Still Concerned about Troops Tiring...(pics)

[JadamoW]

When troops are assaulting, do they carry their gear? (i.e. Backpack, full kit etc.)

You'd think they'd drop it off at the bivouac and take essentials (water, couple of rations maybe, ammo, weapons). Or at least park it and come back after the battle is over.

Todays infantry packs come with quick releases so you easily can drop'em if you come under fire. I wouldn't think that there'd be an expectation for a grunt to be loaded down in a combat situation. Humping between fights is anothr matter though

I also recall watching footage of American troops advancing on a german position in a village. They didn't run, but rather loped (still quicker than walking) at a almost relaxed easy pace. (they seemed to have a confident nonsense attitide.) I don't recall if they were wearing packs or not.

For certain, if you were a defender in the scenario, you definitley wouldn't have reason to be toting your pack around.

Tiring is probably also a matter of Experience as well. The more experienced troops would have a higher fitness level and higher physical resiliency.

[Battlefront.com]

JadamoW,

When troops are assaulting, do they carry their gear? (i.e. Backpack, full kit etc.)

You'd think they'd drop it off at the bivouac and take essentials (water, couple of rations maybe, ammo, weapons). Or at least park it and come back after the battle is over.

This was possible to some extent some of the time. Depends on the situation. But yes, a soldier generally only attacked with what was needed for the day and perhaps one night. Heavy wool blankets, "light" coats, and other kit was generally left with the Platoon or Company's baggage train. It would be the responsibility for them to reunite the frontine soldiers with these belongings, especially if night set in.

Of course, this was not always possible or practical, so soldiers very often didn't rely upon this and instead took at least what I mentioned in my previous post.

Some items, like gas mask (hehe.. add another 5lbs ) were sometimes "lost" by the soldier. However, photographic evidence shows that most German soldiers, at least, did not tend to "lose" such an item. See below for one reason why...

Todays infantry packs come with quick releases so you easily can drop'em if you come under fire. I wouldn't think that there'd be an expectation for a grunt to be loaded down in a combat situation.

Think about it... in prolonged warfare, how often could a soldier abandon his kit in order to get out of trouble? You forget that the soldier is responsible for his kit. If he loses it he could actually face charges. In fact, the Germans were damned strict about this. Hence why the nearly useless and heavy gasmask was rarely "lost". At the very least they would likely lose, forever, whatever they abandoned. Material comforts and posessions were, believe it or not, often more important to the soldier than anything else. These were NOT abandoned lightly.

I also recall watching footage of American troops advancing on a german position in a village. They didn't run, but rather loped (still quicker than walking) at a almost relaxed easy pace. (they seemed to have a confident nonsense attitide.) I don't recall if they were wearing packs or not.

US troops wore pretty much what I listed in my previous message. Perhaps less because they were on the offensive most of the time, there was at times 3 men supporting every combat soldier (Germans were more like 2:1 early and 1:1 late), they enjoyed fairly secure and motorized logistics, and the Allies could generally replace whatever was lost. In other words, ideal cirucmstances.

For certain, if you were a defender in the scenario, you definitley wouldn't have reason to be toting your pack around.

Sure you would. What if you had to abandon your position even 20m because of enemy pressure. What do you think would happen to your stuff once the enemy gets into that spot and stays there for a while? It's not like Fritz could ask Joe if he wouldn't mind tossing his stuff over to him

Tiring is probably also a matter of Experience as well. The more experienced troops would have a higher fitness level and higher physical resiliency.

Thanks for reminding me!! This is in fact simulated. Poorer troops tire more easily.

Steve

[ December 12, 2002, 01:31 AM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

[walpurgis nacht]

Forget the equipment. You can "run" troops in CMBB for roughly 200 meters before they get tired. A healthy 18 year old male on the track team with NO equipment sprints 200 meters and is exhausted. If anything I'd say infantry in CMBB are generous in this regard.

[Battlefront.com]

Walpurgis Night ,

Good point. However... I think CM's guys "Run" slower than a track runner would. Been a LONG time since I tested that out though.

Steve

[tabpub]

I'll tell all you fitness experts what to do. Next summer go out and watch your local high school football team practice in the August heat. Especially if their coaches are sadists like ours used to be 22 yrs ago..

I can still remember running the "gassers"(wind sprints) and dreading hearing the whistle blow to hit the dirt at speed. We would be in full uniform and that has to be lighter overall than what a lot of soldiers had to deal with. We would run these at the end of practice and afterwards you could not see more than a few guys that weren't heaving for breath, if not blowing chunks(throwing up). Now I was not a "super" athlete, but when my senior season ended, I went from a playing weight of about 180 to 220 in months. I kept the same diet without the excercise. I am now 40 and you would have to have a gun on me to make me do that again. Of course, after 22 yrs of a pack a day, I would either have a myocardial infarction(heart attack) or puke up a lung....

I guess the point is that most people, soldiers included, take things as easily as possible for as long as possible. When they have to exert, they can, but the body can only do so much. Don't expect the little pixelated men to do more than you could at their "age". They are not superheroes and remember, they other guy has the same thing to work with in the game system. It's not like my "fit" is better than your "fit".

Ed. note - Parentheses added for the furriners..

[ December 12, 2002, 01:36 AM: Message edited by: tabpub ]

[massimorocca]

quote

"A healthy 18 year old male on the track team with NO equipment sprints 200 meters and is exhausted"

Apple and pineapple. They run at 36 km/h, faster than many WW2 tanks on offroad

In long distance run a pace between 2 min and 30 and 3 min for kilometer is mantained up to 42 kilometers and for more than 2 hours.

But this also is apple and pineapple. Combat condition are so different from sport condition. The problem is in my opinion the time compression. For a practical purpose we have squeezed in 20-30 "realtime" minutes of game what on the battlefield happened in hours. But who want play a game where you have 15 minutes of no fire action to approach to enemy position, or 5 minutes of hit the ground under some repair waiting for better time when someone fire against you with only some heads that pop up from the cover?

[Tarquelne]

Ed. note - Parentheses added for the furriners..

That is clarity at the expense of poetry.

blowing chunks

Don't pollute your art, man.

[Hurricane]

Well, I think the lesson is "don't assault up slopes". That's all I have to say about this matter.

[Soddball]

I noticed the terrain, too. It looks like a muddy winter to me.

[Master Dullard aka flyingcursor]

I agree with Panzer Leader. I saw "The Sands of Iwo Jima" six times and John Wayne never got tired.

[Sitting Duck]

Originally posted by Terrapin:

...I bike 28 miles a day...

Careful dude...hope you got a good seat for that bike.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=1835729

[Panzer Leader]

I'm sorry I brought this up as politely as I could. The nubers just don't quite add up to me, that's all. Now, as for background.

No, I did not engage in combat on the Eastern Front. Never been in war, but I am healthy (well except for the coffee and cigarettes) and I DID serve 6 yrs in the Army Reserves - which included your traditional stint in BT & AIT. I went into BT when I was 24 yrs old, and I remember every second of it. NOTHING we did only took 34 seconds. In fact, when running the two-mile, I distinctly remember that it wasn't until the last 4 circuits of the track I started to feel tired.

Also, it is worth noting that I went to BT at Ft. Leonardwood in the WINTER. It gets COLD there (below zero) and lots of SNOW.

Crawling under barbed-wire? Sure, it took about 5-10 minutes. And it was tiring - after 10 minutes. Running the obstacle course where you had to bayonet the scare-crows when you came on them? Yup, ran the whole course and was tired at then end, but then it took about 5 minutes to complete. And I was tired when it was done, but 34 second, I was barely past the start-line, maybe 20 meters, and NOT tired.

Of course, I also remember being so tired all the time, sleeping while standing, and even marching. And I also remember that I, and all my company accomplished all the tasks set before us (except some of the girls and "4th Platoon" where all the sick and infirm hobbled along behind us.) What expertise does this give me? Not much, but at least I'm basing my opinion on SOMETHING, even if it was Army and not Marines.

As for the scenario, it was "Very Dry" steppe, hot, summer. The important factors are that it was a slope with scattered trees. In 34 seconds they made it about 20 meters, using Assault (which at some point turned into "Advance" - I think when they started up the slope.

I just can't think of a way to move twenty yards in 34 seconds that could be so tiring.

Oh, Steve, thanks for the combat-gear report! I guess 40-50 lbs sounds a bit more on target for in-combat battlegear weight.

[Marlow]

Originally posted by Berlichtingen:

Also, the guys humpin' the M-60's carry more than your 20-30lb limit

I can personally assure you of that.

With respect to the game model, I really don't see any problem. I'm playing a game where I am attacking with "weakened" troops, and am having very little trouble with their readiness state. Mix assaults with moves and rests, and I am advancing at a fairly good pace, and I can keep my troops generally at "rested" or "ready," with the occasional "tiring."

[Splinty]

I too can back-up the M60 experience personally,also humped a Dragon missile with sight, there's about 65 pounds I never want to carry again...

[Redwolf]

The following is my opinion, just in case anyone doubts that

I think the issue here is that the game cannot be detailed enough. At some point there has to be a compromise and make a decision what the right value to give for various soft (and hard) factors is.

As I said before, the question is what kind of move CM is modeling here exactly. I have no doubts that you can run fast enough to tired within 34 seconds, in fact I can do that right now with ease

But trained troops would not take off at a speed that would tire them within 34 seconds - and 20 meters in scatteed trees as in this example. There is no way that any sergant would allow his normally trained and fit soldiers to take action right at the beginning of an advance that would have them tired after 20 meters. This is not realistic. And we talk about an amount of tiring here that does not all the squad to take a single step with more than walking speed anymore.

So, I can accept the game is correct in computing everything it tries to do, but it tries to do the wrong thing. A game like CM cannot be complex enough to model all kinds of movements and movement choices, it has to make a decision between choosing max speed and appropriate speed.

For my taste, CMBB 1.01, given two ways of modeling thing, is too often defaultig to the choice that takes control away from the player.

I do realize that BFC thinks that most of that was neccessary as part of making a realistic model of the differences between Soviet and German soldiers in early war. These delays and control taken away must be. Most other models to do the same thing are much more ridiculous than this. However, I still think that choosing the path of more player control would lead to an overall better game. Not only more fun but also more realistic. It is just not realistic that an advancing squad is so tired after 20 meters that it cannot do any step faster than walking speed, and all that without being shot at once.

[ December 12, 2002, 10:32 AM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Marlow]

Originally posted by redwolf:

It is just not realistic that an advancing squad is so tired after 20 meters that it cannot do any step faster than walking speed, and all that without being shot at once.

I challenge you to take a rested fit squad and find it to be tiring after advancing 20 meters in level terrain.

Assaulting up a steep slope is not the same thing. Also remember that Assault involved troops using individual movement techniques that were designed to keep them from getting shot. I can personally attest to how tiring this can be from my experience in the hills of Arkansas and Pennsylvania. Alternating low crawling, high crawling, sprinting, dropping, getting up, rolling, etc... when going up hill, over rough ground and over logs, through underbrush, etc... is VERY tiring.

[Terrapin]

Originally posted by Marlow:

I'm playing a game where I am attacking with "weakened" troops, and am having very little trouble with their readiness state.

I don't have any problem either. Most of the effects of the tiring are relatively transparent to the player (reduce ROF, hit rate, etc.), which are there for realism. Otherwise, it just serves to prevent the player from having super-athlete heroes that run straight from the assembly point to the VL with no breaks.

[Panzer Leader]

This is not a major issue, and I brought it up, actually, to find out whether "tiring factors" were cumulative, for example, assault=X tiring; assualt+woods=X tiring+1; Assault+woods+slope=X tiring+2, etc. Now I wish it HAD been mud, I bet I could've got them tired in 15 seconds.

But seriously, some of these answers make me raise an eyebrow. 20 yrds, 34 seconds. Keep that in mind when you tell me (over and over) how tiring doing something is. One of you mentioned an M60. You can't run with an M60 for 34 seconds? You can't make it for twenty yards?

[Terrapin]

Originally posted by redwolf:

It is just not realistic that an advancing squad is so tired after 20 meters that it cannot do any step faster than walking speed

I have to ask this: WHAT GAME ARE YOU PLAYING?, because it's CERTAINLY not CMBB. Not with "fit" troops. I can tell a regular squad to Advance about 70 meters without them hitting "TIRED", I can RUN them a 150 meters and have them recover from tired in ONE turn.

Are you playing QBs where you've selected their fitness as "Poor" and then forgot about it later?

Are you simply ordering them to run a quarter mile and expect them to not get tired? What are you doing with these troops?!!

I've gots to know!

[Terrapin]

Originally posted by Panzer Leader:

But seriously, some of these answers make me raise an eyebrow. 20 yrds, 34 seconds. Keep that in mind when you tell me (over and over) how tiring doing something is.

You might find this link useful. Enjoy.

http://www.unrealtournament.com/

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Terrapin:

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

It is just not realistic that an advancing squad is so tired after 20 meters that it cannot do any step faster than walking speed

I have to ask this: WHAT GAME ARE YOU PLAYING?, because it's CERTAINLY not CMBB. Not with "fit" troops. I can tell a regular squad to Advance about 70 meters without them hitting "TIRED", I can RUN them a 150 meters and have them recover from tired in ONE turn.

Are you playing QBs where you've selected their fitness as "Poor" and then forgot about it later?

Are you simply ordering them to run a quarter mile and expect them to not get tired? What are you doing with these troops?!!

I've gots to know!</font>

[Marlow]

Originally posted by redwolf:

[so what is wrong with me referring to this example everybody is referring to in this thread, too?

Read my previous post, and then point out where anyone in this thread has stated that troops will tire after a 20 meter advance.

[Marlow]

Originally posted by Panzer Leader:

But seriously, some of these answers make me raise an eyebrow. 20 yrds, 34 seconds. Keep that in mind when you tell me (over and over) how tiring doing something is. One of you mentioned an M60. You can't run with an M60 for 34 seconds? You can't make it for twenty yards?

Running is the "fast" command. Assaulting represents troops doing IMT.

[Panzer Leader]

Did YOU read the first post where I laid out my argument? I don't know what IMT means. Actually, they started out at "Assault" but sometime in the 34 seconds of move, they switched to "Advance" i'm not sure when. Also, it might be worth noting that at the very end of the turn, they expended one ammo point on routed and broken enemy troops. You can see the targetting line.

I am asking one simple question: Is it reasonable that in combat troops can realistically become SO tired in SUCH a short amount of time? In this instance it was 34 seconds for 20 meters movement.

[Panzer Leader]

Also, I'd like to add that I DON'T know the answer to my above question, but I had an idea maybe it was too quick. Apparently, I know squat about the human body and the strains of combat.