Different soft factors for different western armies?

[potato4212]

Now I won't pretend to be a expert here, but should the U.S army that at the time (and still does mostly) had recent and large amount of combat experience in the middle east and was a all volunteer force have better soft factors than the German army that had relatively small amounts of combat experience and still had conscription?  

[Combatintman]

Soft factors are coded into the scenario or campaign by the designer or if in QB, picked by the player.  Therefore a Bundeswehr unit picked as Elite will behave in exactly the same way as a US (or any other force on either the Blue or Red side) unit picked as Elite.  This is the same for all CMx2 games.

[potato4212]

I should of phrased the question better sorry. For instance in quick battles when units soft factors are set to typical, all blue armies have the same soft factors. I was wondering if there should be different typical soft factors for each blue army? 

[Erwin]

Not sure about CM2, but in CM1 different nationalities had "performance penalties" included in their profiles and that also changed with the date.  So, for example, Russian troops in CM1 would have more penalties/weaknesses at the start of WW2 and these would reduce as the years went by to simulate better training etc.

 

[Xorg_Xalargsky]

While I'm not an expert on the lore of the Shock Force timeline, I believe the nations from the NATO module sent small contingents comprised of their best troops.

Also, I just checked and the different BLUFOR armies/branches have different soft factors. However, it's not by a large margin, unlike in the WW2 games or on the OPFOR side.

Furthermore, one must keep in mind that soft factors are supposed to be seen as more relative than absolute since we don't have access to the underlying data behind "Veteran experience" or "+2 leadership" by design. 

[Aquila-SmartWargames]

Using the quantity of a nation´s wordwide military activity as the prime factor in order to evaluate the proficiency of (all) soldiers and units of said nation while neglecting all other factors is rather flawed.

Despite this just because an army has conscription in place doesn´t mean that every soldier in said army is a conscript. German soldiers that are dispatched on tours to the Balkans, Afghanistan etc. are 99% volunteers with years long contracts and experience which underwent selection and extensive training. 

For a even more demanding operation like CMSF´s hypothetical Syrian Conflict you can be assured they would sent in personnel that have enough soft factors packed with them and many of them would rather disagree about that "little combat experience" claim. I am pretty confident that similar applies to NL, UK, and CAN guys which bear excellent leaders and soldiers aswell.

[potato4212]

14 hours ago, Aquila-SmartWargames said:

Using the quantity of a nation´s wordwide military activity as the prime factor in order to evaluate the proficiency of (all) soldiers and units of said nation while neglecting all other factors is rather flawed.

Despite this just because an army has conscription in place doesn´t mean that every soldier in said army is a conscript. German soldiers that are dispatched on tours to the Balkans, Afghanistan etc. are 99% volunteers with years long contracts and experience which underwent selection and extensive training. 

For a even more demanding operation like CMSF´s hypothetical Syrian Conflict you can be assured they would sent in personnel that have enough soft factors packed with them and many of them would rather disagree about that "little combat experience" claim. I am pretty confident that similar applies to NL, UK, and CAN guys which bear excellent leaders and soldiers aswell.

well you make a good point. I guess I was not too keen on the lore, I thought the Bundeswehr would send a good portion of its army including some of the lesser quality units.

[MikeyD]

This topic comes up on occasion in CMRT. Posters who think the Germans should be adjusted to be supermen/rabble while Russians should be rabble/supermen. BFC says they don't use embedded 'national modifiers'. What they do represent is the inefficiencies of command and control structure (Cold War Soviet-style in CMSF2) and oddities of force arrangement (compare the small Brit infantry section to a huge Marine squad). Not to mention weapons mix and the all-important body armor. The closest thing They've got to 'national modifiers' might be Syrian uncon 'combatants' who are just 'guys with guns' with no logistics support, no chain of command, and no training, no (or few) radios. Basically nothing that makes a cohesive fighting force.

[Aquila-SmartWargames]

17 hours ago, potato4212 said:

I thought the Bundeswehr would send a good portion of its army including some of the lesser quality units.

The Bundeswehr wouldn´t have sent basic conscripts (Grundwehrdienstleistender, GWDL) into an operation like CMSF Syria.  It is theoretically possible for volunteer extended-time conscripts (Freiwillig Wehrdienst Leistender, FWDL) to participate in deployments abroad but you definitely won´t see many of them aswell. There are some exceptions like special qualified civilians undergoing shortened training and contract time, who then receive a temporary equivalent of an officer rank but they almost exclusively participate in rear-area/build-up" operations or other non-combat related activities.

The absolute majority of the force you would see in such a situation would be professional volunteers with contracts ranging from several years up to decades (Soldat auf Zeit, SAZ) or even lifetime contracts (Berufssoldat) bringing with them what was stated in the previous post, in game words: high quality.

Hard to precisely predict how the German government would respond to CMSF´s backstory and conflict but it would be a good bet that they would sent in rather a smaller but highly professionalized portion of its army which I think is also what CMSF is portraying.

Edited March 17, 2020 by Aquila-SmartWargames

[DerKommissar]

8 hours ago, Aquila-SmartWargames said:

Hard to precisely predict how the German government would respond to CMSF´s backstory and conflict but it would be a good bet that they would sent in rather a smaller but highly professionalized portion of its army which I think is also what CMSF is portraying.

Considering the German constitution forbids invasions, they'd probably have to do it under the auspices of peacekeeping. A conscript army would contradict that, and create more logistics headaches. A large footprint would probably make the voters/taxpayers unhappy.

On 3/15/2020 at 2:39 PM, potato4212 said:

I should of phrased the question better sorry. For instance in quick battles when units soft factors are set to typical, all blue armies have the same soft factors. I was wondering if there should be different typical soft factors for each blue army? 

I'm guessing, it's reflecting similar level of training and experience. I know in CMRT, a Typical Red Guard squad is more likely to be Veteran, but a Typical Red Army squad is more likely to be Green. I am wondering, if the Syrian Arab Army/Uncons would have a more varied range of Typical soft factors?

[potato4212]

7 minutes ago, DerKommissar said:

I am wondering, if the Syrian Arab Army/Uncons would have a more varied range of Typical soft factors?

I took a quick look in the quick battle force selection tab. I found that uncons have the same soft factors between units with them being mostly having extreme motivation with some having high to fanatic motivation. Their experience ranged with mostly green with some with conscript or regular experience. with the Syrian army there is some difference between units surprisingly special forces seem to be entirely conscript with poor to normal motivation. when it comes to mech formation the Syrians soft factors seem to not change if the formation is guards or reserve. their motivation is low to high. Their experience level is mostly green with some conscript and regular mixed in.      

[Aquila-SmartWargames]

1 hour ago, DerKommissar said:

Considering the German constitution forbids invasions, they'd probably have to do it under the auspices of peacekeeping.

Things become different when NATO´s Article 5 is activated and collective defense is declared. This was the case with the 9/11 attacks and allowed German special forces and other units to operate in OEF which in contrast to the ISAF mandate was not a stability/peacekeeping mission. According to CMSF´s hypothetical background it can be assumed Article 5 would be activated aswell.     

[Lethaface]

1 hour ago, DerKommissar said:

Considering the German constitution forbids invasions, they'd probably have to do it under the auspices of peacekeeping. A conscript army would contradict that, and create more logistics headaches. A large footprint would probably make the voters/taxpayers unhappy.

I'm guessing, it's reflecting similar level of training and experience. I know in CMRT, a Typical Red Guard squad is more likely to be Veteran, but a Typical Red Army squad is more likely to be Green. I am wondering, if the Syrian Arab Army/Uncons would have a more varied range of Typical soft factors?

If Berlin gets hit with a dirty bomb (part of the back story iirc) I think certain fine prints are either rather unbureaucratically fast changed, interpreted in flexible fashion or just plainly disregarded. Also, tax payers wouldn't mind the bill that much I'd say.

Anyway, still it would be most logical to send a professional force to do the 'wet work' compared to the greenhorns. It's not like they are defending german territory by all means.

[Aquila-SmartWargames]

28 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

If Berlin gets hit with a dirty bomb (part of the back story iirc) I think certain fine prints are either rather unbureaucratically fast changed, interpreted in flexible fashion or just plainly disregarded. Also, tax payers wouldn't mind the bill that much I'd say.

I didn´t know that Berlin got also hit, long time since I´ve read it. It very likely wouldn´t require constitutional changes at all as in the case of a direct attack the Bundeswehr might already have legitimization by Art. 115a GG alone.

However Article 5 NATO would be very likely activated aswell and thus there would be more then enough reasons for the government to give green light and enact a combat focused mandate. 

28 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

Anyway, still it would be most logical to send a professional force to do the 'wet work' compared to the greenhorns. It's not like they are defending german territory by all means.

Exactly

Edited March 17, 2020 by Aquila-SmartWargames

[MikeyD]

Article 5 is a rather 'slippery slope' as neither Iraq nor the Taliban were involved in 9-11. I guess we're lucky Cheney didn't decide to invade the Netherlands as they are considered 'nuclear capable' and pose a direct (theoretical) threat to shipping through the English Channel.

[Lethaface]

31 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

Article 5 is a rather 'slippery slope' as neither Iraq nor the Taliban were involved in 9-11. I guess we're lucky Cheney didn't decide to invade the Netherlands as they are considered 'nuclear capable' and pose a direct (theoretical) threat to shipping through the English Channel.

Lol. Perhaps it was him who gave us our nukes?

Edit: we could theoretically probably make the weapons if the will was there, but afaik we only have medical / energy nuclear reactors and the only nuclear weapons we have are a not so well kept secret in the form of nuclear bombs that can be dropped by an F16, bombs made by and send (for gratis?) from yours truly.

 

Edited March 17, 2020 by Lethaface

[Aquila-SmartWargames]

12 hours ago, MikeyD said:

Article 5 is a rather 'slippery slope' as neither Iraq nor the Taliban were involved in 9-11.

The 2003 Iraq War has not much to do with Article 5. It was only once invoked in the history of NATO.