Human Wave attacks in CM2...why am I gonna wan't to do this?

[Guy w/gun]

If human wave attacks are going to be represented in Cm2 scenarios and operations, what factors will encourage there use if historical factors call for them?

In other words, what's going to stop me from using these hordes of infantry in a more intelligent manner? Why will I want to use them in a human wave fashion?

[Hamsters]

Um, because it'll be your only choice. You think the Russians wanted to use this style of warfare? 'Gee, Sergei, let's go back to Revolutionary style warfare, that'll teach those Germans.' If you've got a bunch of Germans held up across an open expanse and you don't have the arty or armor but you have three times the troops, what else would you do?

[Wolfcub]

i used that alot in my close combat games ,and well i didnt really have any men left after

[Guy w/gun]

How will that be my only choice? What if I attempt use my masses of low grade poorly out fitted troops in a more tacticaly sound manner?

A very simplified example: Use only half in an all out rush as a diversion, the other half to flank while the Germans are busy cutting through the wave.

What's going to stop me from using the same tactics I do now in CM2 as the Russians? How are my Soviet troops going to differ from the large number of conscript troops that can be called upon in a CM battle? I don't use human waves with them.

[Blenheim]

"Hei, comrade Dmitri, those hated teutonic imperialists have a lot of big, ugly, dark guns... are you sure that when the general told you THAT?"

"Da, comrade Ivanov! Comrade Zhukov said run and hit tactic, not hit and run"

"You mean run across this flat part of the motherland in front of those big Ostwind thinguies used in a trully gamey way?"

"Da comrade. By the way, comrade Beria in Moscova maybe is interested in your tactical views... asking stupid questions about war, about how we won the revolutionary war, could mean that you are kind of petit burgueois !!"

"Well, comrade Ivanov... I'll suggest to attack now..."

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"We do not retreat... we advance to the back of the formation..." (brave new soldier)

[Blenheim]

( and please you grognards... I know that NKVD guys were abolished before our favourite AA thinguie came to the field...)

[Guy w/gun]

Bump 2A5

[Kitty]

Sighs and waits for Babs, et al.

Kitty

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Hamsters at War!

Chicks With Tanks

Lorak's FTX

"I'd rather the Bees than your Mask of Shame." - Stuka

The McNoldy Group

[Tiger]

It is kind of confusing by what you mean by "If human wave attacks are going to be represented". Do you mean that there's going to be some special representation or that charging your units across open ground is going to be made possible (you can do that now in CM).

There will be absolutely nothing to make someone use human wave attacks if they do not wish to, however if you playing the Red Army have an inordinate amount of troops available (i.e. you bought alot of cheap troops) I can see it happening quite naturally. One thing though, these tactics require a large number of cheap troops to do, so I do not see BTS making hordes of elite infantry available to the Red Army in a cheap manner which could be used like this that would upset game balance.

So no there's nothing that would make someone use human wave attacks if they do not want to unless you write a special order for "wave attack" which is probably unecessary, no more than a special order to stop people from rushing tiger tanks with jeeps or greyhounds in CM.

-John

[Michael Dorosh]

Cross of Iron and other eastern front tactical games have featured special rules exactly contradictory to what Tiger discusses; don't see why not include it in CM2. Perhaps a fanatacism benefit for Russian troops committed to a Human Wave attack. Squad Leader gave the Russians special "Berserk" benefits (before extending them to all nationalities in ASL). SL's research doesn't always mirror CM's though (smoke grenade use by infantry, for example), so it will be interesting to see how Steve and Co. treat this.

Personally, I like that they are keeping mum on all this stuff. I look forward to being pleasantly surprised by CM2.

15 man squads will be an interesting unit to play with on its own. If their firepower is sufficiently low, there will be an incentive for a good player (as existed historically) to get in close and use their greater numbers in close combat.

Will be nice to give the Germans a taste of SMG squads, too.

[Tiger]

"Perhaps a fanatacism benefit for Russian troops committed to a Human Wave attack. Squad Leader gave the Russians special "Berserk" benefits (before extending them to all nationalities in ASL)."

A big aspect of BTS's design philosophy is realism and I don't think you can say certain Soviet infantry were more fanatical than any other troops of their own army any other nation, excepting specially trained troops like the Guards divisions or the SS for example; something the "Soviet wave attacking troops" certainly were not. Quite the contrary they were used in this manner because they were expendable/worthless, many were not even given weapons. Same thing with "beserking" troops. These are nationality modifiers for these games designed to force people use their troops a certain way. It's the 'old' carrot on a stick method. Whether or not BTS needs to insert nationality modifiers or special nationality traits is something that has been discussed before. My argument is that if you make available quantities of cheap Soviet troops that were historically available, you will naturally see human wave attacks taking place with no need for special perks for Soviet units to get the player to use them like this. If BTS does there job right then historical use of your units whichever side you are on should offer the most success.

-John

[Guest Michael emrys]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Squad Leader gave the Russians special "Berserk" benefits (before extending them to all nationalities in ASL).

Hmmm. It's been a while, but AIR other nationalities in SL besides just the Sovs could go berserk. I think the probablities varied from nation to nation though. I'm sure that the SS did it.

Michael

[Guest Michael emrys]

Originally posted by Guy w/gun:

If human wave attacks are going to be represented in Cm2 scenarios and operations, what factors will encourage there use if historical factors call for them?

In other words, what's going to stop me from using these hordes of infantry in a more intelligent manner? Why will I want to use them in a human wave fashion?

I'll throw in my 2¢ worth here, though like the rest I'm only speculating.

Some things that might encourage you to use human wave attacks might be:

• Poor long range firepower for your rifle squads.

• Very long command pauses before your units respond to commands. This is both realistic due to poor training of conscripts early in the war and shortage of junior officers. It would have the effect of making you plan very long range movement because otherwise your troops would just sit around not doing much of anything beside taking casualties. This in turn forces fairly rigid tactics on the player.

• Poor initiative among your squads. This makes it more important to keep them within command radius of their leaders, or you will have great difficulty getting them to do anything useful. This means there is more pressure for you to keep them bunched up than in CM1.

Voila! Human wave attacks.

Of course, BTS may do it entirely differently.

Michael

[Guy w/gun]

What I originally meant was that if scenarios are going to be created where historically the Russians used human wave attacks, what's going to stop me from NOT using my troops this way. What if I use them more like I use inf in CM? Taking advantage of the large numbers, but not just throwing them out to be mowed down.

Michael answered my question pretty well, if BTS does indeed implement these ideas, or atleast similar ones, when using masses of low grade Soviet infantry.

[Guy w/gun]

I shall bump for a second time!!!

[Forever Babra]

Originally posted by Kitty:

Sighs and waits for Babs, et al.

I got nuthin.

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"Za Rodentia!"

[Keith]

Say, for instance, that you are the Russian player and your troops are mostly conscripts with poor quality leaders. Further, you are the attacker and have a great deal of infantry of which a certain percentage is "fanatic" in game terms. I would imagine that under these circumstances that it could be expedient and indeed profitible to use human wave attacks as a way to make up for the poor quaility of your troops. Even more so if there is an additional penalty to take into account the fact that your troops most likey do not have radios, therefore increasing the command delay further. Such was the realities of the Russian situation during the early war. If the game does justice to these realities then the Russian player would be almost forced to use historic tactics.

[Hamsters]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

I'll throw in my 2¢ worth here, though like the rest I'm only speculating.

Some things that might encourage you to use human wave attacks might be:

• Poor long range firepower for your rifle squads.

• Very long command pauses before your units respond to commands. This is both realistic due to poor training of conscripts early in the war and shortage of junior officers. It would have the effect of making you plan very long range movement because otherwise your troops would just sit around not doing much of anything beside taking casualties. This in turn forces fairly rigid tactics on the player.

• Poor initiative among your squads. This makes it more important to keep them within command radius of their leaders, or you will have great difficulty getting them to do anything useful. This means there is more pressure for you to keep them bunched up than in CM1.

Voila! Human wave attacks.

Of course, BTS may do it entirely differently.

Michael

When I said it was your only choice, by the way, this is what I meant. It was not meant that the Russians would only use human waves in any battle rather they would be forced to in some situations because it was the only way they could achieve their goals given their resources and the situation.

[Grisha]

Human wave attack. What a bad term for frontal assaults. Incidently, make the entire enemy side a fortified position complete with trenches and pillboxes, and one will have no choice but to commit to a frontal assault.

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Best regards,

Greg Leon Guerrero

[Romanov]

One of the ways you could simulate the situations that forced the russian commanders to use human wave attacks is to provide lots of squads of conscript troops and only provide something like 1/10th of the platoon commanders needed, and the platoon leaders you have also should be baseline (no skill bonuses). On top of that you significantly lower the ranged combat value of your troops (to reflect lack of equipment that is worse than even a conscript). This forces you to have long command delays and troops that have to get really close to be effective, thusly you need to use your troops en masse to ensure enough survive to do any damage once they get to the enemy. The other thing you would have to do is provide morale bonuses for massed troops. With the morale bonus you would be forced to charge as one big mass to gain the most morale bonus (due to the low morale of the troops this would be the only way to keep them from breaking) and not be able to split your forces in two (as the morale bonus would vary depending on how many men are within a small radius). If you split your forces both sections would be lost when they started getting hit hard and their ranks started to thin slightly.

In the current version of CM you are able to take masses of conscript troops and make pincer type attacks using non-human wave tactics. This is enabled because you can keep each individual unit under C&C fairly easily and even though the troops are not as skilled as regulars or vets, they at least have the potential for full firepower at range, and numbers there can make a difference. If CM was given a morale bonus for massed troops (based on numbers of troops) and you were given a bunch of conscript platoons that were missing platoon leaders you would be forced to make mass frontal assaults just to keep your men from breaking and running under superior ranged firepower.

[JoePrivate]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

I'll throw in my 2¢ worth here, though like the rest I'm only speculating.

Some things that might encourage you to use human wave attacks might be:

• Poor long range firepower for your rifle squads.

• Very long command pauses before your units respond to commands. This is both realistic due to poor training of conscripts early in the war and shortage of junior officers. It would have the effect of making you plan very long range movement because otherwise your troops would just sit around not doing much of anything beside taking casualties. This in turn forces fairly rigid tactics on the player.

• Poor initiative among your squads. This makes it more important to keep them within command radius of their leaders, or you will have great difficulty getting them to do anything useful. This means there is more pressure for you to keep them bunched up than in CM1.

Voila! Human wave attacks.

Of course, BTS may do it entirely differently.

Michael

Just had an idea to add to your points, in addition to a long command delay these troops could also be further restricted by allowing one waypoint only, to simulate a complete lack of tactical training and finesse. That may produce a human wave style attack!

[Warmaker]

Can't wait to play as the Germans again in anticipation of these Human wave attacks. Barbwire, mortars, and MG34/42 fire. Need I say more? Keep 'em coming at me, baby!

Seriously, after the war Allied interviews with German veterans of the Ostfront all indicated that they were appalled by such waste of human life by the Red Army. Tons of brave Russians could be laid flat (and dead) by a failed assault and the "highly capable" officer corps of the Red Army would send in repeated assaults even if they were all shattered the same way as the first. Whether we gamers think this is wise or not is a different question, this is what happened in real life. Of course the Red Army performed much better when the war was in their favor and Germany was stretched past its limits. Remember, 'ol Stalin held purges of the officer corps prior to WWII if he was at the least way paranoid about them. Keep warm somehow in Siberia if you haven't been shot in the head.

Also, the Red Army used these wave tactics in armor too, esp. early in the war. For example, it wasn't quite surprising for a very small handful of Tigers having to stand off and stem a huge mass of T-34s rushing their way. Long range accuracy of the Russian tanks was something to be desired so point blank shots were their best chances, especially with highly unskilled crews. German panzer crew training was excellent and weapons like the 75mm/88's exacted heavy losses on Russian armor. Of course the Russians could absorb these losses while Germany in a two front war simply couldn't.

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"Uncommon valor was a common virtue"-Adm.Chester Nimitz of the Marines on Iwo Jima

[This message has been edited by Warmaker (edited 03-19-2001).]

[M Hofbauer]

With CM's abstraction of infantry into squad markers, and the surprising immunity of these markers even to point blank or sweeping fire, human wave attacks will nebver be the same again...because they will actually make a rather sound tactic now.

warmaker,

according to "killmore" (and apparently despite all the clear historic evidence) russian human wave attacks never happened after 1941....!

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"Me tank is still alive me churchill's crew must be laughing there heads off." (GAZ_NZ)

[Warmaker]

M Haufbauer, I didn't specify I guess. I was going to refer to the Soviet technique at the time, not so much as Human waves in the mid-late war timeline. They would continuously pound away at strongly held German positions and be repulsed with heavy losses each and every single time. Hell, I'm sure some of the Germans themselves were wondering why, but as long as there were more of them laying dead then it didn't matter.

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"Uncommon valor was a common virtue"-Adm.Chester Nimitz of the Marines on Iwo Jima

[Jarmo]

I think the leadership structure is one thing that will differ from other nationalities. Maybe just having a company HQ, but not platoon HQ's. Or even having just the battallion HQ.

Soviets had a huge shortage of officers, at least in the beginning stages of war.

I believe trying to use conscripts without HQ's in any "intelligent" manner would lead to even greater disaster than what follows from a massed charge.