CONSCRIPT

[Hydralisk911]

I'm playing this quickbattle on defence against the ai in a village, ( i know i know ), anyway i am however commanding conscript Volkssturm. The enemy was American regulars. I found it very fun to command these guys cause they suck so bad but there are so many of them to keep coming even though it can get frustrating. I have pretty much lost after about 30 turns but they have stalled half way through the city. Uppon playing, there were many accasions with one grenade went off and pannicked whole squads and they constantly went from panicked easy which leads me to two questions. First what are your experiences uppon commanding low quality unites. Second is CM properly showing "average" or "regular" men in combat uppon their performance. In general, what would a platoon of regulars be expected to be able to take. Oviously the possibilites are endless with suppressing fire from other unites, leadership qualities,cover and the enemies experience and so forth with the conditions, but is it shown properly in general in your opinion. I found it quite fun commanding these crappy ass guys and i didnt do that bad ( though i was on d heheh ).

[Kiltie Lad]

Good you were on he defence, as conscripts and green generally don't attack at all. They will move to jump off points, but then, they don't jump off. I had conscript and green volk in a scenario, whose name can't recall now, in which they did a pretty decent job. They had tons of shrecks and fausts, and were pretty good about lying low til the armor got close. If you are on the defence and are chosing your forces, you may want to leaven your regular guys with green volk in order to extend your lines or use for listening posts.

Cheers!

[kissa]

I did fine with green volks in one scenario also in defence, they held off pretty nicly against US paras;) after they had succeeded to ambush them couple of times. If no arty is available then they are decent in defence.

In the end paras didn`t take the hill I defended but due to the fact that I lost all my supporting tanks to enemy "heaven rain" reinforcements I eventually lost the PBEM:(

[Caesar]

The advantage of using conscripts is that they quite often will run away before taking too many casualties and so just burn up your opponent's ammo uselessly. If you have conscripts, you also have a significant numbers advantage. Basically, you can just wear him down by constantly falling back if on defence or if on attack, attacking, running away, then attacking again. Their cowardice can be their greatest advantage.

[JasonC]

Greens are robust enough for attack or defense - except at night, when they become very skittish. In my opinion, the behavior of the "green" quality level in CM gives the most realistic reactions to fire and order changes of all the CM experience levels. To simulate even regular troops, I mean. While CM regulars are quite robust, and CM veterans are to-the-last-man diehards out of action comics.

Conscripts are much more brittle than greens, however. On defense in fixed positions they can do OK, although any kind of heavy HE can give them big problems in a hurry. The unhide when you don't want them too, nearby indirect artillery spooks them, and any sort of direct HE at the cover they are in suppresses or panics them almost instantly.

On attack they are very reluctant, and you have to proceed by setting up bases of fire inside cover, preparing targets with indirect fire or AFVs, etc. If the enemy has any kind of medium or better artillery to drop on them while you are doing all that, the attack can quickly become a shambles. Overall, the offensive ability of CM conscripts is very low, unless they happen to get double-bonus commanders (morale being especially useful, also command to get them to move out more rapidly).

When CM players in QBs pick the "medium" force quality, they are allowed any mix of regulars or veterans. My experience is that such fights tend to be far too bloody for realism. The men can be mashed together more forcefully than their historical counterparts were willing to put up with. This can be "fun" in a way, because it gives a sense of more complete control over the battle, and of every unit counting, down to the end of the game. Forces do not fall apart, and must be defeated in detail. But realistic it is not.

Use greens for standard troops, conscripts for raw and untrained ones (that you might think are just "green", even), and use regulars for veteran troops. Leave the veteran setting for rare, select commando forces or individual "ace" tankers. In scenarios, one can set all these things at will. But in QBs, you can only pick "low" or "medium" quality, with the first somewhat on the low side (because a portion of a force being "regular" is often realistic), and the latter definitely on the high side (because all veterans, all the time is way too bloody).

There are a few pitfalls to playing competitive fights with all lower quality troops, though. The pricing structure is most nearly correct for regulars, and the balance between categories of arms changes as the prices are reduced. So you may want to agree to some ground rules about such things if you play a lot of CM QBs with low quality setttings.

For instance, the heavier forms of artillery are more effective in low-quality battles. They lose only response time (and increased chances of the FOs panicking if fired on, to be sure). But the barrages are just as powerful and they do more to low quality troops when they do land, and meanwhile each module of the stuff costs less.

On the other hand, tanks become relatively less effective because of pricing issues. The reason is that the reduction in price is smaller for vehicles, when you go to "green" quality compared to "regular", than it is for infantry, guns, and artillery. A green vehicle typically costs 92% as much as the regular one, while green infantry costs only about 80% as much. The rationale seems to be that green tanks don't panic under machinegun fire, and if AP penetrates they bail out whether they are green or veteran. This is true, and tanks suffer less from being green as a result. But in all green battles, the other weapons become significantly more numerous due to lower prices, and the tanks don't.

Lighter types of guns also become very cheap with low quality settings. So much so that gamey hordes of them become possible. A green 75mm infantry gun costs only 26 points, less than a regular HMG team. But it will do a lot more damage, more rapidly, against infantry targets, especially low morale ones that panic easily when HE lands nearby.

So, in low quality QBs, you want to reduce the overall point budget in line with the lower prices, and may also want to restrict the size of artillery allowed and the number of towed guns allowed. Nor more than 2 guns per 500 points of scenario size, fractions round do, is a good rule of thumb. And banning artillery above 105mm may be sensible for low quality fights, at least up to a certain size (under 1000 points, say). Some vehicles are also especially effective - big HE chuckers like Hummels, cheap heavily armored items like Hetzers, etc. Obviously, whatever both sides can agree on.

For scenarios, it would be nice to see more designers use mostly greens and some regulars, or fights between greens and regulars. Because they were probably the most common occurrences of the real war, in terms of the level of performance CM depicts for each quality level.

[Olle Petersson]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Greens are robust enough for attack or defense - except at night, when they become very skittish.

...

For instance, the heavier forms of artillery are more effective in low-quality battles.

...

So, in low quality QBs, you want to reduce the overall point budget ..., and may also want to restrict the size of artillery allowed and the number of towed guns allowed. ...

Your conclusion may hold if both sides have low quality troops.

In a game I'm involved where my low quality troops are to attack a higher quality defender during a foggy night. My troops for sure need every bonus they can get from cheap artillery, specially since some rounds fall short...

Cheers

Olle

[JasonC]

Greens can attack even higher quality forces. But not at night, I agree. They are too skittish at night, and behave like conscripts (limited defensive ability from ambush, little offensive ability).

[PiggDogg]

I have to pretty much agree with Jason.

CM conscripts are near worthless, are exceedingly frustrating to have, and are probably pretty accurate. I hate having any.

CM green are also quite frustrating, but should probably be considered real life regulars. I really dislike getting any greens when the enemy have regs & vets.

CM regular infantry is pretty stout and probably truly represent how real life vets would act. CM regular tanks similarly represent real life vets.

CM vets are just too stout for any normal line units. They will just die to nearly the last man and real life regs and vets just would not have the tenacity of the CM vets.

Probably, where CM has 4 catagories of troops between conscript & vet, there should actually be 5 or 6 catagories. Let someone else, not me, figure their names and attributes.

Indeed, CM battles have casulaty rates that are just too high to truly & accurately represent how real life battles were fought. However, they are darn, wonderful, good fun, & I love CM & its battles.

Cheers, Richard :cool: