Civilians and Civilian Vehicles in CM2? Your thoughts?

[Znarf]

Civilians and civilian vehicles, or non-combatants in general, would add a welcomed dimension to the new CM. Often civilians from cities and towns did not have the luxury of evacuating before battle, and this added to the fog of war.

Think about it - it is a night op, and you are to take a small village - you hear the sound of a vehicle approaching, and then you see the outline of people moving off in the distance - is it a halftrack with supporting infantry, or is it a farm truck and some farmhands attempting to flee the impending combat? :confused: Do you shoot now, possibly killing innocents and giving away your position, or do you wait to see if they are civilians, so that you may let them pass unharmed? Do you risk letting that "farm truck" get so close that you run the risk of getting flamed by a SPW 251/16 Flamethrower halftrack if you are mistaken? :eek:

Perpahs a negative point value could be subtracted for civilian casualities inflicted (at least for the Allies, as the Axis never seemed too concerned about shooting civilians). The civilians could be another force option (e.g., Neutrals) or could automatically be generated at the option of a scenario designer.

[flamingknives]

Civilian activity is useful for recon and identifying enemy positions, so from that perspective might be a function, especially if the scale gets any larger.

[Bone_Vulture]

I have a hard time believing that any civilians would stand between an assault force and the defender's entrenchments...

[Znarf]

Originally posted by Bone_Vulture:

I have a hard time believing that any civilians would stand between an assault force and the defender's entrenchments...

Well, I doubt any civilian would willingly want to be there, but often they didn't have a choice, such as refugees fleeing from a battle. Or the Russian advance across Poland and into Germany. Or the French roads in 1940, clogged with refugees during the German advance. Or Peiper's machinegunning of civilians in reprisal to the Americans blowing the bridges during the Battle of the Bulge. Or the Sixth Army's initial advance into Stalingrad in August, 1942. Or the local villagers watching the Americans and Vichy Frech exchange small arms fire in North Africa as detailed in An Army at Dawn.

I could go on... but my point is I have a hard time believing that all cities, towns, fields, farms, etc. were utterly devoid of civilians during battles.... but this is always the case in CMxx. The option to add this bit a realism (and confusion) would we appreciated.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Znarf:

(at least for the Allies, as the Axis never seemed too concerned about shooting civilians).

:confused:

[jeffsmith]

Civilian Topic Covered in CM:BB Thread

Including Comments by Battlefront Staff

[Znarf]

Originally posted by jeffsmith:

Civilian Topic Covered in CM:BB Thread

Including Comments by Battlefront Staff

Thanks for the redirect. Battlefront's concern about censorship is valid. I do not want civilians included as defensless targets; rather, the inclusion would be to increase the fog of war and perhaps provide a better opportunity to model allied concerns in tactical situations regarding civilian casualites.

But.... given that Battlefront has to make a profitable product (after all, they need to pay their bills too), I can only defer to their judgement as to whether possible censorship in foreign markets militates against the inclusion of this aspect of wargaming.

That being said, why anyone would want to model an "SS massacre" is beyond me....

[Panzerfest]

Originally posted by Znarf:

(at least for the Allies, as the Axis never seemed too concerned about shooting civilians).

How many civilians were deliberatly killed in bombing attacks on germany/japanese cities? Not trying to diminish the brutality of the axis. Just saying the allies didn't exactly have clean hands, but war is war...

[Sanok]

"How many civilians were deliberatly killed in bombing attacks on germany/japanese cities? Not trying to diminish the brutality of the axis. Just saying the allies didn't exactly have clean hands, but war is war."

Oh, please! There's a difference between allied nations defending themselves against attacking countries aggressively trying to destroy them, and those same aggressive nations brutally killing unarmed civilians.

[Mad Russian]

Originally posted by Panzerfest:

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

(at least for the Allies, as the Axis never seemed too concerned about shooting civilians).

How many civilians were deliberatly killed in bombing attacks on germany/japanese cities? Not trying to diminish the brutality of the axis. Just saying the allies didn't exactly have clean hands, but war is war... </font>

[Stavka_lite]

Now I may be wrong but I think that the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo targeted the civilian populations in order to break their morale and stop supporting the war. Like I said I could be wrong but I don't think so.

[Panzerfest]

Its no secret that in dresden and tokyo civilians were deliberately targeted to break the population, and Im not trying to make light of the horrible attrocities committed by both the axis powers or their violent expantionist policies. My grandfather was wounded and captured at dunkirk, the only reason he survived is he was repatreated in late '43.

The the fact remains that the allies DID target civilians in strategic bombing despite what many people think. War isn't black and white trying to moralize something that happened over 50 years ago while nations were fighting for there lives just isn't worth it. i feel the facts speak for themselves.

Peace

DRESDEN '45

"It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, should be reviewed. Otherwise we shall come into control of an utterly ruined land"

Winston Churchill, memorandum to Air Marshall Arthur Harris (28th March 1945)

That the bombing of Dresden was a great tragedy none can deny. It is not so much this or the other means of making war that is immoral or inhumane. What is immoral is war itself. Once full-scale war has broken out it can never be humanized or civilized, and if one side attempted to do so it would be most likely to be defeated. That to me is the lesson of Dresden.

After the war Robert Saunby, Deputy Air Marshal at Bomber Command, commented on the bombing of Dresden.

[V]

I don't think civilians should be involved in CM.

[V]

Originally posted by Stavka_lite:

Now I may be wrong but I think that the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo targeted the civilian populations in order to break their morale and stop supporting the war. Like I said I could be wrong but I don't think so.

There were military targets in Dresden, breaking morale of the civilian population was not the sole cause of the Dresden raid.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Originally posted by V:

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

Now I may be wrong but I think that the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo targeted the civilian populations in order to break their morale and stop supporting the war. Like I said I could be wrong but I don't think so.

There were military targets in Dresden, breaking morale of the civilian population was not the sole cause of the Dresden raid. </font>

[Ant]

What miltary targets exactly? Unless you consider the targeting of fleeing refugees to cause the choking of roads used by miltary vehicles to be a "military target" I tend to disagree.

I saw an interview recently with men who had served in both RAF bomber command and the US 8th AF in WW2. One guy who had been a bombardier on a B17 said that by the last year of the war any German town that had so much as a road running through it was regarded as a military target.

So yes, at the time, Dresden was regarded by the allies as a military target.

[ January 26, 2004, 03:52 AM: Message edited by: Ant ]

[Joachim]

Originally posted by Znarf:

Perpahs a negative point value could be subtracted for civilian casualities inflicted (at least for the Allies, as the Axis never seemed too concerned about shooting civilians

Nuts.

Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, any other German city.

vs.

Coventry, Rotterdam, numerous other cities.

Read that other thread about "family ties to WW2". IIRC it was two Dutch on their way to greet the Canadians liberating them almost getting killed by the usual Canadian prep barrage. Recce by arty is not very friendly towards civilians. Guess there were some less fortunate ones.

Rolling over refugee columns in tanks isn't friendly, too (and the Russians were Allies, not Axis).

Numerous "when in doubt, empty the magazine" incidents - on either side.

A commander deciding to risk some civilians or half his company is not in an enviable situation.

Gruß

Joachim

[Sergei]

Also, you might consider that after Germans had been pushed back inside the Reich, it was their home towns that they were fighting for and their own people trying to find shelter amidst all that. Meanwhile the Allied troopers would have found killing unidentified targets a wise precaution, just in case. Systematic attrocities by Russians are well known, and I don't think that all war criminals in the western armies got trialed either.

But they shouldn't be demonized for that. History is a big enough mess already to sort out without trying to generalize that all Axis or Allied or whatever troops always took great care of civilians or systematically murdered them or whatsoever.

[Dave H]

Some of the comments of the "differences" between how the Allies and the Axis conducted the fighting are amazing. I'm talking about the actual fighting, not reprisals or anything of that sort. Does anybody seriously think the American, Russian, British, Canadian, etc. etc. armies fought with kid gloves on? These commanders had to make decisions which involved the certainty of death for many of their own men. Causing the deaths of some faceless civilians was not going to be any more difficult than that. Air strikes, artillery barrages, and bullets certainly don't make any distinction between friend or foe, combatant or civilian.

[Joachim]

Originally posted by Ant:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />What miltary targets exactly? Unless you consider the targeting of fleeing refugees to cause the choking of roads used by miltary vehicles to be a "military target" I tend to disagree.

I saw an interview recently with men who had served in both RAF bomber command and the US 8th AF in WW2. One guy who had been a bombardier on a B17 said that by the last year of the war any German town that had so much as a road running through it was regarded as a military target.

So yes, at the time, Dresden was regarded by the allies as a military target. </font>

[Dave H]

Originally posted by Joachim:

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

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />What miltary targets exactly? Unless you consider the targeting of fleeing refugees to cause the choking of roads used by miltary vehicles to be a "military target" I tend to disagree.

I saw an interview recently with men who had served in both RAF bomber command and the US 8th AF in WW2. One guy who had been a bombardier on a B17 said that by the last year of the war any German town that had so much as a road running through it was regarded as a military target.

So yes, at the time, Dresden was regarded by the allies as a military target.</font>

[V]

Originally posted by Kanonier Reichmann:

What miltary targets exactly? Unless you consider the targeting of fleeing refugees to cause the choking of roads used by miltary vehicles to be a "military target" I tend to disagree.

There was a Zeiss-Ikon facility and a Siemens glass facility which developed and produced optics and gun sights for the German army. There were factories in and around Dresden which created gas masks, fuses, radar and electronics components, engines for Junkers and cockpit parts for Messerchmitts.

Dresden was also a major rail hub which the Germans used to shift troops between fronts.

[V]

Originally posted by Dave H:

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

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

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />What miltary targets exactly? Unless you consider the targeting of fleeing refugees to cause the choking of roads used by miltary vehicles to be a "military target" I tend to disagree.

I saw an interview recently with men who had served in both RAF bomber command and the US 8th AF in WW2. One guy who had been a bombardier on a B17 said that by the last year of the war any German town that had so much as a road running through it was regarded as a military target.

So yes, at the time, Dresden was regarded by the allies as a military target.</font>

[V]

Originally posted by Joachim:

Nuts.

Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, any other German city.

vs.

Coventry, Rotterdam, numerous other cities.

And if NAZI Germany had had access to the bomber force which the US and UK commanded....

[Michael Dorosh]

The CMBB forum has a good discussion of the inclusion of civilians that didn't degenerate into a Hi Mom, They Did, We Did debate.

A search of that forum should turn up some interesting proposals, such as interrogation benefits and the handling of destruction of property which are also germaine to a discussion regarding the inclusion of civilians in CM.