Great post-game analysis for Hapless' recent series

[Grey_Fox]

This is a 2-hour conversation between @Hapless, his opponent @Rice, and @domfluff, who is the admin of the unofficial (but extremely active) Combat Mission discord server.

They go into detail about their thought processes going into the game, how they responded to what happened during the match, and how Soviet doctrine can be used successfully in CMCW.

Figured it's worthy of its own thread because of how fascinating it is, and I hope we see more like this in the future.

This is a link to the unofficial discord server if you want to interact with more people in the community: https://discord.gg/SXkQ6rUuJN

Edited February 5, 2022 by Grey_Fox

[Simcoe]

5 hours ago, Grey_Fox said:

This is a 2-hour conversation between @Hapless, his opponent @Rice, and @domfluff, who is the admin of the unofficial (but extremely active) Combat Mission discord server.

They go into detail about their thought processes going into the game, how they responded to what happened during the match, and how Soviet doctrine can be used successfully in CMCW.

Figured it's worthy of its own thread because of how fascinating it is, and I hope we see more like this in the future.

This is a link to the unofficial discord server if you want to interact with more people in the community: https://discord.gg/SXkQ6rUuJN

Thanks for the heads up! 

[MikeyD]

Yes, it was well worth the listen. I listened to it on my headphones while working last night.

[OldSarge]

Thanks, watching/listening now. I followed the turns as they were posted by Hapless, it is nice to get Rice's perspective on what he was seeing.

[Simcoe]

Just finished listening to the entire thing. Domfluff gave a clinic on Soviet doctrine. It really helped me understand some concepts that I didn't before.

• A meeting engagement is not a showdown between two equal opponents but a method of fighting from the march as quickly as possible. With an emphasis of speed over force preservation. This is explained in many ways but the way he described it really helped me.
• A small point but it was interesting to learn what those machine gun platoons are for
• Using artillery to close off terrain instead of using it to destroy specific targets. 
• Using artillery in phases. Preplanned artillery for your first objective and TRP's to support the second objective
• Rather than spreading out your advance. It should be done on a single flank in force. Even if you lose a company, the other two companies will break through and run rampant in the backline.

[MikeyD]

I found the comments about getting stuck in CM gameplay mindset to be interesting. In our heads there is a 'proper' way to play a CM battle. That makes it difficult to get ourselves to do 'un-CM' things.

Edited February 7, 2022 by MikeyD

[THH149]

Agree, very useful.

One 'image" I use in CMCW to think about how to use Soviets is to imagine that my tank companies etc are a 'fleet' upon the sea with towns and wooded areas 'islands' on those seas.

So the armada 'steams' or flows around the 'islands'  making sure that ppl on the islands dont send missiles etc to destroy my armada.

My 'fleet' doesnt land on the islands (and engage in a close quarters fight) as my follow on BMP/BTR forces land on the island or the woods/town and destroy what's there if necessary.

Even then my 'marines' shouldn't need to land since my artillery is there to neutralise known or likely enemy on the important 'islands". So my artillery plan focusses on neutralising islands and hindering LOS to my fleet.

This fleet analogy isnt meant to be taken literally - its an imperfect translation of how an attack could be conducted in CMCW - but for me its a useful tool to imagine how the battle is operationalised as the 'fleet' moves from one 'ocean' zone (say denominated by the valleys and ridgelines) to another ...

In a sense the approach works with the CMCW MRB training attack scenario 2, and may correlate with what Domfluff was suggesting.

It seems to describe what I see good players like Greyfox do

Best 

[THH149]

But you know, there will be exceptions too.

For example, once an 'island' is neutralised the fleet aka my tank company could transverse it and appear on the other side, so delivering a bit of operational surprise.

Maybe ...

[Simcoe]

2 hours ago, MikeyD said:

I found the comments about getting stuck in CM gameplay mindset to be interesting. In our heads there is a 'proper' way to play a CM battle. That make it difficult to get ourselves to do 'un-CM' things.

For sure. I think the issue is you are usually given a force that needs to work together to win. Infantry to scout forward, artillery to take out priority targets, tanks to clear out infantry. If you lose one of these aspects your attack can be effectively neutralized so you need to plod forward with the same formula for each hard point.

With the Russians, there is a ton of redundancy built in, you aren't winning long range duels and artillery is slow unless using TRP's. It kind of flips the game on it's head.

[Simcoe]

47 minutes ago, THH149 said:

Agree, very useful.

One 'image" I use in CMCW to think about how to use Soviets is to imagine that my tank companies etc are a 'fleet' upon the sea with towns and wooded areas 'islands' on those seas.

So the armada 'steams' or flows around the 'islands'  making sure that ppl on the islands dont send missiles etc to destroy my armada.

My 'fleet' doesnt land on the islands (and engage in a close quarters fight) as my follow on BMP/BTR forces land on the island or the woods/town and destroy what's there if necessary.

Even then my 'marines' shouldn't need to land since my artillery is there to neutralise known or likely enemy on the important 'islands". So my artillery plan focusses on neutralising islands and hindering LOS to my fleet.

This fleet analogy isnt meant to be taken literally - its an imperfect translation of how an attack could be conducted in CMCW - but for me its a useful tool to imagine how the battle is operationalised as the 'fleet' moves from one 'ocean' zone (say denominated by the valleys and ridgelines) to another ...

In a sense the approach works with the CMCW MRB training attack scenario 2, and may correlate with what Domfluff was suggesting.

It seems to describe what I see good players like Greyfox do

Best 

Great analogy, I think this goes along with the discussion about fighting mounted vs dismounted. The US wants to dismount infantry a terrain feature away and slowly scout forward. An infantry platoon has anti infantry, anti tank (dragons) and artillery (observers), it's a self sustaining unit. The Soviets want to "land" their "marines" as close to an objective as possible and clear it ASAP. Soviet infantry would be pummeled with cluster munitions with the former strategy.

[holoween]

26 minutes ago, Simcoe said:

For sure. I think the issue is you are usually given a force that needs to work together to win. Infantry to scout forward, artillery to take out priority targets, tanks to clear out infantry.

This is 100% true and the right thing to do...  in 1944 Normandies bocage.

In simple terms this is an infantry centric aproach. The infantry carries the battle supported by artillery and tanks. Its a low casualtie high munitions aproach that takes a lot of time.

If youre the Soviets in an attack through germany or any Nato country counterattacking you dont have that time. By the time you scouted a hill across the enemy has broken through and is rampaging in your backfield destroying your arty and supplies.

The cold war gone hot is a tank war. The tank forms the centerpiece of the battle. All other arms exist to maximise the tanks effect. Your recon is motorized to not slow the tank down. If that means the recon is recon by death then so be it as long as it shows where the enemy is (obviously its preferable to not die but its acceptable in the grand sceme). The Infantry is driving in AFVs to cover the areas tanks arent great in. Clear small villages, patches of forrest, etc. Artillery fire denies positions where ATGMs could be employed to disrupt the attack. Any strong resistance is simply bypassed and only cleared out by followon forces.

[MikeyD]

I recall back in CM:Afghanistan days I quipped that the role of Russian infantry is to walk forward over the charred corpses of your enemy after the artillery and tanks have done all the work. 

[Simcoe]

2 hours ago, holoween said:

This is 100% true and the right thing to do...  in 1944 Normandies bocage.

In simple terms this is an infantry centric aproach. The infantry carries the battle supported by artillery and tanks. Its a low casualtie high munitions aproach that takes a lot of time.

If youre the Soviets in an attack through germany or any Nato country counterattacking you dont have that time. By the time you scouted a hill across the enemy has broken through and is rampaging in your backfield destroying your arty and supplies.

The cold war gone hot is a tank war. The tank forms the centerpiece of the battle. All other arms exist to maximise the tanks effect. Your recon is motorized to not slow the tank down. If that means the recon is recon by death then so be it as long as it shows where the enemy is (obviously its preferable to not die but its acceptable in the grand sceme). The Infantry is driving in AFVs to cover the areas tanks arent great in. Clear small villages, patches of forrest, etc. Artillery fire denies positions where ATGMs could be employed to disrupt the attack. Any strong resistance is simply bypassed and only cleared out by followon forces.

Agreed. I would still say the US moves much slower and relies on greater scouting compared to the Soviet’s. Playing a company combat team, losing one piece of the puzzle is much more devastating than losing a BMP for the Soviet’s. Do you agree?

[Simcoe]

1 hour ago, MikeyD said:

I recall back in CM:Afghanistan days I quipped that the role of Russian infantry is to walk forward over the charred corpses of your enemy after the artillery and tanks have done all the work. 

Very true. Seems like Cold War has the least amount of infantry combat in general.

[domfluff]

4 hours ago, MikeyD said:

I recall back in CM:Afghanistan days I quipped that the role of Russian infantry is to walk forward over the charred corpses of your enemy after the artillery and tanks have done all the work. 

Yeah, sort of. One of the things that CM:A does very well is to show how inappropriate the Soviet system was for the fighting in Afghanistan. The fight really was a light infantry war, and they didn't have the flexibility or low-level independence needed to cope with it. They can bring massive, unstoppable amounts of firepower to bear, but that's no good if the enemy isn't there anymore.

This did develop over the war, and by the end they were leaning heavily on air assault and vertical envelopment to quickly react, isolate and neutralise hideouts and positions, but all of the changes were expediencies, and the core issues remained.

[dbsapp]

If those videos teach us anything it's that "Soviet dictrine" in CM doesn't work.

Halpless virtually lost most of his tanks early in the game simply because they couldn't see enemy. 

Those theories on "Soviet doctrine" look nice and clever on paper, but the simple truth is if your units can't see enemy which is right in front of them they can't win.

Competition of blind and sighted person is predetermined. 

[Hapless]

20 minutes ago, dbsapp said:

If those videos teach us anything it's that "Soviet dictrine" in CM doesn't work.

Soviet doctrine may or may not work in CM, just like it may or may not work in real life... but like we go over in the video: I didn't actually use any, so the series doesn't say anything about it.

21 minutes ago, dbsapp said:

Halpless virtually lost most of his tanks early in the game simply because they couldn't see enemy.

Hapless lost most of his tanks early because he did daft things with them. I did a whole video just about Turn 10, where I suffered the most casualties, and turns out while I was unlucky in the play-through the problem, the whole (avoidable!) situation was the bigger problem. There was also a crack M60 staring at a T62 at near point blank range for 40 seconds that never spotted it, so clearly M60s are blind too.

[dbsapp]

24 minutes ago, Hapless said:

 There was also a crack M60 staring at a T62 at near point blank range for 40 seconds that never spotted it, so clearly M60s are blind too.

The thing that M60s sometimes don't see something doesn't change the fact that on average all Soviet tanks are much, much worse in spotting than their American opponents, and it makes them really uncompetitive. 

Your "Deathride to Schweben" video clearly illustrates it. 

Basically it shows just that: in present state Soviets in CM are doomed to fail. If you read comments section on Youtube, you'll see that they don't hesitate to speak out this obvious truth. 

Edited February 7, 2022 by dbsapp

[arkhangelsk2021]

I have an intermediate position. I do think sometimes that cognitive model goes too far (like the one with two vehicles dead ahead almost close enough to touch), but if he had received one of more average die rolls, overall considering what he's doing, the loss ratio is OK.

This is also one of the places where the restricted customizability of Combat Mission makes the game take more flak than it otherwise might. They should have made things like spotting or artilllery delays be customizable, with 100% meaning parity. They can then say (for example) that Soviet searching is 60% because that's where we think it honestly is, but if you disagree here's a slider - just make sure both sides agree to moving the slider if you are doing Multiplayer.

[Monty's Mighty Moustache]

54 minutes ago, dbsapp said:

The thing that M60s sometimes don't see something doesn't change the fact that on average all Soviet tanks are much, much worse in spotting than their American opponents, and it makes them really uncompetitive. 

Your "Deathride to Schweben" video clearly illustrates it. 

Basically it shows just that: in present state Soviets in CM are doomed to fail. If you read comments section on Youtube, you'll see that they don't hesitate to speak out this obvious truth. 

But if Hapless had indeed sent 3 companies of tanks down the left side then he would have lost a few (perhaps even quite a few) sure, due to the spotting limitations, but all those muzzle flashes would have given the M60s' positions away. At least a few of the other 30 tanks are bound to notice and get the spot and then the M60s are in trouble.

As far as I can tell Soviet/Russian doctrine is about concentration, mass of firepower and closing distances quickly and accepting the losses because they will always have more guns than the enemy. Like Hapless and Rice both said on the video it's a different way of thinking and takes some getting used to, they mentioned John Curry a few times so I looked up some of his articles, I liked this one and it's certainly something I will be considering when playing CMCW as the Russians: https://20thcenturywargaming.wordpress.com/2013/06/16/why-cold-war-warsaw-pact-tactics-work-in-wargaming/

MMM

Edited February 7, 2022 by Monty's Mighty Moustache

[dbsapp]

15 minutes ago, arkhangelsk2021 said:

 They should have made things like spotting or artilllery delays be customizable, with 100% meaning parity. They can then say (for example) that Soviet searching is 60% because that's where we think it honestly is, but if you disagree here's a slider - just make sure both sides agree to moving the slider if you are doing Multiplayer.

I really don't get why they didn't make things like visability and weapons costomizable, while CM is quite mods-friendly in terms of skins and visual effects. Instead they chose to make it pro version feature.

And why "homesty is 60%"? after thermals - maybe, but why it should be so before, it's a mystery foe me. 

[Rinaldi]

Perhaps T-62s perform poorly because they are poor tanks, an avenue worth exploring @dbsapp  . Alternatively, a poor craftsman blames his tools, do you consider yourself a decent handyman?

Edited February 7, 2022 by Rinaldi

[THH149]

All interesting.....

Soviet concentration is necessary as the attacker as the defender has the advantage, which is mulitplied by the what I think is a slight technological edge until thermals show up.

If the US was the attacker they would need concentration too.

As to Hapless right thrust, it might have worked if the tanks had stopped at the woods edge (not sure about other LOS to that position) and push the infantry through to clear up the woods and check for spots, with tanks assessing situation.  The BMPs needed to pause their breakthrough and clear the woods - thats in the training scenarios.  But that doesnt mean I'm totally behind the decision, it felt wrong but could've been made slightly better.

Bigger issue was choosing meeting engagement and then having a split objective - Schweben became irrelevant - losses became important - so the big dice role of Turn 10 wasn't a strategic decision just a tactical one, and come off badly.

[dbsapp]

33 minutes ago, Monty's Mighty Moustache said:

But if Hapless had indeed sent 3 companies of tanks down the left side then he would have lost a few (perhaps even quite a few) sure, due to the spotting limitations, but all those muzzle flashes would have given the M60s' positions away. At least a few of the other 30 tanks are bound to notice and get the spot and then the M60s are in trouble.

 

And maybe if he sent those 3 companies on the left flank they would be mercilessly slaughtered by invisible enemy? We are engaging in pure speculation at this point.

What are the facts? The facts are Reds were demolished, scattered to pieces and blown away by enemy, who they didn't see. 

What should we discuss? We should discuss this spectacular failure and draw the conclusion that Reds are blind.

What they are discussing? "How Soviet dictrine works". 

It would be easy to put all the blame on clumsy mr. Hapless and his "wrong' decisions and save the face of the broken system. But would it be fair? I believe that his major mistake was to select Red team instead of Blue.

What amuses me is that this thread and post-game discussion are framed in deductive reasoning, which is basically pre-Enlightment method of thought. Discussion goes from concept (Soviet doctrine works in CM normally) to facts (the fact that Halpless failed is him to blame). 

Where as post-Enlightment method is inductive, e.g. to construct concepts based on facts (the fact that Halpless's units couldn't see anything means that something is wrong). 

Edited February 7, 2022 by dbsapp

[SergeantSqook]

I didn't watch the video because I can't stand Rice for more than 3 minutes, but I suspect the issue is that BFCs pro-US bias meant that the Soviets did not perform as they historically would, along with the lack of nukes and chemical warfare in-game.

 

@IICptMillerII