The Morale Model is RETARDED...

[Der Alte Fritz]

With regard to the Falklands War, all the attacks organised by the Parachute Regiment were frontal attacks that got bogged down under enemy fire and were only brought forward to grenade range when other factors suppressed enemy fire, at Goose Green - mortars and HMG and Mount Longdon (the costliest battle of the war for the British)- tanks. The attacks by the Guards and the Marines all went around the back of the enemy position by night and attacked from the rear and were often into the enemy trenches before they knew what happened to them. Under these circumstances Argentine collapse was pretty rapid.

This would probaby be difficult to recreate in CMBB except that flank attacks often are successful because you can concentrate many against one.

cheers

[Squatdog]

Your attempt at a witty comeback fails.

[Squatdog]

Other than the use of Milan ATGW to take out Argentine sangars, the influence of external factors was very limted and most of the engagements were won by the British forces fighting through the Argentine positions in actions that often involved bitter hand-to-hand combat.

[Squatdog]

The Scorpions of the Blues and Royals are esenially light reconaissance vehicles and only played a limited role due to the terrain. One of them may have run over a mine iirc.

[flamingknives]

The Scorpion tanks used in the Falklands still carried 76mm guns, so they'd have every bit as much target effect as a Sherman.

What with their low ground pressure and decent power-to-weight, they would have more effect than a heavier vehicle.

[Squatdog]

What with their low ground pressure and decent power-to-weight, they would have more effect than a heavier vehicle.

On the rocky outcrops of the mountains that the Argentinians had fortified into strongpoints?

They could only support the initial stages of the advance and actually had to withdraw temporarily because they were attracting too much fire (the armor is barely proof against .50cal)

[ May 12, 2007, 05:41 AM: Message edited by: Squatdog ]

[Squatdog]

I was playing tonight and FRAPS'd (yet another) unit experiencing spontaneous morale failure:

http://download.yousendit.com/0FD088E82F070812

A fully rested regular rifle section assaulting a pinned enemy is exposed to overhead friendly fire for 3 seconds and a burst of enemy fire for less than one second.

This is enough for the affected unit to panic then rout (and remained routed for the rest of the game) despite taking NO CASUALTIES and not even being under fire while panicked!!!!

Shonky game mechanics FTL...

[Wicky]

Can you convert it from FPS1 codec to something else and reupload ta

[Bannon DC]

Couldn't view it. Came in as a MS video clip but my MS player only played the audio. Did sound like a lot of shooting going on.

Can you upload the actual CM file?

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by Squatdog:

Your attempt at a witty comeback fails.

It wasn't witty - it was factual - you wouldn't have used any of the additional resources the British had, and you would have failed.

They had naval gunfire and harriers at Goose Green, and yet on occasion whole companies were held up by one or 2 machineguns.

More than one of their assaults failed outright, and those that succeeded were not frontal asaults - they were outflanking efforts that hit one or other end of an Argentine position.

There are accounts of single argentinians covering withdrawls or pinning British forces - eg Sergeant Sergio Garcia covered the withdrawl of his defeated men, preventing pursuit, Corporal Osvaldo Olmos kept the British under fire as the rest of his unit retreated.

The whole action positively REEKS of individual bravery on both sides - where 1 person made a difference.

You really should read some of the detailed reports, not the abbreviated newspaper versions!

[ May 12, 2007, 05:00 PM: Message edited by: Stalin's Organist ]

[Squatdog]

The clip plays in Winamp.

They had naval gunfire and harriers at Goose Green, and yet on occasion whole companies were held up by one or 2 machineguns.

One or two machineguns???? The Paras were assaulting a fortified position while outnumbered nearly 2 to 1, with paltry fire support against Argentinians armed with numerous GPMGs, mortars and several multi-barrelled AA guns used in a direct fire role!

In fact, at one stage they had to advance over a long stretch of open ground while being pelted by heavy fire including the AA guns. It's just as well real life doesn't use the Combat Mission game mechanics otherwise they would have immediately panicked and attempted to swim back to San Carlos Water...

More than one of their assaults failed outright, and those that succeeded were not frontal asaults - they were outflanking efforts that hit one or other end of an Argentine position.

No, the attacks on Mount Longdon and Tumbledown stalled in the face of fierce resistance and the advance was resumed once the assaulting Paras and Guardsmen reorganised and pressed forward.

[Squatdog]

The final act of the battle for Mount Tumbledown:

The right-hand platoon came under accurate artillery and machine gun fire and began to take casualties, while the left-hand platoon under Second Lieutenant James Stuart, had problems negotiating the rocks. His platoon sergeant, and one other man, was killed and two more were wounded including the company sergeant major. Both platoons tried to dislodge the enemy with mortar fire, grenades launchers, and light anti-tank weapons but the Argentines, regulars of the 5th Marine Battalion, would not budge. The FOO and MFC called down fire but had problems getting it to fall in the right place.

The Company Commander, Major John Kiszely, spoke to Battalion headquarters just before 0230 hours and informed them he was going to lead a charge. He led his men in a fixed bayonet charge, overrunning the sangars and killing the enemy in tough fighting. Major Kiszely, himself, had a lucky escape when an enemy round lodged in his belt. The move forward, guarding the prisoners, and clearing out the sangars, saw most of Major Kiszely's men absorbed and he found himself on top of the mountain with only six men, three of whom were wounded. Major Kiszely had some anxious moments, but the Argentines did not counter-attack. The attack had taken seven hours hard fighting and had cost 'Left Flank' seven men killed and 18 wounded.

[Bannon DC]

Do you still have the original CMBB file? I no long have Winamp and don't feel like installing it for a one time view. thx

[Wicky]

The Movie Codec is RETARDED...

I recently recently downloaded an AVI movie and rapidly remembered why I stopped playing them in the first place...

I think the problem is that in the pursuit of options for encoding, non-standard movies have reached the point where they are unplayable and movie playback behaves in an illogical fashion on a mac.

I recall one classic example:

I watch a movie in quicktime, I have a million and one codecs, 99% of the time everything works as advertised on the box.

So far so good!

There I am able to watch wmv movies , divx avi but then somebody putts a great avi movie that's a PC only codec.

What happened next caused my to switch off the computer in disgust...

This one intrepid moviemaker's efforts just has sound and no picture and then he tells me it isn't a problem.

I mean seriously, this is just absurd and it happens far too often.

In my opinion, the solution would be to get all the software developers to rewrite all their PC software for the 5% of mac users.

Alternatively can I learn how to use a PC?

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Squatdog:

Other than the use of Milan ATGW to take out Argentine sangars, the influence of external factors was very limted and most of the engagements were won by the British forces fighting through the Argentine positions in actions that often involved bitter hand-to-hand combat.

Goose Green was the battle with the weakest fire support, and the lesson re-learnt from it was that you need adequate gunner support to make a successful attack without excessive casualties. At Goose Green 2 Para were supported by NGS from Arrow, a Harrier strike, and 900 rounds of 105mm from Black Eight (source: "Nine Battles to Stanley", by Nick van der Bijl).

All the best,

John.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Squatdog:

One or two machineguns????

Yes, that's right. Perhaps reading an account of the battle would clear this up for you. D Coy took half an hour to deal with Munoz-Cabrera's pair of 0.5" MGs on Coronation Hill.

Originally posted by Squatdog:

The Paras were assaulting a fortified position while outnumbered nearly 2 to 1, with paltry fire support against Argentinians armed with numerous GPMGs, mortars and several multi-barrelled AA guns used in a direct fire role!

TF Mercedes had about 300 men in 11 platoons engaged in the direct fire battle, who took almost 50% casualties before the surrender. The thousand or so POWs taken were mostly from troops never engaged.

Originally posted by Squatdog:

In fact, at one stage they had to advance over a long stretch of open ground while being pelted by heavy fire including the AA guns. It's just as well real life doesn't use the Combat Mission game mechanics otherwise they would have immediately panicked and attempted to swim back to San Carlos Water...

In fact not. In real real life -- as distinct from the real life represented by half-remembered Sun writeups of pool dispatches -- LAA in the ground role halted 2 Para twice. The first time A Coy were "caught flat-footed advancing withour adequate support over open ground against an active enemy" (van der Bijl). Support company was brought up in response. The second time a pair of 35mm Oerlikons firing from the promontory halted 11 Pl and the Patrols until the guns were damaged (and abandoned by their crews) by a Harrier strike.

Now, you've chosen an exceptional few battles to try to illustrate what you apparently think should be "typical" behaviour of infantry under fire. The Parachute Regiment have a fair claim to being the most highly-motivated infantry in the world, and in CM terms would be classed as Elite or Crack (my problem in CM with these morale classes is that they keep going until everybody is a casualty, instead of doing the sensible thing and legging it). What's more, both Goose Green and Longdon were VC battles, which are atypical even by Para standards.

Even so, you have had to completely misrepresent the actual events of these battles in order to attempt to prove your point.

From Burntside House to Goose Green in under six kilometres. If we take the battle as lasting from 02:30 on 28th May to midnight, which was about when the cease-fire was arranged, it took 2 Para twenty one and a half hours to cover rather less than that distance -- in CM terms, well over a thousand game-turns. If the Paras remained as indifferent to small-arms fire as you seem to believe in their attempts to close with the enemy, then I should like to know what explanation you have for the times and distances involved.

All the best,

John.

[JasonC]

I just have to offer my own interpretation of the Falklands infantry fighting. Too juicy to pass on. I am not as expert on the subject as some here, but did read the Lessons of Modern War series book on it. (All of them actually).

The primary fact to understand about the ground portion of the Falklands fighting is the abysmal state of Argentine ground forces morale, by the time Brit forces actually landed and engaged.

They felt abandoned by their country, marooned, poorly supplied, in a god-forsaken place. They hoped the Brits wouldn't come; they hoped the navy would stop them; they finally had real hope that the air force would. The Argentine air force fought like the dickens - interestingly enough, they had opposed the war in the first place, as an institution - so it was not any national characteristic or anything. But the army force on the islands was on the whole poorly motivated cannon fodder who individually saw no reason to die for this pointless exercise in international bravado.

So when large explosions occurred near them, they mostly ran away. They wanted a safe way to surrender and were having serious trouble finding one. Their officers were holding them to it, but none too successfully, and not a few of them shared the basic attitudes involved. But no one in charge was going to surrender for them. They had to make do with not putting up much of a fight.

That the Brits still had serious trouble in spots is due pretty much entirely to the lethality of modern weapons and the denuded terrain. The only cover came from the relief, and if you got caught in an area where you were far from LOS blockages, relatively to the shooting position, it was a shooting gallery.

How you dealt with it was (1) go to ground (2) call any form of fire you can get and (3) hope the guy pulling the trigger up there hoofs it. Outgoing small arms might suppress him, but if he is behind relief and you are not, then pretty much regardless of numbers or personal skill you haven't got a prayer of hitting him before he hits you. If, that is, he keeps shooting.

The bravery shown by the Brits, which was considerable, consisted primarily in being willing to take this sort of thing and continuing the mission. Secondarily it consisted in a nearly insane confidence that if they moved on the Argentines, most of them would run away.

The few that occasionally didn't could as John says hold things up for a considerable time - or they could still be in position when some flanker reached them through their blind ground areas. Note that there always have to be such areas, because the whole differential is set up by using the relief for cover, and exposing only a tiny area to the main enemy. Which necessarily means guys not in the area you are showing that tiny area to, will sometimes be blocked from LOS entirely. (I.e. the Argentines are not practically invulnerable on their crags because they are standing up sillouetted against the skyline to see better; they are low and their visibility spotty).

The main lesson the aforementioned monograph draws from that and other modern instances is that infantry quality level is vital in modern fighting. But not because of feats of stupendous prowess by those possessing said quality to the utmost. No, rather, quality matters enourmously because the average lower quality infantryman will run like hell, facing the dangers presented by modern weapons. Prompted by an often justified sense that he is an ant and his sacrifice is pointless, because godlike technologies have long since decided the matter.

If all the Argentines had stood to their guns until physically blasted off the crags, the ground force sent would not have remotely sufficed and Brit causalties would have been of Gallipoli magnitudes.

[John Kettler]

Regarding fighting in the Falklands, I have seen the formerly classified MoD film on ground combat operations there, to include on-camera interviews with participants. Two major points stood out.

When the loss of transport helicopters and most of the rations aboard the Atlantic Conveyor forced the "yomp," the first men to fall out in the grueling cross country march with 90+ pounds of kit per man were the super fit lean body mass types. Why? They had no body fat to speak of on which to draw, which meant they went into ketosis

(burning muscle tissue for energy) quickly. One of the interviewees practically chortled that the RSM, the terror of the parade ground, was the first to collapse in his unit, whereas the less fit former objects of his abuse, gamely marched on.

Second, the Paras went into battle in full packs.

One of the interviewed clearly described how incredibly draining it was to advance, under fire, by short rushes while thus kitted. Each short dash was followed by several minutes of gasping recovery before dragging oneself upright under the crushing load and gearing up to do it all again.

Thus, the Paras were semistarved at best themselves, physically worn out and trying to wage war while heavily loaded. The Argentine troops,

from what I've read, were frozen, demoralized, had (in certain instances)been bombed and/or shelled repeatedly and were starving, while certainly not of the same caliber as their opponents in either individual troop quality or caliber of leadership.

I believe these factors should be borne in mind in assessing both the time to reach the battles and how long they took.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Wisbech_lad]

Originally posted by Squatdog:

The final act of the battle for Mount Tumbledown:

The attack had taken seven hours hard fighting and had cost 'Left Flank' seven men killed and 18 wounded.

So, an attack that knocks out about three sections (squads) worth of men took seven hours... I think that this shows that CMBB morale system is still too aggressive!

[Wicky]

Ketosis is a process in which the body converts fats into energy, not muscle for energy.

If the body does not have enough glucose, because the diet is very low in carbohydrates or starvation it will begin ketosis to obtain energy from its stored fats instead. As a result of this, the ketone levels in the blood will rise. Prolonged severe ketosis can be dangerous as it can change the acidity of the blood, which may eventually lead to serious damage to the liver and kidneys. (Similar to a diabetic)

Originally posted by John Kettler:

Regarding fighting in the Falklands, I have seen the formerly classified MoD film on ground combat operations there, to include on-camera interviews with participants. Two major points stood out.

When the loss of transport helicopters and most of the rations aboard the Atlantic Conveyor forced the "yomp," the first men to fall out in the grueling cross country march with 90+ pounds of kit per man were the super fit lean body mass types. Why? They had no body fat to speak of on which to draw, which meant they went into ketosis

(burning muscle tissue for energy) quickly. One of the interviewees practically chortled that the RSM, the terror of the parade ground, was the first to collapse in his unit, whereas the less fit former objects of his abuse, gamely marched on.

Second, the Paras went into battle in full packs.

One of the interviewed clearly described how incredibly draining it was to advance, under fire, by short rushes while thus kitted. Each short dash was followed by several minutes of gasping recovery before dragging oneself upright under the crushing load and gearing up to do it all again.

Thus, the Paras were semistarved at best themselves, physically worn out and trying to wage war while heavily loaded. The Argentine troops,

from what I've read, were frozen, demoralized, had (in certain instances)been bombed and/or shelled repeatedly and were starving, while certainly not of the same caliber as their opponents in either individual troop quality or caliber of leadership.

I believe these factors should be borne in mind in assessing both the time to reach the battles and how long they took.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Kineas]

Squatdog,

I'm eager to watch your video, but it /probably/ needs a special codec which comes with the latest version of fraps only.

One thing I might add to the morale problem. The game has very well designed abstractions, but these have their 'optimal' scales. Everything is smooth at typical (~100m) engagement scales. But once you get into 40m, you are on the borders of the system.

Ideally (and in CMx2) infantry units should exchange fire in the form of continuous streams of bullets. Now they fire at eachother in 'quantums', packets. If your closing squad receives a huge blow from an unpinned, but threatened enemy squad, then the attack run is over. The first shot has too much significance, like the volley fires in the historical wars.

In the continuous model this would not happen. You could suppress the defenders during the movement.

[John Kettler]

Wicky,

Are you saying I used the wrong word, misemployed the right one, or what? I went with the term I'd heard used on several occasions. This article describes the concept I was trying to convey.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,946350,00.html

Regards,

John Kettler

[Soddball]

I just looked at Squatdog's video. Squatdog, you made a right hash of it. Problems I saw:

1) Your infantry was running across open ground and was 'alerted'.

2) Your infantry was out of command radius for its platoon HQ - black line, not red, joining it to platoon HQ.

3) Your infantry ran across the firing path of one of your own HMGs which put them into 'panic' and forced them to the ground.

4) Your infantry was then blasted by canister rounds, either from your tanks or from the enemy, video is too poor to tell which, which broke them and forced them to rout.

The morale model is not retarded. If this is typical of the problems that you have been having then I can confirm that it is your play technique that is at fault.

Tips:

Infantry squads like to be in command radius of their HQ unit. If they are not, they rout. Quickly.

Infantry do not like having canister fired at them.

Infantry do not like 200m sprints across open terrain.

Infantry do not like being hosed down by HMG fire from their own side.

You should:

Use your HMGs to suppress enemy guns. Try to avoid using them to suppress your own infantry.

Keep your platoon HQs with your infantry squads. Keep the Company HQ back but close enough to mop up retreating squads.

Use short charges across open ground. If the ground is too open to charge across, stay put.

[Soddball]

Originally posted by Bannon DC:

Do you still have the original CMBB file? I no long have Winamp and don't feel like installing it for a one time view. thx

You need to download Fraps. It installs a codec that runs in Windows Mediocre Player.

[GreenAsJade]

ROFL!

I was wondering why I'd never seen this crazy behaviour that Squat's been moaning about.

The units aren't even in command?! Then what do you expect?

(I do agree with Redwolf's beef about the actual orders the AI gives when panic happens, but it really doesn't affect gameplay that much... it's irritating at worst).

GaJ