Rank of section commanders

[Wol]

Why are the commonwealth sections led by sergeants? Surely they should be corporals.

???

[Michael Emrys]

Apparently a limitation of the current game engine. To be corrected in CMx2, one hopes.

Michael

[Michael Dorosh]

Not a limitation of the game engine, poor research. It is possible to name a section commander Unteroffizier for Heer, Unterscharführer for Waffen SS, Sergeant for US, etc (and the appropriate three letter initials for each). There is no difference in coding between calling something a SGT and calling it a CPL if you are already calling them Unt in foreign armies.

Ditto the graphics; quite simple to just change the bitmaps, no coding at all involved there.

Unless BFC is rationalizing it by thinking that dumb Americans would be confused by Cpl section commanders in the Commonwealth?

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Not a limitation of the game engine, poor research. [snips]

Are you sure? I thought that in the British army at least, it was common in WW2 for sections to be led by lance-serjeants (yes, serjeant with a "j", not this new-fangled American spelling).

Similarly, up until the middle of the war, two companies per battalion would be commanded by Captains.

All the best,

John.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by John D Salt:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Not a limitation of the game engine, poor research. [snips]

Are you sure? I thought that in the British army at least, it was common in WW2 for sections to be led by lance-serjeants. </font>

[Wol]

Can I mod this myself in some way?

[Firefly]

I doubt it's poor resarch, after all this analomy (as well as the one where battalion commanders have to be majors) was brought to BFC's attention back in the CMBO days, which is, I believe, where Michael E. remembers the 'engine limitation' explanation from. I don't have access to the CM source code, of course, but I suspect the internal tables of rank are language-based rather than nationality-based. You need someone from BFC to confirm this though.

[Joachim]

Originally posted by Firefly:

I doubt it's poor resarch, after all this analomy (as well as the one where battalion commanders have to be majors) was brought to BFC's attention back in the CMBO days, which is, I believe, where Michael E. remembers the 'engine limitation' explanation from. I don't have access to the CM source code, of course, but I suspect the internal tables of rank are language-based rather than nationality-based. You need someone from BFC to confirm this though.

They are force type based. Italians or Romanians have other ranks than Wehrmacht. But IIRC even SS has different ranks than Wehrmacht.

[rant stations, rant stations, all hands man your rant stations!]

I want to have huge officer and NCO losses for the Germans in the engine. If the guy with the pistol dies, I want a correct modelling that his 2i/c takes over - with appropriate change in name and rank. Same goes for TCs of tank plts. The TC is killed by a sniper but the command structure stays intact. Great. The commander is always the last man standing in his group, but the guy with the SMG in German squads usually dies first.

Forces with pre-battle losses should reflect that the officers and NCOs are absent, too....

Which effect has a different rank at the beginning of the battle for the command structure? Less radius of command? Other leadership ratings? Will a NCO be better or worse than an officer? There is nothing you can't model with the current engine - except for the rank name. If you want the correct rank in a carefully reseeached scen - put it in the name like many scens already do.

Changes in command caused by the loss of commanders during the battle should have a much higher priority than adjusting the initial rank.

[rant mode off]

Gruß

Joachim

[Firefly]

Originally posted by Joachim:

They are force type based. Italians or Romanians have other ranks than Wehrmacht.

Well the last time I checked, Italians, Rumanians and Germans spoke different languages . Your point about the SS though does suggest that special cases can be made, perhaps SS fanbois outnumber Commonwealth fanbois.

[Joachim]

Originally posted by Firefly:

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

They are force type based. Italians or Romanians have other ranks than Wehrmacht.

Well the last time I checked, Italians, Rumanians and Germans spoke different languages . Your point about the SS though does suggest that special cases can be made, perhaps SS fanbois outnumber Commonwealth fanbois. </font>

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Firefly:

Your point about the SS though does suggest that special cases can be made

Common sense would suggest it also. How is "rank" displayed in-game?

With a three letter code dependent on nationality, and a bitmap.

You can change a bitmap to whatever you want with no effect on gameplay.

How hard would it really have been to have a three letter code say CPL instead of SGT?

And to be especially picky, the SS example doesn't hold any water since squad leaders in both the Heer and the SS have the same abbreviation - UNT.

However, weapons team leaders, truck drivers, etc for Heer are OBG and for Waffen SS are ROT. (Obergefreiter and Rottenführer respectively).

[ March 29, 2004, 10:28 AM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[Pzman]

I think the only reason behind this was to save time. It would be just sloppy of BFC not to have the rank system correct otherwise.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Panzerman:

I think the only reason behind this was to save time. It would be just sloppy of BFC not to have the rank system correct otherwise.

I don't know about your keyboard, but the "C", "P" and "L" are as easily accessible as the "S", "G" and "T"

Yes, this was obviously fudged, but for no real reason. The ranks are just a chrome feature anyway, given the lack of a campaign and the fact that the ranks don't come up, say, in AARs, nor are they affected in Operations.

I suspect perhaps the biggest headache would have been picking Captain or Major for company commanders, as most armies had their share of both, and either would be correct.

The Germans are all patently incorrect, too, really, as officer platoon commanders usually numbered 1 per company as per the full strength infantry company model.

Then you get into the question of "actual" ranks in a wartime company, first at full strength, then at depleted, blah blah blah.

I imagine at that point of consideration one would tend to throw their hands up, type in the first thing that came to mind, and leave it at that.

Having no effect whatsoever on gameplay, it is easy to live with.