Interrogation of Prisoners

[legend42]

Now that I got myself thinking about SL, I remember a rule about interrogating prisoners.Would'nt it be cool if we could interrogate prisoners in CMBB like SL? Here would be my rules for it.Any HQ unit that is with in 2m of any captured unit at the begining of a turn may interrogate that prisoner for that 1 min turn.The interrogate order would be on the list with all the other commands.Choose interrogate and that hq unit can do nothing for the entire 1 min turn.When the hq unit chooses to interrogate it will be out of command of all units within range and have no positive effects on them.If the hq unit is fired upon or comes into los of any enemy unit the interrogation is deemed unsucessful.At the begining of the next turn if the Hq unit did not have any contact at all with the enemy it may now get the interrogation results.Results are either unsucessful or provide a specific piece of information about the enemy force.If unsuccesful you may attempt again with no garantee of any results.Once a captured unit provides a positive result it can no longer be interrogated.The positive results could be varied and many.For instance if it was a captured tank crew the positive results could be varied as follows:5 total vehicles, 6 medium tanks, or even more specific like 2 tiger tanks in rear on large hill to the north.If it was a captured gun crew,2 57mm at guns, 1 bofors or 5 total guns or zero guns and so on.the possibilities are endless.

Let me know what you think?Is this even realistic or practical from a 30 min battle.Maybe it would apply more to operations.

[Goanna]

Well it might be a decent idea, but TCP players would be crap at it so forget it.

[Hamstersss]

I think a more achieveable result, coding wise, would be the removal of fog of war for one enemy unit at the beginning of the turn. Sort of a "Ja, ve haf ze Tiger unt a sqvad over zere."

But if it delays CMBB for more than a millisecond, then you should be shot for even mentioning it.

[Cull]

We're just never satisfied, are we?

I guess it's a neat idea, but I don't think it is applicable, except maybe in the largest of scenarios. A POW just isn't going to be interrogated at the platoon or company level, in the middle of a fight--other than "Where's that mg?" or the like--he's going to be kicked in the butt and shoved to the rear, post-haste. Or worse.

Besides, in CM, you really don't nab POWs with any regularity until the end of the engagement, at least in my experience. Which is pretty realistic, I think. Actually, I believe the interrogation is modelled in CM, it just happens a few turns after the battle ends.

[YankeeDog]

I agree that it would be very rare that information extracted from a captured prisoner could be obtained and disseminated quickly enough to be applied within the framework of a typical CM battle.

Operations are another matter. Arguably a player that manages to capture prisoners during an operation should have a chance at obtaining intel about the enemy.

No a feature I'll die without, though. As mentioned, if it delays release, fuhgedaboutit.

Cheers,

YD

[ August 16, 2002, 09:44 AM: Message edited by: YankeeDog ]

[Michael Emrys]

I have to agree with the people who say that useful information takes more time to get out of prisoners than is available in a CM game.

Another point is that SL got to the point of trying to throw in everything that ever happened in the war whether it fit the scale of the game or not. Famous example from the very start was the manpack flamethrowers that would shoot 40 meters. I hope to god that CM doesn't go down that road.

Michael

[mike the wino2]

I was thinking about this one night but from a different angle. What about refugees? Peasants or farmers fleeing the fighting down a road. How much information could they provide? IMHO the info provided by such sources would be quickly outdated and more a distraction than anything else. For instance, let's say you get some info about "x" tanks behind Hill 297. By the time you move into to place those tanks have repositioned and are dropping rounds into, and through, your flanks.

[Seanachai]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

I have to agree with the people who say that useful information takes more time to get out of prisoners than is available in a CM game.

Michael

You're not going about it right, then. Put the prisoner in a room with Beman and Dorosh, and you'll have your info in time to make use of it in a 20 turn game.

On the other hand, short of modeling the double teaming efforts of Beman's hugs and Dorosh's 'intimidation through having a mannequin attend the interrogation', I agree that Combat Mission, of any flavour, would not encompass a long enough time period for there to be any point to such a feature.

Without the efforts of Beman and Dorosh, simply attempting to beat the truth out of a man would take too long.

[Tarquelne]

Operations are another matter. Arguably a player that manages to capture prisoners during an operation should have a chance at obtaining intel about the enemy.

That'd be quite nifty, esp. if the player could issue orders that would encourage his troops to take prisoners.

Do any of the CM "campaign" systems do anything with prisoners?

[Brian Rock]

Getting info of use for a 30 min CM battle: no way.

Operations... maybe. Coding it would be hell - what algorithms would you use? Would the piddling little pfc you captured know anything of use? Would the infantry lt. know what was happening with the tanks on the other flank? Suppose the CO changes deployments in the meantime... you get the idea.

The fact is the bulk of captured prisoners would know little or nothing of much use, and the few that did would tend to be interrogated well behind the lines.

[Deadly Dave]

yes but they could also lie ! that would stuff you up

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Brian Rock:

Getting info of use for a 30 min CM battle: no way.

Operations... maybe. Coding it would be hell - what algorithms would you use? Would the piddling little pfc you captured know anything of use? Would the infantry lt. know what was happening with the tanks on the other flank? Suppose the CO changes deployments in the meantime... you get the idea.

The fact is the bulk of captured prisoners would know little or nothing of much use, and the few that did would tend to be interrogated well behind the lines.

Why not just consider BORG SPOTTING an "artifact" of interogation of prisoners you have not even captured yet !

"Would the infantry Lt. know what was happening with the tanks on the other flank? Suppose the CO changes deployments in the meantime... you get the idea."

you will find out MORE intel about what is REALLY actually transpiring on the CMBO battle field from BORG spotting than you will ever find out if you attempted to model prisoner interogation!

-tom w

[Michael Emrys]

Good point.

Michael

[MikeyD]

Hey, in the scenario openers how do you think the General Staff knows to tell you about the bunker on the hill and the suspected Tigers in the area? P.O.W.s and local farmers! Gentlemen, use a little imagination!

Actually, I thought in CMBB they were working harder to INCREASE the fog of war, not decrease it. A common complaint about CMBO has been 'Borg spotting' where if one unit sees something they all see it. Now you want to be able to know what's behind the ridge before you get there? For shame!

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

Hey, in the scenario openers how do you think the General Staff knows to tell you about the bunker on the hill and the suspected Tigers in the area? P.O.W.s and local farmers! Gentlemen, use a little imagination!

Actually, I thought in CMBB they were working harder to INCREASE the fog of war, not decrease it. A common complaint about CMBO has been 'Borg spotting' where if one unit sees something they all see it. Now you want to be able to know what's behind the ridge before you get there? For shame!

Yes

I agree with that too, good point

More FOW for sure

those stinking POW's problably wouldn't give you any real reliable intel any way, but your cyber troops might have "fun" interogating them .... but that's ANOTHTER video game all together I think :confused: !

-tom w

[ August 16, 2002, 10:53 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Brian Rock]

Tom: absolutely.

Players already have far more info than a real life CO. Adding intel only accentuates that.

[ASL Veteran]

I think the manpack flamethrowers fired 80 meters so they could reach the other side of the street . A limitation of the maps and 40 meter hexes.

Anyway, prisoner interrogation in SL only revealed stuff like minefield locations or fortifications not specific locations of individual tanks or squads (which were in plain sight all the time anyway). It was also difficult to get anything out them to begin with. I think you needed to roll a boxcars or something during the rally phase and then roll on a interrogation results table or something. With each ASL turn lasting between 3 and 4 minutes each ... well it could take a while before you could get anything out of the prisoners. I don't recall prisoner interrogation being in ASL though so they may have cut it (glances through ASL rulebook). I see that SS, Japanese, Partisans, and Russian troops can massacre prisoners - which immediately causes no quarter to be in effect for the rest of the battle!

I kinda liked the escaping prisoners feature of ASL :cool: . It was difficult to do, but you could attempt to overpower the guards and make a break for it under certain circumstances (like when the guarding squad was broken).

(closes up ASL rulebook) Nope, I don't see prisoner interrogation in there, but I see that you can use prisoners for forced labor in the clearance of minefields or roadblocks and such.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by ASL Veteran:

I think the manpack flamethrowers fired 80 meters so they could reach the other side of the street . A limitation of the maps and 40 meter hexes.

Anyway, prisoner interrogation in SL only revealed stuff like minefield locations or fortifications not specific locations of individual tanks or squads (which were in plain sight all the time anyway). It was also difficult to get anything out them to begin with. I think you needed to roll a boxcars or something during the rally phase and then roll on a interrogation results table or something. With each ASL turn lasting between 3 and 4 minutes each ... well it could take a while before you could get anything out of the prisoners. I don't recall prisoner interrogation being in ASL though so they may have cut it (glances through ASL rulebook). I see that SS, Japanese, Partisans, and Russian troops can massacre prisoners - which immediately causes no quarter to be in effect for the rest of the battle!

I kinda liked the escaping prisoners feature of ASL :cool: . It was difficult to do, but you could attempt to overpower the guards and make a break for it under certain circumstances (like when the guarding squad was broken).

(closes up ASL rulebook) Nope, I don't see prisoner interrogation in there, but I see that you can use prisoners for forced labor in the clearance of minefields or roadblocks and such.

Tsk tsk, where is your COD rulebook?

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by ASL Veteran:

I think the manpack flamethrowers fired 80 meters so they could reach the other side of the street . A limitation of the maps and 40 meter hexes.

You are absolutely right. I mushed the numbers.

BTW, I always thought 40 meter hexes was a bad design choice anyway, and they should have gone with 20 meters. It didn't make much sense to me for a squad to be able to hold that much ground. Even more, it didn't make much sense to rigidly prevent more than one vehicle to occupy that much ground. Having streets 40 meters wide (actually more when you were measuring LOS) was directly contrary to European practice as well and not a little bit strange. Oh well, I loved the game anyway. But that was something that always rankled me.

Michael

[ASL Veteran]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

BTW, I always thought 40 meter hexes was a bad design choice anyway, and they should have gone with 20 meters. It didn't make much sense to me for a squad to be able to hold that much ground. Even more, it didn't make much sense to rigidly prevent more than one vehicle to occupy that much ground. Having streets 40 meters wide (actually more when you were measuring LOS) was directly contrary to European practice as well and not a little bit strange. Oh well, I loved the game anyway. But that was something that always rankled me.

Michael

I don't know if it was allowed in Crescendo of Doom, but in ASL you could voluntarily overstack a hex. If the shooter missed the intended target by 1 then he would hit the other tank in the hex or somefink. With infantry it gave you a DRM for every squad over the three squad limit. One tank in forty meters isn't all that unrealistic I guess - I think standard distances between tanks in a platoon was something like 50 to 100 meters apart for a wedge or V formation.

Some of the later mapboards introduced roads that went along hexsides in an effort to narrow things up a bit in cities, but I have to agree with you on the width of the streets. The designers even commented on it somewhere in the rulebook IIRC.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by ASL Veteran:

I don't know if it was allowed in Crescendo of Doom, but in ASL you could voluntarily overstack a hex.

Ah. See, I never got to ASL and that didn't make it into the earlier versions.

One tank in forty meters isn't all that unrealistic I guess - I think standard distances between tanks in a platoon was something like 50 to 100 meters apart for a wedge or V formation.

Except that it varied considerably in practice. And wasn't the standard seperation of vehicles moving in road formation something like 20 meters? Granted that they would try to open that up if they were liable to receive an air attack, but drivers still tended to bunch up anyway.

Some of the later mapboards introduced roads that went along hexsides in an effort to narrow things up a bit in cities, but I have to agree with you on the width of the streets. The designers even commented on it somewhere in the rulebook IIRC.

Yeah it and the 80 meter flamethrowers were a holdover from John Hill's "design for effect" philosophy, which I always thought was just some kind of excuse for laziness.

I had a spare copy of Mapboard 1, so at one time I took a marking pen and filled in all the spaces between the houses and right up to the edges of the streets to depict the kind of dense urban development that I thought better represented the European norm. I showed it to some of my fellow SL players and they were very enthusiastic about it, but we never got around to playing on it. Might have been interesting, what with really restricted and mostly short lines of sight.

Michael