Does Combat Mission encourage/reward human wave attacks?

[Robert Mayer]

Agreed, Steve, the game does an admirable job at punishing you defensively for putting too many guys together. The point in question I think is whether it punishes you offensively as well.

One could argue that sufficient penalties to massing, in the form of increased casualties, makes it irrelevant whether the game doesn't penalize your ability to fire that mass, because massing will get your guys killed faster. But that dodges the question, partly on philosophical grounds and partly because it's always possible that you'll avoid the negative consequences of massing (no one fires at you for some reason) but still get the benefits (unearned) of overconcentration on the attack.

I won't lose any sleep over it one way or the other, however. CM does penalize you for bunching up, no doubt about it. Most of the time, using sound tactics is the best way to fight. So I'm happy . It's just that there are some areas that could use perhaps some tweaking, if possible. True for all games.

[Pak40]

Originally posted by CavScout:

One thing CM does do is make concentration of forces too effective. There is little reason to not concentrate your forces, and this is probably the biggest edge when on the attack. There should be a point of diminishing returns. You should not be able to put a company's worth of troops in a platton's worth of space and still have the company's firepower. Units should be blocked by friendly units in the line of fire.

Artillery will take care of that type of tactic.

Also, any defender who concentrates his forces that much is begging to be outflanked. It just goes to show that every tactic has it's own counter-tactic.

[Guest Big Time Software]

Cav, Robert:

If that represented an attack, the front 4 should only have the ability to fire effectivly on a defender. In CM the (all other things equal like terrain) entire formation 16 could bring fire on the target.

True for the most part. And as I said earlier, this is certainly a limitation. However... it is an extreme example and it is not likely to be replicated in a game, and if done not likely to be MORE successful than if there were a penalty. What I mean by that is the massed attacker would either be substantially beat up by the defender (if capable) or overrun the defender (if not capable) with few casualties.

So again... I don't see this as being a significant issue for Combat Mission in practice. In theory, absolutely. And when we start messing around with Human Wave™ tactics in CM2 we will see if more needs to be done. Then we'll have to figure out HOW to do it

Henri:

It DID happen that single squads in a foxhole being fired upon from all sides hit the bottom of their foxholes and did not fire back. The opposite also happened, I suppose, but not in CM.

Sure it does, but not when you are talking a Regular squad, unsupported, in just a foxhole, being hit by nearly 2 company's worth of infantry, including a HUGE number of automatic weapons.

Even if one or two members of the squad WERE able to fire, how many rounds do you think they would get off? How many do you think would be well aimed? How many do you think would actually hit their targets? If a unit is suppressed to the point that it is not firing, I would suspect the answers would be few, hardly any, and very likely none.

Folks, remember to not confuse extreme situations with reasonable behavior. One squad against over 20 is certain death. Punto

Steve

[easy-v]

I think the answer (if there is one) is to ask how well (if at all) does CM model penetration fire?

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

"I would like to see one historical example where a massed well disciplined (i.e. Regular or better) 20m rush on a smaller, non "armored" (i.e. pillbox) enemy did not result in the attacker winning with few casualties."

It is a fine question. I was most interested in the test results, BTW, and I agree that CM generally does a good job of showing concentrate vs. spread issues.

Cav Scout has a point about rear units firing, though - perhaps they should be less *likely* to fire? (As though they only had "clear shots" half the time or something). I don't know how hard it is to tell if there are friendlies more or less between the shooter and the target, in programming terms.

Terrain is easily tracked for such things as attenuation of LOS with fog, smoke, or scattered trees. What if a "tile" with friendlies in it, counting as "scattered trees" for fire purposes, by friendlies only? (But perhaps "brush height"). Seems like a fine idea in realism terms, I just don't know how easy it would be to impliment.

But to your question about short rushes stopped by unprotected defenders. I know of such cases from unit histories, sometimes with defenders as few as 6 men. The range was sometimes a little longer. What they have in common is the defenders all have automatic weapons. But I will quote first and discuss afterward -

Albany in the Ia Drang, 1965. From "We were soldiers once and young", ch. 19, "Hell in a very small place". Testimony of Lt. Gwin, XO of A/2/7. The unit that did it was the A/2/7 command team, in a small copse of trees in the middle of a small clearing.

"[Cpt] told me that our 1st platoon, on our right, was gone, and that the 2nd platoon, to our rear, was cut off and all wounded or dead. I stood up to get a better view of the woods on the other side of the clearing to the north and saw about 20 NVA bent over, charging towards our position and only about 60 yards away. I screamed 'here they come!' and jumped forward firing. I heard the battalion commander yell 'withdraw!' and I thought that was odd because there didn't seem like anywhere to go.

Almost everyone jumped up and ran back to the third anthill. 1st Sgt Miller, Cpt. Sugdinis, the arty FO Dunn, and PFC Wilson, the radio operator, and I stayed and killed all the NVA. I shot about 3 with my first burst, and then remember sighting in on the lead enemy, who was carrying an AK-47. I got him with my first round, saw him drop to the ground and start to crawl forward. I was afraid he would throw a grenade. I sighted very carefully and squeezed again, and saw him jolted by my second round, but he continued to move and I stepped from cover and emptied my remaining rounds into him. He was about 20 yards from the anthill. The rush had been stopped, but we could still see many, many NVA milling around in the other side of the clearing."

Notice the fight or flight reaction, the division of the defenders, the presence of leaders, the focus on the lead attacker, the difficulty of seeing the enemy, the importance of warning time, aggressiveness manifested in willingness to leave cover to see and to fire effectively, overkill, the attack broken but numerous survivors who did not press home remaining. All characteristic battlefield psych and fog effects. There is not doubt automatic weapons also mattered.

Here is another bit of testimony from a Spec-4 (Towles) in a different part of the same close firefight (in which overall, BTW, the NVA did close with the Americans and cut them to pieces).

"The sound of firing on our right flank got our attention in a hurry. We all faced in that direction. A couple of senior NCOs moved forward and joined the line of enlisted men (sic). We formed a solid battle line about 20 yards long; 12 of us. Bullets whizzed overhead. Still we could see nothing. We waited, expecting to see our men out on flank security break cover and entire the safety of our perimeter. They never did. The sound came closer. Within seconds the wood line changed.

NVA troops shattered the foliage and headed straight for us, AK-47 rifles blazing, on the dead run. I selected the closest one and fired twice. I hit him but he refused to go down; he kept coming and shooting. I turned my M-16 on full automatic, fired, and he crumpled. [He then experienced a jam and cleared it]. They kept pouring out of the wood line, we kept firing, then finally they stopped coming. On the ground in front of me lay the three magazines I taped together to carry in my rifle plus one other magazine. I had fired 80 rounds."

Leaders, fear and jams (wounded are another primary cause of men 'dropping out' of the firing group, not just those hit but those helping them), overkill, nearest target, enourmous ammo expenditure, little sense of time, difficulty seeing the enemy before. It is always like that, every report, over and over.

That is how "fight" reactions read. Other reactions are all about who got hit, who ordered movements, the impossibility of seeing anything, getting ammo, trying to stay with others. You can detect relunctances and excuses and seemingly out of place worries in even the fight reactions, and see the way many of the factors mentioned combine to overcome the strong incentive to deny or avoid or flee or submit, through the whole experience.

Thus the "still moving" theme is probably rationalizing extreme violence that was shocking to the man doing it, and probably occurred in split-second time frames; others report putting their mind somewhere else or training "taking over" or forgetting about the whole thing.

I do not mean to suggest that such short rushes by superior numbers usually failed. They didn't, usually they succeeded if the range was close and the numbers superior and the enemy quickly gets suppressed and puts out little in the way of return fire. But the presence of automatic weapons, leaders, and clear-cut "fight" reactions by small groups, did stop such rushes sometimes.

To put it in close to CM terms, sometimes a charged unit goes "fanatic" and remains completely unsuppressed, and unless physically shot down simply fires faster and faster and refuses to be overrun.

For what it is worth...

[This message has been edited by jasoncawley@ameritech.net (edited 02-14-2001).]

[Commissar]

Too much concentration of forces means huge target. Not a good idea when your enemy has a lot of artillery or one of those bastard Priests or Hummels. Concentrate is good but there is such a thing as overkill.

[Lacky]

Originally posted by Big Time Software:

Lacky wrote:

Ah... but if were only that simple

Whoa there! You took my simple idea and expounded on it far beyond the scope I envisioned.

The idea of using Artillery blast permits localized morale reduction, not everything within LOS (that's what global morale does).

When a unit hits certain 'states' (i.e. panic, broken, routed) then the game would trigger off a size dependent artillery round, which does nothing other than affect morale. All terrain mod's would be included in the calculations; this would permits units in good terrain to withstand a slaughter occurring nearby.

The game doesn't crawl to a halt when a player calls in a bunch of artillery. Whereas a player in a 50 vs 50 tank definitely notices a CPU hit. Thus going on this simple observation, a few more morale only artillery routines should not bog the game. The game currently does a lot more with normal artillery (kills, building damage, craters, etc...) the principle of a morale only check should not phase processor speed.

My idea is to dissuade players bunching up an entire company across a 20 meter front and not suffering a morale penalty when friendlies get chewed up in front of their eyes.. As for an elite unit suffering bad morale effects if charging along side a green unit, the bases and spacing are abstract. The units are not orderly marching in a maneuver column, especially while they are charging an enemy position. Even elite units wouldn't know if that scream 10 meters to their left was a person in their unit or a member of the green squad. Even so, with a wave of the magic wand, the code could make Fanatical and Elite units immune to localized morale effects.

[Guest Big Time Software]

Jason, those are good examples of the defending unit becoming Fanatic (spontaneously, which CM does NOT do) and the attackers not being that overwhelmingly large in numbers (4:1 in your first example). It can also be tacked up to experience, perhaps, where the Americans had better morale and training than the attacking NVA. And it also looks like the NVA troops waivered at the "moment of truth", and I have seen such things in CM. Units getting right up to the destination, only to turn right around or go to ground.

Lacky:

Whoa there! You took my simple idea and expounded on it far beyond the scope I envisioned.

We like to do things fully What you are talking about is only a partial answer to the problem. It focuses on the negative and does nothing with the positive. And unlike an artillery round, a unit that is in front of a unit that broke and ran would most likely be too distracted to notice that the follow ups ran away. At least at the moment they did.

Your suggestion is NOT a "stupid" one. However, it is probably too simplistic and might cause balancing problems without the full range of "group mentality" aspects, positive and negative. Still, it is worth thinking about.

Steve

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

Not really disagreeing overall, but I don't think the cause of the situations described was higher U.S. morale or training. This was early in the war, and the U.S. unit involved was fairly "green" and on this occasion, poorly led at the top (though many of the intermediate and lower officers and NCOs were good). The NVA unit was definitely "regular" quality, not VC, and was officered and cadred by veterans of the French war.

As for the NVA "wavering", the U.S. suffered 151 KIA, 121 WIA, and 4 MIA at Albany and Charlie held the field through the first night, except in isolated perimeters at what had been the head and tail of a battalion column. Between 2/3rds and 3/4th of a battalion was definitely overrun, by an overall force only about the same size, when it was caught in a long column and attacked "broadside".

Overall, it was a meeting engagement, and the NVA deployed so much faster they rapidly got the upper hand. The examples I cited stand out, precisely because a few such stands created pockets in which survivors gathered and regrouped. There was not much NVA "wavering" going on, or, rather, there was a boatload more of it going on, on our side.

I am just clarifying the historical case. I am not disagreeing with the general point, that rushes break up when some attackers go to ground or run, while those that remain get shot.

As for odds, I can cite some cases where the presence of a single obvious battlefield psychosis "hero", on an MG and with personal side-arms, stopped large attacks almost singlehanded. The peaks and valleys of battlefield performance are much sharper than many people realize or suspect.

I don't expect simulations to fully reflect this, beyond having random elements in their routines and varied quality levels and such. They have to get the mean or average case more nearly right, and "streaks" or "runs" of random elements have to produce the variations. It is just that most sims have so many small-variance "rolls" or outcomes, that the results cluster about the mean pretty closely. Real combat is just more "scattered" than any sim.

Incidentally, yes CM does not model fanaticismn dynamically, but from the player's standpoint it doesn't make much of a difference. He doesn't know which 25% of his squads are fanatic, if the scenario has they setting, for example. It does not "come out" until that rush, when any other unit would have broken, but this one just plain doesn't.

[Guest Big Time Software]

Jason:

There was not much NVA "wavering" going on, or, rather, there was a boatload more of it going on, on our side.

I meant in that tactical sense, as described by you. In other words, the NVA unit stopped short of overrunning the US position and they got themselves picked off after. Just pointing out that stopping, in hindsight, was probably not a good idea.

As for odds, I can cite some cases where the presence of a single obvious battlefield psychosis "hero", on an MG and with personal side-arms, stopped large attacks almost singlehanded. The peaks and valleys of battlefield performance are much sharper than many people realize or suspect.

The cool thing is this stuff happens in CM, even though there is no special coding for it. Countless examples have been posted to this BBS, for example, of one guy left in a unit doing something that turned the tide of the battle (even if that "hero" didn't make it). I have some fond memories of a few such hardy virtual soldiers in some of my battles.

Steve

[BFCElvis]

This is the kind of discussion that made the board so great during the pre-release of CM. Thanks BTS and everyone for keeping that feeling alive.

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"When they finally put you in the ground..I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down" Elvis Costello

[CavScout]

Originally posted by Pak40:

Artillery will take care of that type of tactic.

This supposes it is available and can be called down on time.

That's like arguing that, for example, just because a game design prevents the Sherman from killing any German tanks that it is OK as you still have the bazooka that can.

Also, any defender who concentrates his forces that much is begging to be outflanked. It just goes to show that every tactic has it's own counter-tactic.

It is a problem for the defender because the attacker is the one who can more effectivly employ it.

[Guest Andrew Hedges]

Cavscout writes:

This supposes it is available and can be called down on time.

Not necessarily; I think the *threat* of artillery is sufficiently serious to inhibit people from attacking in a column-type formation in the first place. The difficulty, IMO, is not so much the actual attack, but maneuvering the bunch of troops to a location where they can execute an attack without getting disrupted before they can get to the jumping off point.

[L4Pilot]

To avoid exhibiting troll like behavior:

I appreciate everyone's comments on this topic, especially BTS's. In posing my original topic as a question, I really DID want to hear a variety of views.

And something that Steve brought up, that I need to reinforce, is that this WAS an extreme case. I haven't seen anything like it in dozens of PBEM games. Abstractions tend to "fray" a little when pushed to the extreme.

I wish Steve's (of BTS) hypothetical example in his first message HAD been the case. If defender fire and friendly fire had caused 30, as he suggested, or 20. or even 10 enemy casualties before being overrun I wouldn't have started this thread. But ZERO? (or 1 or 2?). Well, that's why I wanted people's comments.

So, my conclusion is that, indeed, CM does "reward" this type of attack to the extent that it underrepresented the casualties of an attacking force operated this way. I think Michael emrys put it most cogently. Others are certainly entitled to their opinions.

And Sarge, you're not the bad guy, you just found an effective way to use your forces. Just a little too effective in my opinion.

CM was, is and will be my favorite game for the foreseeable future. Hands down.

And if I want a game to behave differently, I'll just have to write my own.

hehhehhehehheh....

[Guest Big Time Software]

L4Pilot wrote:

I wish Steve's (of BTS) hypothetical example in his first message HAD been the case.

Ah... but note I did not use a squad at close range for the test I can tell you for sure that with few exceptions it would be as good as dead and without much of a chance of killing anything.

If defender fire and friendly fire had caused 30, as he suggested, or 20. or even 10 enemy casualties before being overrun I wouldn't have started this thread. But ZERO? (or 1 or 2?).

With those odds, and under that condition... yes, I'd say this was entirely likely to happen.

So, my conclusion is that, indeed, CM does "reward" this type of attack to the extent that it underrepresented the casualties of an attacking force operated this way.

Hehe... I think you read what you wanted to read My response to Michael's position was this:

-----

Even if one or two members of the squad WERE able to fire, how many rounds do you think they would get off? How many do you think would be well aimed? How many do you think would actually hit their targets? If a unit is suppressed to the point that it is not firing, I would suspect the answers would be few, hardly any, and very likely none.

------

Let's face it, you didn't have a snowball's chance in Hell of doing much more than taking one or two guys out. You were totally, completely, and overwhelmingly assualted at close range from a wide arc of enemy troops (the JPG you posted did not have them bunched up that badly).

So while I agree that an extreme example pushes abstractions to the limit, I also suggest that in this case the end result was entirely accurate. At best you could have hoped for some friendly fire casualties, but that is beyond what CM can do. Your squad, however, was as good as dead from the start of that assault, even if there were friendly fire casualties.

But I think it is a BIG stretch to say that the attacker has some sort of advantage. If you had a propper defense, including even one MG or other weapons team, you could have made him pay DEARLY for that move. But instead you had an isolated squad with no backup from what anybody can tell. Therefore, I strongly insist that this extreme example does not, in any way shape or form, show that bunching units is, overall, a beneficial tactic. If you don't believe me, try playing another TCP/IP game with you on the attack. Do a bunched up assault and see how well you do

Andrew wrote:

Not necessarily; I think the *threat* of artillery is sufficiently serious to inhibit people from attacking in a column-type formation in the first place.

I for one totally agree. Unless it is an end game bum's rush, when you know that the defender has at its disposal, then you would be rather foolish to practice massed infantry tactics on a regular basis. It doesn't take much to really put such a force into a world of hurt. But it does take more than one squad in a foxhole

Steve

[Pak40]

Originally posted by CavScout:

quote:

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Originally posted by Pak40:

Artillery will take care of that type of tactic.

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This supposes it is available and can be called down on time.

True if it is available, but most CM gamers do buy some sort of Artillery. And, yes, it will most likely be called down on time because the defender is dug in and already engaged by your attacking troops. It's not likely he's going to disengage from his fortified position. If he does disengage, then you no longer half to worry about his dense concentration of forces.

Originally posted by CavScout:

That's like arguing that, for example, just because a game design prevents the Sherman from killing any German tanks that it is OK as you still have the bazooka that can.

OK, I didn't counter your point very well, but, my point is that there arn't many people that concentrate a company of men into a platoons area for the sole reason that a well placed artillery strike can tear them apart. Since I havn't come across this problem personally, I don't think it's such a big deal because it's a rare problem.

If I ever do encounter someone who stacks an entire company within 50 meters radius, then I will thank my lucky stars because my artillery will #@$! them up!

[This message has been edited by Pak40 (edited 02-15-2001).]

[Pak40]

Originally posted by CavScout:

Steve that was not my point.

My point is more along the lines of the firepower that concentrating in CM gives that would be limited in Real Life ^TM. There is a problem when one can attack with a mass of platoons, say three deep, and you lose none of you firepower.

XXXX

XXXX

XXXX

XXXX

If that represented an attack, the front 4 should only have the ability to fire effectivly on a defender. In CM the (all other things equal like terrain) entire formation 16 could bring fire on the target.

I have a couple of counter points about the diagram above:

1. Keep in mind that CM abstracts squads in several ways. One way is how it's graphically depicted on the battlefield. CM shows an entire squad dug in one foxhole. In reality that squad would be in several foxholes, with spacing between each one. So, when you stack several squads behind each other (as you did in your diagram above) it should look more staggard, like:

X X X X

_X X X X

X X X X

_X X X X

This provides better fields of fire for everyone, even if tightly packed.

2. Your XXXX example above would only really come into effect on very flat battlefields. A slight raise or dip in elevation will, for the most part, negate the loss in firepower.

An exaggerated drawing of my point below:

__E_

OOOO\

OOOOO\______2______1____

Soldier 1 is shooting over the head of soldier 2 to the target E.

However, I think your point is very valid in the following diagram:

_____M___f___f___f_____________E______

The Machingun (M) is less effective with raking fire because of friendlies (f) between him and the target (E)

[This message has been edited by Pak40 (edited 02-15-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Pak40 (edited 02-15-2001).]

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

Really, it seems to me it is a practical question about implimentation, which perhaps someone from BTS could address. If friendlies counted as "brush" for LOS degradation for firing purposes, all the masking effects ought to result automatically. The height is right. If the distance to block should be more like scattered trees, fine, use that.

Since smoke round have a LOS degradation effect of some height already, and dynamically, not "hard wired" into the map, I'd think main the routines would have to exist for this. But I don't know how hard the change would actually be.

[Jeff Heidman]

Just a comment on the example that Jason used.

The Albany battle in the latter stages of the Ia Drang operation in Vietnam is a little known but extremely interesting occurence.

You basically had a poorly led battalion of American troops strolling through Indian territory in march formation and paying an extreme price for their folly. A compelling example showing that the NVA could and did pull off convincing victories over their US counterparts.

The entire Ia Drang operation makes for very good study of modern light warfare.

Jeff Heidman

[Maximus]

Let's just take a look at this screenshot.

http://members.aol.com/tailwheler/humanwave.jpg

Edited to remove the enlarged picture.

[This message has been edited by Maximus (edited 02-15-2001).]

[lassner.1]

Maximus: Did you post that picture in order to argue for or against the argument that has been going on in this thread (i.e., is this supposed to show a "realistic" assault or an "unrealsitic" one?).

As far as I am concerned the above picture by Maximus is completely understandable, and, IMHO, realistic. These US grunts are taking massive fire and hunkering down while the Germans move in for the kill. Concentration of force, is, after all, one of the fundamental tenets in the assault.

[CavScout]

Originally posted by Pak40:

I have a couple of counter points about the diagram above:

(SNIP)

Also, it aplies more than just infantry. Think of armor defending a road. Imagine a road wide enough for two vehciles defended by two enemy tanks. Imagine another formation of tanks (dozen in number) trying to force the same road with two abrest and six deep. The battle should be rough 2 vrs 2 in terms of firepower. Currently, if LOS was avalible, couldn't all 12 fire on the defenders?