The Modern Era

[Chad Harrison]

I dont think that the CM model would fit into modern combat. In most conflicts the battle would be completely one sided {post 80's atleast}. Imagine a QB for the gulf war? Iraq buys 10 conscript T70's and Allies buy 3 veteran abrams with apache support. There would be an inbalance there; especially when your abrams hit 9 out of 10 times at 1000's of meters.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Chad Harrison:

Iraq buys 10 conscript T70's and Allies buy 3 veteran abrams with apache support.

And if you wanted to balance the things somewhat, you could give Iraq some T-72's as well.

[MikeyD]

Flamingknives writes:

"It would be a bit more brutal though - first round kills happening most of the time"

Don't be too sure about that first round kill stuff. T-54 had bow armor 100mm at 60 degrees. the 90mm gun of the M47/M48/Pzj Kanone wouldn't have easily penetrated it, and the low velocity 90mm HE wasn't too accurate. And the M60A1 and Chieftain could've taken frontal hits from the T-62's 115mm gun. And there's the T-64 tank with the world's first composite armor bow.

Sounds like a modern (1970s) war game would have just as much nail biting 'death clock' tension as CMBB!

[flamingknives]

OK, first round hits then.

Would make the battlefield unpleasant for anything smaller than an MBT.

[Redwolf]

A modern game very close to CM is probably not fun to play, if you define modern as 1975+.

In the TacOps multiplayer sessions we burn through a lot of vehicles in very short time. They are just dying like flies. Reasons:

- ICM/DPICM artillery

- first-shot hit probablity

- ATGM-armed infantry carriers

- ATGM-armed helicopters

- airplanes which can be directed reasonably precise and have cluster bombs with HEAT bomblets

You cannot play what we do in a true CM-style system. No player could affort the care and feeding that CM players give to each individual vehicle for half of the game, only to have 10 times more vehicles wiped out on every clash they have. A CM players watches the specific vehicle characteristics (experienc, ammo), gives very careful movement orders for each vehicle individually, places them hulldown manually. That is too much work if you need 10 times as many vehicles for the same play fun.

At the very least we would need fully automatic "search firing position", SOPs, group commands not restricted to a single waypoint.

The required bigger forces would overload current 3D systems with too many polygons if you would try to render vehicles which as much detail as they have in CM.

And the maps would have to be much bigger, which leads to both performance problems and to trouble with the player navigating the battlefield. In special, the representation of urban areas would be a challenge both from a computation standpoint and from a player command standpoint. tacOps abstracts urban areas completely (for a reason).

[MPK]

The prospect of gaming modern warfare seems to raise two prominent concerns:

Firstly, that:

" Just one platoon of Federation'Hillbilly'-type MBT's plus a single 'Rattlesnake'attack helo can destroy an entire Brutopian mech division of outdated Slobodonian equipment in 10 minutes!

The game won't be fair!"

To this I say: that's what points systems are for.

The Brutopian side will just buy a 'Scabby Knee' SSM or two (in Direct Support)with 'Pinyata'-type minelet dispenser warheads to deal with the tanks, and also go for the massed lines of peasant militia firing AK's into the air for bringing down the attack choppers.

The other is:

"Because of Tiny Clever Bombs, tanks will die so fast on the battlefield that it won't be any fun"

Well. In spite of the imminent demise of the

tank as forecast in a controlled simulation,

the world's assorted militaries are all investing in AFV as well as new technologies to defeat them.

The next breakthrough might just be the 'Dog Biscuit' Precision Munitions Jammer carried by every infantryman. The gun/armour race continues,

and will no doubt involve the temporary or permanent defeat of one technology versus another.

Anyway, if the Federation is going to employ their 'Charlton Heston'-class remote-controlled Bomblet Delivery Drones, the Rebels could always

place hijackers on board the Federation AWACS and JSTARS planes, and seize control, raining friendly fire bomblets everywhere.

[flamingknives]

I'll quite happily play up to mid-70s

Playing with the latest stuff would be nasty i.e Challenger 2 pops over a ridgeline at the start of a turn. by the end (if he's still alive) he's fired and most likely hit eight times.

That having been said, the assets that kill tanks in such vast numbers will not necessarily be evident in a CM scale battle.

155mm howitzers and MLRS are brigade level equipment at least, so you wouldn't see them all the time, and the same goes for airlaunched munitions.

ATGMs can be defeated by ERA and active defences and most IFVs only carry one ready to launch in any case. Otherwise they are battalion level support if they are to come with any significant amount of ammunition.

Granted there is scope for mismatch, but you get that in CM:BB (T-26/BT-7 Vs. PzKw IIIJ or KV-1 Vs. Pz 38T anyone?)

[Vanir Ausf B]

Originally posted by redwolf:

The required bigger forces would overload current 3D systems with too many polygons if you would try to render vehicles which as much detail as they have in CM.

Nah. Increased lethality does not mean bigger forces. It might mean shorter games.

It doesn't mean much bigger maps either. In most areas of the world, and certainly most of Europe, engagement ranges are limited by LOS, not weapon range. Terrain hasn't changed much since WW2.

The reason TacOps abstracts terrain is because it was originally made like 10 years ago. By the time CMX2 comes out in 2-3 years, the average computer will have no problem depicting any type of warfare BFC wants to do.

[ May 21, 2003, 03:52 PM: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

[Dan Robertson]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

That having been said, the assets that kill tanks in such vast numbers will not necessarily be evident in a CM scale battle.

155mm howitzers and MLRS are brigade level equipment at least, so you wouldn't see them all the time, and the same goes for airlaunched munitions.

The problem is this, in a game of CM you enter a board where you know that there is enemy forces. Once you factor in MLRS type weapons being used at CM scale the weapon could quite concievible wipe out the majority of enemy forces in a single fire mission. As 12 rockets drop 7728 bomblets onto the battle field.

The way it work in reality is that you would advance your force over an area of say 15-20km where upon your task would be to try and find a grouping of enemy forces worthy of an MLRS fire mission. While trying to avoid being ambushed by that force. This could take several hours.

To make the game interesting you have to guarentee contact with the enemy within a reasonable time period, and this means you have to put the enemy where they can be reached in a satisfactor time period, unfortunatly this means that a half decent player will be able to work out where the enemy is to enough accuracy that they can fire off their MLRS.

I still recon a Korea game could be drivied from CMBB. The North Koreans could be achieved with graphical mods from the Soviets who used the same equipment. The American infantry most vehicles and support systems are already modled in CMBO.

[gibsonm]

But you could save computer horsepower by not deploying an enemy!

Recent experience in mid to high level conflict seems to suggest that blue on blue will account for a fair percentage of battle casualties - even before the enemy turns up.

BTW: This isn't just an anti American comment (although they seem to be very good at this - AH64 vs Warrior, USMC vs USMC, US vs Royal Marines etc.) but the UK also seems to be catching up (Challenger 2 vs Challenger 2).

[Cpl Steiner]

I've noticed in this thread that everyone seems to be fixated on one-sided wars involving the West versus some third world dictatorship like Iraq. You could easily get a more balanced game just by picking wars more representative of the modern era.

For instance, Africa has seen more wars in this era than practically any other continent. You have the Belgian Congo, Rhodesia, Angola, Libya (against Chad in the 80s, Egypt in '77), not to mention Somalia, Namibia and countless other war zones to choose from, ranging from the 60s to the present day.

The terrain doesn't have to be all jungle either. much of Africa is a bit like the steppe of Russia - wide open grassland broken up by the odd clump of trees.

You don't even have to rule out AFVs. Plenty of soviet tanks and BMPs were used in these wars, as well as western equipment fielded by the Rhodesians and South Africans.

You also have western mercenary units to choose from, such as Mike Hoare's men in the Congo in the '60s and the infamous Colonel Callan in Angola in the '70s. For fictional scenarios you also have some great movies to draw from, such as "The Wild Geese" and "The Dogs of War".

You could provide OOBs for some major players in the region, such as South Africa, Rhodesia, Cuba and a few others, and some general OOBs such as "Soviet Equipped Militia". You could also have a "Design your own" option to create OOBs for countries not listed. This would allow you to build squads and teams out of standard equipment of the period, and name the units to suit your scenario (e.g. "UNITA Rebel Infantry", or "British Mercenary Infantry").

I think for representative modern era wargaming Africa is definitely worth a look. Does anyone else agree?

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Cpl Steiner:

[snips]

You could easily get a more balanced game just by picking wars more representative of the modern era.

For instance, Africa has seen more wars in this era than practically any other continent.

[snips]

I think for representative modern era wargaming Africa is definitely worth a look. Does anyone else agree?

I certainly agree, especially if the definition of "Africa" is stretched to include the Arabian peninsula, so we can do the Dhofar campaign (Ranulph Twistleton-Wickham-Fiennes and the Firqats versus the Adoo would be fun, the Battle of Mirbat would be huge fun).

One odd advantage would be that the objection to including paradrop rules in a game of minor tactics -- that the scale is all wrong -- could finally be overcome, as one could have the RLI in Fire Force contacts dropping direct on the the enemy from rickety Daks.

Then there's the Toyota Wars in Chad, a real treat for people who like the idea of a gamey-jeep-rush-with-missiles.

Quite apart from anything else, it might be an excellent stimulus to finding out more about recent African history.

On the debit side, I expect we'd also see quite a lot of argument on the board about whether the SS (Selous Scouts) are the best fighting troops in the galaxy, a bunch of thugs or over-priced uberhamsters. Also, I understand that a lot of the "wars" that Africa has suffered from don't have an awful lot in the way of tactics beyond setting up a bunch of roadblocks and massacring everybody who belongs to the wrong tribe. I could also understand it if people weren't too keen on, for example, scenarios drawn from the Biafra war.

And it might be a bit of a challenge to produce an interesting game between two sides whose only troop-type is "bunch of kids in jeans and t-shirts with Kalashnikovs".

All the best,

John.

[Soddball]

Originally posted by John D Salt:

And it might be a bit of a challenge to produce an interesting game between two sides whose only troop-type is "bunch of kids in jeans and t-shirts with Kalashnikovs".

All the best,

John.

Perhaps, but just think of the mods.

You could have stuff written on the t-shirts, like "I joined the West Side Boys to eat babies and all I got was this lousy Kalashnikov."

[ May 22, 2003, 04:37 PM: Message edited by: Soddball ]

[Engel]

Wars between third-rate armies would be equal, but you'd have very little equipment to play with most of the time; not much chances for combined arms tactics in the jungles and plains of Africa and South America. Don't know whether endless infantry skirmishes would be all that much fun after a while.

[Wisbech_lad]

I remember playing a minatures based modern ruleset once.

It struck me as excessively boring, but probably the fault of the ruleset (I can't remember the name) Seemed to end up as a chain reaction, because as soon as anyone got spotted, they died, but in turn that unit was now spotted as it had opened up and so died in its turn...

[Sergei]

Hasn't anyone played Steel Panthers 2? Or SP: Main Battle Tank (which is out and is free, go and download it)? I'm sure these things can be done realistically and in a non-boring way, even if it's CM.

What if Combat Mission was originally a Napoleonic Wars game, and we were now talking about the possibility of moving on to the Second World War?

"Impossible! The FlaK 88 could destroy British tanks from 2 km distance, we couldn't have maps that large!"

"Just how much fun would it be? Just one KV-2 could eat a brigade of Prussian elite cavalry in square formation in less than three minutes."

Hmm. Or maybe the only way is, actually, going backwards. How would Combat Mission: From Carthage to Constantinople (CMCC) sound? It would cover events from the rise of the Roman empire to the demise of Byzantium. Fun.

[hellfish]

If modern conflicts were so boring, then why do so many people play modern tank sims (M-1TP2, Steel Beasts) and modern wargames (TOAW2, Steel Panthers II, III, MBT)?

No, it may not be as superficially balanced as CM is, but how many people would actually only play as the US? I'd be looking forward to playing anyone but them. South Africa vs. Cuba would be my tops, or any other "bush war" type of scenario.

[flamingknives]

I'd play as anyone with British gear.

I want to field a Centurion AVRE

165mm HESH. Bang.