Thoughts on gamey issue wanted...

[Gunsmithcat]

A friend of mine who also plays CM and posts here (oddly I don't recall his username!) were discussing what appears to be a fundamental problem with the way CM targets single units per unit. If one side or the other has a numbers advantage, which is usually the case, the side with greater numbers can inflict serious damage just because some unit will not be suppressed at all assuming every unit is firing at once (which is rare, I know).

Now, that being said, we thought that perhaps the tack of not telling your units what to target would allow them to shift fire more frequently, somewhat simulating distributed fire, but this typically only happens if the first target of a unit is no longer visible or a second much higher priority target presents itself.

Assuming two equal priority enemy units are presented to one friendly unit, it appears to be at a more serious disadvantage than if it could divide fire. Now, splitting squads would help here a little in terms of firing on two different units but I suspect they would simply fire on one (haven't tested it, sorry) and they would lose morale and break quick though, so split squads doesn't seem to offer a real solution.

The gamey part seems to come in if one player decides to use a lemming tactic (being used against the friend of mine by someone other than me). With little planning, the lemming leader simply orders all his units to march together decimating and overrunning anything in their path without regard to any real tactics. This appears to be effective, though a bit unrealistic and gamey to us. Personally I believe that even if it wins the scenario, the points would probably be lower than a more realistic, cautious approach.

So, the issue is two parts; does CM have a fundamental problem with units that can only fire on one other, and second is the lemming tactic which takes advantage of it gamey or not. Just curious what you guys and gals think about these two questions.

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"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Maastrictian]

I understand your point that units should be able to split their fire. I guess I've never thought of it as a problem. It makes command and control much easier from the users point of view if he chooses one and only one target. Just immagine having to allocate "fire percentages" or something for each unit. How about just displaying the multimple targeting information. Do you just show the current target? Or the one that is being fired on the most? Or do you show multiple targeting lines comming from each squad, perhaps shadded to indicate percent. A bit too complex if you ask me.

As for the second point. I think a lemming charge is not gamey simply because it is not gonig to work. Charging with your entire force against a defender is just going to get you chewed up and spit out. A charge with less than 2:1 odds is going to fail, an even a charage with 2:1 odds is giong to be costly enough that even if the attacker takes the position he has taken so many casualties that the victory is worthless. The attacker is going to ahve to use tactics, arty suprression, armor etc. to carry off a charage on those odds. Now if you are talking about a situation where the attacker has managed 3:1 local superiority and does a "leming charage" well... the attacker deserves to win. They have beaten you through manuver, not just the weight of superior numbers.

As the British troops at the Somme if the infantry charage was a gamey tactic

--Chris

[Kingfish]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>With little planning, the lemming leader simply orders all his units to march together decimating and overrunning anything in their path without regard to any real tactics.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That is until the 155mm VT rounds start falling.

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Charlie don't surf!

[L.Tankersley]

Also note that squads can be split into two halves, allowing you to fire on two targets with reduced effectiveness. Of course, the attacker can do that, too....

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Leland J. Tankersley

[109 Gustav]

Get a few MG42s in good cover, and maybe some 20mm flak, and watch him lemming charge that. Charges like you're talking about work only when enemy fire is supressed or if you have enough of an advantage that you can win by any method, including a wild charge. I agreee with Maastrictian, it didn't work for the British at the Somme, it didn't work for Pickett at Gettysburg, it didn't work for the British at New Orleans, and it won't work in CM.

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There is nothing certain about war except that one side won't win.

-Ian Hamilton

[Guest Mr. Johnson-<THC>-]

On a side note sometimes you are attacking and get caught in the woods while you are engaging say some enemy troops in a building or too and you start recieving heavy arty fire. Sometimes you have no choice but to stay and die or attack and die. Nothing gamey about being forced to attack with all your men.

[Olle Petersson]

I think that what is actually requested here is a slight modification of target priority for the infantry.

As is the infantry usually pick a target and then concentrates on that only until it's out of sight.

When facing several potential targets (of infantry), then perhaps they should prioritise suppression, targeting unsuppressed units only.

I.e. Target one unsuppressed unit and shoot until it ducks for cover, then switch target to another active unit, perhaps switching back once the first have recuperated...

A little gamey maybe?

Cheers

Olle

[Abbott]

The gamey part seems to come in if one player decides to use a lemming tactic (being used against the friend of mine by someone other than me). With little planning, the lemming leader simply orders all his units to march together decimating and overrunning anything in their path without regard to any real tactics. This appears to be effective, though a bit unrealistic and gamey to us. Personally I believe that even if it wins the scenario, the points would probably be lower than a more realistic, cautious approach.

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Infantry charges have always proven to be disasters to the charging player in my experience. I devastated an entire company of British veterans with a dug in German platoon of regular submachine gunners in two turns. I also was able to destroy two platoons of American riflemen in one turn with a German rifle platoon. Both of these instances worked to my favor with my deployment but that is how it should be.

Sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you

[This message has been edited by Abbott (edited 09-14-2000).]

[Bullethead]

What, really, are you calling "lemming tactics" ? After all, one of the fundamental principles of war is mass, to attempt to achieve superior force at the critical point. Perhaps in some cases the defender sees this being done to him and calls this "lemming tactics", when in reality it's realistic massing of force against defenders spread too thin while trying to cover all the bases.

But it seems to me that in scenarios with roughly balanced forces, if the attacker puts all his might on 1 flank, he leaves the unengaged defenders free to counterattack his exposed flank.

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-Bullethead

Visit the Raider Operations message board at www.delphi.com/raiderops

[David Yomtov]

Try telling the Russians that massive infantry charges are "gamey"!

When your riflemen can't hit targets farther than 100 yards away, when all you've got going for you is superiority in numbers, when foot soldiers are a ruble a dozen, then one of the best tactics available to you are massive charges.

Wait until the Russian Front mods are implemented... You'll see plenty of Soviet Lemmingavitches!

[Bruno Weiss]

And what about Siberian Cavalry, in the mid-Russian winter against an infantry front the ole horse cavalry tactics suddenly become frightenly hard to defend against. Ain't nothing gamey about that.

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"Wer zuerst schiesst hat mehr von Leben"

Moto-(3./JG11 "Graf")

Bruno "Stachel" Weiss

[Guest Scott Clinton]

Pleae keep in the definition of "gamey".

Gamey is NOT something that is "hard to defend against" or unusual.

Gamey is the use of a tactic that simply would not work in reality because of a game limitation. A 'gamey' tactic exploites the fact that all games have limitations and can not model reality 100% of the time in 100% of all circustances.

No 'gamey' tactic was ever used in reality. It is by difinition impossible to use a 'gamey' tactic in real life.

For example: the bug in the v1.01 that gave unlimited spotting rounds to off map arty observers. So, you could buy 14" arty, and use it for the entire game and never run out by continually shifting fire. This would not work in reality because spotting rounds are not free and no one would be allowed (would even try) to continuously call for spotting rounds never to call for a fire for effect.

Please see the 'gamey' topics in the main forum, there are about a half dozen people that have posted good definition of gamey.

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Please note: The above is solely the opinion of 'The Grumbling Grognard' and reflects no one else's views but his own.

[This message has been edited by Scott Clinton (edited 09-23-2000).]

[Thermopylae]

Weight of numbers and firepower is not gamey in the least. Indeed, most US attacks consisted of simply shooting the enemy off the ground with massed air, arty, tank, machinegun, and infantry fire.

As for CM, a lemming attak is thwarted by hiding. Simply let the enemy approach within 50-60 meters in the open and letem have it.SMGs and rifles will level their squads in a turn or two, and if you keep an MG concealed you can see multiple teams go down. if being backed by tanks, a well concealed AT Gun usually can cut down their numbers. In stalingrad it is said that the Germans simply poured more blood onto the streets in hopes of taking them, and we all know how well that offensive worked.

[flyingcursor]

And don't forget the Chinese attacks in Korea.

I was playing a certain urban scenario and had spent so long dillying about getting my troops moved up, I discovered I only had three turns left to take the objective. So I sent them all across to the obj. The casualties were enormous and all I got was a minor victory. If it had not been for the game ending I probably wouldn't have gotten that.

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"Both sides agree not to bomb civilians" - Washington Post, Sept 3, 1939

[Henri]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by David Yomtov:

Try telling the Russians that massive infantry charges are "gamey"!

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Try telling Rommel! He wrote from France in 1940:

"The method that I have devisd of driving into the enemy with all guns firing and not holding fire until they are already knocking out my tanks has worked magnificiently.it costs us a lot of ammunition, but it saves tanks and lives. The enemy have not found an answer to this method yet. When we come up on them like this, their nerves fail and even their big tanks surrender."

David Irving, The Trail of the Fox, p. 54.

Later Rommel devised a simimlar tactic using a whole division!

Rommel was the master af adapting tactics to fit the situation, and he did not feel constrained by whether or not his methods conformed to someone's idea of what proper tactics consisted of (they usually didn't, and he was roundly criticized in France by some colleagues for his unorthodox tactics).

Henri

[Guest Michael emrys]

Rommel in his turn could be a bit strait-laced at times too. In the battle for France in 1940 he complained of the French practice of using "coloured" troops from their African colonies.

Michael

[Olle Petersson]

If were discussing strictly small arms fire, then there's also the issue of spread fire.

In the game units do take casualties from fire directed at other nearby friendlies.

So if your defending squad shoots at one of two enemy squads, that are fairly close to each other, then both enemy squads will suffer.

Cheers

Olle

[busboy]

One thing that I see here, while not being a game issue, is a concept that brilliant planning and execution is more important than the actual voilence of the attack.

I'm new here, and I'm still waiting for CM to get here, but I've played the demo, and I've been studying war all my short life.

I have come to a colclusion, albiet personal, that Patton's ideas of war simply work better.

If you can mass forces that can overwelm the enemy now, go for it! You will take casualties, but wouldn't you take a similar number of casualties if you let the enemy get set for your calculated assault anyway?

Sometimes the violence and simplicity of an attack is preferable to a well thought out one. To quote Patton, "A good plan now is better than a perfect one 10 minuites from now." However, I realize that if you always try "the frontal assault now" rather than "the flank in 5 minuites" you WILL get your butt kicked.

The genus of a commnder, rather, is knowing when is the right time for what, and being able to do both well.

Oh, and ya'll'll notice pretty quick as I start posting here more, I am a Patton nut, so much so infact, that my friends joke about me being Patton reincarnate. I dunno about that, but just let me know when my Patton pitching gets obsessive.

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busboy

CO, 99th Dragons

A Warbirds Squadron

'We will heat you up'

"It is well that war is so terrible, else we would grow too fond of it."

-Robert E. Lee

[Panzer Man]

I'm new to PBEM gaming but was somewhat annoyed by this Gamey ploy.My opponenet set up the game and made it Para vs. Para with no armor support (now I know why). He sneaks all his troops up to the town ,I hold the town,,and low and behold I make a head count.He has at least 10 machine gun crews.(I would think 3 or 4 would be normal)!! We're talking Company size here and all I see are MG's everywhere..That's like playing as the Germans and buying 10 Panzerfausts in an armor clash..You cant target the MG with arty cos they are all over the place. I assume they were cheap because he seems to have almost as many squads as me. Silly Tactics like this make PBEMing a little annoying at times.I doubt I will replay this guy again.

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"If Patton were alive today,he'd play Combat Mission."

[Olle Petersson]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Panzer Man:

My opponenet set up the game and made it Para vs. Para with no armor support ...,

I hold the town ...

He has at least 10 machine gun crews.

...

I doubt I will replay this guy again.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What's the problem?

MGs aren't very useful in urban warfare, since they're lousy at close combat.

If you deploy your troops well, the MGs are not a factor for the attacker.

Your best choice is to place your troops at the rear end of buildings, so that the attacker has to enter the building to spot them. When they enter your troops will make them pay heavily.

The best way for the attacker to use the MGs is to have them in flanking positions, so there's where you'll have to place a few squads for defence and counter attack.

Cheers

Olle