Hordes of halfsquads

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Ace Pilot:

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

There is another obvious advantage to split squads: waste of ammo on part of the shooter.

Since apparently (see other thread on firepower) the chance of a given firepower wounding a man is constant per man, and hence linear to the number of men in the target, expending one ammo point worth -say- firepower 100 on a unit with 4 men has half the chance to wound one man than the same shot has on a unit with 8 men. CM does not seem to model that the same volley now concentrates on fewer men.

I thought you had said something like this before, Redwolf, so I was expecting fewer casualties among the half squads in my tests. I didn't see that, though. I didn't run very many trials, which could certainly explain the unexpected result.

</font>

[Treeburst155]

OK, I've got a great morale test ready, I think.

10 isolated lanes with one 20 meter island in each lane. One halfsquad on each island, in command (HQ is in the trees bordering lanes). All variables removed (leader bonuses, experience levels, etc.).

One Crack MG 42 in a foxhole in each lane, 400 meters from the halfsquad islands. On turn one orders phase, the Russians cannot see the MGs; but the MGs can see the Russians. I target the Ruskies manually. My trial run shows a wide range of morale states after one minute (shaken to broken). This means no overkill, hopefully.

If I run this test MANY times, keeping a tally of morale states, then run the whole thing again with whole squads, I'd get some good morale info IMO. It will take a long time; but I'll probably do it out of curiosity.

Treeburst155 out.

[imported_no_one]

Originally posted by Glider:

Yes I do but I am not sure how would they help anyone. My opponent, Wiggins, already said in this thread that he had not used halfsquad forces globally and the FOW would prevent you from seeing much anyway.

Hmmm,if he didn't even do it,then what has all of this been about?

Nevertheless,I would like to see what happened in your game.I want to try and understand how,if your opponent didnt even do what was believed he did,was it so effective.If it is not too much trouble,could you please send the files to ************

I am still not buying any of this,but then again,I have never seen it before,and have never done it.

Its just bothering me even more now that all of this is based on,what I consider to be, a flawed test,and a bunch of talk about more and more unrealistic,or atleast ridiculous,situations.Like where 5 hmg's are doing--anything at all by themselves--or worse defending in a situation where I think they are outnumbered to begin with.

Or,how about defending/attacking in woods/trees with no support of any kind.Who does this?Perhaps this is why I have never seen this tactic to begin with.

Am I close to understanding why this is such a big deal?If not,could someone please explain what the big deal is.

I think that virtually every situation(within reason)that has been presented so far has a solution.And I think that on the extremely rare occasion when the half-squads trully do have the advantage,then it would probably be considered a valid tactic--simply because of how seldomly it will work correctly.However,this tactic could be used at the wrong time but versus the wrong offense/defense and it may still work.Variables,you can not leave them out.Not when dealing with things like morale and firepower,etc.

[ February 01, 2005, 12:50 PM: Message edited by: no_one ]

[dieseltaylor]

I have been playing with British and American squads in three recent Allied assaults and believe me in these battles a US 12 man squad has much more recuperative powers than a Brit 8 man squad and even more so over a Brit half section.

It has been an education watching the 12's recover even whilst out of command. Still I am playing on the Western Front but I imagine the game was a straightish port from CMBB apart from a few tweaks with dust and multi-turrets.

[walpurgis nacht]

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

OK, I've got a great morale test ready, I think.

10 isolated lanes with one 20 meter island in each lane. One halfsquad on each island, in command (HQ is in the trees bordering lanes). All variables removed (leader bonuses, experience levels, etc.).

One Crack MG 42 in a foxhole in each lane, 400 meters from the halfsquad islands. On turn one orders phase, the Russians cannot see the MGs; but the MGs can see the Russians. I target the Ruskies manually. My trial run shows a wide range of morale states after one minute (shaken to broken). This means no overkill, hopefully.

If I run this test MANY times, keeping a tally of morale states, then run the whole thing again with whole squads, I'd get some good morale info IMO. It will take a long time; but I'll probably do it out of curiosity.

Treeburst155 out.

While this test has meaning, it doesn't accout for the real value in splitting squads-----which is that you alway have another fresh body available to lay down fire.

I can tell you already your tests will confirm that split squads do indeed suffer a morale hit, which no one really contests to begin with.

I have written about splitting squads/scouting extensively already so I've resisted an elaborate post about splitting squads here. But I will point out a few things.

The advantage in splitting squads is largely determined by the experience level of the squad. With greens or conscripts it is almost inevitably not worth it, as the morale hit takes a much more significant toll. Regulars are ok, but when you're talking vets or crack I split everyone, almost no exception. Vet splits or better are able to operate out of command range and still be reasonably meaty. More importantly, they will recover more quickly when suppressed and/or routed.

What this does is create an environment where you can stay spread out (avoiding concentrations of enemy fire), and always have a fresh body available to lay down fire. The key to using this advantage well is in overlapping your fire lanes many times over, so that, if the enemy breaks out some arty/HE/or hordes of smalls arms fire on a given unit, routing him, you have 3,4,5,10 other units in a sort of "reserve", available to lay down stopping fire as needed. The idea is, by the time the enemy has suppressed your initial squads and moved on to the others, your initial squads (being vets or better) have time to recover/rally to be used again. Now your enemy has exhausted his boom booms, and you still have a solid resistance setup for him to deal with. Now he's desperate and it's time for him to make mistakes :eek:

There are 100s of other little things to mention but this seemed the most important.

[Glider]

Originally posted by no_one:

Hmmm,if he didn't even do it,then what has all of this been about?

He used them locally. Anyway, I will send you files and you will see what I mean.

Like where 5 hmg's are doing--anything at all by themselves--or worse defending in a situation where I think they are outnumbered to begin with.

You never had to use just HMGs to interdict approaches to an important location, a hilltop, flag, good observation point? What do you use, 203mm FOs? Even on-board mortars cannot respond in time to infantry charges.

Or,how about defending/attacking in woods/trees with no support of any kind.Who does this?

Everybody. In woods off-board artillery is not accurate enough and direct HE weapons and HMGs have no LOS. That leaves only infantry.

[Glider]

Originally posted by Walpurgis Nacht:

...What this does is create an environment where you can stay spread out (avoiding concentrations of enemy fire), and always have a fresh body available to lay down fire...

That is just the "feeling" I was talking about. You are facing, for instance, three platoons of infantry defending a big patch of woods. You throw at them artillery, mortars, HMG fire and direct HE... an amount that absolutely should be sufficient to break/rout most of three platoons. But, because they are divided into 21 inf units instead of 12 some of the halfsquads always remain unsuppressed. Redwolf also says that your support fire will cause less casualties thanks to smaller size of halfsquads.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Walpurgis Nacht:

I can tell you already your tests will confirm that split squads do indeed suffer a morale hit, which no one really contests to begin with.

I do

At least I say it is not a significant morale hit, lets say they will at worst take 10% less fire for the same morale degration.

However does tests, place many units outside the combat area to keep global morale at 100%. This is important, otherwise your halfsquad's morale messes with your full squad's morale.

[Treeburst155]

I would run the whole squad tests completely separate from the halfsquad tests. As for global morale within the test, a one minute run would not be affected by reductions in global morale. Casualties are not that high anyway. Each test is a one minute run, restarting the scenario for each test.

Walpurgis Nacht has obviously studied the halfsquad tactic extensively. Basically, he's saying CM is a halfsquad-centric game, and has been for some time. It's time for old guys like me to get with the times and start splitting squads wholesale.

Treeburst155 out

[walpurgis nacht]

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

Walpurgis Nacht has obviously studied the halfsquad tactic extensively. Basically, he's saying CM is a halfsquad-centric game, and has been for some time. It's time for old guys like me to get with the times and start splitting squads wholesale.

Treeburst155 out

LOL. Well, if you are playing to win than I would recommend learning how to work with splits. If you are exclusively playing for historical purposes . . . well . . . I wouldn't play this game. Because you know, games are gamey and all

Perhaps splitting squads doesn't reduce the effectiveness of the split *enough* (in terms of gameplay/balance) . . . .I merely suggest that is does have an impact. And that impact is relative to the squads experience level. I'm not just talking incremental increase/decrease due to experience, I'm talking exponential.

[Treeburst155]

Halfsquad Morale Test Results

100 REGULAR halfsquads, in command (no bonus), ambushed in the open by Crack HMGs at 400 meters, no place to run, condition after one minute:

OK - none

Alerted - none

Cautious - none

Shaken - 6

Pinned - 31

Panic - 30

Broken - 17

Routed - 16

Assigning points to each category (OK=1, Routed=8) the average morale state of these 100 halfsquads was 6.06, or just over the "panic" threshhold but far from "broken".

The same test with whole squads:

OK - 2

Alerted - 6

Cautious - 8

Shaken - 6

Pinned - 49

Panic - 21

Broken - 6

Routed - 2

Average morale state, 4.91, or not quite "pinned", but VERY "shaken".

With REGULAR squads and halfsquads there is a significant difference in brittleness under fire. Based on Walpurgis Nacht's comments, I suspect the difference would be reduced significantly with Vets, Crackers, Elites.

Note: the margin of error may be too large with only 100 tests. It really should be run 500 times IMO.

Treeburst155 out.

[Treeburst155]

Actually, the morale difference is only 1.15 levels. This may not be very much at all when actual gameplay is considered.

Recovery time is something this test does not address. That could be an important aspect of the comparison.

Treeburst155 out.

[ February 01, 2005, 03:10 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[walpurgis nacht]

Anyone interested that might be able to host a few screen shots I could send via email? I can lay out a few nifty tactical things on splitting squads applied practically.

[Glider]

Originally posted by Walpurgis Nacht:

Anyone interested that might be able to host a few screen shots I could send via email? I can lay out a few nifty tactical things on splitting squads applied practically.

Try http://www.imageshack.us/

They are hosting images (smaller than 1Mb) free of charge.

[Battlefront.com]

Keep in mind that the longer one plays a game, the more gamey stuff will turn up. The fact that CM has been out for, what, 5 years and only NOW is this becoming "big news" makes me kinda chuckle

BTW, the STRATEGY of using all half squads is, IMHO, gamey. The reason I say this is that it is exploiting an unintended aspect of the simulation for an edge that shouldn't be possible. Yes, from a historical standpoint squads were (are) divided into teams, but that is not the way CM's engine was coded to simulate. And that is all that matters.

As has been seen from my own (dusty) quotes, the 1/2 squads are there to be used, not abused. Our intentions for putting them in were for TACTICAL uses related to recon/outposts. And on the Eastern Front, at least, spreading one's thin forces way, way out in fixed defenses. And for the most part, that is how people have been using them. Thankfully

Don't worry about this for CMx2. All taken care of...

Steve

[Aufklarungs-Al]

Forgive my "noobe" enthusiasm, but this thread has been such a great read that its encouraged me to sign up and post.

From my own humble standpoint I think it's a case of horses for courses. You can do some great things with halfsquads to give yourself an edge. Say in close terrain assaulting a similar number of enemies.

But in my (limited) experience halfsquads are very unforgiving if you get it wrong (or maybe I just get it wrong too often ). It is in that situation that I think their brittle nature really becomes apparent and you can expose yourself to being defeated in detail.

I would have also expected that there would be an increased command delay time with ordering halfsquads, as it would take longer to coordinate the movements of the platoon and issue orders.

Does anyone know if the morale penalty when you split a squad applies to the whole platoon or just the squad in question? It might explain why I've had some rubbish results trying to use mixed platoons of squads and halfsquads (full squads seeming to break easily when coming under fire / taking casualties).

[Treeburst155]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Keep in mind that the longer one plays a game, the more gamey stuff will turn up. The fact that CM has been out for, what, 5 years and only NOW is this becoming "big news" makes me kinda chuckle

It makes me feel kinda dumb that I never once even considered experimenting with large numbers of halfsquads over the years.

BTW, the STRATEGY of using all half squads is, IMHO, gamey. The reason I say this is that it is exploiting an unintended aspect of the simulation for an edge that shouldn't be possible. Yes, from a historical standpoint squads were (are) divided into teams, but that is not the way CM's engine was coded to simulate. And that is all that matters.

The bomb has dropped!! You Herders of Halfsquad Hordes are GAMEY!!! Wooheee!!! I'm sure glad I decided not to become a Herder of Halfsquad Hordes.

As has been seen from my own (dusty) quotes, the 1/2 squads are there to be used, not abused. Our intentions for putting them in were for TACTICAL uses related to recon/outposts. And on the Eastern Front, at least, spreading one's thin forces way, way out in fixed defenses. And for the most part, that is how people have been using them. Thankfully

Don't worry about this for CMx2. All taken care of...

Steve

Don't you worry, Steve. I will defend designer intent tirelessly for the next year. My whole squads and I will fight the halfsquad hordes valiantly to the last man! We will never give up. We may never win; but we will die honorably with full knowledge that we have not committed the war crime of GAMEYness. All my men and I needed was encouragement from the top to pursue the righteous and honorable path. Now I must change my sig to better reflect the high road I have chosen for my fighting men.

This debate is over for me, because to my mind, I have won. Get thee hence, ye Herders Of Halfsquad Hordes!! Your gamey play will rot your very soul. Repent while there is still time.

Treeburst155 out.

[ February 01, 2005, 07:26 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[Battlefront.com]

Hehe...

From what I can tell the half-squad thing is like most other narrow focus tactics... when it works, it works great. When it fails... equal and oposite reactions Ah, this reminds me of the good old days talking about guys who would only play QBs as Germans with large point armor forces on a billard table map without any negative weather effects. Oh those were the days

The penalty is specific to the squad itself. Split it and each half is weaker man for man than it is joined. Rejoin the split squad and all is forgiven (i.e. the unit is 100% again).

Now, before my comments about "gamey" are taken too hard by some, let me say how I define gamey:

Gamey adj - a term used to describe an action which seeks to exploit design limitations in order to gain an edge in combat that the designers either explicitly tried to prevent or at least do not think is not propperly balanced with the other elements of the simulation.

Again, 1/2 squads are realistic BUT CM was not designed to handle strategic uses of 1/2 squads, and therefore within the sim itself yields unrealistic results. Therefore, the tactic (as applied in CM) is unrealistically beneficial to the player using it in certain circumstances. If we changed the code to penalize the player more, thereby making the use of 1/2 squads more in balance, then the tactic would be completely valid THOUGH useless.

To me, there is no value judgement in all this. People using this tactic are not bad people, just not playing the game as it is intended. There is NOTHING wrong with this. However, players who ARE playing the game as intended should be allowed to voice their opinions about why they don't approve and to request that it not be used in the games they play. Sometimes things have to be "each to their own" with both sides agreeing to disagree. Nothing wrong with that at all.

Hope that makes sense to everybody!

Steve

[walpurgis nacht]

Well exactly, sort of. Is playing speed chess gamey if the inventors of chess disapprove?

[Treeburst155]

Are you suggesting that CM is a game? Like chess? CM is....um...reality, isn't it?

Treeburst155 out.

[Cthulhu Dreams]

The basic difference of opinion is some people are playing the game called CM, and some people are re-creating WW2 via the medium of CM.

If you google for "playing to win" and sirlin there is a great series of articles on it, but basically it comes down to "If you think things are 'lame' or 'gamey' in tournments, maybe you should not play tourments."

[Glider]

Originally posted by Aufklarungs-Al:

...

But in my (limited) experience halfsquads are very unforgiving if you get it wrong (or maybe I just get it wrong too often ...

From my (even more limited) experience this seems to be right. When you start forcing them back it is very diffuclt for halfquads to recuperate. However, in a platoon vs platoon close-range fight, destroying a platoon of halfsquads will waste so much of your full squad platoon's ammo that it will be at the 'low' level after the fight.

[Wiggins]

How nice discussion. I give a few words about the game it all started:

My forces were:

bat Romanian cavalry (8plts with 60mm mortar and HMG each)+ 2 AT Romanian guns supported by SMG Russian regimental coy CRACK, plt T34/85 and M3 for HQ company of Russians (he shouldn't walk to battlefield, isn't?).So I got 11 plt for 2000pts game and that was the main point. Glider were outnumbered without splitting!!! The mystery is revealed.

The break-through I made on the far left flank was quite easy, because I outnumbered alone enemy 1 VET plt with 1 SMG crk plt and 2 plt of cavalry. Next 2 plt of cavalry and SMG plt were flanking the centre from the left flank, when break-through was made. There were not any splitted squad there!! (BTW: spliting during break-through is stupid in my opinion.) In the centre I have two splitted plt of cavalry decepting my enemy. It worked because the main Glider forces stayed at the centre defending main flag in the village. On the right, my last group consisted of smg plt and two cav plts standed against attacking enemy about 3plt (one crk). After off map firing (250 shells) I attacked and break them. There were also no splitted squads, maybe one or two during chasing the enemy, but only in microscale.

So two enemies flanks were broken and the game in fact were over. There were not hordes of halfsquads, splitting was used locally and for exact purpose.

I believe I can easily beat most of you who will split globally all squads because it just simple doesn't work. Even 10,000 Trees' tests do not convinced me, 250 P2P games do. Only local splitting for exact purpose make sense.

It is funny that discussion was started because of my and Glider game, which where without hordes of HS as talks (lies??) the topic name.

I think that some persons catch the chance to reveal themselves as a specialists in CM theory and write in signature some truisms like "split them all in the woods". New gamers with high number (20,000 or more) will surely enshrine you for that.

Wiggins out

[GreenAsJade]

Stick it to 'em wiggens.

[jdsu]

I think Walpurgis Nacht vrs Wiggins would be a very interesting match up.