Squad Footprint - How does it look/work

[David Chapuis]

With 1v1 modeling, I have been wondering how the squad footprint will look/act. Will you be able to set the squad in different formations that will affect its footprint? I would like to see a different footprints of space and concentration ranging from a squad defending in two man foxholes to assaulting in an urban environment.

And how will you handle routed me in regards to the squad footprint. If 1 man routes, runs away, and then recovers, how do you control him?

If you have already answered this, sorry I missed it. But I have been paying fairly close attention for the last 8 months, and dont remember you speaking to this in detail.

[JonS]

*bump*

[aka_tom_w]

that one seems to be still up in the air because no one really wants to know or agree to the fact that it may still be "Just one point"

BUT

that's all it might be until we hear otherwise or

"there is some form of abstraction involved"

but I don't know what they have in mind for this one????

:confused: :confused:

-tom w

[David Chapuis]

the recent 'no squad splitting thread' really has me wondering even more about this.

Any comment yet?

[Kurtz]

I'm a bit curious about this as well.

What was the squad footprint during WW2? 50x50 meters?

[dalem]

I'm wondering, and this is merely an eye candy question, if guys/units will move to get out of the way of vehicles now, or will a tank driving through a squad just eclipse them like it does now.

-dale

[Brent Pollock]

Maybe one point per team...so a late-WWII Marine squad with three BAR-centred sections would be three points, even if it is all together as a single squad?

[pad152]

I also wonder about squad formations, can you form a line or other formations.

Does the squad change it's formation if it starts comming under fire from mulitple directions or the rear?

Let's hope it's better than Assault Squad.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Kurtz:

I'm a bit curious about this as well.

What was the squad footprint during WW2? 50x50 meters?

Probably depended on the terrain and the tactical situation. Also the degree of experience. Green troops tended to bunch up more, but nearly all troops will bunch up some when under stress.

Most of the photos I've seen, including those apparently taken in real combat would lead one to believe that a squad would occupy about 10X20 meters or less in most situations. The pictures taken during training or that looked suspiciously like they were staged showed more open formations. Your guess of 50X50 meters sounds to me more like what a platoon would occupy.

Michael

[Tankgunner]

I recall old times of Close Combat series. Each soldier is modelled, commands gives to a squad.

When deployed, squad tends to scatter within a fixed area, trying to find the best cover and firing position: in line when in a ditch, in pairs if there is a line of foxholes, in bunch when in the small wooden hut....

Movement was the same - line/horde rushing forward in assault, sneaking and leapfrog running in advance under fire, column movement whein in quiet.

Panicked soldiers fleeing far back with lose of control

I hope here we'll see the same. TacAI will decide how to scatter individual soldiers, and, huh, it will be a hard task to BFC to force TacAI to do everything well. AI in CC often failed to deploy 1-2 soldiers, so they kept knocking at the closed window all the game.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

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

I'm a bit curious about this as well.

What was the squad footprint during WW2? 50x50 meters?

Probably depended on the terrain and the tactical situation. Also the degree of experience. Green troops tended to bunch up more, but nearly all troops will bunch up some when under stress.

Most of the photos I've seen, including those apparently taken in real combat would lead one to believe that a squad would occupy about 10X20 meters or less in most situations. The pictures taken during training or that looked suspiciously like they were staged showed more open formations. Your guess of 50X50 meters sounds to me more like what a platoon would occupy.

Michael </font>

[Battlefront.com]

Squad formation will be done automatically depending on the Command, terrain, unit factors (especially Experienec), and ultimately how much we can cram into the TacAI itself. There will be limitations on what we can acheive, though the basics will certainly be there.

Remember my correction about splitting Squads. You can split Squads, you can't split Teams. Well, not in the tactical sense anyway. There are certain specific exceptions but I don't want to get into that yet

Steve

[MikeyD]

From the way its been described, it seems a CMx2 company-size scenario with its 1:1 representation may well look similar to a CM1 Battallion-size scenario! I can't quite imagine squeezing two 12 man squads into one light building anymore, but then again the buildings will be changing substantially too.

We're still waiting on the game's first screenshots to answer all questions.

[dalem]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

From the way its been described, it seems a CMx2 company-size scenario with its 1:1 representation may well look similar to a CM1 Battallion-size scenario!

I think that this is one of the points that Steve has been trying to bash into our thick skulls over the past couple of months.

-dale

[Brent Pollock]

[GRUNT]

NEED

[GRUNT]

BIGGER

[GRUNT]

HAMMER!

[Gordon]

Steve,

What about in the larger formation direction, since CMx2 is the engine that can handle Space Lobsters, etc. If you're going to produce a game from earlier historical periods, the basic unit of deployment wasn't the squad or platoon, but rather the Company (e.g., American Civil War) or regiment (Napoleonic)?

Just curious.

[Battlefront.com]

Hi Gordon!

Well, if we were to do a Napoleonic game right now we would likely have to dumb down the game quite a bit. Graphics would have to be at much lower resolutions, guys would have very limited autonomous behavior, and so forth. We'd probably have to reduce the terrain resolution too, but that wouldn't be a big deal. On the plus side, there are a lot of calcuations that wouldn't be needed due to the ridged formations and lack of variety in weapons. We might also have to do some sort of "figure = x men" where x is greater than 1.

These are all just thoughts about how hardware limitations of today would cause us to change what we are building. Instead, we are looking forward to the day when the game system we're building now can support larger environments without dumbing down the system.

And that's the beauty of the CMx2 system... its scalable

Steve

[melb_will]

So the first module won't be Napoleonic =)

cheers

Will

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

10 guys at 5 metre spacing is 50 metres across...

Forty-five, actually.

a US squad of 12 men "properly" spaced would occupy more than that, obviously. But if in a line, the depth of their formation might be 1 metre.

As indicated, lots of variables at play though.

The numbers you quote assume they are in perfect parade ground line abreast. I assume something more like pairs and threes closer together than five meters with three or four such groups in some kind of loose formation maybe 20 meters across (which would give roughly 7-10 meters between groups) and a couple more such groups ten meters to the rear.

But that's only one formation. As you say, there are lots of variables at play.

Michael

[Battlefront.com]

Guys tend to bunch up badly in combat. And the denser the terrain, the more they bunch.

I can tell you right now that it isn't possible for us to have a Squad spread out, evenly, over 50m. It is just too damned difficult to do. Hardware still hates diversity and it also hates things being spread out so much that they require treatment as if they are their own units. It is simply not possible for us to have a 12 man squad suddenly require 4-6 times the amount of hardware resources. I say 4-6 times because the Squad is already broken up into two or three Teams (internally), and Teams are the basis for everything.

Steve

[tar]

And the question about number of points per squad? Will it at least be one per team?

I do hope that there is at least some, even abstract, notion of a more spread-out formation. (I'm tired of losing entire squads in CMBB to a single round of cannister).

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Guys tend to bunch up badly in combat. And the denser the terrain, the more they bunch.

In urban terrain, for instance, I've seen one guy firing his rifle around the corner of a building while two of his buddies crouch behind him. You could have covered all three with an average sized tablecloth. Across the street there were two more guys, presumably from the same platoon, doing the same thing.

I've seen photo after photo of every army engaged in Europe doing the same thing. Look through any sizable collection of photos from the war and you are bound to come across some.

Michael

[Gordon]

Steve,

Interesting, and thanks for the reply. Guess we'll have a bit of a wait until we can play CMx-Roman Legionaires.

[Brent Pollock]

No, it's hard to get more bunched up than a testudo, so this should be easy for the game engine

[hoolaman]

I'm still interested in this issue as far as routed men go.

It was one of my biggest complaints about CM1 that a squad basically reacted as one man, or even better; one vehicle with redundant parts. They all rout, they all run away.

Some friends of mine found this so abstracted that they just never enjoyed CM (their loss) but I can see what they mean.

I hope there will be stragglers and individuals running away (out of player control of course). This could even leave the door open for treating non-fatally wounded men in a similar way.

Any hints?