Historical battle length, time compression, resupply in combat, pauses in battle

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Andreas:

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

Runyan is specifically asking about trying to simulate the long ramp up to the climactic battle which is typically depicted as the main event.

Well you see, I don't necessarily think this is what he is asking for at all, but maybe I completely misunderstand him and we should let him clarify. In reality, there was not the long ramp-up and then a 25 minute firefight in which it all would be resolved. Instead the battle for e.g. a village would consist of taking out a strongpoint at the approach to the village. Then assault into the village. Then clear the remains of the village. Inbetween, you may have an enemy artillery strike, and maybe a counter-attack. Inbetween all that, you reorg and resupply, and get some rest. There was not always this linearity that you seem to assume in your 'long ramp up, climactic firefight' idea.

You can also do a search for the post by John Salt, in which he brings the PRO quote on the 800 yards in 1.5 hours. Those may well have been long approach/climactic battle type assaults. They are also not very interesting.

I can't really see why you get your knickers in a twist, BTW. The theatrical sighing is so much more appropriate on the general forum.

Edit: now that Cory has clarified it, and keeping in mind that he wants it to be more, not less realistic, what do people think of the idea of operations with special briefing instructions? </font>

[Kozure]

Originally posted by Runyan99:

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

Runyan is specifically asking about trying to simulate the long ramp up to the climactic battle which is typically depicted as the main event.

No. I think most people misunderstand me here.

I am arguing that the 'climactic battle' itself takes longer than 20-30 minutes. I am arguing that it will often take 60-180 minutes, of actual bullets flying, before contact is broken, units reorganize, ammo is brought up, and the advance is resumed.

I am arguing that a six hour battle, for example, to take a small town, may consist of two or three of these 'climactic battles'.

I am suggesting that a CM engine better able to encompass 60-180 minute combat periods would be more realistic than what we have now. </font>

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Andreas:

There was not always this linearity that you seem to assume in your 'long ramp up, climactic firefight' idea.

But this linearity did exist most of the time, except when it didn't.

You form up on your Start Line (LOD to you younger types). Assuming the battalion before you cleared the start line for you, or the enemy hasn't counterattacked in the meantime, in which case you join battle fighting for the Start Line itself.

You advance to contact. Assuming the enemy is where you've been told they are.

You fight through to the objective. Assuming the objectives aren't changed on you by circumstance (flanking units not keeping up, map is all wrong, etc.)

You hold the objective. Maybe your objective is a start line for another unit, maybe it is the end in itself. Whatever.

Pretty linear. Within each phase is the non-linear stuff. Enemy troops in a gully on your approach, perpindicular to your advance. Stop and deal with them, leave for a flanking unit, call down artillery and press on? Objective is 100 yards further east than your map indicated. And a an unmarked minefield you find yourself blundering into. Once in the town, fierce counter-attacks. Your artillery registration is all off, you have to correct the fires by spotting. Too bad the FOO is dead. Battalion radios; your tank support never did show up. Can you hold? Pull back to the gully and dig in for the night. Whatever...

The basic idea is always the same though - it is in the execution that "linearity" doesn't - cannot - exist.

I think we all know that, anyway, so maybe let's focus on how much shooting is actually done in these "six hour" battles.

Ammunition expenditure would be a great place to start. Anyone have any stats for that?

[Kozure]

Eeeek... typed out my response while Dorosh was posting his. I'm just a little frightened how similar they are. I swear upon a stack of CMAK CDs that I did not see his before I posted mine.

Andreas, perhaps I overracted, so I withdraw my theatrical sigh. However, I do feel you were being a tad unfair as to make presumptions about my knowledge of WWII conflict.

Originally posted by Andreas

You can also do a search for the post by John Salt, in which he brings the PRO quote on the 800 yards in 1.5 hours. Those may well have been long approach/climactic battle type assaults. They are also not very interesting.

I'm sure you know as well or better than I that war wasn't always interesting or fun. I think you also assume that I'm assuming that all battles would be like this. I merely proposed it as a way of exploring this phase of a common (but not necessarily typical)occurrence in battle.

[Runyan99]

Dorosh brings up great points.

An advance will encompass many small pauses, delays, problems, fleeting engagements, orders, changes in orders, a sudden rush or assault, etc.

How long does it all take? This is the kind of stuff that makes up a six hour battle. In any case, everything won't occur in one 25 minute climax.

Does a 12 battle, 20 minute per battle op simulate this well? Maybe it does, for some situations. City fighting, or forest fighting, where contact might be fleeting.

On the other hand, I have a hard time imagining Andreas' Eastern Front example, with a whole division attacking on a 2km front to break through a German line, in these terms. I assume fairly open terrain. In this type of situation, I imagine units under low-intensity contact for longer periods of time. Are pauses every 20 minutes reasonable in this situation, or will elements of the battalions be under enemy fire for longer periods of time?

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Runyan99:

Andreas, do you have any time information for this particular operation? How long did the breakthrough battle last? How long were individual battalions engaged?

Divisions were single (most) or two-echelon (one). Regiments were two- or three-echelon. One battalion was division reserve. If you have a single echelon division, with twin-echelon regiments, that means you will have 4-6 battalions up (that was a mistake I made earlier, I forgot to check the organisation of the regiments), with 2-4 battalions as immediate follow-up, and another one as later follow-up.

It is a bit difficult to tease this information out of the text I have. Combat started at about 0700 after a one hour artillery preparation.

CIVth Rifle Corps, 27th Army:

'In combat lasting two hours, the first line of the enemy MLR was taken completely by the Corps, and on its right flank, one regiment had broken into the second line. [...] After another artillery preparation, the Corps used the break-in and by 1040 had broken through the enemy MLR (given as 5-6km in depth, with a tactical zone of 8-9km). [...] The troops of the Corps crossed the Bahluiu [river] under the protection of an artillery screen at 1200 and occupied the second line by 1300. [...] At the close of the day, the Corps had advanced a further 10-11km into the depth and opened the breach to be 4-6km wide.'

The divisions of this wave were not in echelon, so all regiments were up.

LXVIth Rifle Corps, 37th Army (operating in echelon formation)

'The troops [...] took the first line after three hours of combat. The 333rd Rifle Division broke, after enemy resistance was broken at about 1200 into the second line. [...] The commander of the 61st Guards Rifle Division used the success and at 13.30 the second echelon (187th Guards Rifle Regiment) was committed. At the close of the day this regiment broke through the MLR and advanced to the second line.'

Second day at LXVIth RC:

'At 0600 the attack was continued. At 1200 the Corps secured the introduction of the 7th Mech Corps into the penetration.'

30th Guards Airborne Regiment at Leontina (two battalion strongpoint):

'At 1400 the fascists were encircled in the strongpoint. After that, the regiment started an assault from all sides. [...] By 1800, the strongpoint was cleared of the enemy.'

Originally posted by Runyan99:

On a side note, when talking about a division on a 2km front, are we talking about a full strength, or a reduced division?

80% to full strength, meaning 7-9,000 men in a division. In terms of frontline strength that would not compare too badly to a western division, because of the shallower nature of Soviet divisions.

[Andreas]

Kozure, Mike is right and I was being an ass. My apologies. I was not assuming anything about your knowledge of WW2 BTW, just saying that the particular example you gave was not realistic.

Anyways. I think what we are getting at (correct me if I think wrong), is that Cory is quite right to say that 25 turns are just unrealistic for a battalion attack. Since this was really the basic maneuver unit, and is a unit level well suited for CM, it begs the question of how to simulate this type of attack.

There are various ways of course in which we can attempt that.

One fairly obvious one is to make battles longer. 120n turns variable is probably still short, but gives you a lot of opportunity to simulate the approach march, dealing with the outpost line, counter-attacks, etc.pp. But this runs into the problem that you may run out of ammo. It may also not be too interesting for one player.

Another one is to simulate the battle through various battles. E.g. a company peeling off to deal with the pesky flank threat. The main force assaulting into the town. A company clearing the town. All these could be, say, 30-60 turns in length, and would just simulate the culmination. In totality, they are the battle. The problem here is that they are disjointed. There is no link between them, that e.g. the failure to clear the flank threat would change the plan of attack.

Another one is an operation. Here we have some problems, because the system gives both sides the ability to re-org after a battle. But I think it is still the most realistic way of dealing with it.

Anyway, I agree with Cory that a battalion attack needs to be longer, if it is a single battle, then we are usually comfortable with. If you have a smaller scenario, just featuring a company, or two platoons, it is not as pressing an issue. I do not agree that CM is just showing the culmination of the fight, and the rest leading up to it is just boring.

[Runyan99]

One small clarification.

Clearly, an infantry squad will not find itself constantly firing at the enemy, nonstop, for an hour, or two hours. It is too stressful, they don't have the ammo, and very small engagements just don't seem to last that long.

An individual squad might move for two minutes, fire for a minute, pause for two minutes, move for 10 minutes, pause again, fire for three minutes, etc.

But in the context of the whole combat mission, at the company or battalion level, different squads may be engaged, at different places and times, over a longer period of time.

The length of these battalion level advances are really the length of time we need to have available for CM battles.

[30ot6]

What we need are battles happening in continuous time. Continuous as in non-stop for a period of say, 12 hours(just for instance, it should be infinitely variable). A player would command just one unit(probably a company or battalion) as part of a larger battle. As the player's unit comes in and out of the battle, tactical gameplay is activated. Not for the constant skirmishing, only when important tactical action is going to take place.

It's a very rough idea, but I think it might be workable, if people with enough knowledge put their minds to it. It's essentially a meta campaign automated. It would be easy to use this format for a three month campaign, too. And with true multiplayer, wow would it be fun!

I would like to know how a unit on the offense resupplied. Were reserves sent in, was the position abandoned(I would assume not!), did they bring the ammo forward to the new position? I suppose it varied depending on the individual situation.

[Kozure]

Originally posted by Andreas

One fairly obvious one is to make battles longer. 120n turns variable is probably still short, but gives you a lot of opportunity to simulate the approach march, dealing with the outpost line, counter-attacks, etc.pp. But this runs into the problem that you may run out of ammo. It may also not be too interesting for one player.

The potential of running out of ammo in longer battles creates the interesting situation of having to decide which units to keep in reserve, if any. I know that in playing a few of the 50 or 60 round scenarios, I found myself needing to plan several turns in advance how to extricate low-ammo/fragile units from front line positions while replacing them with fresh troops.

I agree this may be boring for one player (except perhaps in meeting engagement type scenarios) and to play a 120 turn game vs. AI... well you might not get the opposition that you might hope for.

Series of operations or a long battle... both interesting options. I think I'll tinker with the long battle approach sometime soon.

Originally posted by 30ot6

I would like to know how a unit on the offense resupplied. Were reserves sent in, was the position abandoned(I would assume not!), did they bring the ammo forward to the new position? I suppose it varied depending on the individual situation.

As far as I can make out, if a unit bogged down or ran out of ammunition on the offense, they usually held in place or fell back while follow-on units attacked through their positions.

As for field resupply, I'm not sure at all... perhaps runners selected from each section/squad were sent to get ammunition? My general impression is that units fought with what they carried with them and were not usually resupplied while the attack was still in progress, given the dangers of carrying ammunition forward and back.

[flamingknives]

Universal carriers are good for resupply and were used as such. The French and Romanians had completely covered small tracked vehicles dedicated to ammunition resupply to front-line units.

[Runyan99]

Cory, your argumentation is logical, but I fail to see your point.

Let me risk an analogy.

American football has four, 15 minute quarters. The total game is therefore 60 minutes of action. With pauses for halftime, timeouts, commercials, etc, the game takes about three hours of realtime.

We have football videogames. Lots of people play X-box football, often with 5 minute quarters. The X-box game therefore is only 20 minutes long, and the game plays out in maybe 30 minutes of realtime. It is easy to pass, easy to run, and the score tends to be high. It is an approximation of football, but is not a simulation of football.

If I took a person from mars, and introduced them to football using only the X-box, they would have an idea of what football is like. But on the other hand, they wouldn't get a true idea of how an actual game of football plays out in the real world. It is too fast, too short, and too intense.

The real game takes longer, and the pace of the action is different.

See where I am going with this?

[ January 14, 2004, 03:43 PM: Message edited by: Runyan99 ]

[tar]

This has been mentioned in several of the above replies, but I thought I would make it rather explicit:

One of the biggest differences between CMxx and the real world is that the information flow is much, much better. This works in both directions.

First of all, with the wonderful all-moving, replaying camera, the player has a much more detailed, accurate and complete picture of what is going on than anyone on the battlefield. And what is more, this information is conveyed instantly. This is a fundamental limitation of any non-roleplaying game where the player fulfills more than one role in the game. It is independent of the in-game borg spotting. Even when that gets fixed, the player will still have a measure of understanding of the battlefield way beyond what any commander, even today, has.

There is really no way to eliminate this short of going to a massively multiplayer role-playing game.

Secondly, perfectly coordinated orders also flow out from the central command much more quickly than they ever could in real life. It is not only the speed, but also the wonderful coordination that marks this.

There are perhaps some changes to the game that could be made which would reflect some of these issues, but at a fundamental level you can never really eliminate them. About the only corrective measure would be to limit the ability of the player to ACT on the tremendous information that is available to him.

Currently the command delays do that, but only at the very lowest level. In real life, it is much more time consuming to get a company to do a coordinated move than a platoon or a squad. In CM, this is not the case. Companies can move and react just as quickly as the platoons of which they are composed. The same applies to higher echelons as well.

Without too much change to the basic game system, one could consider introducing both a hierarchy of command connections and also much longer command delays for headquarters. (I've long advocated the latter solution as an easy fix to slow down game progress). By making the HQs harder to move, especially the more senior the HQ, you introduce inertia to the larger units. In other words, the squads of a platoon can maneuver just as they do now while close the their HQ, but moving the entire platoon somewhere takes longer, because the HQ has to move as well.

To get the full benefits, though, you would need a system with a hierarchical command structure, where the delays in getting new orders would depend on keeping the command hierarchy and also a bit on the distance. The command delays for units should also be made a bit more variable, to reduce some of the perfect coordination. There should also be delays for canceling movement and fire orders as well as just giving them. That would make planning, coordination and reaction to unexpected events more ponderous. This would certainly slow things down.

Another way to enforce a slower tempo, at least for operations, would be to set higher thresholds for something like the auto ceasefire. It would probably be too frustrating for the battle scenarios, but for operations, having a ceasefire offer imposed when morale drops, say, to 80% would really cut down on the pace of battles. One would then have a regrouping, rest and resupply opportunity. One would, of course, like to have the morale thresholds for ceasefire and surrender to be something that could be varied by the scenario designer. That would neatly account for varying degrees of tradeoffs between the value of preserving troops and getting objectives.

[JonS]

Re: Ammo resupply during battle

In the British-style armies, ammo resupply was the CSMs responsibility. The following is an example of how it worked. It's written by the FO attached to the company, who was busily calling down fire, and is from a battle fought by the Aussies in Vietnam, but it gives a good impression of the mechanics:

Everyone in the company was running short of small arms ammunition. I had some for the Armalite and Willie had some, but we did not have a particular use for it. We were too busy. Jack Kirby, a very fine Company Sergeant-Major, came to me and said, "Excuse me, Sir, have you any spare ammunition?" I could not understand why he should act in such a polite way. I told him to help himself from my pack and he did that. He said, "I am leaving you one magazine". He also left Willie Walker with one.

In the later stages of the battle when we were all in this base of ours with the wounded, members of the platoons had joined us, and there were far more people around in the Company Headquarters area. But it was at that time there were two incidents, one which impressed, and one which worried me. Most of the men were young, of the age 20 or so. One man I heard saying "steady, aim, fire". I think that was an example of what makes a soldier tick. After thorough training and even under stress he knew what was required and that is how he did it. It was just at that time, in fact just after Jack Kirby had collected ammunition, that I was very concerned because the VC had started attacking from a different direction. I ordered the removal on one battery from the Regimental Fire Mission and applied it in that area. Jack Kirby saw it as well and we were very worried that we were going to be done. It did not deter Jack, he just went around collecting ammunition and distributing it.

So, in this case the CSM was physically moving from man to man, taking excess ammo from some, and handing it out to others who were running out. He was taking full magazines, and aso other excess ammo that men had in their webbing.

Later in the battle this happened ...

When I screamed "stop", the guns had to stop and they did. Another occasion when the guns had to stop and they were stopped for me, was when a helicopter was despatched to resupply small arms ammunition into the company area.

The helicopter hovered over the company and dropped magazines and boxed ammo down to them. The company was occupying an area of approx 400m x400m. Putting it inot a WWII context, imagine the helicopter was a bren-carrier bringing up bulk ammo and dumping it at CoyHQ, from where the CSM would redistribute it, on foot.

Re: All in a Days Work

I'm attacking in this one, and doing quite well I think. It's a long advance though. We're getting close to the end of the second 40 minute battle. This second battle features more cover and covered approaches, and for literally the first 15-20 minutes there was no firing, as I advanced my guys forward, looking for Andreas. He whined like a bitch about how boring it was, so naturally I slowed down even more to piss him off on purpose, and make him show his teeth.

The action recently has been fast and furious though - but even then it's been kind of disjointed with a relativly small portion of my forces (and his forces, from what I can tell) engaged at any given moment, though recently I've been feeding more into the maw.

I've been rather enjoying it - ensuring overwatch, maintain balance and a reserve, repeatedly setting limited short-term objectives, etc.

Re: Scenario length

Some time ago I designed a battle to see what I could do in terms of setting up a 'proper' fireplan. Pt 238 was the result.

The turn limit was set to 120 - not because I think it will - or even should - take that long, but because I wanted to remove time as a concern for the attacker. It should work against the AI, though the defence will naturally be more coherent with a 'live' opponent.

Because of the way the battle is set up, the attacker will have to create a plan for how the entire battle will go before play commences, then try and stick to that plan through thick and thin.

Disclaimer: I never expected it to generate wide or overwhelming enthusiasm, but to appeal to a certain segment of the CM crowd.

Regards

JonS

[ January 14, 2004, 09:24 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[flamingknives]

Jon,

How have you found the time limits etc?

They are somewhat longer than the average op battle.

[Schoerner]

Runyan,

i think i understand what you mean, but honestly see only one possibility to bring the real pace of a battle into CM: complex simulation of communication between units. And i have no clue, if such a game would still be fun, because a lot of micromanagement could appear.

You advance with a platoon and discover strong resistance or that the route of advance is suddenly blocked by MG-fire.

Now the god-player gives immediately orders to the apropriate support weapons and in the next minute they have their orders: either they are immediately on the move or they even open fire within the next minute.

In reality they wouldn't, because they can't smell what the problem of platoon X is.

They even don't know, that platoon X has a problem.

So communication takes place and often one man had to be sent back to request support, in case the company support weapons were not sufficient (think of a MG bunker that can't be taken out with mortars). In the meanwhile the company disengages or only keeps a small pressure on the enemy.

Like Michael Dorosh already said: a multi-multiplayer game (some time ago there was an interesting suggestion with almost unlimited players) with true-combat rules would already slow down the pace, due to the communication and orientation problems, but i see no possibility to slow the pace of CM down to a realistic pace, without making a completely insipid game.

Why insidpid?

Imagine your company X for task Y advances over 10 minutes into it's position and then you have to wait 15 turns, until the mortar in the back receives his orders.

After 20 minutes the MG finally is quiet, the company advances and discovers a minefield.

Now pioneers are needed. But they are hundreds of meters away and communication is realistically modelled...

I think it is simply impossible to simulate realistic battlefield communication and to make a thrilling and interesting game.

And i think it's not necessary: although CM offers a much higher pace due to the absolutely perfect god-like communication, it's not unrealistically. It shows much less chaos and the actions that take place are way better synchronized, but in the overall it gives quite a good impression how tactical problems were/could/should be solved without the long insipid fire-pauses.

I understand your wish for more realism and less tactical predictability, but the scenario designers have enough possibilities, if they only would use them:

At the moment i'm playing CMAK's Ambush! (Hinterhalt) as a PBEM

SPOILER ALERT!

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and it's really ridiculous and frustrating if you expect some realism, to have almost one dozen tanks and a company of infantry in a sand-storm and the battle has a time limit of 18 minutes...

[JonS]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

Jon,

How have you found the time limits etc?

They are somewhat longer than the average op battle.

They're fine - though perhaps a bit long.

One suggestion would be to add to the Russian briefing some recommended 'phase lines', and instruct the Russian to request a ceasefire once those lines are reached. That way, if the Russian does well the extra time won't give him an undue advantage, while if he does poorly he will know he has to play catch-up. In an email to Andreas that I saw you talked about what the Russian was supposed to accomplish in each battle of the op, but until then I had no real concept of how you intended it to play out.

Also, you might recommend that the German player has a ceasefire request permanently on (per Andreas' suggestion earlier in this thread).

Regards

JonS

[Treeburst155]

I like "boring" battles where the attacker is not under any serious time pressure. This is true whether I'm attacking or defending.

In such battles, the defender's game is mostly in the setup phase. After that, it's all about seeing how his defense holds up against a human attacker. Fifty or more files may change hands before the first shot is fired. So what? The attacker is having fun because the ambush could come at any moment. The defender meanwhile, has to spend very little time processing PBEM turns, and can concentrate on the battles where HE is the attacker. So, splitting PBEM equally between attack and defense allows for more PBEM games at one time, while at the same time providing a daily dose of the fireworks.

By designing scenarios such that the 10-15 minutes before contact is simulated, the attacker has many more options available and decisions to make. He can even probe a bit before making some of these decisions.

To me CM is never boring, even after 15 turns of no contact when I'm on the defense. Why? I'm not spending any significant amount of time on that game. I'm just hitting Go and moving on to my attack scenarios. In the meantime, my opponent is having a good time smoking out possible ambushes, cautiously advancing, probing, doing a little recon by fire, etc..

[SgtMuhammed]

One thing one finds about actual combat, or even just training fights, is that there is no standard timeframe. There are a ton of variables. Some commanders will take hours to set up to assault one objective. I'm not talking big objectives like a hill or a town but things like a house or even a room. Then others will hit fast with what they have and trust the war gods to see them through. Sometimes one works sometimes the others. Then again you could spend hours fighting for one fortified house and then about 30 minutes taking the next several blocks after it falls.

One of the biggest unrealisms in CM isn't so much the time but the objectives that get assigned in that time. A villiage with about 5 or 6 single story buildings is a company objective. Throw in a couple of multistories and it quicly becomes a battalion objective. Some of the maps I have seen are division objectives at least but you are given a company or a little more to take them. In a large area of urban sprawl a company would only be required secure a couple buildings to create a beachhead. This isn't on the game itself but rather the designers to really look at how the battles they are trying to create actually played out.

As has been already stated a six hour battle doesn't mean continuous firing by everyone for 6 hours. A single soldier or unit might fire only a couple minutes out of an hour or it might fire till it runs out of rounds and then gets overrun, such is war. While there might be fighting somewhere there usually isn't fighting everywhere.

[Runyan99]

Andreas, lots of good information. I will give my read of the account.

Originally posted by Andreas:

Combat started at about 0700 after a one hour artillery preparation.

CIVth Rifle Corps, 27th Army:

'In combat lasting two hours, the first line of the enemy MLR was taken completely by the Corps, and on its right flank, one regiment had broken into the second line. [...]

Two hour battle, followed by a pause at 0900.

After another artillery preparation, the Corps used the break-in and by 1040 had broken through the enemy MLR (given as 5-6km in depth, with a tactical zone of 8-9km).

Second battle, this one only an hour to an hour and a half long.

[...] The troops of the Corps crossed the Bahluiu [river] under the protection of an artillery screen at 1200 and occupied the second line by 1300. [...] At the close of the day, the Corps had advanced a further 10-11km into the depth and opened the breach to be 4-6km wide.'

Maneuver into the depth of the enemy position, with no real combat. We can ignore this for CM purposes.

So, for the day, on the front of the 104 Rifle Corps, we have two battles. The first is two hours long, and the second maybe an hour long. We could simulate this in CM as two seperate scenarios. The other option is a three battle op, with 60 turn battles. Notice however, that this choice inserts an artificial pause in the middle of the first battle, where historically there seems to be no pause. The total break-in battle lasted three hours, forty minutes (0700-1040), but actually consisted of two discrete combats, with only one clear pause in the middle.

LXVIth Rifle Corps, 37th Army (operating in echelon formation)

'The troops [...] took the first line after three hours of combat.

Three hour battle for the German first line.

Notice the language, "three hours of combat". This seems to imply that the battalions were more or less engaged for three straight hours, without pause. It does not say "twenty minutes of combat after a two hour approach march and thirty minutes of organization".

The 333rd Rifle Division broke, after enemy resistance was broken at about 1200 into the second line. [...]

Confusing sentence. I am not sure who is breaking. In any case, after the initial three hour battle for the first line (0700-1000), there was probably a pause, and then a second attack. This second attack took the second line by 1200, so I suppose this was another hour or hour and a half of combat.

The commander of the 61st Guards Rifle Division used the success and at 13.30 the second echelon (187th Guards Rifle Regiment) was committed. At the close of the day this regiment broke through the MLR and advanced to the second line.'

More exploitation into the German rear, which we can again ignore in our tactical wargame.

'At 1400 the fascists were encircled in the strongpoint. After that, the regiment started an assault from all sides. [...] By 1800, the strongpoint was cleared of the enemy.'

It isn't clear when the elimination battle for this isolated strongpoint began, but I infer at least another 2-3 hour battle if the attack began at 1500. This assumes a whole hour to organize from 1400-1500.

Thanks Andreas. On the whole, more anectodal evidence on how long battalion sized battles lasted. In this example, one hour to three hours.

[ January 15, 2004, 04:40 AM: Message edited by: Runyan99 ]

[Sergei]

On a kind of related note, the current operation system has a serious defect in that both sides can happily re-organize and re-deploy until they both are ready. In Real Life an assault might have dislodged the defenders. What happened next? The attacker then tried to carry on the attack if that was required by his superiors, but if he had taken losses and if officers had been lost, they probably couldn't just continue straight away. As the commander tried to determine the situation, a defensive stance would be taken in the case the defender tried to take back his positions with a counter-attack. For the defender the situation was also two-fold. He couldn't be certain if it would take the attacker 15 minutes or two hours before he could continue. His task would be even harder if there were many routed units (no, in reality they didn't always return to fold like in CM operations). Meanwhile he might be contemplating a counter-attack. But then we get to this: sometimes attackers were caught with their pants down by a surprisingly quick counter-attack. Sometimes the attacker was prepared for this. Sometimes the attacker just continued the drive ASAP before defender got any reserves. Sometimes both sides just sat on their arses waiting for the enemy to make a move. But don't ask me about how to take this into consideration.

[nijis]

A compromise between the fast borg’s-eye battles we have now and a slow, frustrating command simulator where you don’t know what’s happening might come from an abstraction – global cohesion, similar to global morale. Basically it would represent the unit CO’s grasp of the big picture of the battle.

Every time you issue an order, global cohesion drops shortly. The amount it drops has to do with whether or not the squad is in contact with its platoon CO, the platoon CO in contact with the company CO, etc. The more that junior officers take their own initiative, the less of a big picture the senior commander has.

Cohesion also drops when units break or are lost, when HQs come under fire, when orders are cancelled, etc.

Every turn you do nothing, global cohesion climbs back up. This simulates time spent on the radio, sending and receiving runners, etc.

Once you enter into a red zone – global cohesion below 20 percent or something – then there’s an ever-increasing chance that you don’t get to issue any orders at all.

This would allow the borg’s-eye battle spectacular overviews of the battle, but make it harder for the player to exploit his knowledge. It also allows limited micromanagement. If a platoon commander walks over a ridge-line, out of contact with his company CO, and comes under fire, he’s not unrealistically restricted to doing nothing. However, it also prevents the player from sending individual platoons over the board willy-nilly without penalty.

In addition to rewarding commanders for keeping their plans relatively simple, this also forces each side to stop and regroup after making contact, completing complicated flanking maneuvers, etc, thus slowing down the pace of the battle.

I don’t know if this kind of abstraction is BTS’ kind of thing or not, but it might at least be one theoretical way of handling the perennial wargame dilemma of realistic command and control versus a playable game.

[ January 15, 2004, 06:31 AM: Message edited by: nijis ]

[Andrew H.]

I think that tar's description of the problem is pretty much dead on. If you read some of the US Army's official history - say the "Three small actions" volume - you can get a pretty good handle on the types of delay that occur, very few of which would add any interest to a CM game.

For example, in one battle, a company was ordered to start its advance at 10:00. At 10, they noticed that the tank support that was supposed to accompany them was not there, so they waited and notified higher HQs about the absence of the tanks. The info went higher and higher up the chain of command, but no one could find the tanks. At 10:30 or so, the company was finally given the order to move out.

As they advanced, anytime that they encountered any suspected enemy units - a sniper, movement far off, a reflection in the distance - they would stop, take cover, and reconnoiter for 5-15 minutes before resuming the advance. Enemy contact (of which there was very little) mostly involved long range fire, none of it very accurate, with perhaps the occasional mortar round landing and wounding an individual. There is a lot of pausing, taking cover, and deciding what to do, and some pausing and waiting to make sure that other units are in position.

For this reason, I don't think that treating a RL 6 hour advance as an operation-style series of battles is very realistic because it would, theoretically, put much more combat in that 6 hour period. Causing a unit to stop and adding a 5-15 minute delay everytime a unit encounters an unspotted enemy unit might be realistic - I think it's the closest way to make things realistic - but I think it would be fairly dull and wouldn't add much to the game.

On the other hand, when dealing with hot battles, sometimes the CM timescale seems pretty right. Some of the VG attacks on minor GI held villages during the Bulge play out - for the most part - in a 30 or 40 minute CM timescale. Say 2 VG companies vs. one US company with decent arty. It's only the mopping up part that would take most of the day (i.e., some of the losing side's units might hole up in a building and either surrender or escape at nightfall) - but this kind of stuff is mostly dealt with via autocease-fire.

[tar]

Notice the language, "three hours of combat". This seems to imply that the battalions were more or less engaged for three straight hours, without pause. It does not say "twenty minutes of combat after a two hour approach march and thirty minutes of organization".

I think you may be reading more into this phrase than is perhaps warranted. In any combat, there will be stops and starts, with pauses for re-organization. Just because a larger formation is engaged in combat for three hours, it doesn't mean that every subunit was likewise engaged.

[tar]

I like the cohesion or "order points" idea.

I might refine it a bit to allow unlimited orders to non-HQ units that are in command, but charge for moving HQs. That allows for local initiative to deal with local problems while still requiring the expenditure of scarce Command & Control resources to get a more global movement going.

This seems a bit in the philosophy of _The Gamers_ board game series "Tactical Combat System" (TCS), where the design goal is not so much to limit the information a player has (because that is really hard to do), but instead to limit the player's ability to respond to that information.