CM2: Eastern Front by the book

[Reckall]

Hi all!

Since Easter Front is my favoured topic in WWII wargames, I gave some tought about how CM should model it. Since the basic engine is already in place, and BTS will probably market it as a new game, I belive that there is much room for improvements! Please, note that these "thoughts" are about how I would like to see the eastern theater of operations portrayed in CM, and not necessarily about engine/interface improvements!

* The whole eastern front represented, from 1941 to 1945.

* A * lot * of different veichles and squads for both Germany and URSS... Basically everything fielded in this theatre, both vehicles and types of infantry and artillery.

* A realistic way to portray cavalry and its different ways of employment (charges, horses training gun batteries etc...)

* Sky units.

* Realistic camo based on season/year/branch of the army.

* Weather effects on unprotected troops and vehicles (to better simulate the winter 1941/42 situations for the germans).

* Improved in-building fightning, with big building divided into smaller rooms by walls. One word: Stalingrad.

* Improved AI programmed to use specific tactics like russian "mass charges".

* Rules portraying the different skill in command and control that characterized the Germans and the Russians. Also, some rules that limit the possibility for the russian to freely use their armor units (i.e.: platoons members must stay within a certain distance from the platoon leader or have severe penalities...)

* A * lot * of scenarios... At least 50, plus 5 or 6 operations that cover the main battles of the war (Red Barricades comes readly into mind).

* Terrain specific to the russian front: taiga, swamps, sunflower fields that offer excellent cover ect. Also, frozen rivers that can be crossed by units but also can be shattered by mortars and/or artillery.

Things I could live without:

* Other armies: Italians, Rumanians, Finnish etc.

* "What if" units: Maus, Panther II etc.

Feel free to add your suggestions!

Regards,

Vincenzo Beretta

Milan, Italy

[Berlichtingen]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>* The whole eastern front represented, from 1941 to 1945.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As has been mentioned countless times before, that is the intention.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>* Sky units.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I assume you mean Ski... otherwise, the Fallschirmj?ger are already in the game.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>* Realistic camo based on season/year/branch of the army.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Are you refering to graphics or coding with this?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>* Weather effects on unprotected troops and vehicles (to better simulate the winter 1941/42 situations for the germans).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm not sure this is really an issue with the scale of CM.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>* Improved in-building fightning, with big building divided into smaller rooms by walls. One word: Stalingrad.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Again, discussed to death. Improved city fighting is intended.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>* Terrain specific to the russian front: taiga, swamps, sunflower fields that offer excellent cover ect. Also, frozen rivers that can be crossed by units but also can be shattered by mortars and/or artillery.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I can't imagine BTS doing anything else.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Things I could live without:

* Other armies: Italians, Rumanians, Finnish etc.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Bad idea to leave these out. They were important to Germany's war effort in the east.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>* "What if" units: Maus, Panther II etc.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Given the vehicles left out of CM1 for rarity, I don't think you have to worry about these.

[tss]

Reckall wrote:

Improved AI programmed to use specific tactics like russian "mass charges".

I have a serious problem with using the term "tactics" when speaking of human-wave attacks. It was more lack of tactics that led to them. Also, note that they were not exclusive to the Red Army but also other poorly trained units did them. In particular, SS troops were quite fond of them during summer and fall 1941. There were even a few cases where Finnish attacks could be described as massed charges (the little-known counter-attack of Kev.Os.8 (IIRC) at Viipuri bay comes to my mind).

Weather effects on unprotected troops and vehicles (to better simulate the winter 1941/42 situations for the germans).

Berlichtingen commented on this:

I'm not sure this is really an issue with the scale of CM.

Yes, it is. Particularly, automatic weapons had the tendency of jamming in winter if they were not carefully maintained. Also, tank turrets were prone to freeze in one place. These problems were not reserved to Germans but also Soviets and Finns experienced them. As a practical example, during the attack to Karhumäki and Poventsa in December '41 Finns got only three tanks moving (2xT-28E and a T-34) and the turret of one of the T-28s was frozen in one position.

- Tommi

[Sergei]

Say, if Poland and Winter War won't be in CM2, will they be in CM3 or CM4 (the one with early war years)?

Ski units will be important. The way Steel Panthers presented them (just infantry with high movement rate) made me laugh, they would ski through artillery bombardments, trenches and everything. Once I tried a generated battle between USA and Finland, and it took place in Sahara yet Finns had ski infantry. Eh.

I think ski infantry should be more likely to get hit, and when they get fire they would immediately dismount. Player should also have the option to dismount the guys any time. The men would be presumed to be carrying their skis among them, so they could remount once the shooting ceased.

Light infantry & AT guns and machine guns would also move in sleds pulled by their crews on skis, there wouldn't be separate sled units with pullers idly waiting for something to tow.

I would also like to see all types of snow: half-melted snow, frozy snow, powder snow etc. The game should also model the differing tarring and lubricating methods of different armies, and downhill skiing.... oh, sorry. Got carried away...

Just one more thing: observation balloons! They were used by Soviets at least in northern sector. They could direct artillery barrages if troops were moved near front line.

[Commissar]

If you want to do it right, you will need much bigger maps as well. It would allow more free placement of units and allow greater number of units without it getting too crowded. Also, bigger maps would give a better impression of the vast expanse of the Russian steppes.

[Steve Clark]

I think I'm missing something here. I don't think there's enough time in the world for anyone to play 4 years of campaigning at 60 seconds intervals, even breaking it up into battle chunks?

[tss]

About ski troops (I once again can't quote text). An infantry squad can't carry skis in combat as it is practically impossible to shoot weapons while carrying skis. Instead, the ski troops usually left their skis in an assembly point some hundred meters away from enemy positions. In some cases, for example when preparing ambushes behind enemy lines, the skis would be left a couple of meters behind each individual soldier.

- Tommi

[ASL Veteran]

The map sizes are just fine. There are literally hundreds of ASL scenarios for the Eastern Front and very few of them exceed the current map limits in CM (Red Barricades possibly excepted). The size of the map only needs to be large enough for the effective ranges of the weapons involved. You don't need to represent the entire Russian steppe - that would be unnecessary. Even Michael Wittman's Tiger normally began an engagement at around 2000 meters - which could be represented with current map sizes. What do we want ... control over a full divisions worth of squads or tanks? Beyond the scope of the game IMHO.

[Hannibal]

Since cm 3 will be the med I assume they will wait till then to include the italians in the system

[Sergei]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tss:

About ski troops (I once again can't quote text). An infantry squad can't carry skis in combat as it is practically impossible to shoot weapons while carrying skis. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Indeed, if you are firing your weapons. But let's suppose your squad is crossing a frozen lake and get ambushed by a machine gun. Your men want to crawl, not ski, out of there, yet they don't want to leave the skis there, so they dismount but still bring them along. Now, I don't think it would be necessary to portray two cases of dismounting, attack and retreat, separately.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Instead, the ski troops usually left their skis in an assembly point some hundred meters away from enemy positions. In some cases, for example when preparing ambushes behind enemy lines, the skis would be left a couple of meters behind each individual soldier. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, that's correct, but I was thinking whether this is a tad too difficult to model. The abandoned skis would have to be created as some sort of icon, and it would also create micro-managing. Also, what if I wanted them to bring the skis with them while they are on foot? I think about it just like you can't leave PaK ammunitions to planned delay points while in reality this would have been practised. You just have to "roleplay" a bit. When infantry mounts on skis again, maybe there would be just some extra delay which not only includes strapping the ski ties but also finding them and bringing them to men.

Say, Tommi, have you found any notes whether during a battle of CM scale Finnish infantry would have risen on skis multiple times, or would they just move on to a location nearby target and then just fight as regular foot men for the rest of the time? If the latter one is more true, then remounting wouldn't matter (except for recon patrols).

[Aacooper]

Gotta have the Finns!

Wouldn't hurt to throw in the other nationalities too, including the Italians, Croatians, and Spanish.

I think it would be neat to be able to use captured equipment, since that was done more often on the East than the West. One US company captured some MG42's in their first battle. They were firing them to try them out, and an adjacent English unit sent an officer by to stop them before they drew friendly fire. So, the company threw the MG42's in the Wurm River. Based on tss's posts about Finnish use of Russian AFV's (and other sources) the troops on the East Front had more of a need to use whatever they could get.

[tss]

Based on tss's posts about Finnish use of Russian AFV's (and other sources) the troops on the East Front had more of a need to use whatever they could get.

The Finns were a special case and used much more captured equipment than any other army (proportionally. In absolute numbers Germans used more but they had also a lot more their own stuff in use).

The main reason why Finns could use captured equipment so much was that the Finnish army was originally armed with the stuff that Imperial Russian Army left behind. The rifles and the MGs had the same caliber, the most numerous artillery piece in Finnish use before war was 76K02 that was also the main gun type in the Red Army during the Winter War, and so on.

Also, Finnish army had so many different types of equipment in use that adding a few more didn't make any difference logistically. For example, there were 79 different gun models in the artillery units and that doesn't include the ~50 models of coastal artillery guns, ~10 models of AT guns, and ~10 models of AA guns. In short, it was a logistical nightmare.

One of my favorite stories on acquiring weapons happened in December '39 at Lähde sector in Summa: (I don't remember all details here, it's been a long time since I last read Halsti's book on Winter War)

A batallion commander was visiting the front line and during the conversation with the men he stated that he couldn't allocate more automatic weapons to the company because he didn't have any left. When the major left the dugout two corporals dressed up and went out without saying anything to anybody. They returned three hours later, carrying _three_ Maxim MMGs that they had stolen from Soviet lines.

- Tommi

[Guest Michael emrys]

On the subject of captured weapons being turned on the nation of origin, how many of you know that in the Battle of the Bulge (and presumably thereafter) the 82nd. Airborne armed itself with Panzeerfausts? It seems that at some point while they were in France they came across a warehouse full of them and sensibly preferring them to their bazookas, issued them to the troops. Source: James Gavin, /On to Berlin/.

Michael

[Sergei]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Aacooper:

Gotta have the Finns!

Wouldn't hurt to throw in the other nationalities too, including the Italians, Croatians, and Spanish. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

At least Romanian army would be necessary, because they played a critical role in Stalingrad, and Bulgarians. Slovaks, Croatians, Italians etc. were not very important, but it wouldn't hurt (except for the people who are supposed to make the Croatian OOB right). I wish some sort of Polish Home Front would also be available, to recreate Warsaw 1944.

As in 1944 and '45 these Axis nations joined the fight against Germany, it would also be necessary to have them able to fight against Germans.

(Hmpf, I forgot to mention Hungary.)

[This message has been edited by Sergei (edited 07-07-2000).]

[Mark IV]

Well, the British were trained to ski (without poles) while firing a Walther PPK backwards at pursuing ski troops with submachine-guns. Was that on the History Channel, or... oh, wait, it'll come to me...