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Erwin

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Getting lonely and getting picked off very easily :D

In a sense any and all internal Squad structures are artificial.  In real life things are much more fluid than we can possibly do in a game setting.  There's all kinds of arguments that can be made for X to be with Y in Z situation.  In particular, the argument for an independent SL goes way beyond a modern US Squad.  The German structure in WW2, for example, would have the SL either with the assault portion or with the fire support portion.  As one would expect, the decision would be situationally dependent.  And probably not uncommonly the SL might move back and forth between the two.  Or have someone else do so.

For (what should be) obvious reasons we can not allow players to micromanage how individual soldiers are grouped.  We also think it's a bad idea to have the game dynamically move personnel around as this causes significant problems from a game mechanics standpoint.  It's a rabbit hole we are not going to go anywhere near.

The only real solution is to have Squads be an amorphous blob where there are no internal Teams at all.  Personnel move about within a particular area as needed.  That's not in the cards for CM2 because the entire structure of the game (from terrain to TacAI) would have to be rewritten.  The computing power available to us until very recently woudn't have handled the demands of such a system anyway.

Steve

 

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21 hours ago, akd said:

AFAIK, there is no default 7-man squad with a 3-team structure.  IIRC, UKR has a mountain motor rifle platoon with a 10 or 11 man squad which would require the 3-team structure to still be capable of a 2-man split off (1 team cannot have more than 7 men, and the total number of teams is hard-coded to the squad).  Such a squad that is understrength or has taken casualties might appear as 7 men in 3 teams.

Personally I'd prefer that US squads did have a 3-team structure, with the SL in his own team alone and 2x 4-man fire teams, but I believe Steve does not like putting only 1 man into a team. (He really worries about his pixeltruppen creations getting lonely and lamenting their creator.)

I have to ask a rather obvious question that I'm sure BFC has already asked itself (and answered). I honestly don't know much about how U.S. Army teams are handled in real life. I'm not talking about "spur of the moment" deployment, but as Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).

i know how Marine squads operate. they have three four-man fire teams that can each be broken out. However, in a defensive position, it used to be common practice to set outposts or listening posts that had two Marines (similar to an Army scout team), or to send out a nine-man patrol of two fire teams with the Squad Leader and the third fire team split and posted into two two-man outposts (that could have been an idiosyncrasy of the Platoon Commander though). Also, when I was in, the Squad leader was never alone. Each squad had a Grenadier with an M-79 "blooper" (pre- M203 days) who was always with the Squad Leader. Of course, that was when we were in a much different environment than today's operational theater. Today, the Squad Leader is usually with the fire team that will most benefit from his presence, or where he can best exercise situational awareness and control of his squad (usually the base of fire or such).I guess the flexible deployment capabilities of a Marine squad are why I enjoy playing the Marines over the modern Army. IIRC, WWII Army squads were much more flexible. Ah, the ramblings of an old man😴

How about it U.S. Army Vets and serving Infantry? Is it actually as inflexible as in game? For example, if you have already split off a Jav team, is it against SOP to split the remainder of the squad into a base of fire and an assault team?

Edited by Vet 0369
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14 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

The only real solution is to have Squads be an amorphous blob where there are no internal Teams at all.  Personnel move about within a particular area as needed.  That's not in the cards for CM2 because the entire structure of the game (from terrain to TacAI) would have to be rewritten.  The computing power available to us until very recently woudn't have handled the demands of such a system anyway.

Okay, I'll be the first to ask: Is Steve here hinting that BFC may be leaving the door open to the possibility that BFC is considering the addition of such a feature in CMx3? Stay tuned.

:ph34r:

Michael

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4 hours ago, Michael Emrys said:

Okay, I'll be the first to ask: Is Steve here hinting that BFC may be leaving the door open to the possibility that BFC is considering the addition of such a feature in CMx3? Stay tuned.

:ph34r:

Michael

Wet blanket alert.

I think the remark Steve made was more a general comment on how far computing capabilities have come. There are some pretty powerful CPU's out there that are pretty affordable, as well as some workstation CPU's that have insane processing power. (64 cores!) When Shock Force 1 came out, I think the standard CPU was still the Pentium line. Even if it was past Pentium, the advancement in processor power in the past 10 years has been substantial. 

Further, I'm likely in the minority here who is not looking forward to a possible CMx3. The reason is simple. CMx3 will be a restart. Just like CMx2 was a restart from CMx1. Imagine it taking another 5-10 years just to get back to Normandy, let alone the other theaters of WWII. There are so many other conflicts CM could do as well, but those conflicts are only profitable/practical after the big selling theaters are made (Normandy). 

Personally, I would rather see more improvements made to the CMx2 engine as well as more games/modules covering more of the Eastern Front in WWII as well as other historical conflicts, such as Korea 1950 to name one of many. Doing those 2 things alone would likely take another 5 or so years. I would rather wait 5 years on the current engine than wait 10+ years just to get back to the same theaters we already have but in a new engine. 

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On 11/27/2018 at 1:22 PM, akd said:

IIRC, UKR has a mountain motor rifle platoon with a 10 or 11 man squad which would require the 3-team structure to still be capable of a 2-man split off (1 team cannot have more than 7 men, and the total number of teams is hard-coded to the squad).  Such a squad that is understrength or has taken casualties might appear as 7 men in 3 teams.

Fair enuff.  But, it's still odd that the Ukr force can split into 3 while our supposedly better trained 9 man squads (in Strykers) can only split into 2.  Maybe that reflects RL doctrine.  I honestly don't know.  Does it?  

Edited by Erwin
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22 hours ago, Vet 0369 said:

I have to ask a rather obvious question that I'm sure BFC has already asked itself (and answered). I honestly don't know much about how U.S. Army teams are handled in real life. I'm not talking about "spur of the moment" deployment, but as Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).😴

This is the big challenge for a game that simulates things down to individual soldiers, but really is focused on company and above scale combat.  At some point micromanagement becomes a drag on gameplay, at some point over simplification hits the realism/fun of the sim/game.  The small scale tasks assigned to individual soldiers is REALLY complex, situational specific, and doctrinal philosophies (which includes SOPs).  So we have to be careful about how we approach it.

Generally speaking we have generic concepts for what Soldiers do and when.  We also have Squad internal organizations fixed to reflect the best balance we can between real world specific doctrine with the game's simulation mechanics.

The short of this is sometimes we break with SOPs, either inherently or for specific situations.  Overall it probably makes little difference to the results at the Company and above level, but no doubt an individual soldier might catch a raw deal here and there.

Steve

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