Horses in CMBB

[icedog42]

Since both Germans and Russians relied heavily on horses (cavalry and horse drawn artillery), will horses be incorporated in CMBB?

[Firefly]

No.

[Bastables]

Here is an excellent primer on horses

http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=012807

One of the funny things about the Western front was that the Infantry were even more reliant on horses than the Eastern front.

http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=000580

You could also try the fantastic Search engine.

[Hannibal]

Calvary will be in the game but no horses .

[Chad Harrison]

Originally posted by Hannibal:

Calvary will be in the game but no horses .

Dismounted calvary was a surprise to me. I thought for some reason that the major role of the german horses on the eastern front was for supply and heavy equipment movement. I knew the Russians had calvary, but not the germans.

At any rate, horses sure did not like the Russian mud!

Chad

[Michael Dorosh]

Calvary was where Jesus died, isn't it? Don't know what you chaps are talking about....

[Nidan1]

I am really surprised that the game will not include horse drawn transport. Most German infantry divisions in the east relied almost entirely on horse drawn transport for supply, for example. Artillery was pulled in some cases by horses as well, although a lot of captured vehicles and prime movers were used by the Germans. The Russians received a lot for Ford lend lease trucks, which the Germans loved as well.

The native Russian Steppe Horses or "Panji Ponies" were used extensively by both sides for supply movement over terrrain otherwise impassable by vehicles or European bred horses.

I dont know about the Russian side, but there are numerous written accounts from German soldiers relating the relationship between the men and the horses in various units. Meager rations were horded in order to give the horses a little extra during hard times. Wounded animals were slaughtered and served as rations to men that would otherwise have starved to death. I think that I read that somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 million European horses served with the German forces in the east, and that figure does not include the Russian horses that were pressed into service as well. It seems that a significant "unit type" has been left out of the game.

[Andreas]

You really should do a search - alternatively, have a think about how much horses mattered on the tactical level of CM. Since it has been a while that I needed to worry about what my cyber soldiers eat, I fail to get all excited about the absence of salami made from Fury.

[Tero]

Originally posted by Andreas:

You really should do a search - alternatively, have a think about how much horses mattered on the tactical level of CM. Since it has been a while that I needed to worry about what my cyber soldiers eat, I fail to get all excited about the absence of salami made from Fury.

There is one feature which was not discussed prior to the release of the demo and some further details. And that is the operation map.

Operations maps can be up to 4 km "wide" or 6 km "long"

That 6 kilometers falls within the deployment range from the frontline of majority of the OBA If max range is 10km then the ideal range from the front line is 4-7km. Depending on the arty piece (gun, cannon or howitzer or what have you), terrain and doctrine of course.

This means that most OBA intended to be used in an operation would be in fact deployed within the confines of the operation map. At least most of the horse drawn überFinnish arty would IRL sit on the full sized operation map.

[Nidan1]

Originally posted by Andreas:

You really should do a search - alternatively, have a think about how much horses mattered on the tactical level of CM. Since it has been a while that I needed to worry about what my cyber soldiers eat, I fail to get all excited about the absence of salami made from Fury.

Technically, you are probably right about the effect that horses would have in a tactical CM type battle, but there is enough discussion about it floating around to warrant bringing it up again. I would think that it would be difficult from a programming standpoint to model the effects of combat on a "live" support unit, but it is an intersting problem to talk about considering the significant numbers of horses that were actually used.

[Nidan1]

EEK the dreaded double post. :eek:

[ September 16, 2002, 07:43 AM: Message edited by: Nidan1 ]

[Andreas]

tero - I agree to some point, and I think that the 4x6km operations map is seriously pushing the boat out in terms of conceptual scope of the game. Most OBA would be in it, cavalry would move on horse over large areas of the map, and supply stations etc. might have to be simulated.

Having said that - I also think that there will be few instances where people will be able to produce a historically reasonably accurate rendition of this kind of stuff in the first instance, so what will be broken in most cases will be the scenario, and that is not because there are no horses on the map.

CMBB, as CMBO is in my opinion still best at portraying actions below battalion level. It does handle bigger stuff, but it is not as good at it, and while it can do it, it was not designed to do it. On a 4x6km map, you would have a Soviet rifle corps attacking in 1944 in the breakthrough sector. With a tank army fed in through the breakthrough. CMBB is not really capable of doing justice to that either.

So wheeling out the extreme range of what is 'technically' possible in CMBB as an argument to include stuff that is fairly irrelevant in the areas that CMBB is 'designed' to do well, is not much of an argument in my opinion.

Quite apart from the fact that there are currently not many computers around that will handle this kind of map.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Nidan1:

Technically, you are probably right about the effect that horses would have in a tactical CM type battle, but there is enough discussion about it floating around to warrant bringing it up again.

All this discussion maybe much improved if people look up the official BTS statements on the matter though, wouldn't you agree? Which is why I suggested a search. Maybe difficult to find though with all the archiving and forum splitting.

There is also a lot of discussion on how the sun shines out of Paul Schmidt's (aka Carell) arse

[Soddball]

Personally, I'd rather see multiplayer TCP/IP for battles (2 or more players per side) than worry about the inclusion of horses or cavalry. Yes, they were there, but then so were the field hospitals. Give me TOTAL MULTIPLAYER!

[Nidan1]

OK, I'll never bring it up again, horses are forever "verboten",OK, now how about those shockwaves.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Nidan1:

OK, I'll never bring it up again, horses are forever "verboten",OK, now how about those shockwaves.

Arrrggghhh...

Well, I think any discussion on game features is greatly enhancedby having the statement from the horse's mouth. I certainly understand that some people are chomping at the bit on this particular one, you just have to be careful that the discussion does not end like the charge of the light brigade. Or somefink...

[Tero]

Originally posted by Andreas:

you just have to be careful that the discussion does not end like the charge of the light brigade. Or somefink...

AFAIK the charge failed.

Caution must indeed be excersised. If the discussion does NOT end like the charge of the light brigade then it would be a success and hey presto, the horsies are in CMBB.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Andreas:

is greatly enhancedby having the statement from the horse's mouth

Pun intended?

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

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

is greatly enhancedby having the statement from the horse's mouth

Pun intended?</font>

[Nidan1]

Well, you know I certainly do not want to be labled as a nag, but before I hoof it to the ordering site, I want to make sure that every equestrian possiblity has been explored.

[Tero]

Originally posted by Andreas:

I agree to some point, and I think that the 4x6km operations map is seriously pushing the boat out in terms of conceptual scope of the game. Most OBA would be in it, cavalry would move on horse over large areas of the map, and supply stations etc. might have to be simulated.

And that was the end of the line with the SPIII for me too.

Having said that - I also think that there will be few instances where people will be able to produce a historically reasonably accurate rendition of this kind of stuff in the first instance, so what will be broken in most cases will be the scenario, and that is not because there are no horses on the map.

Concur.

CMBB, as CMBO is in my opinion still best at portraying actions below battalion level. It does handle bigger stuff, but it is not as good at it, and while it can do it, it was not designed to do it.

So why was the map made this big then ?

On a 4x6km map, you would have a Soviet rifle corps attacking in 1944 in the breakthrough sector. With a tank army fed in through the breakthrough. CMBB is not really capable of doing justice to that either.

And where would the fun in playing a game like that anyway ?

It would start with a godawfull, map wide barrage which routs and maims most of the defending units during the first few turns and what would follow would amount to a Soviet victory parade on the field.

So wheeling out the extreme range of what is 'technically' possible in CMBB as an argument to include stuff that is fairly irrelevant in the areas that CMBB is 'designed' to do well, is not much of an argument in my opinion.

I would tend to agree. Only, if such a map was ever used to produce an operation then it would have to be a managed by a game master who would see the whole map and who would manage the resources. The players would only see a portion of the map at a time.

Quite apart from the fact that there are currently not many computers around that will handle this kind of map.

[Andreas]

Taking this thread away from the original premise.

I think maybe part of the reason for making the map this large was:

a) because they could

because it enables accurate rendition of a major battlefield

Now will come in useful, because what you could do is take a stretch around, say, the approached to Minsk in summer 1944. Recreate it painstakingly to the nth degree. Then crop the map to have more limited operations on it. E.g. an operation showing the actions of a forward detachment (4 battles in one day), followed by an operation depticting the breakthrough in a battalion sector (3 battles) followed by an operation of a tank brigade breaking out through the gap (2 battles). That way you do the map once, and then have a campaign going along it. Lots of opportunities in that.

I set up a 1.6x1.5km operations map yesterday, and it was no fun to just scroll it on my G4/400 w/16MB graphics when all the whizzbangs are 'on'. I probably have to shell out for a better card after all if I want to do bigger scenarios/operations.

[MikeyD]

You should maybe lump horse transport in with truck transport, and Matt has stated in the past that he doesn't give a hoot about truck transport in the game!

Horses and trucks, bicycles and motorcycles were used to get the combatants to the battlefield but, asside from the occassional grizzly role of casualty, played no real role in the fighting. At least that's what I recall of Matt's reasoning.

I recall they really suffered before deciding to not model German motorcycle units in the game. There was a sticky logistical problem of splitting a mg team among 2-3 motorcycles. Teams just aren't designed to be sub-divided that way in the game.

[TSword]

Nidan1,

I see no problem in simulating horses other then performance restrictions.

Behaviour can be simulated with exactly the same algorithms already in the game (panicking, morale etc.). 3 Horses are mounted by Inf the same way tanks are (Of course additional animation sequences have to be made, which when made with motion tracking is quite expensive..)

There are two desriptions of russian Pony-riders outrunning tracked german vehicles, in Last Victory in Russia, on pursuit on the snowcovered hilly steppe, the vehicles throwing tracks, braking axles and producing severe headaches in the futile attempt...

Hope to see that and motorcycles and bycicles after the engine rewrite !!

Greets

Daniel