Dazed. Confused.

[MikeyD]

We hit the CM paradox of 'reality vs playability'. CM has all the tools to do a real world assault but players want balanced gameplay. Therein lies the paradox. If you're conducting an assault into the teeth of equal forces you're already doing it wrong. An evenly balanced battle negates the impact of localized overwhelming firepower. Back in CM:Afghanistan days I used to joke the role of Russian infantry is to march forward over the charred corpses of their enemies. Anything less than that and your Russian infantry platoon  will get bogged down and chewed up.

[Butschi]

20 hours ago, MikeyD said:

We hit the CM paradox of 'reality vs playability'. CM has all the tools to do a real world assault but players want balanced gameplay. Therein lies the paradox. If you're conducting an assault into the teeth of equal forces you're already doing it wrong. An evenly balanced battle negates the impact of localized overwhelming firepower. Back in CM:Afghanistan days I used to joke the role of Russian infantry is to march forward over the charred corpses of their enemies. Anything less than that and your Russian infantry platoon  will get bogged down and chewed up.

Indeed. Players usually want a fair fight and in reality, a fair fight is the least thing you want to have. Looking at the Grand Tournament, I found it strange that all three matches were basically meeting engagement. Although set up in a way that one side had to attack. They only got away with that because they were doing mirror matches to balance it. But then they could just have done real assaults. Oh well.

Re: artillery. Players usually complain about artillery being too weak when it is their artillery and being too strong when they are on the receiving end. Although for CMCW I think it is either weaker than it is in reality or both sides spent way too much money on it.

 

Edited January 28 by Butschi

[Anthony P.]

Agreed, I dislike the "fair fight" school. Every now and then, sure: mistakes are made, things have to be done with "tHe MiLiTaRy wE hAvE, nOt tHe MiLiTaRy wE wIsH wE hAd", to make it more interesting or whatever, but IMHO it shouldn't be quite as usual as it is.

[Centurian52]

I tend to feel that balance has always been seriously overrated in game design. I'm perfectly capable of having fun while taking a beating from a stronger opponent (desperation and despair can be a lot of fun in a simulated environment), or ruthlessly crushing a weaker one (indulging in a power fantasy is also fun). And thinking of CM as an educational tool, it's certainly valuable to learn how to fight a set piece battle against an equal opponent. But learning how to exploit against a weaker opponent or withdraw in the face of a stronger opponent is just as important.

Withdrawal and exploitation are two skills that us wargamers get precious little practice with. There is probably a bit of sport/tournament thinking going on. People think that once victory/defeat is determined, the battle doesn't matter anymore. All that matters in a sport is who wins and who loses. There are no higher or lower gradients of victory or defeat. But in reality it mattes a great deal whether you can turn a victory into a decisive victory, or prevent a defeat from turning into a decisive defeat.

Edited January 30 by Centurian52

[Vergeltungswaffe]

6 hours ago, Centurian52 said:

I tend to feel that balance has always been seriously overrated in game design. I'm perfectly capable of having fun while taking a beating from a stronger opponent (desperation and despair can be a lot of fun in a simulated environment), or ruthlessly crushing a weaker one (indulging in a power fantasy is also fun)...

100% agree.

I very much enjoy uneven battles for the challenges they bring.

[Shady_Side]

On 1/16/2024 at 6:14 AM, The_Capt said:

“Shrinking the map”.  It is one of the largest issues we have at this scale of wargaming.  One cannot employ the same map scales for WW2 in a modern title.  We will continue to work the artillery issue but the hallmark of CM games is tactical realism, maps will have to adapt.  In CMCW we pretty much pushed out to the outer limit of what the game engine can handle with respect to map sizes.  It wasn’t artillery that was the forcing function, it was ATGMs.  A system that can reach out 3kms with very high Pk forces a much larger map.  That, and Soviet formations needed room to manoeuvre.  As we move into more modern era, say CMBS, the maps will need to get even larger.  This reflects what we are seeing on the battlefield - dispersion and increased range and lethality per combat element.  I suspect that after seeing the Ukraine war unfold that CM artillery will be readdressed.  There is too much evidence of its effectiveness to ignore.  CMx3 will need to take into account much larger map sizes as a result.

I have been taking a closer look at the 82 timeframe. A couple quick scrimmage games and tested a few match up a little bit. The biggest difference I noticed is something I don't think I have ever seen mentioned on here. Sure US equipment has taken a big step forward and has went from being behind the Russians to being ahead of them. But from what I have seen so far I cant say they are not that far ahead of the Russians based on equipment alone.... Sure Abrams is a good tank. Great optics low profile. really good armor But that 105mm gun can struggle with Russian armor especially at longer ranges. I think the real game changer is replacing all those nearly useless M113s with an actual combat vehicle. The fact that the Brad is a good vehicle is just the cherry on top. In 79 the US struggled struggled to match up to Russian armor in both quality and quantity. The Brad helps cover both categories. It made me wonder is adding and anti-tank platoon to every company of maybe 6or8 ITOW could have been a usefull stop-gap measure. Like I said   

[OBJ]

51 minutes ago, Shady_Side said:

I have been taking a closer look at the 82 timeframe. A couple quick scrimmage games and tested a few match up a little bit. The biggest difference I noticed is something I don't think I have ever seen mentioned on here. Sure US equipment has taken a big step forward and has went from being behind the Russians to being ahead of them. But from what I have seen so far I cant say they are not that far ahead of the Russians based on equipment alone.... Sure Abrams is a good tank. Great optics low profile. really good armor But that 105mm gun can struggle with Russian armor especially at longer ranges. I think the real game changer is replacing all those nearly useless M113s with an actual combat vehicle. The fact that the Brad is a good vehicle is just the cherry on top. In 79 the US struggled struggled to match up to Russian armor in both quality and quantity. The Brad helps cover both categories. It made me wonder is adding and anti-tank platoon to every company of maybe 6or8 ITOW could have been a usefull stop-gap measure. Like I said   

Don't know if either below will be of interest to you or not, both are higher than tactical discussions. The second one may already have been referenced by the CMCW designers.

Into the 80s in Mech Bns Pre-Bradley/still 113 based, the MECH Bn/TF TOW company was a support and admin HQ. TOW Platoons were attached to Mech Companies to give the Mech Cos. long range AT fires, just as you posit.

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA384122.pdf

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://history.army.mil/html/books/069/69-4-1/cmhPub_69-4-1.pdf

[Erwin]

1 hour ago, Shady_Side said:

  On 1/16/2024 at 4:14 AM, The_Capt said:

“Shrinking the map”.  It is one of the largest issues we have at this scale of wargaming.  One cannot employ the same map scales for WW2 in a modern title.  

IIRC GeorgeMC has created CMSF2 maps for his campaigns that do offer that sort of long range (2Km-3Km+) LOS for optimal use of the ATGM vehicles.  So, it is possible for other titles.  

Edited February 3 by Erwin

[The_Capt]

22 hours ago, Erwin said:

IIRC GeorgeMC has created CMSF2 maps for his campaigns that do offer that sort of long range (2Km-3Km+) LOS for optimal use of the ATGM vehicles.  So, it is possible for other titles.  

CMSF is fine in most cases because it is asymmetric warfare based.  By design the weaker opponent is going to try and lower engagement ranges, even if we are talking conventional forces.  So shorter range engagements make sense.  The title that suffers the most is CMBS.  While we know that short range fights happen in Ukraine, a lot of engagements are at very long ranges or even over the horizon.  Modeling manoeuvre in such an environment is pretty challenging for a game engine like CM.  We are talking 5+ kms for some systems and guns-plus-UAS pushes out to 20+kms. 

For CMCW we really were at the outer practical ranges of what the engine could do but they still work.  We have some really big maps for CM, pretty much maxing out the editor (which is something like 18 sq kms).  But the ATGMs of Cold War had 3500-ish max ranges and tanks were still hitting at 1-2kms.  So for fires and manoeuvre it still works.  Of course some players rigs buckled under the weight, and then some players just don't like managing forces at those range scales.  In the end there is nothing we can really do about that while still holding onto realism.  I do have one clever idea for BAOR to go in another direction but we will see how that works out.  

[MikeyD]

I recall a cold war era report that said engagement ranges in Germany rarely exceed 1500m. there's always going to be an intervening copse of trees or hedge-lined road or village cluster. Yes, maybe you'll find that valuable spot looking down the full length of a river valley for your TOW but don't count on it. I believe in Ukraine its been said typical Javelin engagement ranges have been around 900m (about from treeline to treeline), which is still within the range of the old CMCW M47 Dragon. Whenever I play big maps the fight eventually devolves into individual engagements for smaller pieces of real estate. So huge maps are only good for the first third of the battle.