When will the Operational Art of War meet Combat Mission?

[jacobs_ladder2]

Originally posted by Sergei:

Yet some of us are interested in the battles...

I think we are all interested in the battles, but at what scale? I think the original poster was getting at the difficulty in blending the tactical with the operational or strategic.

For example, I can play a part of the siege of Stalingrad. Say, a battle between two battalions in a small 2-4 kilometre map. In a battle of this scale I can see how individual soldiers and weapon systems make an impact on the battlefield, but remain completely ignorant of what is happening elsewhere.

Higher up, let's take the regiment for example. Already we are into trouble. A single player cannot make all of the decisions that would have to be made by all of the virtual commanders. The player now requires a great deal of assistance from the AI. Not AI that plays for him or makes him a spectator, but AI that gives his units the ability to make decent decisions without constant attention. Still, at the regimental level, you start to get into things like supply, air support, coordination between large units, etc. You are still far away from understanding Stalingrad but you are getting a better picture.

At the divisional level things become hard tactically, but you start to see a good chunk of the bigger picture. Here the AI will do wonders for you if it is effectively programmed. You can give orders at multiple levels and, hopefully, have them carried out by everything from a platoon to a brigade to the division itself. At this level you would not want to suffer the nightmare of doing the thinking for thousands of men.

Now, finally you get into the corps level and beyond that the army level where the entire battle is played out. A good engine can allow you to get an excellent grip on the dynamics of an entire campaign or battle like Stalingrad or Kursk. Some of them will do so and still allow you the freedom to control individual companies. These games take forever, but there is a dedicated community that eats them up in the same way we do CM.

The thing that is happening now is the use of more and more AI to reduce the workload of the player. In Panzer Campaigns, for example, the AI could not be relied upon to do anything except move small units from point A to point B. After several years of patches you could more or less expect a division to get itself across a map in decent order, but as soon as it got anywhere near an enemy you would have to take control.

Newer engines, like Highway to the Reich or Combined Arms, allow you to give orders at different levels and reasonably expect the units to make a very good attempt at carrying them out. For example, find the best/ safest/ quickest/ stealthiest route to this point, form up and attack this objective with this casualty limit, with or without a reserve, coordinated with fire support or not, at a certain time, etc. This is a quantum leap to say the least.

The player becomes more and more able to control larger and more complicated units in larger and more complicated battles, while still maintaining some connection with company and platoon level tactics.

I guess I say all this because I do not see it as very far off when a game will allow a player to see a battle of division-sized elements and be able to give orders at any level, take charge when necessary, micromanage, macromanage or whatever. The player orders a regiment to dig in, a battalion to attack and then swoops down to control platoons in a key part of the battle. The technology exists to do it, but it simply has not been done yet. Combat Mission on a larger scale with more independant intelligent units.

Take, for example, the game Civilization, an excellent piece of work for its time, and compare it to Hearts of Iron 2 or World at War. Simply put, there is no comparison. Hearts of Iron 2 attempts to do nothing less than the entire world during WWII. It is not perfect, but it comes damn close. If you haven't tried it, I highly reccommend it.

Cheers

Paul

[GJK]

I'm working on a VASSAL for Panzer Command (PC). I was chatting with Akula2 (from TPG) who happened to send me his copy for use on the module, how reltively easy it would be to use this as the operational layer for CMBB battles.

My idea is pretty simple, add additional gridding to the PC map and create some CM maps that roughly follow the terrain for that portion of the PC map. Some research here could/should be done as the PC map is quite vague in details at that smaller level of course. The operational layer of the game is played according to PC rules, the strategic/tactical layer comes into play using CM. In otherwords, battles are resolved using CM. The grid that the defender is in determines which CM pre-made map to use.

Some quick charts/guidelines for the QB purchases to match each counter from PC - taking into effect any step losses incurred previously. Another reference should be used to convert the losses taken on the CM battlefield to the PC map - in step losses that PC uses.

Probably not worth persuing though if CM part duex has some sort of operational layer in it.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by jacobs_ladder2:

Take, for example, the game Civilization, an excellent piece of work for its time, and compare it to Hearts of Iron 2 or World at War. Simply put, there is no comparison. Hearts of Iron 2 attempts to do nothing less than the entire world during WWII. It is not perfect, but it comes damn close. If you haven't tried it, I highly reccommend it.

You should use a different example, because I still regard Civ1 as a great game. Haven't tried HOI's, just EU. Have to admit, I don't like real time and fooling around with the time acceleration.

Anyway, I feel that expanding too far from the core function of the game can hurt the game, as it requires a HUGE effort to make it work well. I like the kind of operational context that was in CC2 A Bridge Too Far, but at the same time you had only a very limited amount of maps to play on. I like the versatility offered by Combat Mission or Steel Panthers. I have never liked the idea of buying what are essentially expansion packs (which was the second biggest failing of Close Combat series).

I think that there are much easier ways to bring in the 'big picture', such as allowing the inclusion of maps in briefings, victory level dependant debriefings (i.e. "Well done, Sir! With this victory, our hold on Anzio is secured!").

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Sergei:

...victory level dependant debriefings (i.e. "Well done, Sir! With this victory, our hold on Anzio is secured!").

Jeez. I could never figure out why such pats on the back (especially the totally bogus ones) are so important to some players. Take for instance, a certain flight sim that came out about ten years ago. Every time you successfully completed a mission, you were promoted one grade. Give me a break! If the fact that you managed to bomb the target and survive a dogfight on the way home isn't reward enough...

Michael

[JasonC]

"Stalingrad. Say, a battle between two battalions in a small 2-4 kilometre map"

Um. How do I put this? On a map 3 km wide, the relevant forces in the battle of Stalingrad might be a division, if a serious attack is involved. A regiment if people are just holding the line. A battalion got a mission like clear that housing development.

For instance, in the early fight in the north part of the city - by no means the highest force to space, that came later in the factory district - the Germans had 5 divisions on a converging frontage that narrowed to about 5 km around the railway station. Wider before they got that far into the city, it is true.

Part of the problem is that systems have definite command spans they accomodate, but not all battles can be shown at that span. The relevant factors simply aren't present if you "slice" them too small. The scale gets shorter than the LOS lines, the ranges of the weapons, the lengths of time a single formation would stay in an area that small, etc.

If you put a battalion on 200 yards you don't solve it - the reality is the force needed was so high because the combats were long, depth was needed to sustain losses, battalions maneuvered through each other's areas as one succeeded and another failed on quite short time scales, etc. In other words it simply isn't true that a battle of scale x, divided into n slices side to side, is equal to a battle of scale x/n.

When you select a scale for the base unit, you are always going to exclude certain fights as things you can't depict well. You can't give the player 8 articulated levels to command or you get unrealistic borg coordination, and unplayable complexity. So the base level plus 2-3 has to cover the historically relevant battle factors or your system will screw it up. And the set of all battles well covered by squad plus 2-3 echelons is not the war, the set that can be covered by regiments plus 2-3 is not the war, etc.

You will always get an aspect or slice of the war, you can't get all of it. It simply defies human control if realistically portrayed. It tooks thousands of officers years to make the real decisions, you aren't going to hand them to single players to make in four hours and get all of it. You can pick the slice that fits the aspect of the war you want to investigate or show. You can pick interesting or historical critical occasions or critical relationships. If you aim for too much more you are guareenteed to miss, no matter how you try to do it.

[Urban Shocker]

I don't necessary want x to equal n*x/n but if "x" can be approximated by x/n on a realistic but small scale that is very desirable. For example, one might find that 1st and 2nd Division are holding the front with 3rd Division in reserve. Let's say that under attack that 1st Div starts to yield to the onslaught. The commander has many options:

1) Use elements of the reserve to shore up the defense (Hold the Line)

2) Use reserve elements to counterattack (Push the line forward).

3) Use the reserve to start a counteroffensive through 2nd div and attempt to get astride the enemies lines of communication before he gets across mine.

That extra layer of decision can add a "storyline" that many players would enjoy and fits very well with battle accounts that we read in the history books concerning why General So-and-so did this, that, or the other thing.

Now replace the word "division" above with battalion or company. You can still make the same types of decisions and use CM to duke it out. That is why I would iI would like to see a operational layer.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

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

...victory level dependant debriefings (i.e. "Well done, Sir! With this victory, our hold on Anzio is secured!").

Jeez. I could never figure out why such pats on the back (especially the totally bogus ones) are so important to some players.</font>

[kipanderson]

Hi,

GJK thanks for the link to VASSAL, very useful to know of all the options for tracking units at the operational level. I too have Panzer Command, must be an age thing . Anyway… if BFC do not come up with some aids for this type of operational game then VASSAL looks a real possibility.

I also agree with JasonC that there is no perfect solution to the slice one uses in operational games. During the planning for CMMC2 I did suggest that there may be some need for “scaling down” certain games to fit CM. At the operational level so many units may be concentrated in one 2km by 2km area that the game would be unplayable. Just as importantly all wargames are optimised for a certain size of battle. CMX1 was, and CMX2 will be, optimised for “roughly” company v two companies over a map less than 2km by 2km. Of course many of us use CM for way bigger games, for near operational scale games. But this too comes up against problems, with the Uber nature of obstacles in CM for example, mines.

The solution is to have Games Masters/umpires who really know their stuff both historically but also in CM terms. Umpires who can scale down a battle with a full understanding of the subtleties of the CM system and the tactical implications of the way they scale down a game. Simply dividing the number of units by two and halving the map area is not normally the way to do things. For example Soviet AT guns rely on flanking shots to do their damage both in CM and as they did in the real world, if you read their WWII manuals. Thus if one scaled down the number of units in a game by halving them, then reduced the width of the CM map to halve you could end with a disproportional effect on the Soviet side. Way less potential for flanking shots if the map width is halved.

When it comes to my preferred slice for operational games it is the standard 1:50,000/1 hex: 1 mile map with battalion combat teams as the basic manoeuvre units. Nothing very original there.

High quality umpires with flexibility to use their initiative is the answer.

All the best,

Kip.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Sergei:

(don't you think that the AAR score screen is a tad uninspiring?).

Frankly, I'm massively indifferent. I don't look to AAR screens to find inspiration.

Michael

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

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

(don't you think that the AAR score screen is a tad uninspiring?).

Frankly, I'm massively indifferent. I don't look to AAR screens to find inspiration.

Michael </font>

[David I]

Dorosh,

One has to admire a man who thinks about a thread for a year and nine months and then replies with one word.

:eek:

DavidI

[Michael Dorosh]

Check back in November 2008 for my response. It may be "quite" but I'll need to think on it first.

[JonS]

Anyone heard from Emrys since Sept last year?

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by JonS:

Anyone heard from Emrys since Sept last year?

I think Raeven over at gyrene's was staying in touch, but even news from that source has been spotty. I think he's enjoying his sabbatical - or at least, I hope so.

[Bannon DC]

Michael Dorosh... giver of life! :eek:

(to old dead threads)

[JasonC]

"a part of the siege of Stalingrad. Say, a battle between two battalions in a small 2-4 kilometre map."

Except, problem, in Stalingrad that was more like frontage for a division. Granted, one that had typically taken heavy casualties. A single battalion was the typical force detailed to clear a single block of mid rise apartment buildings. With engineers, tanks, and artillery support.

Campaigns are a great idea and can be run, though they take time. But people have little comprehension of the range of force to space ratios really seen in the war, how dependent they are on terrain, mission, and stage of an offensive, etc.

CM works best at the company scale, and is already getting monster-ish at the battalion scale. You can play out one battalion fight readily enough, but to do a campaign you have to link 20 or more, and resolve each inside a week. Doesn't work. For playability, you want the typical force on a typical operational segment to be a company, not a battalion. If occasionally a highly "stacked" attacker manages to send a battalion, that should be an outlier, not the norm. (Otherwise your outliers will have regiments on one map and be utterly unplayable).

When designing a campaign for the first time, I continue to recommend a battalion scale for the overall sides, up to a maximum of a regiment or brigade (or KG of equivalent size, i.e. well under a division).

As for an operational layer, TOAW is very bad at it in my opinion. You can use the Panzergrenadier system. Or you can just use the CM editor as a "sand table", with units on it representing one echelon larger units (squad - platoon, platoon - company I mean) - and distances 10x what they usually are. I call that the CMx10 system, and it works. A bit of work for the referee, but perfectly playable.