Special Challenges for CM2

[Alexander]

You suppose that the CM engine will undergo some significant enhancements in order to model Operation Barbarossa, especially if they intend covering the entire conflict from 41-45.

1- Graphics. Like isbas, orthodox churches, and the general aspects of steppe terrain. A big challenge will be modelling an arm that played a greater part in WW2 in the east than the west: cavalry. Lot's of luck, guys; maybe it's time to outsource to a graphics team.

2- Soviet idiosyncracies. Most Russian tanks didn't have radios until the end of the war; in the interests of realism they'll probably need to operate within a command structure. Also, although the Soviets relied on massive, pre-set artillery bombardments before offensives, the same artillery proved slow and unresponsive tactically,especially on the defense.

Additionally, the designers might consider a new unit: the Commissar. This officer is empowered, within a certain radius, to shoot fleeing or otherwise underperforming troops. The Soviets receive a global morale uptick after each execution. Another add-on possibility: the minewalker.

3-'Soldat' by Guy Sajer should be required reading for all scenario creators. It's arguably the best book ever written about the Eastern Front, or any war. It's intensely personal and features a lot of small unit actions.

4- Add lighting effects! Especially night flares. These, I'm told, contributed enormously to Rising Sun. And it would look cool.

[Minnesota Joe]

The Ruskies should also be able to buy their tanks very cheap (high production) and infantry (many soldiers, low value of human life). Most battles would thus end up with a numerical adavantage for the soviets. Just the way it should be.

And how about a new interface option to show just how frozen the selected unit is.

[Chupacabra]

It'd be great if they implemented dogs with mines strapped to their backs

Probably not very useful in the context of a single battle, but it'd be pretty damn funny to watch the first couple of times.

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Soy super bien, soy super super bien, soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super.

[The Commissar]

Forget dogs...I want my SKI TROOPS! Oh yes, and the Russians should be harder to spot, since they were very good in blending with the terrain.

The bad side to the Russians should be a major slow down in communication due to lack of radios as already mentioned. Wonder how they'll handle this?

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...Every position, every meter of Soviet soil must be defended to the last drop of blood..."

- Segment from Order 227 "Not a step back"

[This message has been edited by The Commissar (edited 08-07-2000).]

[killmore]

In Stalingrad Soviets had numerical disadvantage until the counter attack.

Since october 1941 to december 1941 Germans had numerical advantage.

As I said before there is no reason to make Soviet troops worse then german troops.

Just make Soviet troops semi-fanatical conscripts and German troops Regular.

[tss]

killmore wrote:

Since october 1941 to december 1941 Germans had numerical advantage.

Make that July 1941 or at latest August.

- Tommi

[Reckall]

When I posted my toughts on the same topic I was jumped by tour run-of-the-mill "this was already discussed blah wah!" guy! Why this favouritism???

However, I'd love to see a good portrayal of factories (Stalingrad, Stalingrad, Stalingrad!!) better in-building fightning (Stalingrad, Stalingrad, Stalingrad!!) sunflower fields that half-hide vehicles and almost hide men, ice breaking under artillery fire, winter effects on morale and fightning abilities of the troops (Germans in 1941 should be at a disadvantage) and (but this is a cosmetic request) better lightning effects, exp. at night...

[PatAWilson]

The eastern front offers an interesting challenge. At the moment skill and morale are tied together. While this is basically true of western armies IMHO it would be a good idea to split the two for the eastern front. Russian troops would fight and fight hard, but often not very skillfully. Lots of massed charges, etc., trading several Russian lives for a few German lives. Somehow the willingness of the Russian generals to use lives and the willingness of the Russian soldier to accept this should to be modeled.

IMHO the reliance on a command structure could be modeled by a generally delayed response time under all circumstances, even worse response time if the unit is out of touch, and severely hampered response if the command unit is wiped out. Therefore if you can get the company commander or, better yet, the battalion commander you would really gum up the works.

[Mace]

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

IMHO the reliance on a command structure could be modeled by a generally delayed response time under all circumstances, even worse response time if the unit is out of touch, and severely hampered response if the command unit is wiped out. Therefore if you can get the company commander or, better yet, the battalion commander you would really gum up the works.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree. Especially during the opening phase of the war when Soviet tank commanders communicated to each other solely by waving little flags, due to a lack of radios.

Mace

[tailz]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Minnesota Joe:

The Ruskies should also be able to buy their tanks very cheap (high production) and infantry (many soldiers, low value of human life). Most battles would thus end up with a numerical adavantage for the soviets. Just the way it should be.

And how about a new interface option to show just how frozen the selected unit is. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

OK, they're vehicles are cheap, but they should also have a higher mechancial (immobile) failure percentage as well.

[Midnight Warrior]

I read in Alan Clarks "Barbarossa" that in the early war the Russians would attack as division in line with no modern battlefield tactics to speak off. Troops would ride in their trucks toward the Germans until the truck was destroyed. The Germans were astounded in in how primitive were the Russian tactics. But unlike the armies in the west that would surrender after being blooded the Russsian would fight tenaciously and soldiers would even play dead and wait to take a German with them. After example upon example of this the Germans begin toi get a bad feeling about what they had gotten themselves into. I don't know how one would model this but it will be interesting to see how BTS does.

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March To The Sound Of The Guns

[Abrams Wannabe]

For those of you that are interested two very good books about the Red Army in WW2 are:

Stumbling Colossus

and

When Titans Clashed

Both by David Glantz

[BasilD]

Early in the war the Soviets had very few decent officers as Stalin had many of them killed in the purges. As I understand, the Germans were aware of this fact, and that was one of the reasons they felt they could defeat the Russians where other before them (Napoleon etc.) had failed. Later, better officers were found/learned the hard way whatever and the Soviets had more success.

I do think some efforts to insure play balance will need to be done for CM2 to model the relative ineffeciency of Soviet command control, as the Soviets generally had statistically better tanks and such than the other allies imo. Also, I notice in QB's the trend with alot of people is to buy the superior armed infantries, such as Motorized PzGr etc., which gives an advantage to the Germans since the Allies can't get these qualityr forces (bleh rifle companies )except with Airborne and most players frown upon combining Airborne units with Tanks etc., whereas the Germans can freely mix their superior infantry formations with tanks. The Russians however had Smg companies and the like as standard units and I would guess these will be able to be purchased.

As a side note someone I was playing saw fit to buy Veteran Volksgrenadiers does this seem right? Maybe I'm deluded but seems to be they should at best be Regulars. Not surprisingly these troops ripped my attacking forces to shreds even tho I outnumbered the Vlks 2 to 1

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As the victors define history, so does the majority define sanity...

[PzKpfw 1]

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

As a side note someone I was playing saw fit to buy Veteran Volksgrenadiers does this seem right? Maybe I'm deluded but seems to be they should at best be Regulars. Not surprisingly these troops ripped my attacking forces to shreds even tho I outnumbered the Vlks 2 to 1 <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Must have been one of the Ost VG units in the West for some R&R .

Regards, John Waters

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People who can smile when things go wrong

have found someone else to blame.

[Los]

So far everything I see here is being mulled over/researched. This is as good a time as any to say that if anyone is sitting on any kind of East Front data that they believe is rare of hard to find let us know! Most any standard book on the subject is already more or else committed to memory Drop me a line Los@cris.com

In particluar anything re: Early war Russian/German/Allied tank stats, AntiTank Rifles, Rifle Grenades, OOBs and other useful tidbits. While we already have comprehensive data on a lot of stuff sometimes vital tidbits come from the oddest places. And if you have 1/25k or 1/50k topos of some battle areas those are like gold.

Los

[This message has been edited by Los (edited 08-08-2000).]

[BasilD]

Ost VG? Enlighten me please, while compared to laymen I'm a historical expert on WWII, my knowledge pales in comparison to some of the walking encyclopedias we are graced with on this forum.

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As the victors define history, so does the majority define sanity...

[Fionn]

Ost VG = Ostrfont Volksgrenadieren

John's making a joke about how Ostfront VG divisions were often simply infanterie divisions with their name changed as opposed to the Western VG divisions which were more commonly comprised of almost total newbies.

Plus there's a little chide in there about how the Ostfront vets found the Western Front relaxing ( except for the arty and airpower).

[DrD]

I want to second Alexander's recommendation of Guy Sajer's excellent book. The title, however, is "The Forgotten Soldier." If you ever think you have it rough read this book. The toughness af the German soldier and the hardships they had to endure is just mind-boggling. My favorite part is the training for the GD division. Makes anything else look easy!

[RBS70]

Hi there Basil

I think its me you are refering to regarding those veteran volksgrendiers. I guess it could be regarded as a gamey tactic. If thats how you feel im sorry. I never meant that.

I must say though that I love those squads. Low cost and high firepower epecially at 40 m

[Dragoon44]

FOR CM2:

Just for the fun of it: Have to go with the tossing in of cavalry wouldnt that be a blast? If they throw in Finns gotta support the ski troop idea too. And as for the communications between soviet tanks,,,I think they were STILL using flags in the 70s and 80s cant have the boys learning too much about the mission ya know,,, OH HELL HOW COULD I FORGET THIS? Throw in the fact that a LOT of german artillery was horse drawn,,,blew me away when I saw it on the History channel,,,and those dudes invented the blitzkrieg,,,or did they steal the idea from Genghis Khan? And model the uses of horses; march times, limbering up, not wanting to be accused of being too much of a sick bastard here, but how do you save your guns when your horses are dead?

[kunzler]

OK, this is where I once again shamelessly put in a plug for trenches or trench tiles. See my thread below requesting trenches in CM2. Sandbags would also be nice.

If we are going to simulate the huge battles of the Russian front, it would be nice to simulate the battles where the defense had time to prepare their positions, which in my reading, e.g., Soldat, Unknown Soldier, etc. usually meant trenches, at least to weather out the artillery and for communication in the vast open stretches of land that made up much of the Russian front.

I see the trench tiles being similar to road tiles in that the trenches take up a portion of the tile and are linked to trenches in other tiles. They could be purchased, similar to fortifications possibly, but I would at least like to see them in the scenario editor.

[Speedy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Dragoon44:

FOR CM2:

..... not wanting to be accused of being too much of a sick bastard here, but how do you save your guns when your horses are dead?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Have you ever heard of shanks' mule?

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Work is the curse of the drinking class.

[Flipper]

paul carell's "hitler move's east 1941-1943"

is a great book don't know how accurate but still got alot of good stuff in it.

[BasilD]

Im looking forward to decimating some rear-line wagon depots I was thinking about cavalry and I would imagine the horses would have to be modeled as seperate transport units, since one usually didnt fight from horseback tho I imagine you COULD do so at a penalty, not to mention it wouldn't be too clever if under return fire. And no Mikael I wasn't upset about it tho I imagine my platoon commanders are pretty pissed after watching their veteran rifles evaporate even tho sporting a 2:1 numberical advantage

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As the victors define history, so does the majority define sanity...

[BasilD]

Ah, I suppose I should have been able to deceipher Ost was east. My german is very poor but I have a fair knowledge of svensk and the languages have alot of similar words.

Ah well, anyways I always prefer to ask questions and look stupid they just be stupid

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As the victors define history, so does the majority define sanity...