing your troops, there strenghts and weaknesses and their breaking points. You go and lead men that you don't anything about then IMO your don't deserve to wear the rank.

Madmatt

[brucer]

Writes Major Tom:

"The main unit that was pierced and destroyed by the German Blitzkrieg attack was the 9th Army..." etc.

So to play the devil's advocate, so does that mean that all French units should be normal, except for 9th Army units should be normal morale -1? Ditto your other examples, such as the Italians in East Africa (regular Italian morale +1?)

It seems we agree on group differences, we just disagree on the size of the groups...

By the way, I like the system the way it is, although I wouldn't be averse to minor nationality-associated changes either. What I would like to see, though, is a BTS statement in future rule books to help us scenario designers, telling us what historical descriptions/behaviour they think each category of troop quality might equate to in real life(ie, the French in 1940 would be mostly X, except for these guys who fought good, which would be mostly Y).

For instance, I'm trying to model troops from the 48th VG Division in one scenario, which one book calls the worst line division on its part of the front line in the fall of 44... where does that put its troops on the 6-station sliding scale?

I'm still going to vary from whatever that might be for play balance reasons, but I'm still always going to have a basepoint troop quality to start from, reflecting what the records say about that division's overall level of ability. I'd be happy to receive any general guidance from BTS that would help me in deciding that basepoint, so that my own analysis is better informed. And if BTS, or anyone else on this board, were to say American troop quality in 1944 should generally range from X to Y, and German divs from Y to Z, etc., I wouldn't see that as offensive, or ahistorical, or unrealistic.

BruceR

[Guest Madmatt]

One other point, people keep mentioning Japanese and Italians and Russians but we aren't talking about those troops since they are not yet modeled in Combat Mission. We are talking about British and Germans, Canadians, Americans,French and Polish.

Those are the forces the game was meant to model, so saying that it doesnt represent the Bushido code of a Japanese soldier dug in Guadacanal isn't relevant since it wasn't meant to.

We are looking at a great many enhancements for CM2 and issues like differences in doctrine is one which has been generating a great deal of discussion lately.

IMO, a scared kid in the field of battle with no combat experience is no different whether he came from the streets of Brooklyn or the some Hitler Youth Academy. In Combat Mission you will see inexperienced units rising well beyond their status and saving the day and also totally falling apart at the first signs of battle.

It's all about how someone comes to deal with the stress and strain of war. If you think they should be able to handle it well, then you have the power to make them a higher experience level and as such they will be able to better face the demands that battle will enforce. If you think a given unit should be untested or inept then lower the experience accordingly and test it out. A good scenario goes though dozens of permutations before it is ready and play around with the experience and fatigue levels until you get the results that make a good battle.

I think then game does a great job simulating the uncertainty of the battlefield and the men who fight across it. There are just too many subtle differences between one man and the next and the design decision was made to use a 6 tiered experience scale to help depict the various abilities of ANY unit from the forces involved.

Perhaps in the future we will come up something better, but for CMBO, it works quite well, when used properly.

Madmatt

[This message has been edited by Madmatt (edited 10-29-2000).]

[PzKpfw 1]

I'm a bit confused here, their is no universal yardstick for determining morale, this is a fallacy, to simulate perceived notions of a country's success or lack of, in war an game designer imposes restrictions on Countries who were involved in their modeling, Ie, the French get negative modifiers, added by the designer because he feels that France's armed forces performed miserably during the time of their conflict.

The Soviet's get low modifiers in in 1941 - 1942 because designers look at the success of German encirclements, & POW totals. Yet in all cases these Nations troops did have examples, of where troops performed above the general performance indicated by historians in their broad statements, Ie, the Soviet's at Moscow despite being outnumbered in men & material drove the Germans back & inflicted such losses on them that in 1942 they could only launch a limited drive. At Stalingrad they again drove the Germans back in an offensive that's ending is attributed to

Mansteins genius, yet in reality ended due to logistical failures & troops being worn out.

The Italian's, Hungarian's etc, all had instances where they performed as well as German troops, yet are again modeled due to designers general perceptions as sub standard.

Concerning the Germans & their being barely able to put up a fight in the late war period on the Eastern Front, I would suggest one take a hard look at the Soviet men & material losses from June 22 1944 till the end of the war, the Germans inflicted an 5 to 1 loss ratio in 1944 & 4 to 1 ratio in 1945 on the Soviets. Soviet losses were huge in men & material, this indicates to me, an will to fight in German troops, fanaticism aside.

Historians & authors are human, they have their passions & their own perceived notions of a Country's troops failings they reflect these notion's in their works, many use these as a recurring theme in their works, Ie, pro German ones will relate German tactical prowess & the superiority of the German soldat & downplay German defeats or blame the defeats on the poor quality of their Allies troops Ie, the Eastern Front the Germans fight heroically but are driven back by a faceless horde, with un with unlimited manpower & material, advantage being pushed forward by blocking forces of NKVD troops, while their Allies surrendered at the first opportunity. The defeat in the West is again heroic German troops being driven back again by an huge unlimited manpower & material advantage.

Using POW statistics is also IMHO pointless as one must look at the reasons for the surrender Ie, was the POW in a position where he had other option's? was he part of an encircled force? was his surrender because he knew Germany was kaput? or had he lost his faith in Germany? etc, & are these factors quantifiable, to a point where one can 100% positively prove that these statements are correct or even generally correct.

All the above to me is an indicator of how impossible it is to try & impose a general cross the board modifier on any nations performance or morale in WW2. I think BTS made the corect choice in leaving it up to the players to define to an degree.

Regards, John Waters

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"We've got the finest tanks in the world. We just love to see the

German Royal Tiger come up on the field".

Lt.Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. February 1945.

[This message has been edited by PzKpfw 1 (edited 10-29-2000).]

[brucer]

Writes Madmatt:

"...A good scenario goes though dozens of permutations before it is ready and play around with the experience and fatigue levels until you get the results that MAKE A GOOD BATTLE." (emphasis added)

Curious. A CM representative says that historical evidence can be disregarded if it adversely impacts on playability: funny how that only seems to apply to psychological questions, isn't it? If it was armour penetration we were talking about, we'd be splitting hairs over millimetres by now.

And:

"Perhaps in the future we will come up something better, but for CMBO, it works quite well, WHEN USED PROPERLY." (Again, emphasis added)

Meaning, what, exactly? Logically, it can only mean one of three things:

1) Assigning troop quality values completely randomly;

2) Assigning them according to what makes a "good game" (see above)

or 3) Doing enough research to make an informed judgement about where troops in a particular army at a particular place at a particular time would rate on the CM six-tier scale.

Is that "properly?" I'd like to think so -- even if my saying one division had better troops than another is nearly as much of a generalization as saying one country does, really.

BruceR

[Guest machineman]

The quote I have from Dupuy on the relative combat efficiency advantage runs:

"What [the Germans did, in effect, was to institutionalize military excellence...and more than any other single factor it was the German general staff that made the difference...There were generals in World War II, Russian generals, American generals, British generals, who were as good as the best of the Germans, but the Germans had about ten times as many very good generals".

So what he's saying is that a major factor in the Germans advantage was they had a lot more high caliber commanders, more Mansteins, Kesselrings, Rommels, Guderians, Rundstedts and so on down the chain of command than the Allies had Pattons, Montgomeries, Zhukovs or Juins.

Now if he is right, and I think he is, this is nullified by the fact in CM the commander is you and how effective the troops you are commanding are is in a large respect dependent on YOUR battlefield decisions, therefore toning down those national differences.

I think much of the weaknesses of the French, Italian, Russian, even British and American troops can be blamed on weaknesses in the respective high commands, not the troops in the field.

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"Environment is everything - The Lion may be king of the jungle, but you airlift him to Antartica, and he's just some Penguins bitch" - Dennis Miller

[Guest Madmatt]

Brucer,

My comments are about depicting events in a scenario as a designer most wants. That is what I mean by a good battle. You can't just pick troops and set them up randomly on a map and come away with anything remotely close to the type of experience a tested and thought out scenario from the likes of Wild Bill or Moon or Los will give you.

What I am saying is that historical situations like those mentioned earlier in this thread, and were then questioned as to their do-ability (sorry its late and its the best word I could come up with) are possible with a good design and knowledge of the editor. People wanted to have well trained and experienced troops but wanted them battle weary and somewhat ineffectual. I showed that this was quite possible with the existing system.

The "when used properly" comment was again merely a way to emphasise that there is a great deal of power given to the scenario designer via the editor but they need to learn to use it fully before they start to bemoan the system as not allowing them to depict a certain situation.

And also don't forget, this IS a game and it is meant to be fun as well as informative. There is nothing wrong with designing a scenario that is fun to play as well as historically balanced, in fact it shows the all the hallmarks of quality work.

Madmatt

[Major Tom]

Personally, I don't see where the pro-nationality morale people are coming from. I see NO historical evidence to prove Dupuy and the others correct.

If you want to make French/Russian/German/Etc. troops that surrender quickly, make them Conscript, and/or make their exhaustion rate very high.

I can cite MANY examples in the 1940 invasion of France where French troops held off superior forces. Even within the 9th Army, I think that the 51st French Division (one made up entirely of reservists) held off the German spearhead in the Ardennes until attacked by the full weight of a Panzer Korps. Most of the French POW's occurred at Dunkirk (where they surrendered only AFTER they ran out of supplies, amunition, and territory to defend), Lille (just like at Dunkirk, when everything ran out). The large number of POW's were usually picked up when units ON THE MOVE were over-run by German Mechanized units (ie. caught off guard). In virtually EVERY straight up battle between the French and Germans they BOTH fought with furosity. The determination that the French will surrender in droves, or were more likely to surrender in a CM Battle scale game is WRONG.

IF you feel it is neccessary to represent a particularly poor units behavior in a battle, just lower their experience down to the bare minimum, and/or make their exhaustion rate very low. RARELY did ever a Veteran/Elite/Regular unit surrender when they weren't unsupplied or exhausted. They surrendered when their supply level was very low, and they did not have the physical energy to continue fighting. But don't make it so that a force will be CONTINUALLY handicapped, that is extremely unrealistic.

Most of the German troops in Normandy were captured in the Pincer movement at Falise, or on the run to the German frontier after the Normandy breakout.

You negate the fact that most POW's are usually gained when one force is quickly moving in an advance, and another force is retreating. Stragglers in convoy are virtually impossible to get organized into an effective defensive force. When over-run they capitulate. CM doesn't represent this part of War, just the battles that take place.

The power of Generals to command usually only affects the ability of formations Division size and higher. Battalions, and KG's usually have some freedom from a generally disasterous plan. You create your own tactical plan in order to take a specific objective. It doesn't matter what Monty's big plan is, all that matters is your small part of it. Lowering troop ability in a Tactical game, because of a larger, invisible and non-existant Strategic game is not neccessary.

Brucer, I mean nothing at all like what you propose. If you want a French unit to be relatively weak, just make it Conscript and exhausted (like I said earlier). This will result in their general ability to sustain conflict lower than that of a regular unit that is well rested.

Proposing that there should be national morale rates during dates would be like limiting an entire force to use a certain experience type of troop on a certain date. What if a Scenario designer wants to represent an event where the Germans held out to the last man in a 1945 battle? (which DID happen a lot) This would be virtually impossible if their general morale level was lowered to a point where they were more likely to surrender than fight (no matter their experience or level of rest and supply). LEAVE IT UP TO THE SCENARIO DESIGNER to determine what the strengths and weaknesses of certain troops are.

You can't measure everything by numbers and theories.

[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by brucer:

As the Arab chief says in Lawrence of Arabia: "That... is not an argument."

Really, you have to do more to disprove a widely accepted theory with apparent predictive value by a prominent theorist than just calling it an "insanity." <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually it is. The problem with Dupuy (and positivistic research in a field that really should be addressed qualitatively) is that you either end up with a true but meaningless or a meaningful yet false statement. E.g. 'The average German soldier was 1.3 times more effective than the average US soldier' (for sake of the argument we assume the figure has been derived correctly). Under the assumption,true but meaningless, because it has no predictive power for the outcome of the battle of (take your pick). Or we say 'Because the average German soldier is 1.3 times more effective than the average US soldier, the battle of (take your pick) was won/lost by the Germans before it even started'. Meaningful, predictive, but certainly not true. So this does not really get us anywhere. Because there is no such thing as an average soldier in battle on the scale that CM simulates.

The comparison of these psychological research results with those of armour penetration is completely fallacious. An armour plate is an armour plate is an armour plate. There is some hard and fast science and manufacturing involved for all the ingredients of the test (gun/ammo/plate) and the results (assuming you take care in working with the same standards each time) are infinitely repeatable. This is not the case for soldiers. Private Joe Bloggs of Springfield, Missouri may have the same training (although even that is unlikely), weapons and orders when he jumps out of the LCI on D-Day, but he is not the same thing as Private Joe Doe from Springfield, Indiana who stands next to him. He is also not the same person as Private Joe Bloggs on the evening of that day when he is surveying the carnage on the beach. No repeatability there. No matter how much you want it to, your figures from Dupuy lack any sort of predictive power in a small-scale battle. The problem of quantitative and qualitative study rearing its ugly head. Both have their place, and both lead to totally wrong conclusions when you apply them where you ought not.

On a different note: not having read his stuff, I would be quite interested why you think it has any predictive power? Has there been another war between Germany and the US after 1945 that I was not aware of in which the numbers were proven?

As can be gathered from the above, I am totally against the inclusion of arbitrary (because that is what they are) standards for nationalities into the game. A good scenario designer can achieve this effect now if he wants to, and for QBs we need the balancing that makes the game fun in multiplayer. And that is certainly not more unrealistic than grabbing a figure from somewhere and applying it blanketlike. Chubacapra has really hit the nail on the head in the second post to this thread.

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Andreas

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/greg_mudry/sturm.html">Der Kessel</a >

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 10-29-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 10-29-2000).]

[Chupacabra]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by brucer:

Really, you have to do more to disprove a widely accepted theory with apparent predictive value by a prominent theorist than just calling it an "insanity." <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

In regards to Dupuy - I've never read the man's work. But if, as you seem to be indicating, his theory is that individual motivations such as training, experience, morale, hunger, physical condition, religion, bravery, can be quantified and used to predict the outcome of a battle, then yes, I call it insanity, and of the most wrongheaded kind.

Just because someone's work is widely accepted does not make it true. It's like mom always said, don't believe everything you see on TV.

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Soy super bien, soy super super bien, soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super.

[Guest Andrew Hedges]

Dupuy never claimed that his numbers had any predictive power; I beleive the purpose of his work was to spur an examination of how troops are trained and motivated. I.e., if German units were 25% more efficient than US units (which I believe is one of his numbers), it might be worthwhile, if you work at the Pentagon, to consider why this is so and to see if there is some way of increasing the efficiency of US troops.

Of course, one concrete but simple way in which this is may be modeled in CMBO is firepower -- if a 9 man German squad, due to its use of 2 LMG's plus a couple of MP44's, has the same firepower at common combat ranges than a 12 man US squad with a bunch of M-1's and a BAR, then, by my math, the German squad is 25% more efficient.

This would also be consistent with the comments of American soldiers in Normandy, especially, who constantly commented on the large numbers of automatic weapons possessed by their German counterparts.

[Los]

There are significant differences in national doctrine that leads to various levels of procedures, reactions, and performance in different situations. These can not all be easily passed off to the green-reg-vet-crack model in explaining away national differnces. In fact the term nationality and doctrine are in some cases being mixed up here.

[Guest machineman]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Andrew Hedges:

Dupuy never claimed that his numbers had any predictive power; I beleive the purpose of his work was to spur an examination of how troops are trained and motivated. I.e., if German units were 25% more efficient than US units (which I believe is one of his numbers), it might be worthwhile, if you work at the Pentagon, to consider why this is so and to see if there is some way of increasing the efficiency of US troops.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That was the whole idea of it.

The reason for the Germans advantage goes back to Napoleans time, when they were getting regularly hammered:

"Instead, the Prussian military reformers had concluded that the 'art of war', like law or medicine or any other profession, was actually a body of technical knowledge and inherited practical experience that could be formulated and taught in such a way that men of ordinary intelligence and personality could become extremely competent at it."

"The enormous practical advantage that the Prussian army, (and its successor, the German army) gained from this early adoption of a rigorously professional approach to war was still very evident only forty years ago."

The Germans got good at war for the same reasons the Japanese got good at building cars, they were so crap they had to sit down, take a breath, and look at everything in whole new way.

[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Andrew Hedges:

Dupuy never claimed that his numbers had any predictive power; I beleive the purpose of his work was to spur an examination of how troops are trained and motivated.

Of course, one concrete but simple way in which this is may be modeled in CMBO is firepower -- if a 9 man German squad, due to its use of 2 LMG's plus a couple of MP44's, has the same firepower at common combat ranges than a 12 man US squad with a bunch of M-1's and a BAR, then, by my math, the German squad is 25% more efficient.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Re: Dupuy - that's what I thought.

Re: your math - I am afraid you are wrong, because you are leaving a very important factor out of your calculation. That is understandable, because everybody else on this board who has made your point also leaves it out, and the reason for that is that it destroys their argument.

A firefight is not static, but dynamic. If a firefight was resolved in one instance with no maneuver you would be right. But in reality casualties occur, and a squad is downgraded over time.

Each time the German squad loses a man, they lose 1/9th of their FP (on average), while the US only lose 1/12th. So the stamina of the US squad is greater.

Also, the tactical flexibility of the US squad is greater, because you still have two reasonable teams after splitting it. In the German case you end up with a very weak 4-men team with very little stamina.

These factors are very difficult to quantify, because e.g. the German squad is more likely to inflict higher casualties at the start, thereby negating the US advantage up to a point.

Where is that point then becomes the important question. I can not answer it, neither can you I would suspect, and nobody of the people who claim that the Germans are underpriced all the time (before the whinging starts, I prefer to play the Commonwealth). So your math is rather simplistic, I am afraid I have to say. But I look forward to the day when your argument is made in a manner that takes the dynamic nature of firefights into account. Until then it has little to recommend it.

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Andreas

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/greg_mudry/sturm.html">Der Kessel</a >

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 10-29-2000).]

[Basebal351]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Los:

There are significant differences in national doctrine that leads to various levels of procedures, reactions, and performance in different situations. These can not all be easily passed off to the green-reg-vet-crack model in explaining away national differnces. In fact the term nationality and doctrine are in some cases being mixed up here.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree. How do you account for a Regular US squad fighting against a Regular Japanese squad? The Japanese squad isn't any more competent in battle, as you WOULD GET IF THEY WERE ELITE, but is more likely to become FANATICAL in battle. Hence, national doctrine. There ARE differences' between a nation's viewpoints at and during war!!

As far as Regularly trained Japanese troops being more fanatical in battle...

THIS IS NOT CURRENTLY MODELED IN BTS. Say all you want about the editor, but things like THIS cannot currently be put in. If someone knows of a way to simulate this in the editor, without putting the Japanese as Elite troops (which, they were not as far as fighting ability goes), I will drop my case.

Thanks,

Jim

[Basebal351]

Oh, and if you have a problem with the use of "Japanese" squads in the example above (because CMBO "doesn't deal with Japanese bonzai charges"), then insert "SS" in there instead. The point is, there were differences, and if the same engine in place now will be used for subsequent games, some changes will NEED to take place.

Thanks,

Jim

[Chupacabra]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Basebal351:

As far as Regularly trained Japanese troops being more fanatical in battle...

THIS IS NOT CURRENTLY MODELED IN BTS. Say all you want about the editor, but things like THIS cannot currently be put in. If someone knows of a way to simulate this in the editor, without putting the Japanese as Elite troops (which, they were not as far as fighting ability goes), I will drop my case.

Thanks,

Jim<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sho nuff? Go into the scenario editor, go into the parameters menu, at the bottom right hand side, you'll see an option for making troops fanatical. Sooooo...gonna drop it?

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Soy super bien, soy super super bien, soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super.

[Mark IV]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Basebal351:

The Japanese squad isn't any more competent in battle, as you WOULD GET IF THEY WERE ELITE, but is more likely to become FANATICAL in battle. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The same would hold true if you substitute "SS" for Japanese in that sentence. So make them Green or Regular, with Fanaticism set to All Troops at 50%.

There is no national modifier that could possibly apply to every company that nation fielded. On "any given Sunday" a strong unit can break, a so-so outfit becomes heroes, and so forth. I don't know why you would want to relinquish the freedom of the scenario editor to such an arbitrary, unrealistic, and unquantifiable number.

[Major Tom]

But there is a fanaticism factor incorporated in the game.

For proof and how it works...

http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/000693.html

I would suggest everyone check out this post, as it pretty much covers everything that has already been said.

http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/000556.html

The same arguments that National variations are too general were posted multiple times here. The argument for National morale variations was effectively deemed impracticle and virtually impossible to fairly emulate.

The ability to reproduce the state of mind of troops, and their ability is already in the game. Its aspect can be changed and modified by the Scenario Designer, and is not hard coded. The problem about hard coding things like this, is, that a Scenario designer is restrained from doing anything other than the average, when we all know full well that the average rarely ever occurred.