Thin vehicle recon

[Guest Michael emrys]

Originally posted by Blackhorse:

...I believe a way to create scouts in the context of CM is to use platoon HQ units as the scouts. Mind you, I'm not talking about taking an infantry platoon's HQ, but rather having a scenario designer place independent platoon HQ units as the scout elements. These independent platoons would have no subordinates.

This concept accomplishes several things.

First, it provides a unit with its own inherent morale and would make scouts more durbale in the morale arena.

Interesting approach. I think I like it.

Second, it would make the scout units smaller than a half squad and would give scouts special sighting and call for fire abilities that normal infantry do not have.

How do you figure that? Maybe I have missed something (entirely possible), but I don't recall HQs having any additional spotting abilities. The only fire call they can do is for on-board mortars within their command radii, right? So unless you bring along either a mortar team or an FO...?

Third, it allows some of the smaller vehicles to transport the scout unit and could replicate some of the vehicle crew dismounting.

I might give something like this a try just to see if it works.

Michael

[Blackhorse]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

I don't recall HQs having any additional spotting abilities. The only fire call they can do is for on-board mortars within their command radii, right? So unless you bring along either a mortar team or an FO...?

Michael

Yep, that's what I was referring to.

[Terence]

Minor Spoiler: No Rest #2 (I think)

In one of Patrick Ware's excellent battles, the scenario starts with a recon team on scene.

The craggy hills and tangled woods of the Normandy coast are shrouded in fog. Distant gunfire echoes. A lone jeep tucked away behind a house idles, the driver waiting nervously.

Up the hill is the scouting team: an FO team with no ammo.

I thought it was brilliant. On turn 2, the US force arrives all mixed up in trucks after racing out to the area.

[This message has been edited by Terence (edited 03-13-2001).]

[Dirtweasle]

Seems to be likely place to get an answer on this; What were the T-8 Recon tracks and M3A1 scout cars used for? Were they not used as their names lead me to believe? I'm playing with putting together a medium sized scenario depicting a aromed recon / scouting action, and thought I should include these these vehicles. I liked the look of a MG Jeep leading a bit with a dismounted team nearby and the M3A1 with half squads/teams, the platoon leader in another M3A1, and a Jeep with a 60mm in it backed up by a couple of Stuarts and the odd M8 HMC thrown in.

From the posts I've read, and other sources this seems pretty much OK but I am wondering about those M3A1 scout cars. Are they out-of-place, or not accurate, and were those T-8 tracks found in this sort of mix?

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

First, there is no "R" in my last name. Thank you.

Second, I think everyone knows that there are beer&pretzel CMers (whom I hereafter refer to, for no good reason, as "jocks", and there are grogs (whom I hereafter refer to, for no good reason, as "geeks").

But the impression that disputes about "gaminess" are between these factions is in error. It is a purely intermural sport of the geeks, which occasionally confuses the jock bystanders.

Some of whom may be vaguely offended, or at least amused, or occasionally even confused, by the geek habit of refering to typical jock behaviors as a form of insult to other geeks. That is from high school and if you haven't figured it out by now, you never will.

Usually, the jocks have merry fun with one another, and their drunken idea of a good CM game is just what the previous fellow said. They do not, however, taunt one another with cries of "gamey", and do not mind when so called. They prefer more direct disparagments of the abilities, anatomy, and ancestry of their opponents, and generally enjoy the alternate crowing over victories and self-deprecation over defeats at least as much as the beer and explosions.

And most geeks, in my experience, do not mind this in the least. And drink as heartily. The less said about their wives the better. Many jocks do not quite understand it, but true grog-hood is as drunken a revel as their own, just with someone else's twisted sense of such things. "This is your master's thesis on acid", if that registers at all.

A geek may occasionally slip and call a jock's play "gamey", but it is quite enough to hear a "eh, what?" instead of an impassioned defense of the historical nature of the practice involved, to realize the mistake. Then nuts or pretzels are poured into a bowl and a beer is opened, and all is right with the world. Both types generally find each other highly amusing, and the occasion perfectly enjoyable.

But the real use of such cries is in intermural disputes among the grog-geeks. The jocks have nothing to do with it, except for the high school habit hinted at above. You can always tell. Geeks always maintain that things happened the way this particular fellow thinks, not the way the *next geek* thinks.

And they always use as punctuation marks for such claims, epithets like "gamey".

Do not be misled. Nothing is being said to, or about, jocks and the beer-n-pretzels manner of playing, in these cases. They are just saying "and your mother smelled of elderberries" to the next geek they are arguing with. So much for sorting out the players.

Two intermural geek affairs are, however, still outstanding. First, one fellow took a rival view of the high losses of CM fights, and suggested that slow daily attrition was the real war, not the brief intense smashes of CM. And that therefore, tactics that get small units killed could not be afforded. The implicit assumption is that the scale of opposition in CM fights is usually present, but the opposing sides are not smashing into each other as forcefully.

There are periods in the war when this is probably an accurate picture. Normany, Hurtgen and Metz, and parts of the Bulge fighting (in January in particular). But these are intense battle episodes.

My point was rather different. I trace the high losses in CM fights to the nearly even odds, not to players predisposed to get all their men killed, because they are just pixels and there is only one hour's fight. Some of both. But most one hour's fights in WW II did not result in anything like CM casualties, and it wasn't because the commanders didn't press. Often the defeated side's loss was total, through surrender. The reason was the fights were not close.

I've explained this before. You have to imagine the following CM "scenarios".

A German infantry battalion forms up for a "attack" through a wooded area, with a village at the other end. The U.S. is barely on the map yet. The Germans begin to move. Then 12 artillery batteries fire 2500 shells unto the Germans and into the ground between the two sides after the German pull back. Not much of a CM scenario.

Or, a U.S column of 50 AFVs and 50 halftracks runs into a blocking position with 10 StuG and an infantry company. Not satisfied with the local odds, they wait half an hour and 36 fighter-bombers plaster the German position.

Or, 65 German infantry are dug in on a hill outside a village. They have 8-10 fausts as AT weapons. 10 U.S. tanks pull up 400 yards away and blast away for 20 minutes. Then an infantry company rushes forward - and takes 40 prisoners, most of them wounded.

Or, a company of 15 U.S. tanks is trying to climb a muddy slope, with no opposition in sight. A battery of hidden PAK open fire on them from 2 miles away and KO half of the vehicles. A smoke barrage enables the rest to withdraw. The PAK are never found.

Or, to relieve a threatened bridge position, a company of U.S tanks drives along a narrow river road through a gorge, and tries to climb up out of it onto a plateau. They have a company of infantry in halftracks with them, total ~30 vehicles. Unknown to them, the ridgeline they are driving up onto is occupied by 30 Panther and 40 Pz IV tanks and a battalion of panzergrenadiers. The forward third of the U.S column is shot to pieces and the rest withdraw.

Those sorts of fights do not involve much danger to the side with the locally superior force. And most of the fighting in WW II was like that, for one side or the other. The match ups were not "fair" at all. One side won, and the other lost, for reasons having everything to do with what forces came to the fight, not how they were employed. But such occasions are of little tactical gaming interest.

The typical unit in WW II was in *close* fights, with high causalties to either or both sides, on a few occasions throughout the war. Many units - most in losing armies - also faced one occasion in which overwhelming force was arrayed against them. Most units were in many, many fights in which their side had all the cards - because a bigger portion of their army is in those, than the portion of the losing side's army present at the same fight.

But what this means is that the average or expected day's action, was a cakewalk compared to a CM game. Only light opposition was expected, because that is mostly what was encountered. It is a lot easier to arrange some light opposition. And often, it happens without being arranged, just collision style, when whole attacking units hit small portions of outnumbered defending ones.

Sometimes an attacking force would no beforehand this would not be the case, when a close battle occurred. Then it would be a so called "set-piece attack", with heavy support meant to approximate the lopsided case as much as possible. And care would be used in approaches in such cases.

But most close battles occurred without both sides, and often without either side, knowing beforehand the force match-up would be close. And in those situations, the dispositions and practices of e.g. the attacking side, would not be a model of great care. If great care were always used, the only effect would be no movement.

Attackers therefore used tactics that promised to quickly overwhelm *light* opposition, if possible without endangering large parts of the main force if something more serious was "hit". That was the point on my previous post about recon in force. Recon in force is not done with 4 men or a combat patrol. It is done with the forward elements of a column, kampgruppe-team-task force whatever it is called.

On the subject of simulating small patrols, I point out to the fellow who thought of HQs for this, that they do not in fact have the ability to call for fire. Only FOs do. Advanced teams from infantry formations should use just that, teams = 1/2 squads walking head of the infantry. Their lack of morale "robustness" is quite accurate. It was not their job to do more than locate some enemy and then extricate themselves if possible.

The situation the other fellow is thinking of, is more like the LRRP (long range recon patrol or "lerp")- a penetration of enemy lines by a small group to gather info. That is *not* synonymous with "recon". When it was done, it was usually a small party from a recon platoon or intelligence officer's section. It doesn't really have any place in CM. They would be the only force on the map. Get a different game.

Combat patrols do, however, have a place in CM. Ordinary infantry sent them out regularly, and they ran into each other regularly, in what would be small CM meeting engagements. To make one, take a platoon and assign one of its squads to the company CO as his own ad-hoc platoon. (Sometimes 2). A sniper is optional. Use a commander with good morale and stealth. This is a common way of running a "point" platoon, which is really just a combat patrol that is closely supported by the rest of the company.

Next, one last grog insists that things can be done with a lone jeep that did not really happen in the real show. I do not doubt it. I do doubt that such antics have any point, or "work", in CM. And not because you can "all stay on hide", but because it costs nothing to burn the sucker without revealing anything of consequence. Just have a decent fire plan and use the appropriate weapon, and relocate it afterward, if you like.

Last, one more fellow noted that you can't have a decent fire plan in the full blown realistic sense, because the flanking units are missing. This is true to a point. You do not get direct fire coming into sector on the edges. You also do not have to dedicate your own assets to fire leaving your sector to help units on your flanks. This does marginally increase vunerability along the map edges. But attacks there, by infantry in at least, are risky, because anyone who panicks exits the map.

This is mostly a problem with front-armored tanks, turning inward from an edge and thus achieving more flank protection than they possibly could. But the same tactic is used behind buildings, hills, bocage, or bodies of woods. It is not like the effect the edges produce artificially, is not available perfectly honestly in he middle of the map, when such features are present.

In any event, it was a different point than my own. It is perfectly feasible to arrange a decent fire plan for your own sector in CM. Yes, that is less than the full blown real deal with sectors tied into one another tighter than a certain aquatic fowl's anatomy.

One point about such plans can still be mentioned here. It is better to take out a light vehicle on recon, with a shooter that is not right in front of it. That is, tell the scouting commander where some asset is, not in the place he was trying to look, but elsewhere. When he scouts over on the same side, use a reveal asset if it hasn't moved, or if it has (better), then take that one out from the first side again.

The reason this works better is two-fold. One, it denies the enemy the information he wanted, even if it does give him some. And two, the "point's" supporting overwatch is more likely to be able to see a shooter right in front of the point, than one off on the other flank at some crazy angle.

I hope this is useful.

[Priest]

Hey folks it is not what you use to screen your forces it is how you use it. Depending on the size and composition of your forces you need to select a portion of them to be the forward element. This screening force is what we are talking about. As CO whatever you pick to be this screening force is up to you. It could be a tank it could be a jeep it could be a sharpshooter it could be a general it could be a lot of things. Some wise choices others not. The "gameyness" comes into play when the player (CO) just throws them to wolves with little or no disregard for the units in the screening force turning them into a bait force or suicide force. This is gamey because it takes advantage of the games limitations (ie single battle with little or no effect in the aftermath and for later battles). Jeeps were used in recon but they were not driven toward Berlin in a straight line with a big sign that says

HEY MR. 88 Free Shot Here!!!

in German

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Sir are you sure you want to go to red alert...it would mean changing the bulb

-Kryton of Red Dwarf

[This message has been edited by Priest (edited 03-13-2001).]

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

Incidentally, on the grog subject of TDs, they were usually employed in platoons of 4 vehicles, so that was quite accurate. Sometimes companies of 12. Units this size did sometimes work with still larger forces, like a company of tanks or infantry. But they usually did not split and mix with tanks in smaller packets than a platoon. (Occasionally a 2-TD "section"). And they had their own M-8s, plus M-20s or jeeps, as recon for the TDs - the 4th company of the TD battalion.

A 5th company had HMC-75mm SPA (the other kind of "M8" in CM terms, on the armor screen), which could be used for HE fire support of infantry, or fired indirect in a battery to take out enemy towed anti-tank guns. There was nothing in the least unhistorical about the force mix described earlier.

For those interested in such things, notice that the formation of the TD battalions and the cavalry battalions were in some respects similar, with inverse "roles". The cavalry had one company of Stuarts, as their heavier vehicles - the TD battalion had one company of armored cars and jeeps as their lighter vehicles. The TD battalion had 3 companies of the TDs themselves as their main force - the cavalry battalion had 3 troops of armored cars and jeeps as their main force. In both, there was a 5th company of 75mm SPA.

Both unit types were used independently in their own force mix at different levels, from battalion down to platoon. Those were then mixed with other force types for the task at hand. So a tank column (of Shermans and Stuarts) might have a TD platoon attached, or a TD company might support an infantry battalion, or a cavalry troop lead an armored infantry battalion task force.

Engineers were mixed and matched in the same way, as was light AA (which had 40mm Bofors and quad .50 cals, towed or half-track mounted in both cases). 1/5-1/4 of the battalions in typical U.S. divisions were these "support" weapon types, and they operated in groups of any size from platoon up, in support of the other arms. Another 1/5-1/4 were the artillery battalions. By formation type, only 60% of an infantry division was infantry, and armored divisions were 25% each armor and armored-infantry (in halftracks).

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

The scout cars originally equipped the armored cavalry battalions, in North Africa for instance. The troops were generally not very pleased with their off-road movement abilities, reliability, and quickness. Jeeps had not been part of the original TOE. They were a field adaptation. The troops prefer them because they were faster, turned in a much narrower circle, and bogged less often crossing fields. They also found them more comfortable on long road drives. So most units had switched over to jeeps for the French campaign.

M-20s were another alternative to the scout jeep, and more of them were available later in the war to equipped the rest of the cavalry troop. A cavalry platoon was built around a single M-8 which acted as overwatch and radio. Then they usually had 2 jeeps, one of them carrying a 60mm mortar, which the men prized because it let them shoot up small enemy forces (the common small roadblock for example) without exposing their vehicles.

Three of those sections, plus a platoon of 5 Stuarts, makes the typical cavalry maneuver element. They would also have 2 M8MGC (75mm SPA) if they were on the attack, and 75mm FO artillery support instead when screening or defending (the same guns, firing indirect as a battery). You can add one infantry platoon to that size force and just manage to carry them on the backs of the Stuarts and M-8s, split into teams. That let's you do dismounted scouting work. Usually you'd have just one of the other vehicle type, jeep or scout car or M-20, but you could realistically take 3 jeeps and 3 of another type.

Thus, in detail -

5 Stuart

3 M-8 armored car

6 Jeep, Jeep-MG, M3 Scout Car, or M-20

2 M8-HMC -or- 1x75mm FO

1 infantry platoon

1-3 60mm mortars

1-3 zook team

1-3 sharpshooter

Runs ~1200 pts or so. That is called a cavalry troop, aka a company. It has around 30 MGs and 10 light guns, but it does not have the infantry depth to tangle up close with reinforced companies, nor the anti-tank ability to fight tank platoons. A force that size working with a battalion, or about 1/3rd of it selected out of that mix in the case of a small company team, would commonly work with heavier combat elements (TDs, armor, infantry). It would operate alone only in pursuit situations, or screening defense roles, patrolling, and such.

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

I see that some are under the mistaken impression that the scouting cavalry vehicles never exposed themselves or attacked with any recklessness. The cure for this impression is the following historical account of one such unit in a "pursuit" situation.

http://www.acu.edu/academics/history/12ad/92arsx/dtroop.htm

They most certainly did sometimes drive anatomy to the wall through or around everything in front of them. At other times, sure they were more careful, or were engaged defensive screening work.

[Incoming]

Supreme Spewer of Gurlged Crap. Get a life. This is rediculous.

[Bullethead]

The_Capt said:

I think the two views mentioned by Mr. Bullethead and supported by others are too simplistic. It isn't a question of top-down or bottom up, it is a question of historical versus game play.

Hehehe, you said exactly the same thing I did, only in a more amusing way . It is a difference in play styles that lies at the root of the "gamey recon" argument, and these different play styles stem from the different attitudes the players take into the game. I was just saying where I think these attitudes come from.

In my opinion some members of this community wish to pursue CM as a historical simulator. I think this is an empty goal and unattainable. And I can sight dozens of problems between the game and reality..BUT it doesn't make it any less fun nor negate their attempt to try.

Well, considering CM was designed and built to be a historically accurate simulation of WW2 tactical combat, I couldn't disagree more that trying to use the game as such is an "empty" or "unattainable" goal. CM does this quite well, in fact. Sure, it has problems, and I point them out just as much as anybody. Why? To hopefully get BTS to change them now or in the future, to make the game even more historically accurate. But it's not like CM is a total failure of BTS' intent, as you seem to imply here

The rest of us (and I group myself)look at CM as a game and will use everything we can in the game to win. So if it is a coy of flamethowers and your opponent is OK with it, PLAY ON!

Hell, even I, despite my preference for historical correctness, do stuff like this from time to time. CM is after all my toy, and I can play with it however I want. I've made scenarios where the object is to race ACs to a flag at the far end of a narrow map through various obstacles and while shooting at each other. And a few other totally non-serious things. I think you might like them. If interested, drop me an e and I'll shoot 'em to you.

Problems and conflict arise when one camp bumps into the other.

Exactly. Ground rules are essential before you start the game. And one of the sources of argument is that different players have different defaults in the absence of ground rules. Basically, guys like me know that CM is intended to create historical engagements, so we default to historical OOBs and tactics. This is because we assume everybody else knows that CM is all about historical simulation (it's only posted all over the BTS site, the manual, and this forum ), and thus expects that kind of fight, so it would be ungentlemanly to spring "gamey" RTS-like stuff on the other guy without his consent. And our howls of protest when such is done to us are composed at least in part of remorse at being improperly equipped for a non-realistic game ourselves. You'd be surprised at how much us "historically correct" types like to let our hair down if given advanced warning.

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-Bullethead

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

[This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 03-13-2001).]

[von Lucke]

Originally posted by Bullethead:

...This is because we assume everybody else knows that CM is all about historical simulation (it's only posted all over the BTS site, the manual, and this forum ), and thus expects that kind of fight, so it would be ungentlemanly to spring "gamey" RTS-like stuff on the other guy without his consent. And our howls of protest when such is done to us are composed at least in part of remorse at being improperly equipped for a non-realistic game ourselves. You'd be surprised at how much us "historically correct" types like to let our hair down if given advanced warning.

Quite so. I have no problem in fighting the "gamey" fight, so long as I'm given fair warning. It's another thing to bring a German rifle company backed up by a platoon of MkIV's, only to find your opponent has an American Glider company backed up by British Churchills, Wasps, and 3in mortars!

[aka_tom_w]

bump

[Holman]

Jason, I find your posts very well thought-out and informative. They almost always add to my CM experience by filling in knowledge gaps and detailing the bigger picture. (Have you written a book, by any chance?)

Balance of forces is one of CM's concessions to entertainment (as opposed to history). But I wonder if, with more complex victory conditions and creative scenario design, we might actually be able to have fun with some of the situations you describe.

Martyr

[DeadHorse]

Stop Beating Me.

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You ain't smelled nothing until you smelled a Dead Horse rotting in the sun. -- Somebody

[Michael Dorosh]

I'll just add here what I added elsewhere - anyone selecting the Quick Battle option is opting for gameplay from the start. Since the game does not limit how one uses those forces, nor punish all examples of historically incorrect usage, cries of "gamey" are pretty much pointless, and one has to accept these things as "reality."

Anyone who doesn't like it is has three choices - wait for improved versions of CM (or offerings by other manufacturers), play QBs etc with people of their own views on "historical" vs "gamey" play, or else restrict their play to historically based scenarios.

An accurately crafted historical battle or operation should, in theory, prevent "gamey" tactics, and should hopefully take into account the intended role of the units involved. For example, if one were to simulate an infantry company assault, and in the course of the research for designing that scenario read that the company commander's jeep was used for casualty evacuation, the scenario designer would be wise not to include a jeep in the order of battle at all.

The comment that recon is done before a CM game starts is accurate - yet we as players only get part of the benefit of that. We see far more of the terrain than a historical commander would, which compensates for the fact that we have no idea what the enemy has (except, in QBs, a vague idea of the number of points he has spent).

But Jason's point about true historical gameplay being boring is apt. Even consider the typical infantry attack - speaking from the Canadian perspective, an infantry battalion attacked two companies up and two back. Recce elements were long gone from the field. Supporting fire was laid down beforehand, and when H Hour came, it was simply a matter of going forward until the enemy shot at you. Nothing elegant - or fun (for some) - about it.