George S. Patton Jr is one gamey bastard? ;)

[SWPIGWANG]

Patton to Recon Troops:

Just drive down that road until you get blown up.

I would be nice if someone explained the background though.

[Matthias]

damn yank borg spotting

[Sanok]

Originally posted by SWPIGWANG:

Patton to Recon Troops: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Just drive down that road until you get blown up.

I would be nice if someone explained the background though. </font>

[Pzman]

Would you feel any better if it was a jeep?

[Slappy]

Actually, I've noticed that most of the gamey whining around this has dried up since the BB release. Why you ask? Covered arcs. This severely limits the number of units that will open up on this type of lone gamey borg unit and therefore the amount of intelligence that one will garner using this tactic. That and much more effective FOW around firing units mean that you will probably never see much of value before you are toasted.

[xerxes]

Also CMBB/CMAK mgs make short work of thin skinned vehicles and the mg often goes unspotted to boot. If your AT guns have armored covered arcs they won't open up on the jeeps/trucks/HTs.

Makes gamey light vehicle suicide recon more like just plain old suicide.

[zukkov]

it's not just the "gameyness" of it that bothers me when someone does that. i'm in a pbem right now and my opponent is using his trucks as bait in the same way described above. what bothers me most is that my opponent isn't trying to be realistic. first off, trucks were too valuable operationally to use them for such a purpose. secondly, even if patton himself ordered me to do it, i'd tell him to go to hell. but the result is as others have said. they make lousy scouts and his trucks die with little or no intel gathered for their trouble...

[MrSpkr]

So you feel sorry for his Pixeltruppen and their tendency to become crunchy crispies?

Steve

[Slappy]

Thank you MrSpkr. I can understand bemoaning the gamey borgness of this if you're opponent does this, but I have a hard time finding complaint with the plain badness of the idea. My opponents do all sorts of stupid things, and I rejoice. Of course, they're the only ones bad enough to still find playing me entertaining.

[Sanok]

Originally posted by zukkov:

it's not just the "gameyness" of it that bothers me when someone does that. i'm in a pbem right now and my opponent is using his trucks as bait in the same way described above.

I wonder if we're playing the same person.

He did tell me that his truck spotted one of my tanks. An MG killed the driver, so the pesky truck isn't a problem anymore.

[Akula2]

Hell, I'm using a bunch of trucks for recon right now in a pbem where I'm defending a small town full of flags against partisans. I have them peeking into holes in the treeline outside town and parked on the side of the many wooded roads that are all possible axis' of attacks. These roads are probably the only viable approach for armor.

I wont keep them parked there if any of them ever spot anything. I'll run em into town where they can annoy me for the rest of the game. Under the circumstances, I don't think this is too gamey. Some may disagree.

I'm using trucks and Kubelwagons this way for a number of reasons.

In this case they are every bit as good at ferreting out the axis of attack as other units. Secondly, the designer gave me a buttload of them for no apparent reason at all and my own troops (the designer) mined all escape routes off the map. Otherwise, I may have driven them off board.

If partisans are going to blow up my motor pool why not tool around looking for them instead of bunching up someplace that they may or may not impede the mobility of a reaction force?

Granted, I have halftracks as well. I also have PzIIs and of course infantry.

The only way I justify this is that its partisans but in reality I may have done the same thing if it wasnt. An asset is an asset.

My main concern right now is to determine the axis of attack (if any) and realign my defenders correspondingly.

I guess I only posted because reading this made me feel a little guilty. A part of me is tempted to pull them in to be a nest of defenseless eggs for the partisan viper ... nah.

In truth though, I was given so many of them and they are such a potential hinderance to the movement of my other vehicles that I was gonna do something silly with them anyhow. Its impossible in this case to not park them someplace ridiculously vulnerable, except the church wall enclosure right by a flag wich a couple of IIs are using to remain hull down. Perhaps I could have dispersed them and forgotten about them for all time but I ask this. Is that all that less gamey than them being on picket duty?

[ July 10, 2004, 12:36 PM: Message edited by: Akula2 ]

[With Clusters]

In someone else's scenario (a wierd one, to be sure), why the hell not? But buying a bunch of cheapo jeeps or kubelwagens to do the same in a QB is a tad weasily, IMO.

[Akula2]

Actually, the scenario is kinda interesting in it's own way.

From the git-go partisans started right on top of a few of my squads in town. I mean RIGHT on top. Bayonet range.

They were promptly captured. One was killed I believe.

But thats not the rub. I keep getting sound contacts right next to my units, sometimes as close as 15m.

To keep somewhat on topic, a truck spotted something. A KV tank. *groan (its late '41 I believe)

As expected, any PzII with a LOS popped smoke and started doing reverse 180's.

Had I parked a slew of trucks in the church compound with my PzII stunt drivers it would have been pandamonium. (sp)

/me can justify just about anything.

[Phemur]

Well, the truck tactics are a bit gamey, I must admit.

But recon is necessarily a dangerous job. You are going to send unit alone and unprotected to figure out where your opponents main force is, then maneuver your troops to deal with that, no?

Unless of course, no one is doing recon.

I play against the same opponents, and typically, we all split up a squad or two, and send the half-squads (refered to as the Sacrificial Half-Squads) in front of our main force to see if anything is there, and to avoid ambushes.

Is this really so different than using a truck or a jeep?

In real life, I'm sure it would be, but in CM, these units are cheaper, both in point value and tactical value, so why not use them?

Nat

[YankeeDog]

1) Actually, generally speaking Jeeps and Trucks are a fair bit more expensive than a half squad in points terms.

2) Furthermore, once the "suicide recon" Jeep or Truck is KOed, there's a good chance you'll loose the crew of said vehicle as well. Crew members are substantially more valuable in points terms than than squad members, so you're sacrificing even more points than the straight purchase cost when you do suicide recon with an unarmored vehicle.

3) Generally speaking, half-squads take a lot more fire to actually completely eliminate than a Jeep or Truck. A few shots from a distant MG, mortar or ATR will KO an unarmored vehicle. The same amount of fire will make a half-squad go to ground, and maybe cause one or two casualties. If you've planned things properly, though, you stand a good chance of getting the rest of the half-squad out alive, which will save you most of the points.

4) Because half-squads take more fire to eliminate, they're more likely to acutally discover something useful about the enemy before dying -- if he actually wants to eliminate them quickly, chances are your opponent will open up with several units at once. Knowing that there is a lone MG somewhere in a patch of woods 500m is only marginally useful. Knowing that there are several sources of small arms fire in that patch of woods is actionable information about a significant enemy strength.

5) Also, half squads have enough firepower to deal with at least enemy OP/LP positions. Good players will often use LMG, ATR, and tank hunter teams to screen ahead of their MLR, gain intel, and perhaps ambush armor if they are bypassed. Trucks and Jeeps spot poorly and probably won't spot these small units, and even if they do, they'll just get killed, which is again a poor tradeoff pointswise.

6) Half-squads can go anywhere. Jeeps are limited to more open terrain, and trucks are pretty much limited to roads.

7) If a half-squad doesn't get shot at and makes it to a decent body of cover, chances are your opponent will lose contact with it. You can then sneak the half-squad into a good observation position while you bring other units forward. This tactic can be invaluable for spotting ranged fire like MGs and ATGs. Jeeps and Trucks can't really hide at all, and stopping them in exposed observation positions is generally asking to have them taken out by mortar or MG fire.

For all of the above and more, I actually don't mind when my opponent attempts to use Jeeps or Trucks as gamey suicide recon - it's usually just more points for me. A good defense should have sufficient OP/LPs, MGs, on-board mortars, etc. to prevent light recon units from penetrating to the MLR and gaining too much information. I generally structure such 'screen' units to stop half squads and perhaps light armor, but if my opponent want to throw a few trucks at them, they'll deal with that just fine, too. . .

Cheers,

YD

[With Clusters]

In my limited experience, the times I have seen "recon by suicide", it has usually been carried out by the defensive player, trying to sus out the attacker's plans.

Even then, there are risks (more than just the buy points spent on the units, or their value in point terms at the end of the game).

In a recent game (and ongoing game, if my foe ever sends me a turn again), my opponent, the defender, sent two MG halftracks blundering into my advancing lines. One was swiftly taken out by my CAS (cool and all, until it spent the next 4 turns straffing the wreck, before disappearing, never to be seen again, but that's a whole nuther issue).

The other one ran into my "feint" force, where it was engaged by infantry, and the lone tank assigned to the feint.

So for the price of two halftracks and crews, what did he learn? Perhaps exactly what I would have liked him to believe - that my feint is actually my main attack.

Niether lived long enough to get substantial information. What they learned might actually have been detrimental to my opponent's understanding of the situation.

So this kind of "recon" can be a double edged sword. A lot depends on luck (depends on what your "recon" units happen to encounter - lucky for me, my enemy didn't drive into my main force), and luck can go both ways.

Just a thought...