How Plausible are Combat Mission Scenarios/Campaigns?

[Simcoe]

Do battles in real life play out like they do in Combat Mission?

Are there parts that do and some that don't?

Are there certain modules that are more plausible than others?

If yes, what scenarios/campaigns are most plausible/realistic.

[chuckdyke]

7 minutes ago, Simcoe said:

Do battles in real life play out like they do in Combat Mission?

The adversaries don't take turns, the AI doesn't know a tactical withdrawal. Or if you play RT stop the game when you have made a blunder. See it as an enjoyable game. You come closer when you play H&H. 

[MOS:96B2P]

14 minutes ago, Simcoe said:

If yes, what scenarios/campaigns are most plausible/realistic.

The below scenario in CMSF is pretty cool.  Operation Neptune Spear.

 

 

[Codreanu]

48 minutes ago, Simcoe said:

Do battles in real life play out like they do in Combat Mission?

Are there parts that do and some that don't?

Are there certain modules that are more plausible than others?

If yes, what scenarios/campaigns are most plausible/realistic.

The AI is by far the most unrealistic part, but no game AI so far has ever been able to come even close to replicating human behavior. Catch an enemy unit in between waypoints and they will just suicidally charge into your guns until they shatter, peel one of their flanks open and they'll let themselves get cut down by enfilade fire. The AI plan system can make the AI feel incredibly realistic but it would be nice if it had some independent thought outside of whatever the scenario designer has told it to do.

[Centurian52]

Combat Mission certainly comes closer than any other wargame I'm aware of. But there are limits to the simulation. So no, battles in real life don't play out exactly like they do in Combat Mission. For one, both human players and the AI always tend to push harder and take more casualties than a commander leading the same force would in real life. In Combat Mission the AI seems to surrender after taking somewhere around 75%-80% casualties, when in reality 10% casualties would be a bad day and any sane commander is probably trying to pull their forces back well before they hit the 20% threshold (some of the bloodiest battles in history have casualty rates of around 20% on both sides). And if you are only playing against the AI it is important to remember that it can't react to your actions the way a human commander would, so there isn't as much push and pull as there is in a real battle. You also have much better information and command and control than you would in real life, with you being able to see everything your troops can see, and with them instantly responding to any of your orders. 

But in general Combat Mission does come really close. I think simulations like Combat Mission are outstanding tools for gaining an intuition of what real warfare is like. But I think that it needs to be combined with an understanding of what the limitations of the simulation are, along with some reading about actual battles.

[MikeyD]

The primary impediment to scenario realism is the player. Its an old joke that most CM players would make great WWI French generals. Or, to paraphrase a line from a Usually Hapless Youtube video, "Throw bodies at the enemy until they drown in your own blood." The body count can get a bit excessive. Then again, the Battle of the Bulge saw some 188,000 casualties and 1,300 tanks lost over the course of just 5 weeks. It would be difficult to reproduce carnage on that scale using CM.

A nice realistic engagement (though a fictional battle)? I'm (a bit too) partial to my own scenarios, I'll admit. I'd pick:
CMRT Fire and Rubble module:  the scenario 'Katabasis'
CMFI Rome to Victory module: the scenario 'Pursuit Force'
CMSF2 NATO module the scenario '25km to Suran'
CMSF2 UK module the scenario 'Outmanoeuvred'

[Simcoe]

Centurion 52 and Mikey D thank you for your answers even though I was a bit vague.

To be more specific, let's say both sides of the scenario were played by a human who had the the same constraints of a real life commander (saving lives, ammo etc) do the battles play out as they would in real life?

For example, it seems like the western front of WW2 would be rather dull. The allies would hit an enemy held position with aircraft and artillery for hours and when the army finally advanced they would call for fire on the first sign of trouble. If it was a lot of fire they may even wait until the next day.

[IICptMillerII]

5 hours ago, Simcoe said:

Do battles in real life play out like they do in Combat Mission?

Are there parts that do and some that don't?

Very simple question, very complicated answer. But to keep with the theme and answer simply (at first) the answer is that battles in CM can play out very realistically, but generally speaking they do not. 

There are two main reasons why scenarios do not play out realistically:

1. Design
2. Player (or players)

Lots of scenario's are not designed realistically. Artillery is arbitrarily limited because the designer might think that artillery is too effective in CM, unit formations are cherry picked as opposed to composed realistically. Maps are too small and force oversized battles to occur in a shoebox, or maps are too large with not enough units on one or both sides for the battle. Rare assets (panther tanks, brumbars, etc) are used far more often in game scenarios than they showed up in real life because people want to play with the fun toys. Terrain is not realistically recreated or represented. Just a few examples. 

A lot of players play the game in their own way, that is to say not realistically. Many people do not try to emulate real world tactics, procedures, or doctrine. You get examples of this a lot, like players throwing hordes of Soviet soldiers to their deaths in Red Thunder, charging strykers and halftracks directly into the fray in WW2 and modern titles, not using Soviet style ATGMs in batteries, not using artillery appropriately or at all, and my personal favorite is sticking a platoon/company/whatever of tanks, stationary, out in an open field in a slugfest against enemy tanks/AT guns, losing half the unit and then handwaving it away by saying something along the lines of "oh well WW2 was a deadly war!" Again the list of examples is long. 

That said, CM can absolutely represent real battles, and do it very well. Realistic battles can be designed in the CM editor. Both the terrain model and the TO&E model allow you to put realistic forces on a realistic map. Once you have a realistic map and forces, you need two people who know how to employ those forces on the terrain in a realistic way. I say two, because (as the CMSF manual points out) the only real way you are going to get the most realistic representation of tactical warfare out of CM is against a human opponent, who knows what they are doing. The scripted AI is acceptable for general gameplay, but if you're looking for a fully realistic experience, you need to play against someone who knows what they are doing. 

So, like I said, it can definitely happen in CM, it just isn't a guarantee and is dependent on factors that are outside of the game. That tends to be true for any simulation though. There are plenty of other simulators out there that are intended to simulate real world stuff that are used for very unrealistic things.

5 hours ago, Simcoe said:

If yes, what scenarios/campaigns are most plausible/realistic.

I'm biased on this, but in my opinion the Cold War campaigns are very well done. Realism, both in terrain and formation design, were paramount. Even the NTC campaign is designed to a purpose, to represent the difficult situations commanders are put in at the NTC. There are plenty of other good scenarios and campaigns throughout all of the CM games, both official content and user made. 

 

 

Edited November 9, 2021 by IICptMillerII

[Ithikial_AU]

Any wargamer, including a CM wargamer, has the luxury of not needing to 'worry about tomorrow', or in other words "what happens after the scenario clock ticks over to 0:00". A real world commander has to worry about his formation's combat effectiveness for whatever unknown objective may come at them next. CM commanders can by default be far more risk taking than their real world counterparts given they don't have these burdens. They also don't have to watch as their buddies getting their heads blown off or needing to write letters home to grieving mothers. For example, "Your son died heroically as I ordered him to charge a suspected enemy held trench system on his own so I could spot the location of enemy machine guns. He was the last man in his squad anyway... and was close by... it was his turn."  

I'm using WW2 here, but when you read a historical account of an engagement it will likely take many hours more than what is depicted in a CM scenario as the process of advancing in enemy territory is at a glacial pace versus wargamers who don't have the burdens listed above. Forces are also more likely to disengage a lot sooner than a CM Commander, (MikeyD's comment about CM Commanders being French WWI generals is great!  ). You can read about engagements ending after one side experiences 10 casualties, while the CM commander throws in everything to make it happen, again because they don't need to worry about the shape and combat effectiveness of his force once the scenario clock reaches "0:00". (Okay, campaigns can be slightly different). To remedy this, a scenario designer can be brutally harsh with victory points assignment to force the player to try and preserve his force no matter what, but I'm guessing the posts about overly hard scenarios would skyrocket on this forums.

Does this make CM bad? No. In the end CM is a game based on reality, not reality itself. Thankfully! I'd hate to have me as my commander on the battlefield given my CM performance!  

[Bulletpoint]

Generally realistic, but:

1: Real battles are usually asymmetric to some extent. In CM, for gameplay balance reasons, you'll nearly always have a force that matches the opposition, and vice versa.

2: You're able to keep pushing until all of your troops are dead, because in CM, 'broken' doesn't mean 'broken'.

3: The action square system means infantry are more vulnerable than they are in real life. For example, coming across a hilltop, real infantry could easily find just the right spot where they could observe the other side without exposing themselves. In CM, you have to advance at least 8 metres at a time, so you often up in situations where either you're on the wrong side of the hill (can't see) or you're on the wrong side of the hill (you're exposed).

Edited November 9, 2021 by Bulletpoint

[MikeyD]

A lot of 'real world stuff' has the small problem of not being particularly fun.
Yes, you can literally construct a game scenario where you lay artillery onto a objective for 3 hours 55 minutes before moving forward in the remaining 5. It might make for an instructive 'demonstration scenario' but nobody would play it. I'm not sure, the game might take into account artillery tubes overheating and the fire rate dropping dramatically. Its rare that anyone abuses their artillery privileges to that extent so I'm not certain.

Out of perversity, I did build a Cold War scenario that starts with a battery of three  BM21 artillery rocket launchers barraging the player's setup zone on the first move. Because that is likely to be exactly what would happen in those circumstances. For one CMRT Fire and Rubble scenario I heavily weighted armor on the side of the Russians (like nine IS-2s-to-zero) because we're talking the Vistula-Oder offensive which rolled over the Germans like a steamroller. Basically, if you can think of it you can probably build a demonstration scenario of it (after a little practice).

Its no secret (anymore) that CM is being marketed and sold to armies as professional training aids and as a tactical sandbox to test concepts in. By all accounts 'they' are well pleased with the results - even awarded Steve a medal or award or something.

[dbsapp]

Nobody knows how "real events" should look like, so there is no metrics to evaluate CM "realism".

Cold War going hot, US against Russia in Ukraine - never happened. 

WW2 titles are based on much more sound data. But even those things - like Tiger or T34 performance - are still subject for fierce debates. 

In short, every computer game, doesn't matter how good it is, is never "reality itself", but only some kind of effort to portray it as it is seen by those who make the simulation. 

[chuckdyke]

6 minutes ago, dbsapp said:

Cold War going hot, US against Russia in Ukraine - never happened. 

Exactly and that is the reason I don't buy these games and stopped playing SF2. Fortress Italy will be my next purchase. 

[semmes]

I do understand this is the official forum but... it's the players fault? The code that allows the one last survivor of the squad to move forward has nothing to do with it?
It is a game but between that 20% casualties and a 90% casualties I think there is room to play... not to mention the willingness of animations to commit suicide or what they do when they are Elite/Fanatics.
In a desperate situation, strange things may happen but, maybe, superheroes in WW2 should be a nonexistent exception.

So...
- No.
- No, yes.
- Yes.
- Good luck with that. An author can do whatever he wants with a scenario, like... Pz IV destroyed... 500 points; Pz VI destroyed... 500 points.

 

You attack until the enemy has no more reserves. D. Haigh.

[Commanderski]

This has been discussed on and off again since BF has been in existence.  One of the main reasons for the disparity in casualty rates is the time constraints. On the real battlefield if you are ordered to take a heavily defended village it could take most of the day and then some to take it. In the game we usually have only about 2 hours to do it so of course you have to do things that would be considered reckless in the real world.

If you made a scenario that takes 8 - 10 hours to drive the enemy out of that heavily defended village and keep your casualty rates low very few people would want to play.

Also remember, it's a game not real life.

[Redwolf]

6 hours ago, MikeyD said:

A lot of 'real world stuff' has the small problem of not being particularly fun.
Yes, you can literally construct a game scenario where you lay artillery onto a objective for 3 hours 55 minutes before moving forward in the remaining 5.

I don't think you can construct a realistic scenario around this. Because CMx2 does not model strongly fortified defensive positions.

[Erwin]

7 hours ago, MikeyD said:

A lot of 'real world stuff' has the small problem of not being particularly fun.

+1   This gets forgotten regularly as folks pursue a relentless drive for "accuracy" or "realism".   AFAIK MOD contracts apart, CM2 is primarily an entertainment product.  A newcomer who arrives at these forums for the first time, might read all the debates about technical issues akin to rivet counting and not appreciate that.

[The_Capt]

Interesting question.  Well first off no RL battle is reproducible either in simulation or RL, too many variables and chaos to really try and recreate in hi resolution.  As has been well said, CM is a game with a lot of simulation elements.  CM Pro, is obviously pushing towards simulation, that is why MOD and other defence is interested.  But the needs of defence and a gamer are very different, if overlapping.  Defence want to either train, in which CM is really the "last hour" of an entire process or they want to experiment (e.g. introducing new equipment). Either way, CM (or any simulation) is one tool in a pretty long chain to make troops as ready as they can, and still then there is a steep learning curve when they "get there".

Gamers want to be entertained, and maybe learn a little something...for the most part.  Some gamers think they want to re-create and re-experience warfare but they really do not.  If we made CM more realistic we would take the UI away, or stream it down to something most would find extremely frustrating.  You could give initial orders and then very few after that, once the dogs are off the leash your control of them gets much harder at the level of CM.  The add real friction of war and you have what most would find to be a chaotic mess.  Players want to be the god of war flying over the battlefield, able to tell that 3rd jeep to go 10 feet left and then complain loudly when the jeep takes a 5 second pause or goes around the tree "wrong".

But...

We do try and get CM as close as we can.  So scenario designers use real world maps and organizations.  They build in to reflect doctrine and military after actions.  They work to put a lot of detail in the initial setup so at least the start line is pretty much where it was (or in the fictional titles where it "would be").  However, we all realize that once that first "GO" button is pushed the whole thing becomes a custom experience for the player.  If we do it well, they get all those micro-dramas that occur and spontaneous actions.  They get excited and feel like they have accomplished solving a realistic military problem and that is really positive.

Wars are about being really crappy to people, games, even wargames, are about having fun...I prefer the latter.  

Edited November 9, 2021 by The_Capt

[Erwin]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

wargames, are about having fun...I prefer the latter.  

+1

[MikeyD]

Perfectionists tend to blame the game when something goes wrong during a battle, but in real life soldiers can make the same rookie errors as in CM. That's where the WWII infantry saying came from 'Don't make friends with the new guy'. Because gung-ho green replacement infantry had a very short life expectancy. The most hated was the gung-ho green replacement '90 day wonder' NCO, because not only is he liable to get himself killed, he's liable to kill you too. Patton was so vexed by the training of replacement tankers that he started issuing proclamations that were the most basic kind of tactical advice, like use terrain features for cover and don't fight from the tree line. US tank destroyer crews were considered 'specialists' because they were actually taught the armor tactics that one would have thought would be taught to all tankers.

Edited November 9, 2021 by MikeyD

[The_Capt]

11 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

don't fight from the tree line

What was the issue here?  Fighting from the treeline improves camo and might buy a few seconds in being spotted...unless you are worried it is going to catch fire.  

[MikeyD]

I'm trying to recall Patton's message. It was something along the line of the treeline provides less concealment than you think and no cover at all. Once the shooting starts its no different than being fully exposed.

[The_Capt]

4 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

I'm trying to recall Patton's message. It was something along the line of the treeline provides less concealment than you think and no cover at all. Once the shooting starts its no different than being fully exposed.

Hmm, ok I can see it being a problem if people were not looking for real cover.  Of course with thermals he was absolutely right.  And I am not a tanker (ran a troop of armored engineers once) so as a "leg" we always stuck to treelines cause the open was death.  Of course trees have a bad habit of exploding...

[Cpt_Winters]

Great questions, observations, comments that prompt yet more great questions.

For me - a gamer, interested in "more serious" war games I'm so grateful I recently stumbled across the CM franchise - CM appears to be exactly what it is - a great game.  That's it, it's a game and it's great fun.  But, I've just over 100 hours on the clock so far and I'm fortunate to have never found myself in the position of truly understanding what being in a war is really like.

Obviously there's enough under the hood of this "game" which allows for a representation of how real life might be - a simulation - a way of portraying outcomes to situations presented and represented in game format that is both accurate and as expected in real life.  Its most probably why some versions are used as actual training tools by the military.  After all simulating outcomes to situations is a lot less costly than waiting to make mistakes with human lives when the real thing does kick off.

I'm blown away (no pun intended) by just how bad I feel when told to avoid casualties in my mission briefing and I then proceed to lose a "man" 2 minutes in to the operation.  I can't even begin to express how that might feel in real life.

I'd also like to thank all the folks who've spent hours and hours coming up with new scenarios, campaigns, maps and mods that will keep this game fresh for me for what I assume, like it has for so many on this forum, will be years to come.

 

 

[chuckdyke]

I imagine suffering a barrage in a forest is like a barrage in the open by finely tuned proximity fuses. In Band of Brothers they were all in foxholes for a very good reason.