Cowering in the trenches

[Fat Dave]

Hi Guys,

I've been playing with the editor lately and I made myself a little zig-zag trench strong-point on a piece of slightly elevated, but open piece of ground. It is at night and overcast. I basically wanted to see how several entrenched, veteran Syrian units with some adhoc ATGM support would bear up to a 4 Bradley Cavalry troop rush.

I gave the veteran experienced Blue AI 4 separate 'dash' orders right up the perimeter of the trench strong-point, coupled with a 'dismount' followed up with a troop 'max assault' order into various parts of the surrounding occupied trenches. I was hoping to see an aggressive (and rather reckless) AI come charging in and a lot of close quarter destruction, reckoning that my entrenched Syrian veterans should easily be able to hold their ground while cutting everything to ribbons with their RPG's and assorted small arms.

I let the ATGM teams select their own targets, and after positioning them accordingly, let the TACAI look-after my entrenched digital soldiers.

Well, after about 20 plays the results were both surprising and extremely frustrating at the the same time.

If I was very lucky, all 4 Bradleys would be cooked up at varying ranges by the mix of Kornet and RPG fire. If this happened I could usually hold the position, but even with all the Brads knocked out, the outcome was never certain.

What amazed and frustrated me was that any crew or troop unit that survived their Bradley's destruction would -seemingly without any problem- advance, assault and clear trenches which were literally packed with veteran Syrian units who were aware of approaching danger. I watched in disgust as time and time again a 2 strong vehicle crew or 4 strong Cavalry unit would run through what looked (and sounded) liked withering AK fire to calmly get within grenade range and begin to systematically clear out full trenches with grenades and small arms fire. For the record, the US units are veteran level.

Despite the assaulting number of US troops numbering no more than 4 per unit (often this was less) they would regularly make their way up to the trenches grenading and shooting up my full strength veteran Syrian squads, who despite their numerical advantage and entrenched firing positions, were forced into pinned and cowering status with every burst of gun-fire. Not just one man would hit the dirt but all 9 vets, reduced to cowering at the bottom of the trench while faced with only 4 or less assailants, who were in open ground nonetheless.

When these small, heavily outnumbered and out-gunned US units make it into the Syrian trench, the outcome would usually be an entire dead Syrian unit, seemingly blind and constantly pinned. I would watch and slowly but surely, one by one my red units would take unseen fire, take casualties, not return effective fire (or return fire at all) and finally vanish as the last man went down. Only after the ceasefire button was pushed would I see that more than 10-15 veteran Syrians had been taken out by a 2-4 man execution squad.

Watching the Blue question mark icon, which would sporadically flash and tell me it was a US unit advance and gobble up Syrian squads one by one reminded me of Pac-Man.

Now I realize that the US has an advantage over the Syrians when it comes to training and overall marksmanship, not to mention their body armor and advanced optics on their M-4's, but something just didn't feel right here. Is it because of the night setting? Are NVG's simulated for all US infantry units?

I feel I had the better positions, I was entrenched and the boys in those trenches had seen combat before, but more often then not, they were helpless in the face of these supermen.

I don't want to sound like a sore loser, nor do I want this to be seen as knee-jerk reaction to repeated losses against the AI, but after multiple re-runs of the same action, the result would invariable be the same - a US victory against seemingly impossible infantry odds. The US victory would be near 100% assured if any of the 4 Brads survived the early ATGM strikes, and this I can live with; their optics, cannon and machine gun combination should be enough to shred any fixed defense eventually.

What frustrated me however, was the repeated mass-cower of veteran Syrian infantry units against numerically inferior opponents as they took (seemingly) minimal amounts of fire. How much fire can 2 M-4's spit out? Surely 9 AK's would smother that in pure lead volume alone? Had they been up against Stryker MOUT squads - a couple of SAW's and 9 guys - OK, this makes a big difference, but against 2-4 guys (some of who are surviving vehicle crew members) surely not?

I'd appreciate it if anyone could firstly convince me what I am seeing is not only possible but 'realistic' enough to be part of this incredibly detailed and great war game, or secondly, agree with me that something might need to be tweaked to give a more realistic feel to this sort of situation.

Cheers

David

[LarsS]

The night/overcast condition is the reason for what you see here. US infantry has NVGs, Syrians don't. Try advancing the time to 7 AM and see the difference.

[Mishga]

What was the Syrian motivation level?

[Pandur]

did you see the cool new sunglasses your syrian unit got issued yesterday!? they are so in love with it, they even use it at night

[Fat Dave]

Hi again,

Thanks for the replies. Will see what happens when I advance the time to earlier in the morning, but what puzzles me is that the Syrian line of sight isn't too bad i.e when I draw a target line across areas where I know the US attacker will have to cross I get a nice blue line.

Misgha, the motivation was high, I wanted them to really 'have a go'.

Does this wholly explain the 2-4 man superman units that get my boys to cower so badly?

Cheers

David

[Secondbrooks]

NVGs can easily be difference maker here. What might be the phase of the moon? Month and day has a meaning during nights. I don't think LOS tells you all. They might seem see 100 meters, but actully they might be dead blind when it comes to shooting someone dead.

Hard to say anything else... You did unhide your syrians i fthey were having hide-order? As unit given hide-order seems to be bit like blindfolded when being in trench. I've noticed this if trenches are located in brush and tree tiles (not sure about anything else). Opponent might have to jump into trench before hiding guys notices them... I've seen few times that my hiding ambusher gets seen first by attacker, gets suppressed and gets killed.

[Fat Dave]

Well I just tried the same scenario at 0700 and the difference is remarkable Not a soul survives the close trench encounter. My faith is fully restored

The NVG's really do change the whole picture.

I Should have tried this out earlier instead of screaming blue bloody murder as my lines were rolled up.

Great game.

Cheers

David

[Thomm]

Originally posted by Fat Dave:

I Should have tried this out earlier instead of screaming blue bloody murder as my lines were rolled up.

Hi Dave!

Perhaps you are bored of testing already, but it would really be interesting how your scenario would play out in full moon lighting conditions (as was indicated above).

Best regards,

Thomm

[SgtMuhammed]

Try the same setup with Syrian SF and RG units. They have NVGs as well.

[Fat Dave]

I ran a few more 'tests' mixing up the RG and the SF units with mixed results. In most cases I was losing my men and eventually the position to the awesome power of the Bradley's firepower, so the US units closed in and killed the suppressed Syrian units while they cowered. Not an unexpected result.

However, when the Bradley's were stripped away and the US infantry needed to cover more ground they were spotted (and stayed spotted) quicker and dispatched more or less how I expected. I did not see this happen before then.

I will try with the full moon sky conditions with 'normal' Syrian units and see if they fare a little better as Thomm suggested.

Thanks for the replies and suggestions. The depth of the detail is staggering when one really digs a little into it

David

[JasonC]

The problem is the way visibility and gunfire are being equated.

In reality, 9 AKs spraying at point blank do not see the flying bullets hit a brick wall at the edge of "night LOS distance", and then fall to the ground.

While NVG might allow the Americans to see the Syrians farther, as soon as any American actually fired, their muzzle flashes would make them visible themselves, and semi blind fire would carry the same as in daylight, etc.

[Flanker15]

This highlights an important omission from CM:SF.

While the Syrian regulars wouldn't have NVGs instead they would have lots of flares! The moment enemy units were detected or fired they would illuminate the area with flares. Also do burning vehicles create a light source?

[Pandur]

While NVG might allow the Americans to see the Syrians farther, as soon as any American actually fired, their muzzle flashes would make them visible themselves, and semi blind fire would carry the same as in daylight, etc

the biggest problem here in CMSF is since 1.08 "more or less" every syrian unit below crack or vet will start to cower as soon as they start to take fire. the amount of fire they take befor they can spott some muzzle flashes themselfs is too much. so they start to cower in the trench, that reducing their spotting capability to about 1%(something along that number ) of the normal amount of the full squad. when they take casualties next to the incommin fire, its done with, they all cower. they dont see brad´s 5m infont of the trench(same as with hide, generaly), let alone muzzle flashes somewhere out there.

so they simple cower and dont start to shoot in the first place.

at that point the attacker can move up anything infront of the trench without the unit seeing it.

while where are at it, i played "cavalary charge at apache pass" today the first time, as red. gave me a minor victory. however, there is one thing wich isnt right i felt.

looks like this;

this happened 3 times, the AI cleared 3 of my trenches that way. a lone brad without recon squad(KIA), pulling up right in front of the trench and start to coax one after the other. after the first casualtie they cower and dont even try to lob granades. they go prone and die one by one. if the brad decides to use bushmaster, good night.

now, i dont know, is this "realistic"!? when you did that in CMx1 you either catched granade bundles/molotovs or the guys surrendered if they where in bad shape as far as i remember.

so, but here they either "vanish" or get shot one by one without reacting(cowering). i mean they could try to lob granades also in panic if that is their last stand in the trench, or kill themselfs with granades while they still can. but cowering!?

[ChrisND]

I'm surprised they didn't start crawling out of the trench. .

[Secondbrooks]

Originally posted by Flanker15:

This highlights an important omission from CM:SF.

While the Syrian regulars wouldn't have NVGs instead they would have lots of flares! The moment enemy units were detected or fired they would illuminate the area with flares. Also do burning vehicles create a light source?

I don't think that CMx2 supports additional lights (no facts, just feelings)... Atleast yet.

Forexample burning vehicles doesn't seem to light the area around them for AI to see better... However i don't know for sure. Just impression i'm having.

[Chainsaw]

mmmm... flares..... mmm....

[JasonC]

Pandur - I've noticed an excessive ability of vehicle MGs to nuke infantry in trenches previously. And yes, there is some uber-ing of armor generally.

The realism issue there is mostly the lumpy nature of infantry in CMSF. The vehicle MG fires at one spot and all the men will be anchored to that spot, instead of being (and moving, adaptively) in a cloud around that point. In real life, if the Brad is pointing at X, the center of the squad will be other than X in two heartbeats, and maybe 4 different places. They don't cling together with superglue to give the Brad an easier target, one after another.

Obviously, lack of close assault weapons is another issue, but frankly that should just be more RPGs than one typically sees them get in CMSF. Dismounts don't actually manage to destroy AFVs with crowbars or "grenades", in real life.

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[JasonC]

Operative phrase "one of". Why are the other 8 men tied to him with manacles? Engine limitation, nothing else.

Also, trenches meant for anything but the hastiest fighting position have rather more protection available than the graphic we see depicted in CM. Think a Brad is going to see a man curled up in a deliberately cut overhang facing it, 2 feet below ground level, a foot deep into the forward trench wall, and three feet high?

Trenches are nerfed, infantry isn't as cloud like as it is in reality. There is a cost to believing the graphic and expecting it to be real, instead of designing around some abstraction as to individual placement. Part of that cost is you suddenly need to get another dozen things right, or you make tactical nonsense.

Brad drives 10 feet away from a whole platoon in prepared cover, only needs to hold the trigger down for 3 minutes to kill them all, is tactical nonsense.

[JasonC]

Coaxial this -

http://www.mcauley.org.uk/Curriculum/dh7/Year%209%20Resources/Image3.gif

It is called a "bolt hole"...

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[JasonC]

Wrong, all the other men are still tied to the spotted one. And believing the pic means the pic has to be right or you get nonsense. Here, you get nonsense.

There aren't any realistic trenches in the game, only simple ones. You either treat the simple trenches as icons for real ones, or you pretend the protection is as lousy as the drawing. Either way, nonsense. The second way, you just trace it to needing a better trench layout. You'd still need individual man movement and cover seeking.

Can't be done. You put in abstraction at the bottom, or you dispense with units entirely. If the latter, you will make it unplayable for anything above platoon, and too coordinated even at platoon level.

[JasonC]

Oh, and those are not remotely slit trenches. Slit trenches are only 18 inches wide, and anyone below ground in one would be completely safe from an AFV MG. More to worry about getting buried than shot in one, frankly.

[JasonC]

This is a slit trench (WW II Normandy) -

http://www.strategos.demon.co.uk/D-Day/Slit%20Trench.jpg

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request