About cw Soviet campaign

[nunna18931226]

This is my second run through this massive campaign, and I want to make an explanatory video about it. I want to ask a few questions about the game, which focuses on Soviet artillery support.
1. Does the experience level of FO affect the killing efficiency of artillery
2. Why did the Soviet artillery support take so long (is it to simulate the thorough fire preparation plan of the Soviet army before the attack)
3. Us military establishment problem: According to the realistic time line, why did the US army have so many M1s at this time
Above

[Simcoe]

8 minutes ago, nunna18931226 said:

This is my second run through this massive campaign, and I want to make an explanatory video about it. I want to ask a few questions about the game, which focuses on Soviet artillery support.
1. Does the experience level of FO affect the killing efficiency of artillery
2. Why did the Soviet artillery support take so long (is it to simulate the thorough fire preparation plan of the Soviet army before the attack)
3. Us military establishment problem: According to the realistic time line, why did the US army have so many M1s at this time
Above

1. Experience gives a small bonus to call in time

2. The Soviet player should focus on pre planned bombardments. Personally, Combat Mission call in times are horribly slow. The Soviets wouldn't take that much longer than Americans to call in support. They just had fewer people to call it in.

3. The Abrams are there for a challenge. You're also in the most dangerous part of the front.

[nunna18931226]

18 minutes ago, Simcoe said:

1. Experience gives a small bonus to call in time

2. The Soviet player should focus on pre planned bombardments. Personally, Combat Mission call in times are horribly slow. The Soviets wouldn't take that much longer than Americans to call in support. They just had fewer people to call it in.

3. The Abrams are there for a challenge. You're also in the most dangerous part of the front.

Thank you very much for your reply. I saw your explanation post. I found out during the campaign that artillery kill efficiency is very high if enemy forces are in sight of fo. I even destroyed three m2 Bradleys with 120 mortars

[IICptMillerII]

14 hours ago, Simcoe said:

1. Experience gives a small bonus to call in time

2. The Soviet player should focus on pre planned bombardments. Personally, Combat Mission call in times are horribly slow. The Soviets wouldn't take that much longer than Americans to call in support. They just had fewer people to call it in.

3. The Abrams are there for a challenge. You're also in the most dangerous part of the front.

This is a pretty good summary, specifically on points 1 and 3. 

Point 2 however needs a bit of context. CM call in times for artillery are pretty spot on, for both the WWII titles and for the modern ones, for all sides. Yes, the call in times are averages, but that is a product of the CM system and really can't be helped. 

More importantly, the methodology for Soviet artillery is not the same as its Western counterpart. The way most players tend to play CM is via "recon pull" or by constantly reacting to new information and exploiting it. This roughly translates to one of the strengths of US artillery in that it is highly reactive. If you have a unit driving down a road and it takes fire from an unexpected enemy position, US artillery is flexible enough to be called in quickly against the unexpected enemy position. That is now how Soviet artillery worked, or was intended to function. 

Soviet artillery was designed to be part of a larger plan. (US artillery is too, but the Soviet application is more rigid). The vast majority of Soviet artillery was templated, or pre-planned. Even the reactionary fire. Soviet preparatory bombardments were complex and involved a constant shifting of fires from the "deep fight" (rear area targets such as command and control, logistics, assembly areas, etc) to the "close fight" (enemy defensive positions directly opposing friendly forces). The term rolling barrage is incorrect, but probably is the most relatable concept to start wrapping your head around. 

Unfortunately, CM is fairly limited in its ability to represent a proper Soviet fires plan. Under ideal circumstances, the vast majority of the fires plan would all be pre-planned missions, hitting suspected enemy positions and key terrain that moves with the advance of the attacking ground forces. This cannot be done in CM because you cannot plan more than one pre-planned fire mission per battery, and because the time delay option only goes out to 15 minutes. The best way around that is to use a lot of TRPs. There are issues with that as well though both from a gameplay perspective (covering the map in TRPs is considered gamey) and from a technical perspective (a TRP in real life is different than what a TRP is in CM in a few notable ways), but it is arguably the best workaround. 

14 hours ago, nunna18931226 said:

Thank you very much for your reply. I saw your explanation post. I found out during the campaign that artillery kill efficiency is very high if enemy forces are in sight of fo. I even destroyed three m2 Bradleys with 120 mortars

A certified CM teaching moment! So in real life, the general rule of thumb is that all fires must be observed. Inversely, unobserved fires are useless. The reasoning is simple; if you cannot see what you are hitting, how can you know if you are in fact hitting anything? Now, there are contexts and examples were firing at a target that you cannot see is a good idea (counter battery comes readily to mind) but the key takeaway is that in CM the most effective fire missions will be the ones that you can directly observe. 

[Simcoe]

9 minutes ago, IICptMillerII said:

This is a pretty good summary, specifically on points 1 and 3. 

Point 2 however needs a bit of context. CM call in times for artillery are pretty spot on, for both the WWII titles and for the modern ones, for all sides. Yes, the call in times are averages, but that is a product of the CM system and really can't be helped. 

More importantly, the methodology for Soviet artillery is not the same as its Western counterpart. The way most players tend to play CM is via "recon pull" or by constantly reacting to new information and exploiting it. This roughly translates to one of the strengths of US artillery in that it is highly reactive. If you have a unit driving down a road and it takes fire from an unexpected enemy position, US artillery is flexible enough to be called in quickly against the unexpected enemy position. That is now how Soviet artillery worked, or was intended to function. 

Soviet artillery was designed to be part of a larger plan. (US artillery is too, but the Soviet application is more rigid). The vast majority of Soviet artillery was templated, or pre-planned. Even the reactionary fire. Soviet preparatory bombardments were complex and involved a constant shifting of fires from the "deep fight" (rear area targets such as command and control, logistics, assembly areas, etc) to the "close fight" (enemy defensive positions directly opposing friendly forces). The term rolling barrage is incorrect, but probably is the most relatable concept to start wrapping your head around. 

Unfortunately, CM is fairly limited in its ability to represent a proper Soviet fires plan. Under ideal circumstances, the vast majority of the fires plan would all be pre-planned missions, hitting suspected enemy positions and key terrain that moves with the advance of the attacking ground forces. This cannot be done in CM because you cannot plan more than one pre-planned fire mission per battery, and because the time delay option only goes out to 15 minutes. The best way around that is to use a lot of TRPs. There are issues with that as well though both from a gameplay perspective (covering the map in TRPs is considered gamey) and from a technical perspective (a TRP in real life is different than what a TRP is in CM in a few notable ways), but it is arguably the best workaround. 

A certified CM teaching moment! So in real life, the general rule of thumb is that all fires must be observed. Inversely, unobserved fires are useless. The reasoning is simple; if you cannot see what you are hitting, how can you know if you are in fact hitting anything? Now, there are contexts and examples were firing at a target that you cannot see is a good idea (counter battery comes readily to mind) but the key takeaway is that in CM the most effective fire missions will be the ones that you can directly observe. 

Great write up! 

I made sure to add the "personally" in there to show its my (non-professional) opinion.

In my opinion, the call in times are realistic compared to real life conbat. For example, a US company commander can call in an organic mortar battery in around 5 minutes. In real life that is very realistic but in Combat Mission that is an absolute eternity. 5 full turns! Even more if the observer has a difficult time seeing the spotting rounds.

I think we can all agree that Combat Mission moves much more quickly than a real battle would. A 1 hour scenario with the objective of taking a town would probably take three times that in real life.

That is why I think new players can get a bit confused with the call in times and I think some it's worth giving them some context.

Again, all my opinion.

 

[IICptMillerII]

5 minutes ago, Simcoe said:

Great write up! 

I made sure to add the "personally" in there to show its my (non-professional) opinion.

In my opinion, the call in times are realistic compared to real life conbat. For example, a US company commander can call in an organic mortar battery in around 5 minutes. In real life that is very realistic but in Combat Mission that is an absolute eternity. 5 full turns! Even more if the observer has a difficult time seeing the spotting rounds.

I think we can all agree that Combat Mission moves much more quickly than a real battle would. A 1 hour scenario with the objective of taking a town would probably take three times that in real life.

That is why I think new players can get a bit confused with the call in times and I think some it's worth giving them some context.

Again, all my opinion.

 

Thanks! 

Very fair points, especially the one about CM moving faster than real life and how long 5 turns (or 12) can be in CM. I always wished there was more modularity in the difficulty levels. Something like reducing the call in times without getting borg spotting, for example. Would go a long way to helping to ease some of the gameplay quirks of the CM system, but I also understand that it would open up a can of worms too. 

[The_Capt]

On 1/5/2023 at 9:53 PM, nunna18931226 said:

This is my second run through this massive campaign, and I want to make an explanatory video about it. I want to ask a few questions about the game, which focuses on Soviet artillery support.
1. Does the experience level of FO affect the killing efficiency of artillery
2. Why did the Soviet artillery support take so long (is it to simulate the thorough fire preparation plan of the Soviet army before the attack)
3. Us military establishment problem: According to the realistic time line, why did the US army have so many M1s at this time
Above

Excellent responses - to add to Question 3.  So in the Soviet campaign you are facing off against 11 ACR and the 3rd Armd Division.  By 1982 we do know the early M1s (105 mm) where in Germany in small numbers in those frontline units - give or take months.  In the campaign they appear in two battles both toward the back end in what would have been US counter-moves.  This reflects that the M1s would have been held in Reserve and only used in extremis.  The majority of US armor is the M60A3, which is a pretty nasty beast on its own.  

Anyway hope that helps.  The issue with the T64 is also that the TacAI in the game always fire at the centre of mass on enemy tanks.  For the T64 that is pretty much the area on both the glacis or turret one does not want to try to target.  When playing the Soviets it does give advantage, we will get it nerfed at some point.  When playing the US try and offset.

Glad you enjoyed the campaign.

[nunna18931226]

12 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Excellent responses - to add to Question 3.  So in the Soviet campaign you are facing off against 11 ACR and the 3rd Armd Division.  By 1982 we do know the early M1s (105 mm) where in Germany in small numbers in those frontline units - give or take months.  In the campaign they appear in two battles both toward the back end in what would have been US counter-moves.  This reflects that the M1s would have been held in Reserve and only used in extremis.  The majority of US armor is the M60A3, which is a pretty nasty beast on its own.  

Anyway hope that helps.  The issue with the T64 is also that the TacAI in the game always fire at the centre of mass on enemy tanks.  For the T64 that is pretty much the area on both the glacis or turret one does not want to try to target.  When playing the Soviets it does give advantage, we will get it nerfed at some point.  When playing the US try and offset.

Glad you enjoyed the campaign.

That is to say, we can be sure that the Americans who were the enemy in the Soviet campaign were 11 ACR and the 3rd Armd Division.Although the Abrams came as a big surprise to me, especially in the last level when a mechanized NATO cavalry platoon came sideways from my axis of attack, which gave me a bit of a headache for a while, so destroying every Abrams convinced me to win, I have to admit that the entire Soviet campaign, as difficult and challenging as it was, But it also gave me a lot of insight into Soviet army formations and tactics. This is based on the fact that commanders, faced with the complexity of the battlefield and the constraints of their own forces, must, above all, make the tactical determination to overcome the difficulties before them. Thank you for writing the script for this series, I'm looking forward to the next Soviet battle in the DLC, and I'll be playing the existing Soviet battle a few more times for future commentary.

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, nunna18931226 said:

That is to say, we can be sure that the Americans who were the enemy in the Soviet campaign were 11 ACR and the 3rd Armd Division.Although the Abrams came as a big surprise to me, especially in the last level when a mechanized NATO cavalry platoon came sideways from my axis of attack, which gave me a bit of a headache for a while, so destroying every Abrams convinced me to win, I have to admit that the entire Soviet campaign, as difficult and challenging as it was, But it also gave me a lot of insight into Soviet army formations and tactics. This is based on the fact that commanders, faced with the complexity of the battlefield and the constraints of their own forces, must, above all, make the tactical determination to overcome the difficulties before them. Thank you for writing the script for this series, I'm looking forward to the next Soviet battle in the DLC, and I'll be playing the existing Soviet battle a few more times for future commentary.

If you look in the manual I laid out the operational level for the Soviet campaign, so you can see how the whole thing would have played out.  As to DLC, we have some good stuff planned and we hope you guys will enjoy it.