Bring out your dead!

[Swift]

First I like to say that I like CM very much and this is not a topic on "CM models this wrong".

My question regards the numbers of wounded and dead soldiers after every game I play.

I usually get between 50-70% wounded or dead as an average and most guns ant vehicles are dead (well at least when I lose) the forces are certainly not fit for any more duty that day (week, month)

In WW2 did the kind of fight modelled in CM occur regularly and did they amount to the same destruction and carnage or am I just playing gamy and with total disregard regard to human life?

[The Commissar]

While I don't have the statistics to back it up, I don't think the opposing troop commanders would square off for as long as we do in CM, taking as many casualties, unless it was part of a major assault.

Normal meeting engagements and probes really weren't meant to go and knacker the enemy force. They were more like reconnaisance by force patrols, pushed forward to determine where the enemy will fight, where the resistance isn't as strong, etc. The real battles were fought afterwards, when the recon forces came back and reported what the enemy looked like, fought like, what his priorities were, and where it would be best to launch a major assault to knock the enemy out.

Of course, this is in refference to the Western front. Land fighting on the Eastern and Pacific fronts were much different in terms of willingness to take casualties and such.

[Gyrene]

Battles in CM are bloodier than your average WWII battle was (Well, in a purely numerical way, of course.) simply because we tend to be much less careful with the lives of our pixel troops than real commanders were with real lives.

A single battle might drag on for 2 or more hours, but in CM it gets resolved in 30 minutes.

The much superior coordination possible with CM allows much more damage to be applied quicker to the enemy than would be possible in real life.

Gyrene

[Mace]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Swift:

In WW2 did the kind of fight modelled in CM occur regularly and did they amount to the same destruction and carnage or am I just playing gamy and with total disregard regard to human life?<hr></blockquote>

You're just playing gamey with total disregard to human life!

Mace

[Brian]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Mace:

You're just playing gamey with total disregard to human life!

Mace<hr></blockquote>

You owe me a turn!

Now, thats out of the way, I think the reason why so many CM games are so bloody is because of a couple of factors. One is related to the way most people play their forces - they do so with almost complete disregard to casualties and seek, not necessarily the best avenue of attack as the most direct. Further, they do not necessarily make as extensive use of smoke as occurs in real life (you know all about that, hey, Mace? ) nor artillery, most scenarios are woefully short in FO's, so artillery isn't used as extensively as it is in real life (and most players don't purchase sufficient FO's because of their expense).

Then there are a few problems with the way the TacAI handles both the enemy and your own troops. There is no ability to "shoot and scoot", so vehicles and guns will tend to stand and slug it out, rather than firing one or two rounds and then disappearing behind cover or concealment.

Spotting fire is also a bit easier than I believe it was in real life, so the effect is that whereas in real life an AT gun might fire one or two rounds and then fall silent, hiding and waiting another better opportunity, in the game it keeps on shooting on all targets.

while I suspect that a great deal of the tank and AT gunnery is a lot more accurate than it was in real life, going by the numerous accounts I've read of where guns/tanks found it difficult to kill each other due to poor gunnery.

I am given to understand some of these problems will be fixed in CMBB, such as the "shoot and scoot" rule.

However, unless players change their behavior and the game works differently, games will tend to be a great deal bloodier than realistic.

[Louie the Toad]

I think a solution will be found when:

There is more room to maneuver, less frontal, attrition attacking. (I mean maneuvering out of sight of the enemy, on flat terrain)

There is a meaningful connection to a larger operation making it sensible to retreat, to advance regardless of casualties, to hit and run or hold to the last man.

Right now every battle assumes we are going to attack or defend to the last man. And mostly that is what we do.

But I still love this game. Toad

[The Commissar]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Louie the Toad:

I think a solution will be found when:

There is more room to maneuver, less frontal, attrition attacking. (I mean maneuvering out of sight of the enemy, on flat terrain)

There is a meaningful connection to a larger operation making it sensible to retreat, to advance regardless of casualties, to hit and run or hold to the last man.

Right now every battle assumes we are going to attack or defend to the last man. And mostly that is what we do.

But I still love this game. Toad<hr></blockquote>

You forgot to add "and finally, to have a politically-inclined 'casualty limit'". While as I said before, on the East and Pacific front, life was relatively cheap, this wasn't the case in the West.

If a commander is tasked with gaining a position in the Western front, and he encountered stiff resistence, he would retire to his original positons and call in backup/arty/air support so as not to lose too many men. On the Eastern front, Soviet HQ would call and ask "Why do you not control position X, as I have commanded you to do? If you do not completely your mission soon, I fear for your healt comrade major." That last bit is true BTW, I've read in a book with interviews of German generals. They said they interecepted many messeges much like that one, which really shocked them initially.

As restraining as it would be, I would like to see a "minimum casualty allowance" inserted for games. If you pass it, you could still fight on, but you would be losing penalty points or something. In campaigns, it could stall offensives. Quite an interesting feature for a future remake of the Western front, no?

[ 12-07-2001: Message edited by: The Commissar ]</p>

[Thermopylae]

The typical CM scenario represents a hard pressed attack, and in such it was common for, toi quote the manual, "Entire companies and even battalions to dissappear in the fighting".

[Swift]

Thanks all for the posts. I just want to remember all that I don’t want a "This is what’s wrong about CM" thread, mostly because I trust that Steve and Charles know what they are doing. But whit that said I definitely agree that the lack of continued battles let players (read me) disregard casualty’s and that the necessary simplifications of the game world creates some differences from the real deal.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Brian:

Further, they do not necessarily make as extensive use of smoke as occurs in real life nor artillery, <hr></blockquote>

I agree on the smoke bit but how do you mean that lack of artillery use would increase casualties? I usually lose a large proportion of my men to artillery...

What I’m most interested in is CM compared to real life WW2. What where the casualty ratings (average) of similar battles (perhaps attacks or assaults) in WW2 and how frequent where they. I have herd that a soldiers job is 90% waiting for action and 10% wanting to get out of action (the numbers is not scientific or historical in ANY way).

[The Commissar]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Thermopylae:

The typical CM scenario represents a hard pressed attack, and in such it was common for, toi quote the manual, "Entire companies and even battalions to dissappear in the fighting".<hr></blockquote>

You do mean "Attacks" or "Assaults" when you say this, correct? The QB's players usually play are meeting engagements, and hardly qualify as a "hard pressed attack". Even designer scenarios are not always hard pressed (unless they tell you it is in the briefing).

[Brian]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Swift:

I agree on the smoke bit but how do you mean that lack of artillery use would increase casualties? I usually lose a large proportion of my men to artillery...

<hr></blockquote>

I thought it was rather obvious - if you fail to utilise the major killing method on the battlefield - artillery, you will lose a greater proportion of your men to the enemy who would otherwise have been killed or suppressed by your non-existent artillery fire.

[Patgod]

people are playing to win, not to get as many of their men home to their mothers and lovers alive. thus men die, lots of men.

[Tero]

Lets not forget the way the current chain gang, spotting, suppression and evasion modelling affect the outcome of a firefight in CM at basic unit level.

[Ligur]

Lets not overlkook the fact that 99% of the time casualties in CM:BO are intolerable. In Sort Of A Real Life Event Mosf of the time the attacker, losing even 15% of his force, would step back, withdraw, and call arty/planes. Spend two hours waiting for the strike while deploying his 15% damaged battallion and make another try, carefully.

In CM we fight the battles that were fought to the "last man" (casualitues usually pile up, with 30% to 70% of the force dead/injured, win or lose). Something rarely done in "real war" IMHO. But still something that occurred once in a while.

The battles where two infantry/mechanised forces met and exchanged fire from 500-1000 meters for a while before breaking up would be really, really boring. The above I got from reading stories from old German and UK troopers. They maybe encountered the enemy once or twice during the war (the basic trooper spent most of the time just walking from place A to place and the encounters were more or less shooting at more or less unknown forces from extreme ranges. Brararatata. Does not make for a good or enjoyable game, I'd rather have one of the rare situations where an infantry supported tank formation takes on a similar force in extremely short range combat (CM usually has armor fighting at ranges from 100m to 600m, really really close up for what I've read about in WW2, seems to me often tanks fought it out at 1000 - 3800 yards...)

Summa summarum: The "historically realistic" average WW2 infantry and/or tank fight would make for some really ****ty boring gaming.

/me is drunk after quaffing some 12 bottles of beer, sorry if I made no sense

[Swift]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Ligur:

me is drunk after quaffing some 12 bottles of beer, sorry if I made no sense<hr></blockquote>

No, you make sense and thanks for the post. I get the same feeling about the longer range attacks from WW2 movies/documentary’s but as you say how fun is that (unless you are there)? (I have noticed the same behaviour in Bosnia, Chechnya and recent Afghanistan wars to, seeing tanks shooting at large rages against the enemy like artillery with people standing around looking almost bored)

[Frenchy]

For US Divisions, casualties were indeed high. Some divisions, especially those that were engaged in combat from North Africa on, experienced over 100% turnover rate. Going to the other end, the 70th Inf. Division, which entered combat in Dec 1944 in the Alsace-Lorriane region of France, had experienced nearly a 58% casualty rate by the time it was put into reserve after its capture of Saarbrucken in March 1945. In some instances, notably B/275, companies were wiped out in the early battles in January during Operation Nordwind. By going to the Center for Military History Website, you can view each division and it's casualty rate. It's an eye opener.

Certainly high casualties did not occur with each battle, but over the course of months and years the battles took their toll on the troops.

[Doug Beman]

I like this thread, and don't see it as a "what is wrong with CM" rant.

I agree completely with Gyrene when he said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>A single battle might drag on for 2 or more hours, but in CM it gets resolved in 30 minutes.

The much superior coordination possible with CM allows much more damage to be applied quicker to the enemy than would be possible in real life.<hr></blockquote>

I recently built a scenario based upon combat around Singling. My historical source said the battle lasted a few hours; although an easy-reading list of losses wasn't presented it appeared that the US forces lost a couple dozen men and half-dozen Shermans. My CM battle lasts 45 turns and nearly always finishes with both sides down to a platoon's worth of effective infantry and 4 or 5 (often damaged) tanks.

This "much superior coordination" can also be seen in the game FightingSteel. I've played many of the historical scenarios that I've read about; in most cases, the action in the game is over in a fraction of the time, and with far more damage, than occurred in history.

DjB

[Herder]

I remember playing Gary Grigsby's Pacific War, Eastern Front and Western Front games and remarking how many losses the Nazis and Soviets took compared to the Western Front.

Western Front seemed tame by comparison.

On another note, wonder how hard it would be to write an interface that would generate tactical battles in CM from another strategic level program like Western Front?

[Louie the Toad]

I have asked this same question before. What we have now is a modified CM game that involves a referee and two sides. As I recall it is called

CM x 10. It requires a lot of committment of the ref and another player or players since sides can have more than one team member. There are posts somewhere on the forum, maybe two weeks back or more about this.

But in order to get into one of these games I think your daddy must be rich and your momma good look'in.

Roll'in along Toad

[Captain Wacky]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Louie the Toad:

But in order to get into one of these games I think your daddy must be rich and your momma good look'in.

Roll'in along Toad<hr></blockquote>

Actually I think you just have to ask nicely

[ParaBellum]

If you want more realistic casualty rates, try and play with green/conscript troops.

While regular/veteran troops will often suffer heavy losses without retreating, green/conscript troops will panik and run home often after 1 or 2 casualties.

When using low quality troops you have to concentrate much more on covering fire or using smoke to conceal movement. No more "frontal assaults" over 300m of open terrain...

And MG positions are getting quite tough to overcome since they can rout enemy squads pretty quickly.

[Peterk]

Hey Swift,

If the high casualties are getting you down, try playing some of the operations. It'll be more realistic because you will be forced to hold yourself back a bit. If you know that there's another battle coming up and you might not get reinforcements and you'll only have what you have left over from the current game (...and that they might got even get much more ammo) it changes things a bit.

[Kallimakhos]

Well the nice way to put it is that CM models only decisive battles

In the heat it is not unusual to have a frontline battallion reduced to a weak company even during one day... and still the superiors insist calling it a battallion!

[Swift]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Kallimakhos:

... and still the superiors insist calling it a battallion!<hr></blockquote>

Especially if the superior is the 1945 version Adolf Hitler...

[Slapdragon]

Another thing to realize is that most attacks made in QBs are with a 1 to 1.75 ratio in open terrain, something that just was not done in the Western front all that often. Very few division commanders would order an attack with that ratio of forces in anything but terrain that ideal for attacks. When they did (Rapido, Arnhem, etc.( they usually paid for it with losses like you see in CM.

If you wanted to see a more realistic casualty rate, you would want to play the allies with more artillery than they usually get against Germans with fewer tanks, and the Germans retreating instead of getting killed to the last man (they preferred to counter attack at a time of there choosing when Hitler was not mucking things up).