Troops Breaking

[L4Pilot]

The five platoons I was referring to were all using coordinated area fire and the "advance" command.

But all this does bring up the question of why could they do it in WWI, but not in WWII. How could men cross hundreds of meters of open terrain at a jog (I assume) against machine gun fire (admittedly with horrible casualties) without dropping, breaking and routing in WWI? But not 60 meters in CMBB?

Is anybody saying the German, French and British troops on the Western Front in WWI were braver, better led and motivated, faced less fire (from massed, watercooled Maxims), more brutally disciplined, carried higher firepower weapons, could run faster, or faced less complex entrenchments than the German and Russian forces on the Eastern Front in WWII?

So what accounts for the ability of WWI soldiers to consistently be able to cross several hundred meters of open terrain in enough numbers to (temporarily, at least) occupy opposing trenchworks against automatic weapon fire that produced high casualty rates. But in CMBB, 5 unbloodied platoons of men drop, pin, break and rout trying to cover 60 meters from cover to cover?

And no, not all Russian troops were fanatical on the Eastern Front. But enough of them were to garner repeated comment from their enemies.

I think some work needs to be done here.

[Nidan1]

Originally posted by L4Pilot:

The five platoons I was referring to were all using coordinated area fire and the "advance" command.

But all this does bring up the question of why could they do it in WWI, but not in WWII. How could men cross hundreds of meters of open terrain at a jog (I assume) against machine gun fire (admittedly with horrible casualties) without dropping, breaking and routing in WWI? But not 60 meters in CMBB?

Is anybody saying the German, French and British troops on the Western Front in WWI were braver, better led and motivated, faced less fire (from massed, watercooled Maxims), more brutally disciplined, carried higher firepower weapons, could run faster, or faced less complex entrenchments than the German and Russian forces on the Eastern Front in WWII?

So what accounts for the ability of WWI soldiers to consistently be able to cross several hundred meters of open terrain in enough numbers to (temporarily, at least) occupy opposing trenchworks against automatic weapon fire that produced high casualty rates. But in CMBB, 5 unbloodied platoons of men drop, pin, break and rout trying to cover 60 meters from cover to cover?

And no, not all Russian troops were fanatical on the Eastern Front. But enough of them were to garner repeated comment from their enemies.

I think some work needs to be done here.

IMHO, I dont't think that WWI infantry, consistently crossed large expanses of open terrain. Most accounts describe massive and long running artillery bombardments of opposing trench facilities before an assault was conducted, and it usually was rolling ahead of the planned assault path, creating a moonscape of craters where men could hide and return fire as they advanced.

From an historical point of view massed infantry assaults were the tactic of choice. Up until the American Civil War men were trained to fight shoulder to shoulder and pump massive amounts of aimed fire into opposing formations. In the American Civil War slaughter on a large scale resulted from using European formation tactics against aimed fire from long range rifled muskets, and more accurate artillery. The massed formations were used to steady the troops and keep them from the feeling of isolation that is more prevalent on modern battlefields.

The advent of deadlier and more accurate infantry weapons caused the tight formations of old to disappear, in favor of the platoon,squad, fireteam concept. WWII, clearly demonstrates this concept, whereas the massed, human wave assault was more an abberation borne of desperation, than a valid military tactic. How can a computer simulation accurately model the sheer terror that one would experience when under aimed fire from a hidden enemy. I think that CMBB does a damned good job, and all this endless discussion, while very interesting and thoughtful misses the point.

The terms used in the game to denote men under stress, i.e. shaken, broken, panic etc. are merely abstractions of real human experience. How the game engine causes an observable reaction in the effected squads is quite realistic IMHO, even though they don't exactly model actual human behavior. Statictics show that in most encounters by American Infantry on the Western Front, less than half of the men involved actually fired their weapons. What were those men doing? Probably, they were, shaken, broken, panicked, or routed.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Nidan1:

[snips]

Statictics show that in most encounters by American Infantry on the Western Front, less than half of the men involved actually fired their weapons. What were those men doing? Probably, they were, shaken, broken, panicked, or routed.

...and what "statistics" are those, do tell?

I believe we have discussed the numerical untrustworthiness of S.L.A. Marshall's "Men Against Fire" findings before.

All the best,

John.

[Sgt. Schultz]

If your boys seem too brittle for you, try this ...

Increase points per battle, increase allowable experience levels, increase fanatic level, increase number of turns per battle.

You can now buy better troops that have a better chance of being the Berserkers that you crave, as well as giving yourself the time to utilize them properly. 40 turns and up is a lot more fun. You will see a marked improvement from your boys if you use that option alone, as you won't feel rushed to send them to their deaths.

20 minutes is barely enough time to get a proper fire plan together, much less assault prepared positions.

EDIT - BTW, I agree that troops should pin and panic quickly, but not break/rout in the same turn as pinning unless under extreme fire. 60 seconds from ready to routed seems a tad quirky to me, but this game is still so far beyond any other that it is a SMALL price to pay. I just take longer and be more careful and everything turns out OK. I still lose, but I feel better about it.

[ November 01, 2002, 08:28 AM: Message edited by: Sgt. Schultz ]

[Nidan1]

Originally posted by John D Salt:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Nidan1:

[snips]

Statictics show that in most encounters by American Infantry on the Western Front, less than half of the men involved actually fired their weapons. What were those men doing? Probably, they were, shaken, broken, panicked, or routed.

...and what "statistics" are those, do tell?

I believe we have discussed the numerical untrustworthiness of S.L.A. Marshall's "Men Against Fire" findings before.

All the best,

John.</font>

[Thin Red Line]

Originally posted by L4Pilot:

How could men cross hundreds of meters of open terrain at a jog (I assume) against machine gun fire (admittedly with horrible casualties) without dropping, breaking and routing in WWI?

L4Pilot,

Most accounts of WWI battles i've read are like this :

Heavy artillery barrage prior to the human waves.

First human wave drops, breaks, routs, is slaughtered.

Second human wave drops, breaks, routs, is slaughtered.

Third human wave drops, breaks, routs, is slaughtered.

Forth human wave drops, breaks, routs, is slaughtered.

At night patrols sneak on the open field to rescue the wounded.

The day after, at dawn, a new assault is ordered.

Sometimes the ennemy trench is finally overhelmed, only to be taken back one week after.

After six months, the front line is exactly at the same place.

[Voxman]

Depends on which battle you are referring too, and the date.

In the Battle of the Somme, the Canadians invented several new tactics and had only light casualties:

1) Indirect fire

2) Creeping Artillery

Of course, Hitler and the Blitzkrieg showed how a modern battle could be fought and won decisively!

The Germans were definitely the best soldiers of WWII. I am not a German !

Originally posted by Thin Red Line:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by L4Pilot:

How could men cross hundreds of meters of open terrain at a jog (I assume) against machine gun fire (admittedly with horrible casualties) without dropping, breaking and routing in WWI?

L4Pilot,

Most accounts of WWI battles i've read are like this :

Heavy artillery barrage prior to the human waves.

First human wave drops, breaks, routs, is slaughtered.

Second human wave drops, breaks, routs, is slaughtered.

Third human wave drops, breaks, routs, is slaughtered.

Forth human wave drops, breaks, routs, is slaughtered.

At night patrols sneak on the open field to rescue the wounded.

The day after, at dawn, a new assault is ordered.

Sometimes the ennemy trench is finally overhelmed, only to be taken back one week after.

After six months, the front line is exactly at the same place.</font>

[Mannheim Tanker]

Originally posted by energy76:

I mean come on, these guys are soldiers; soldiers fight. They see men die. That's the way it was. And no, I've never been under fire. But I'm not a trained soldier. These guys were trained to do this kind of stuff.

That's true to a point, but it actually varies a lot depending on the individual. The problem with your viewpoint is that you're looking at it from a rational perspective. When you're getting shot at, you tend to not be as rational as you are when you're sitting at your computer. I say that from experience.

[TSword]

L4Pilot,

There's a good book about WWI-(mobile)warfare by Erwin Rommel "Infantry attacks". What i've read there is completely in agreement with CMBB. Gain firesuperiority either by manouver and/or massing (to suppress the enemy), then attack, otherwise fail and take a lot of casualties.

Greets

Daniel

[L4Pilot]

Originally posted by Thin Red Line:

L4Pilot,

Most accounts of WWI battles i've read are like this :

Heavy artillery barrage prior to the human waves.

First human wave drops, breaks, routs, is slaughtered.

Second human wave drops, breaks, routs, is slaughtered.

Third human wave drops, breaks, routs, is slaughtered.

Forth human wave drops, breaks, routs, is slaughtered.

At night patrols sneak on the open field to rescue the wounded.

The day after, at dawn, a new assault is ordered.

Sometimes the ennemy trench is finally overhelmed, only to be taken back one week after.

After six months, the front line is exactly at the same place.

Sounds like a good plot for a Thirties movie on the futility of war.

However, per Joseph Miranda, in "World War I and the Revolution in Warfare" in S&T #198 (Jul/Aug 1999) (and he is referring to the general course of trench warfare, not a specific battle or incident)

"Once across No-Man's Land, the forward units found themselves out of communications, their links to their headquaters gone. Once the attack had bogged down, the enemy would launch counterattacks on his own terms, retaking lost ground."

The point being that the problem was not failing to reach the opposing trenchs, as you suggest, but failing to do so with enough numbers and with sufficient communications with their headquarters so as to be able to hold their "gains" against counterattack.

The tragedy of that style of warfare was not that so many lives were sacrificed for no gain, but that so many lives were sacrificed for such small gains. As an example, the Germans were able to push the French back 2 to 4 miles over the course of the battle of Verdun. It just cost them five months and hundreds of thousands of casulaties to do so. :eek:

And the relevance to CMBB is, again, if soldiers could make their way across hundreds of meters of the forbidding terrain of No Man's Land, why can't they make their way over a few dozen meters of less forbidding terrain without dropping, pinning, breaking and routing?

[L4Pilot]

Originally posted by Nidan1:

IMHO, I dont't think that WWI infantry, consistently crossed large expanses of open terrain.

No, it was worse than that. It was blasted, moon-like terrain, that provided unsure, fatiguing footing and necessitated frequent detours. All of which slowed an advance. Yet significant numbers of soldiers frquently crossed hundreds of meters of this type of terrain against machine gun fire.

In CMBB, with less obstructive terrain and shorter distances, they drop, pin, panic, break and rout.

[L4Pilot]

Originally posted by Sgt. Schultz:

If your boys seem too brittle for you, try this ...

Increase points per battle, increase allowable experience levels, increase fanatic level, increase number of turns per battle.

You can now buy better troops that have a better chance of being the Berserkers that you crave, as well as giving yourself the time to utilize them properly. 40 turns and up is a lot more fun. You will see a marked improvement from your boys if you use that option alone, as you won't feel rushed to send them to their deaths.

20 minutes is barely enough time to get a proper fire plan together, much less assault prepared positions.

Agreed. Other than fanaticsm is not adjustable (if it's present at all, I can't tell...) in QB's.

And if the solution is more points for the attacker, BFC might have up'd the attackers point advantage and QB length to produce QB's where both sides have a roughly even chance of prevailing.

[dizee]

i feel with you l4. 2 days ago i started testing a homemade scenario. two platoons of regular soviet infantry got routed by a single hmg firing at them at a distance of around 300 meters. the whole manouver collapsed, with almost every squad being paniced, routet or broken. they made their way back into the cover they started from, and i discovered that they had only 2 casualties.

i already increased the fanatism by 25% for both sides in that scenario...

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Colonel_Deadmarsh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Making troop morale adjustable variable? Might be a good solution, so those that want to can play with reduced chance of breaking (for example, halving the current chance; there would still be plenty of breaking and routing), and those that want to have a more simulationary approach can play at current normal setting.

Good suggestion. I wonder if it's doable in terms of time to code this in? If so, I say do it.

The fact is, this game has been changed so much that it borders on not being fun to play anymore. I'm not against this new, more realistic way of playing but what we have here is a complete turn around from what CMBO was. Am I to assume that CMBO was completely coded wrong? That's the statement that BTS is making here. "We f*cked up."

Now somebody tell me how 2 guys who spent all this time researching this stuff can come up with 2 completely opposing theories on effectiveness of fire against a soldier.</font>

[wie201]

I think that this is a great game, no doubt. For me, the more realism the better. The issue is the accuracy of the infantry's reaction to MG fire while attempting the follow orders and secure a specific objective.

Dizee posted that his troops broke and ran with only two casualties. In the same scenario L4Pilot and I are playing, I assume his casualty figures might have been higher, but not by much. However, I made the mistake of running a platoon of troops a short distance across an area I thought was secure, and took over 50 percent casualties in 60 seconds, but my troop's morale was still fine when the reached their objective. Why is it that troops running a short distance but taking extraordinary losses should not panic when troops assaulting a position (and assumedly prepared to take losses) take few casualties but break within 60 to 90 seconds?

In the book "In Flanders Fields" by Leon Wolff, you hear stories about British, Canadian and ANZAC soldiers assaulting concrete pillboxes in mud up to their knees with poison gas swirling about. Sure, it is extraordinary that they advanced, but the fact is is that they did.

My point is that if you set up the same scenario with this engine, I do not believe they would succeed because the vast majority of the assaulting force would be in full retreat long before they reach the MGs.

[Battlefront.com]

wie201,

Why is it that troops running a short distance but taking extraordinary losses should not panic when troops assaulting a position (and assumedly prepared to take losses) take few casualties but break within 60 to 90 seconds?

Simple... because there is no code that says "if unit is in open and is fired upon, panick it". Instead there is a very, very complex system of "rules" which covern an even more complex set of variables. Boiling it down to "my troops did this and his did that", without dozens of details about each specific situation, tells us absolutely nothing.

What was the Order of each?

What was the Experience Levels of each?

What was the Morale Level of each?

What was the Physical Conditions of each?

What was the Fatigue Level of each?

What was the level of Suppression of each?

What was the size of each unit?

Did any have casualties before the move, either during or prior to the game starting?

What weapon was firing at each?

What was the Experience Level of the firing unit at each?

What was the level of suppression of the firing unit in each situation?

What was the Global Morale of each of the attackers?

What was the Weather for both scenarios?

On and on and on and on

Hopefully this illustrates a) how complex CM's simulation is and why it is impossible to directly compare two situations without exhaustive detailed annalysis. Oh, and of course one has to factor in luck, since that has a significant role in this.

Steve

[ November 03, 2002, 10:24 AM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

[Battlefront.com]

SaTyR,

I see the "Withdraw" order as a "Let's get the hell out of here" order, where there is no organized withdrawal (they´re not firing for example) but a general rout. The "sarge" is not telling them to withdraw but to run as fast as they can (IMHO). So troops "withdrawing" and breaking (to routed or broken status) seem alright to me.

100% correct. Withdraw is NOT an order to be uses lightly. It is absolutely a "run for the hills!!!!" order, not a situation like "Gentlemen. We find ourselves in a tough spot here. Smitty... you put down some covering fire with your BAR. The rest of you go in two groups from here, to here, to here. When we get to that farm house I will tell you what to do next".

If you want a planned, organized withdrawal... use regular orders. The Withdraw order should only be used in dire circumstances and because of that it carries some tradeoffs. The biggest is the increased chance of the unit's morale being lowered INDEPENDENT of whatever fire they are receiving. In general a good unit in decent shape can handle a Withdraw order without any difficulty. But a shook up unit that isn't so good to start with will take this order as "all is lost!!" and in fact LOSE faith instead of gain it.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

L4Pilot,

If the latter is the case, it could explain the "run, drop, panic, and rout" syndrome observed. In other words, is infantry losing the ability to move out of incoming fire (into, say, covering terrain) when they change posture, but continuing to progress to reduced states of morale based on the firepower and the terrain but not posture?

The posture is not directly related to Morale progression. Instead, Posture, Terrain, and other factors all work together to determine how "happy" the unit is or isn't given a particular situation. This means that a more risky posture, such as Run, increases the chance of becomming negatively affected by incoming enemy fire. Crawling decreases the chance. Ultimately it is all thsese factors working together that determine what will happen, but posture, terrain, Experience, current Morale level, and the nature of the incoming fire are the most important elements.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Voxman,

When I made my post, a Russian squad of 11 fit regulars broke and ran away because of one gun shot from a great distance. At most, they should have laid down or sought cover not Broken and ran away!

You are correct of course. So let me ask you... how many times have you seen "one shot" break a good quality unit? If it were all the time, then nobody would be able to advance at all. Ever. Well, not unless the enemy didn't show up for the fight

So think to yourself...

The CM battlefield is a complex and uncertain place. A real battlefield is a complex and uncertain place. Sometimes things happen in each that can't be readily explained or understood. I am sure the German commanders watching their VETERAN infantry men run away the first time they heard Stalin's Organ were a bit dismayed too

My point here is that I would caution anybody from reading anything into any situation that is not fully explained. And with Extreme Fog of War this is a bit more difficult to do unless the other player is Human and notes exactly what really happened. For all you know three or four machineguns, from widely differing angles, peppered your squad. Just because you only identified one source of fire doesn't mean that was all there was.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Colonel_Deadmarsh's crusade continues,

The fact is, this game has been changed so much that it borders on not being fun to play anymore.

In your opinion. It is also your opinion that our sales have been "cut in half" because of this. Remaining humble and open to the possibility of being wrong, or at least part of a tiny minority, is critical in a debate like this. Why? Because you are at least in a tiny minority. Whether you are "right" or not depends entirely on personal taste.

I'm not against this new, more realistic way of playing but what we have here is a complete turn around from what CMBO was.

No it isn't. As I and others have pointed out, our tactics have not changed much between CMBO and CMBB. The difference is that our tactics work MUCH better vs. people who exploited shortcomings in CMBO instead of using sound tactics and/or realistic unit mixes. If you were in the latter camp then it might APPEAR that it is a complete turn around. Really we just made a few tweaks that have profound implications for poor tactics and only moderate implications for good ones.

Am I to assume that CMBO was completely coded wrong? That's the statement that BTS is making here. "We f*cked up."

Not at all. The statement we have always made is "CM will never be perfect". Simple logic dictates understanding that we are saying that things can always be improved. CMBO is a dramatic improvement vs. all wargames that have come before it (in our opinion, of course). I don't see how that could possibly be a "f*ck up".

However, CMBO was not perfect. Some people, and you are OBVIOUSLY one of them, learned how to exploit shortcomings in the CMBO system to your advantage. This advantage came at the expense of other player's sound, realistic tactics and unit choices. Now that we have addressed some of the core issues, the realistic guys are singing our praise and the "gamey" guys are cuss'n us out. No surprise here

Now somebody tell me how 2 guys who spent all this time researching this stuff can come up with 2 completely opposing theories on effectiveness of fire against a soldier.

Because it isn't easy to get right. CMBO isn't 100% right, but it is more on the money than any game that came before it. CMBB isn't 100% right, but it is more on the money than any game that came before it, including CMBO. When we release the new CM engine I expect to be saying the same thing.

Steve

[xerxes]

When I start taking more fire then I think my groundpounders can handle I switch to sneak. That seems to work quite well in terms of breaking the target lock of the mgs and allowing forward progress (albeit rather slow). I've also taken to probing multiple paths simultaneously. When one of the paths starts taking heavy fire I go to ground. I wait for my other assault groups to clear terrain and release my "pinned" assault group. On most maps it's very hard to get your mgs to cover every approach. There tend to be holes in the coverage and with an infantry assault you need to find these. I also like to get lots of eyes on potential mg locations.

I think the new infantry/suppression system is amazingly good. It feels very real. It certainly forces very different tactics then CMBO. I think I've had an easier time adapting since I play almost exclusively scenarios. A lot of times in CMBO I played Poles and it was rare that you had infantry to spare. QB heavy infantry play in CMBO doesn't translate to CMBB.

[Battlefront.com]

This issue, which has come up many times now, can be very easily understood to be one of "unlearning" unrealistic behaviors and expectations from the past. The degree one understands realistic tactics and has realistic expectations is proportional to the reaction to the new system.

CMBB's changes have lead to three reactions:

1. WOW!! Man, CMBB is so much more realistic and fun than CMBO. All my core complaints about how this or that did or didn't work have been addressed. Now I find my realistic tactics working better and I don't find myself cuss'n out the system for screwing me over. Thanks BTS!!

2. Oh... hmmm... boy, this sure is different than CMBO! I am pretty sure I like the changes. Certainly there is a lot of things going on now that I didn't expect. However, I am having trouble using my CMBO tactics and unit choices to the same effect as I did before. I guess I have to figure out a new way to acheive victory and not rely on using Volksgrenadiers and the RUN command to acheive victory (this example is the most readily available one to use here). I am liking the new challenge, but for now I am getting my ass kicked. But I am sure that once I figure out what I am doing wrong I will once again kick butt!

3. FIX IT OR DO SOMEFINK!! I don't care if it is more realistic. I don't care if I am in a vocal minority!! BTS, you ruined the game for me!! I refuse, REFUSE, to admit that the cause of my frustrating is completely in my hands to change. Sure, I could adapt to the new system. Sure, I could rise to the challenge to better my abilities. Sure, I could avoid situations which I completely suck at instead of learning how to overcome them. Sure, I could suck it up and admit that, from a realistic standpoint, I am not very skilled and get over it. Sure, I could do any or all of these things, but instead I am going to plant my fingers FIRMLY into my ears and scream and scream and scream until BTS fixes this horrible problem. The game is ruined until I get my way!!!

Fortunately, the majority fit into #1. A sizable number fit into #2 INITIALLY, but one by one they appear to be converting to #1's position. I have seen this time and time again where people who yesterday argued that things were all wrong are today saying they tried doing things differently and now everything is fine. But the #3 group, which is thankfully tiny in number, apparently don't want to change.

Perhaps the #3s will move to the #2 slot an MAYBE eventually the #1 slot... but I am not holding my breath. There are still people who hold onto the notion that we need to fix Tigers and King Tigers so they can't be killed by Shermans or that we need to hardcode things so that a Panther can only be killed if engaged by 5 Shermans. I see the complaining about infantry brittleness (at least the extreme positions) as being akin to complaining that this or that tank is unrealistically weak/strong. It all comes down to some people valuing their own personal perceptions and experiences more than other informed gamers and the history books. Not much we can do for this group except ignore 'em.

Steve

[Abbott]

And the relevance to CMBB is, again, if soldiers could make their way across hundreds of meters of the forbidding terrain of No Man's Land, why can't they make their way over a few dozen meters of less forbidding terrain without dropping, pinning, breaking and routing?

Not being a student of WWI leads me to the question of “Was it just a few squads” advancing that did not suffer the morale failures you speak of in WWI? Or was it hundreds and or thousands of troops of which a percentage made it intact? It appears to me that smaller local attacks would suffer or benefit differently then massed attacks.

[ November 03, 2002, 11:16 AM: Message edited by: Abbott ]

[Battlefront.com]

L4Pilot,

Yet significant numbers of soldiers frquently crossed hundreds of meters of this type of terrain against machine gun fire.

Yes, sure. But in what timeframe and in what percentage of the whole? If you advance 100,000 men all in the space of a couple of hours, of COURSE some are going to get through. But what percentage made it accross in 10 minutes? 1%? What precentage made it over within an hour of their jump off time? 10%? That would be 10,000 men advance for 50,000 retreated and 40,000 casualties for several hours of combat. Quite a significant number in headcount terms, a horrible failure in terms of military success and preeservation of lives. And of course, completely outside of CM's scope and therefore not directly comparable.

OK, let us say that 10% of guys who advance over an open field make it to the other side, when said advance is covered by a ton of suppressive fire. If you advance 3 Platoons you could expect one Squad to make it to the other side. Statistically, it would take you hundreds of assaults to get that result as an average, so some would have 2 and many would have 0. And of course this is wildly artificial and therefore not very meaningful.

The bottom line here is that advances over open terrain against determined resistance was VERY difficult to do. Even more so in WW2 when trained units were specifically instructed to NOT attempt such foolish maneuvers. Why? Because they DON'T WORK, as WW1 clearly demonstrated.

The mythical Soviet "Human Waves" were, individually, usually total disasters. It was the continuous pressure of fresh waves that eventually wore down the German defenses, even if that "wearing down" was limited to exhausting their ammo supply. The Soviets realized this and changed their tactics as the war went on to be more balanced and closer to their prewar theory. Unfortunately in 1941 and 1942 they didn't have time to train their troops to do this so the Human Wave was retained out of despiration.

The Human Wave command was specifically included to make Human Waves possible. This helps reduce the chance of panic and helps maintain forward marching motion. Trying to do a Human Wave style attack without using this order... well... expect lesser results.

Steve

[Sailor Malan]

I have been lurking all these "CMBB is too dangerous" threads, and am having serious reality checks. I have not had the issues with infantry tiring quickly, or being too brittle - what am I doing wrong?

The secret is NOT to try and play CMBO here. Sure, I have had uninjured squads go to ground crossing a road 00's of meters from any fire (?). I have also had an entire platoon attempt a rush across open ground covered by smoke which didn't (cover them!). In each case, go to ground, hide, wait five minutes, (or less). All was well. The pinned platoon even managed to generate enough fire to start extracting itself (backwards), although it wasn't doing anything for the rest of that day!.

I have not been in any form of fire fight (paint ball does NOT count),but I have a suspicion that the complex turmoil of emotions must be all encompassing. "Oh S*** I'm terrfied, I don't want to die, I don't want to let my mates down, what was it that sarg said? OK drill time 'down, crawl, run down' I ought to move,on three, one two three, Oh S***..." and so on. I suspect that even veterans will not be able to get across the feelings, and emotions, even if they can recreate tham in their own minds.

Anyway - here's a thought....why don't we try and play the game CMBB is at present, before we try to rewrite it (again!) :confused: