How realistic is CMBO

[jtcm]

Before you jump me and tell me how it's painstakingly researched even though MGs are undermodelled why don't you buy CMBB and the Borg spotting is a problem but how else to solve it etc etc-- I know all that.

After playing CMBO for a while, and getting a littl ebit of the hang-- keep armour back, arty before contact, mass forces, hunt armour when it's engaged elsewhere, scout carefully, button up armour before engaging it with zooks or Schrecks, move in close with SMGs, fight on reverse slopes, concentrate fires, defeat enemy piecemeal, etc ?--

I'm starting to wonder what relation this has with any sort of lived experience. At the most basic level: are there any Co sized or smaller AARs that illustrate these ? E.g. close range defence, German superiority of ? Or the various decisions say taken by a Lt or a Major ? (feint here, concentrate there). I can think of Rommel's "Infantry attacks", but also of P., Fussell's description of his own infantry experience in ETO-- sheer incompetence, terror and crudeness of tactics.

In other words, CMBO is starting to feel more like chess. Do you see what I mean ?

[Hat Trick]

In real life, of course, no commander would have the sort of "God's eye" view of the battle that we have (even with extreme fog of war on), or the ability to communicate with our troops as efficiently as we do. I think that this is primarily an issue of scale. If one plays a tiny battle, with say a single infantry platoon and one vehicle, I actually think that the simulation is pretty accurate (at least if the troops are not too spread apart). It is also, however, much less interesting to play than larger battles. Realism decreases as the battle size increases, because as a single player one has to take on the role of multiple platoon commanders, company commanders, even battalion commanders, as well as all sorts of support units.

If the engine rewrite includes an option to allow multiple players for each side in a battle, this could, in theory, increase realism. Of course, one would still need players that want to play at the platoon (or lower) level, and the communications links between the players would have to be quite limited if they were to reflect reality. I don't think that most players would want to play a game at that level of command (at least not often), and I don't think that Battlefront wants to create a "command" game anyway (would you really want to play a company commander recieving fragmentary and contradictory radio and messenger reports, simulated as text messages on the computer screen, while you gave general orders like take that "take that hill" or "go support first platoon"?).

Thus, while these and some other changes could make the game more realistic -- extreme fog of war for terrain, delays in orders to fire as well as to move -- one has to find a balance between realism and playing enjoyment. The result is that effective tactics play a much more important role in Combat Mission than they did in real life, especially after the battle commences, when most commanders simply didn't have the information to adjust orders or coordinate action in a timely manner once the fighting began.

[BeauCoupDinkyDau]

It's gamey, gamey as hell I tells ya! Switch to Barbarossa to Berlin for twice the fun at only half the gameynessnessness.

[jtcm]

Thanks for the answers. I suppose a Command level game would be quite interesting.

But I think i meant something else. I just haven't read enough Plt and Co level AARs (as opposed to memoirs or written up accounts) to figure out what really happens in e.g. an infantry engagement. Say you have a plt and you're moving to contact: i think i know how to do it in CMBO (more or less). But i still can't relate that to e.g. what i've seen from b/w "combat photographs" or from e.g. BoB's desaturated images of people running around (e.g the destruction of the 105 mm battery in the first hours after the jump).

Or something even simpler. Are there any AARs or army intelligence 9e.g. in the post-war debriefings and volumes of "small unit actions" written up re ETO or PTO) saying "Germans used to fight from reverse slopes, where their dominance in SMGs allowed them to win firefights".

JasonC once posted a real AAR: incredibly messy, slow, frustrating affair; one had the feeling that all these real life tankers and infy officers would have made v. poor CMBO players.

[SgtMuhammed]

If you are looking for an AAR that shows the chaos of battle they are really hard to find. You can look in the Center for Military History website for lessons learned to see what the official position was on enemy capabilities and tactics but any combat report is going to be cleaned up. About the best you can do is to find accounts written by people who were there but even those are tainted by personal perception.

On the whole though the game is pretty realistic at capturing much of the flavor of tactical combat. It has the tension of never really knowing if the route you are taking is the best. You can practally see a bazooka team sweat as they line up a shot on a Panzer they can practically touch. It may not be perfect but I definitly think it is the best you will find.

[Panzertruppe]

No wargame is perfect,but the CM games are as close as you can get.There will never be the "perfect" wargame for everybody.CMBO is much more realistic then the newer offerings like "GI Combat" which is the ultimate "gamey" wargame out there. Stick with CMBO and CMBB until Big Time and Battlefront give us their next masterpiece. :cool:

[jtcm]

Thanks for the replies. I agree that the tension is there, and the realism.

But I think I meant something else, which all these replies haven't quite addressed, and which i find it difficult to formulate.

In fact, how would you judge "realism" ? You set out to make a computer game. You have certain parameters, you tweak and snip and cut, but what are you comparing to, striving to attain ? You play your homunculi in the computer simulation, until they behave coherently in the imagined world of the computer game; but how do you test realism, as opposed to certain traits of behaviour rewarded or punished in an arbitrary, if consistent, system ?

Again on a simpler level: does anyone know of an AAR for e.g. a Co-level infantry attack by US, where behaviour appears that is clearly matched by CMBO ? E.g. German infantry holding inside of woods to mount highly effective close range ambushes, or mortars followed by immediate counter-attack ?

When you play the Wittman scenario, you get killed immediately: non-reproducibility of results ?

[jtcm]

Put it this way: is chess realistic ?

[Moon]

The way Steve and Charles approached design of CM was that if you get the various pieces of the puzzle right, then the simulation as a whole will be "right". Of course this includes first having to identify what the pieces of the puzzle are (what to include in the game, what not), and then trying to see how those pieces work in detail.

I'd also like to comment on this quote from jtcm:

"I can think of Rommel's 'Infantry attacks', but also of P., Fussell's description of his own infantry experience in ETO-- sheer incompetence, terror and crudeness of tactics.

In other words, CMBO is starting to feel more like chess. Do you see what I mean ?"

CM can be like that when you take a battle which doesn't go as a player has planned. Unlike real life, however, the player has the possibility to simply Alt-Q out of it Having said that, in almost every AAR that I have read so far there are elements of confusion and spoiled plans, so CM definitely isn't far off. The main difference between real life and CM is that the player has a perfect overview of the entire battlefield, a luxury no army commander can enjoy - even nowadays, and certainly not during WWII. This leads to attacks which are way more coordinated than their real life counterparts could ever be. Unfortunately there is very little that can be done to solve this problem. Allowing multiple players per side would be one of those solutions probably.

Martin

[Ace Pilot]

jtcm,

Overall, CMBO is very accurate. But as Moon said, having a single player orchestrate the movement and fire of many units eliminates the mistakes and miscommunications that can happen on the battlefield.

Another “unrealistic element” in the CM environment is the artificial game end. In real life, very rarely must a commander achieve his objective in exactly 30 minutes or less. I haven’t read many WWII AARs, but what I have read indicates that soldiers are often much more cautious than what we see in CMBO, and a 30-turn CM battle may actually depict what was in real life a battle that lasted 5 or 6 hours.

I think the simulated time pressure nicely offsets the player’s god’s eye view and coordination advantage. Now that I think about it, maybe that’s what makes the CM system so beautiful – the fact that the player’s exaggerated intelligence gathering and command and control abilities permit more aggressive behavior which translates perfectly into a time-compressed battle.

Is it perfectly realistic? Of course not. But it is very enjoyable to play. Because who wants to play a game where you spend 75% of your time sitting and waiting for information to flow up and down the chain of command?

I’d suggest you try what I did. Play the CMBO scenario called Singling Shootout. After playing it, go to the WWII AAR on this battle. It’s very interesting reading and I think illustrates many of the points that have been raised in this thread.

[George-III]

Try this link:

Small Unit Actions

Hope this helps

oops... I just noticed Ace Pilot linked you to the same article. Singling is a great AAR. You should also check out Santa Maria

[ January 16, 2003, 04:42 PM: Message edited by: George-III ]

[George-III]

doh... and a double post as well..just not my day.

[ January 16, 2003, 04:43 PM: Message edited by: George-III ]

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by jtcm:

[snips]But I think I meant something else, which all these replies haven't quite addressed, and which i find it difficult to formulate.

In fact, how would you judge "realism" ? You set out to make a computer game. You have certain parameters, you tweak and snip and cut, but what are you comparing to, striving to attain ? You play your homunculi in the computer simulation, until they behave coherently in the imagined world of the computer game; but how do you test realism, as opposed to certain traits of behaviour rewarded or punished in an arbitrary, if consistent, system ?

[snips]

An excellent question, which I hope people who bandy the word "realism" will ponder upon.

Having thought a bit about the problem, most professional computer simulationists do not use the word "realism" at all. Law & Kelton favour the word "credibility" to describe that quality of simulations that most people more-or-less mean when they say "realism".

All the best,

John.

[Chedchenko]

I know what you mean ...this game have a real-time war and strategy , in some situation is not real but almost in all is real ,this game is part of a long series of games of WWII and this one is into the 10 best games...this game is not like medal of honor or battle field 1942 that games r in first person shooter...and sometimes thaT's GAMES lost funny because ever is doing the same thing who you was doing ...but this game is more than that you can drive your army you can do whatever things in this game....and you feel some of power in this game... :cool:

[Ales Dvorak]

Originally posted by jtcm:

Put it this way: is chess realistic ?

Yes in chess‘s world.

[jtcm]

Don't get me wrong, I like CMBO, it's far better than any wargame I've played, LOS is handled brilliantly, and I mean BRILLIANTLY, CC, small unit tactics, doctrine, and historical accuracy; and I'm sure I'll like CMBB too, and CMPW (Pacific War) and CMMOR (March on Rome) and the Khalkin-Gol module when these all come out (I made these titles up, of course).

I read the Singling Shootout AAR a while back, I seem to recall it being posted in this forum. I enjoyed it then, and now, but frankly, I find it a little difficult to relate to CMBO: this is exactly the sort of evidence that made me feel a little dubious about the "realism" thing. But i'll try the experiment again.

I like John Salt's point about realism v. credibility (incidentlly. John. I seem to remember excellent posts by you in the sci.military.moderated usenet group, but haven't checked that in yonks). Part of the problem, of course, is what allows us to judge. A simulation of my daily life (popping round to the shops, cycling in traffic, writing a post to a bulletin board) would be something easy for me to judge (albeit very boring); I've never been in combat (thank the Lord), so how can i judge ?

The magazine "After the battle" ran a long article once on the Hammelburg raid, an incredibly detailled and straightforward piece of narrative. The strangeness of battle came through quite clearly; also much that would be un-reproducible in CMBO: the first attempt by the US forces to breach the German main line of resistance, in which a Sherm is hit by a faust, the crew bails out, some Germans then jump in the tank and man it against US troops; TF Baum simply driving through a enemy held village, all guns blazing; TF Baum moving up a long, long incline under fire from a Hetzer plt (Baum simply orders his troops to zoom past, at 600 m range, and loses a few HTs at most); a Schreck team sneaking up to the tank lager and knocking out a Stuart at very close range, before melting back into the darkness; TF Baum's doomed attempt at breaking out, in the night. (not to mention the bizarre speech given by the German who captures Abe Baum, and reminisces about Newport, Conn., where he lived before the war-- this after carefully shooting the unarmed and surrendering Baum in the thigh, the bullet nicking Baum's left testicle. But I digress).

[Panzertruppe]

Didn't think anyone else read "After The Battle"! I have been reading and collecting ATB magazines since the 70's. Glad to see there are other readers of this fine magazine in the U.S.

[jtcm]

I've read After The Battle sporadically over the years. I didn't know it went back so far in time: 1970s ? Gosh. It's often a very moving magazine, and sometimes the effects (superposing photos, v. careful on the ground topograhical work) are startling, e.g. showing how different, how rural, France and Germany still were, before the big boom years of the 1960s.

In that particular issue of ATB I'm referring to, there also is an incredible moment, when TF Baum speeds past a troop train: when the German troops realizes they're on a parallel path to an US column, they all poke their rifles and start shooting out of windows, and a crew uncovers a flak battery on a flatbed... A Stuart in TF baum then drives ahead, crosses the tracks in the path of the oncoming train, and puts a 37mm shell in the locomotive engine... (Again something i'd like to see in CMBO).

Anyway, every one here assures me that CMBO is quite realistic. But HOW DO WE KNOW ? None of us has been in combat in 1944-1945; we're dealing with an imagined, self-coherent world made up of parameters and "puzzle pieces" thrown together in a mix that works. But so does GTA.

[Conscript Bagger]

Some folks around here like "Franko's True Combat Rules" - I suspect if you played a game that way, you'd find more of the confusion you're looking for (but again, not perfect verisimilitude, since the AI will always have the God's-eye view you're denying yourself).

You might get the most drastic results by playing a game under Franko's rules, and assigning one of your friends to every single discrete unit in the game (HQ, squad, sniper, tank, MG crew, and so forth) on both sides. If you don't allow any of them to communicate except when their units are within shouting distance on the CM battlefield, I bet you will see an unholy mess unfold, and those confused real-life AARs will look tame by comparison.

[jtcm]

I've played a few games with Franko rules, including some armoured recon actions in TCP. I didn;t have the "proprio-centric perception" (I think that's the word)-- i could't tell which way was forward and which was was back, and had a terrible awareness of my surroundings and spatial relations. We ended foundering around; at the end of the game, in view 4, we found out we'd somehow managed to turn and twist into completely bizarre places (Oh that's where that tank was). Not so realistic either...

[Moon]

Anyway, every one here assures me that CMBO is quite realistic. But HOW DO WE KNOW ? None of us has been in combat in 1944-1945; we're dealing with an imagined, self-coherent world made up of parameters and "puzzle pieces" thrown together in a mix that works. But so does GTA.

jtcm - I personally don't see this as such a huge problem. It's not like we're living on a different planet nowadays. The same principles in physics and ballistics apply, and many other variables are more or less known as well.

Martin

(PS. Added relevant quote)

[ January 17, 2003, 04:49 PM: Message edited by: Moon ]

[sand digger]

Having studied military history for years, including many first hand accounts, but having little gaming experience, I think the game is good, really good. It feels so right.

Just started playing it and so far I have no complaints about the game play at all. MG's not effective enough? Hmmmm, they seem OK to me from a historical viewpoint. Tank HE against troops is perhaps a bit too effective though.

Don't know about chess comparisons, but if you get a CMBO battle near right the synergy kicks in, as it can do in an actual battle. Similarly, one bad decision, one bad bit of luck, can have you in trouble.

[jtcm]

Moon: you're right, it's a philosophical question in the end. Representibility of war and all that. BTW I was a great admirer of your first AAR against Fionn in 1999 (I think).

Sand Digger: re machine guns, there is an extraordinary account in M. van Creveld, I think the transformation of war, discussing eye wtiness accounts of Japanese charges against Russian MGs ((in 1905)-- by speed, dispersion, irregular movement and coordinated movement of units, the Japanese troos managed (apparently) to run through beaten zones and close in with Russian trenches and take them in close combat. Apparently this is one of the "lessons learnt" taken in by military thinkers pre-WWI (with rather mixed results...). But the point is that the CMBO model of MGs /might/ not be as bad as usually thought; at least, this balances out the "HMG holds up battalion" stories.

Best

j