Battle Scope

[Bigduke6]

Andreas, as to your questions:

*How often were battalion reserves committed in a 45 minute battle?

Once.

As to the rest, all I'm saying is that all other things being equal a single weapon has more effect on a small battlefield than a big battlefield, because the weapon range is constant but the battlefield size is not. Thus, it is harder to keep weapons out of combat ranges in a small battle, and ipso facto chances are greater there will be no reserve in a small battle, as it's harder to keep a reserve out of contact than in a big battle.

Seems logical to me. But I could be wrong, maybe you can tell me where.

[dalem]

Andreas-

I think you've hit the nail on the head.

How long, exactly, has it been since we've seen Charles' jar waving from the parapet? Or Steve's Weasel? Anybody could be typing the words we read, anybody could be sloshing around in that jar - who is in power over there?

-dale

[Andreas]

'Once' - you mean in your battle? I meant in reality, just to clarify.

Your assumption does not strike me as anything but an assumption until I know more about the new engine. You do not know the suppression model (affects whether you can commit your reserve without running into trouble), or the command delays (affect whether you can quickly switch your attacking units over if you have no reserve), or the spotting system (affects how fire control over the battlefield can be exerted). Unless these and presumably a lot of other things are known I would say that your point is logical in CM1, but that's about it. Which means it is at this stage not particularly relevant, as trains of thoughts go.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

Jeez Mr. Dorosh. That's quite a double standard you have going there.

Not at all. I said that CM is more of a company level game by accident, in that at least the player has the information available to an average company commander in normal circumstances. He does not have info available to most battalion commanders in normal circumstances. What is the double standard?

As you well know, CM allows the virtual company commander the precise same inputs as the virtual battalion commander. The same sound markers, unit markets, and absence thereof.

I suspect this was garbled in transmission, can you resend? I honestly have no clue what a sound marker is, or a unit market(?) You mean to say the player has the same intelligence on enemy units as a real life battalion commander? I rather doubt it. That info would not get back as fast as it does in CM. It's possible - though a bit of a stretch - that the intelligence is accurate for a company commander, who is usually "on the scene." I can't think of a better way to explain this to you.

What's more, the CM virtual company commander almost always has an easier time of it, than the CM battalion commander.

There is no such thing as a CM battalion commander, so you'll need to explain this to me. I am arguing that no matter how many units go on the map, you are always playing the role of a company commander, whether that means two platoons, or 200, are on the map.

It's simple numbers. At the company level one has less map area to keep track of, less units to juggle, and less enemy to hunt for. The CM battalion commander has to do the same thing, but he has usually 3-5 times as much stuff to keep up with. So if you are arguing CM bn commanders make too well-informed decisions, then CM company commanders are making decisions, even more overly well-informed.

This is gibberish to me.

Yet you seem to have a pretty high opinion of CM as a company battle simulator. I don't see the logic in that.

You haven't read my posts. It comes down to intelligence available, speed of dissemination, and ease of order giving. Reread my comments and ask specific questions, I can't think of any other way to explain it better.

If I am misunderstanding you and your position is "CM sucks, there's too much info for the player period", then my apologies for not getting you right.

Apology accepted, this isn't what I'm saying at all.

But you don't seem to me to be a person who thinks CM sucks. You seem to me to be a person who thinks CM is an outstanding simulator at company level, but sucks at battalion level. I call that a double standard.

There is no double standard, just your inability to grasp what a company headquarters can reasonably have done IRL, and what a battalion headquarters can reasonably have done IRL.

As to control over subordinates, as you well know, in a war neither a company nor a battalion commander is positioning sections, or squads for that matter.

Yes, you are correct, hence the comment that CMX1 really isn't designed as a company commander's sim either - but it does realistically model the intelligence and decision making, while unfortunately also making the player micromanage the platoons and squads.

In a war of any intensity, commanders manage one level of command downward, and that's pretty much it. Any control beyond that is artificial, equally, at company and battalion level.

Well stated.

Maybe I do suck. But then, maybe I know something about battalion-level CM fights you don't.

Not based on your comments so far, though I will stipulate you are a better CM player than me.

Yah, I know, you're a real experienced player, and I'm a noobie. How dare I contradict you?

Oh F-O. I don't give a rat's ass about how well I play CM, it's just a game, not an ego trip. My win-loss rate over 5 years is probably 2 or 3 wins out of every 10 PBEMs.

Well here's an offer, how about you wipe the floor with me? You seem to think I'm full of hot air. Care to try and prove it? Andreas can pick the scenario. Anything big.

Grow up - this has nothing to do with your understanding of what a battalion headquarters does in war.

Certainly that degree of control was unrealistic for a battalion commander. Are you saying it's realistic for a company commander?

Yes, given the fudges we have to be allowed to make it an interesting and fun game.

The reserve company was on the far side of a hill. My decision was to send it out from cover, and over the hill, to strike what I thought was one of the ends of the enemy line. That is all.

And every piece of intelligence your forward companies had, was automatically collated and passed on to your reserve company. Instantly. Cause it was all in your brain.

You are writing with an awful lot of confidence about a CM battle you not only have never seen, but know about only by hearsay.

The example is irrelevant, the principle applies in any and all circumstance.

You don't know how much information I had in the battle, nor do you know what went before in the battle I was playing, nor do you have any clear idea of what indicators of enemy force the game engine actually gave me. You don't know how much control I had over my forces, nor do you know how well or poorly my opponent was able to interfere with what I was trying to do. You didn't know until I just told you whether the reserve commitment I was talking about was aimed at a perceived flank, line gap, or a strongpoint in an attempt to overwhelm it.

Irrelevant, irrelevant, irrelevant. You were one player, and as soon as your leading squad made contact, you were able to use that info immediately and make your entire force respond instantly, because you were the only one giving orders.

That's a pretty big information gap for you to overcome, for you to draw better conclusions than me about a battle, considering I fought it, and you didn't.

All I am talking about is making the decision "The company needs to go there, now," based on an imperfect understanding of where my opponents defenses were located, and in what strength. I'm not taking about "Hehehe, this squad here, that section there, this is a great place for the LMG section, oh boy I'm going to nail that trench with my grenade bundle, the enemy MG ran 35 seconds ago."

Of course the result of the decision - the execution -went much faster and more efficiently in CM than in RL. But that's just as true if one is commanding a company-level game. I'm not talking about speed and efficiency of execution. I'm talking about the thought process leading up to the decision.

As to my understanding on how a battalion commander makes decisions relative to your understanding of the same thing, since you seem to make to want to make an issue of it, as it happens I served three years as the S-2 of a U.S. Regular Army mechanized infantry battalion. That's the guy responsible for telling the battalion commander what the heck is happening on the battlefield, in case you didn't know.

None of which helps you understand better why global spotting prevents CM from being a battalion level game.

I also like to think spending a bit of time over the years with Russian field grade officers in the Caucasus and Transnistria, and elsewhere, has given me a better-rounded view on how military units larger than companies gather information, and act on it.

Did you play CM with them?

In my experience, the information CM gives me over the course of a battalion-sized battle against a live opponent is not all that different from NTC or Hohenfels.

How is this relevant to WW II?

Sure CM gives hard little indicators sometimes, but real spot reports originate with a thinking (more or less, this was the infantry) human being. That often helps, you can ask the originator more questions. The thought process the player has to go through, as compared to a battalion staff and commander filtering information trying to figure out when to make a move, is often remakably close, from what I can see.

[SgtMuhammed]

If you really want to go strictly by what is normally done during the course of a game as compared to RL this is a platoon level simulation that can be scaled up. Company commanders do not regularly order individual squads/vehicles/weapons about.

[Michael Dorosh]

Sorry, girlfriend phoned and I had to cut that short, I left out my response to the last bit of your post.

I don't doubt you have real life military experience, and I think the problem is you ARE misinterpreting what I'm saying. In all honesty - go back and reread what I said and ask me specifics, cause I think you're just plain not getting something that is intuitive to me, but probably being probably poorly stated at my end. Or read my proposal in the new thread I started, I expanded a bit on my idea presented here. Until company commanders are blocked from perfect information shared throughout an entire force, there can be no way of simulating a battalion action.

None of which means you can't "play big games." I reiterate that there is a difference between the two. You were playing a "big game" in which you managed to keep a reserve in place. Kudos - good tactical decision. You'd make a good company commander.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by sgtgoody (esq):

If you really want to go strictly by what is normally done during the course of a game as compared to RL this is a platoon level simulation that can be scaled up. Company commanders do not regularly order individual squads/vehicles/weapons about.

This is accurate as far as giving commands goes. But I do think information gained by one platoon - in most circumstances, at least outside of FIBUA (or whatever they call it these days - MOUT?) - could be transmitted as fast as we see in CM (ie instantly, or near instantly) to the other units in the company; platoons usually operated in close proximity if not actual sight of each other.

[SgtMuhammed]

With today's radios I agree, but with the more limited FM in WWII there would be more delay. Company frontage, however, was, and still is, quite small and platoons can often see the same things. More so in WWII when things were more dependent on runners and wire.

[AlmightyTH]

If you wanted to recreate bigger battles, you would have to add a strat AI capable of it. Giving tasks to the commanders and let the commander-AI decide what to do. Maybe Battlefront should partner up with panther games. It would be the ultimate.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Maybe Battlefront should partner up with panther games.

Now there's an idea...

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Maybe Battlefront should partner up with panther games.

Now there's an idea... </font>

[Sergei]

(In the case the irony is missed by some newbies, BFC published the first Airborne Assault game.)

[Barrold]

Girlfriend?!?

BFS5

[Zalgiris 1410]

Wow this thread has really spun out, I certainly didn't figure it would!

There are two camps here; those who like smaller company scale CM gaming and those who like to play with battalions on up, and I am obviously in the second group passionately for sure.

I think that both are ligit but my group seems to be the one under threat if BFC doesn't allow for a large enough number of units to be run in CMx2.

MD I have to take issue with you about the relative realism factor between company and battalion command. IMHO I think that there is to much information provided by the CMx1 UI for even a platoon commander let alone the higher ups.

For example just as for the higher commanders lets say you are playing with just one single platoon it isn't totally realistic pretending that the play is the actual platoon commander. Firstly, never mind the fact that the HQ unit can be eliminated while the player continues to operate effective command of his troops afterwards unrealistically. Secondly, MD your points about the amount of information and the ablity to immidiate take action based on it being too unrealistic to properly represent a battalion commander, IME goes the same not only for a company commander but equally also in the case of the single platoon HQ commander. How does he know as much as the player does when the rest of the platoon is behind a hill or cover while just a single squad or team is sent out and its LOS allows it to observe the enemy positions. Especially consider it being wiped out fairly quickly while the player can gather a greater amount of accurate information on those enemy positions than the actual platoon HQ commander. Thirdly, IRL the HQ platoon commander may have heard the firing but wouldn't have spotted as mach as the player has probably done.

IMO the problem of this omnisience is just part of the territory of computer simluation. Because of it though, in any game like CM it is unavoidable. To solve it satisfactory would be to turn CM into either a type of shoot'm-up arcade scaled down game or else a kind of millitary role playing game. While they might be very good in and of themselves and I'm not denigrating those kind of games, they would not be CMx2 at all.

The most realistic thing one could do for playing in CM, if that is ones aim, would be to take just one single lonely unit into the game. Say a tank or a HMG team or a FOO or perhaps best one solitary sniper. All the same the player can still see enemy shells impacting and even automatic fire hitting the dirt else where on the map outside of the lone units LOS!

BTW when I play CM I imagine that I am the orders group of a Kampfgroup or a taskforce, be that company sized on up to re-inforced battalion to a combined arms regimental equivelant force. While the Information is still too detailed and I don't loose contact with any of my units etc, I find it enjoyable to play pretending I'm part of everything that is happenning as if I'm omnipotent dare I say as an atheist.

[ September 02, 2005, 10:13 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Zalgiris 1410:

Wow this thread has really spun out, I certainly didn't figure it would!

There are two camps here; those who like smaller company scale CM gaming and those who like to play with battalions on up, and I am obviously in the second group passionately for sure.

Why polarize? I've stated several times I enjoy the occasional larger battle; I'm playing with two battalions in one op I've got going on right now. What we *like* is irrelevant to what CM can effectively *do*.

MD I have to take issue with you about the relative realism factor between company and battalion command. IMHO I think that there is to much information provided by the CMx1 UI for even a platoon commander let alone the higher ups.

Given the system we have, though, its closest to company command for all the reasons stated several times by multiple posters. I will agree, however, that "Extreme" FOW may really not be extreme enough.

For example just as for the higher commanders lets say you are playing with just one single platoon it isn't totally realistic pretending that the play is the actual platoon commander. Firstly, never mind the fact that the HQ unit can be eliminated while the player continues to operate effective command of his troops afterwards unrealistically. Secondly, MD your points about the amount of information and the ablity to immidiate take action based on it being too unrealistic to properly represent a battalion commander, IME goes the same not only for a company commander but equally also in the case of the single platoon HQ commander. How does he know as much as the player does when the rest of the platoon is behind a hill or cover while just a single squad or team is sent out and its LOS allows it to observe the enemy positions. Especially consider it being wiped out fairly quickly while the player can gather a greater amount of accurate information on those enemy positions than the actual platoon HQ commander. Thirdly, IRL the HQ platoon commander may have heard the firing but wouldn't have spotted as mach as the player has probably done.

Relative Spotting will hopefully cure all this.

IMO the problem of this omnisience is just part of the territory of computer simluation. Because of it though, in any game like CM it is unavoidable. To solve it satisfactory would be to turn CM into either a type of shoot'm-up arcade scaled down game or else a kind of millitary role playing game. While they might be very good in and of themselves and I'm not denigrating those kind of games, they would not be CMx2 at all.

Yes, this has been discussed often enough as well. These aren't the only two options, and again, you've chosen to polarize. Other options include command and control restrictions, as we have in CMX1, and other artificial means of limiting the player's ability to control troops unrealistically. They usually involve trading off one type of unrealism for another.

The most realistic thing one could do for playing in CM, if that is ones aim, would be to take just one single lonely unit into the game. Say a tank or a HMG team or a FOO or perhaps best one solitary sniper. All the same the player can still see enemy shells impacting and even automatic fire hitting the dirt else where on the map outside of the lone units LOS!

Not unless you have faith in the artificial means of control described above being a sufficient simulation of multiple personalities.

BTW when I play CM I imagine that I am the orders group of a Kampfgroup or a taskforce, be that company sized on up to re-inforced battalion to a combined arms regimental equivelant force. While the Information is still too detailed and I don't loose contact with any of my units etc, I find it enjoyable to play pretending I'm part of everything that is happenning as if I'm omnipotent dare I say as an atheist.

I wear fuzzy pink bunny slippers while playing CM and listen to sound effects records of four legged animals vomiting. It helps me get in the mood, but to each his own. Your ritual is probably no weirder than mine.

[Battlefront.com]

There is nothing under "threat" here. CMx1 was designed for a particular method of play, some people went beyond that. CMx2 is being designed for the same level of play as CMx2, and doubtless people will want to take it beyond that. We don't see why not, though we are not going to do things to specifically support that. For example, we aren not including Battalion level and higher Formations.

I'm not even sure we'll have a Battalion HQ available onmap for the first release. Why not? Because unlike CMx1 there are a lot of ramifications to the C&C system with that BN HQ in there. For CMx1 we threw it in late in the development because it was no different than a Platoon or Company HQ. The reason that was the case is we never intended on having BN HQs and therefore didn't have a C&C system setup to make it behave differently. Not the same for CMx2. Now HQs matter. A lot. So we can't just toss in stuff willy nilly. We might get one in there, we might not. It isn't a priority for us since that isn't the game we are focused on making.

For the first release hardware is going to be the big enemy of massive unit games, not us. Plus there are all the other things I mentioned in this thread and others about the core changes. I'm not sure people will find that many units fun this time around. Certainly not in some modes of play (actually impossible I'd say).

When Co-Play comes around, and hardware increases in capabilities, things will change. But that time isn't for CMx1's first release.

Steve

[Andreas]

Just a point on this idea that because CM1 does not realistically model company commands, there is no difference between its modelling of company and battalion commands.

I don't agree with that logic - I think that on battalion level inconsistencies are strongly reinforced compared to company command.

But good news from Steve.

[Bigduke6]

I agree that's the disconnect. We have differing opinions on the quality of information, taken as a whole, to the CM player in the role of a battalion commander. (Or to be very fair, in your terms a giant company commander.) That pretty much defines the terms of the ensuing discussion, and it's clear you can't convince me and I can't convince you. Life in the big city, I guess.

My personal impression is that CM in its present form actually does a fine job of giving a battalion-level virtual commander/player limited information, and hitting the player with time pressure, when it comes time for that player to make a basic "big battlefield" decision like commit a company reserve, give a "weapons free" command, or similar.

This is especially so against a live opponent actively trying to keep me from gaining intelligence. It becomes, for me anyway, even more "realistic" when there's a ton of cover and poor visibility. If you get a really huge battle with high force densities and a smart opponent, I can spend 30 turns probing about trying to find the enemy MLR, and I can still get it wrong.

For me anyway, big games really become a battle of figuring out what's going on, of intelligence. Once I get a read on that, the tactical mechanics needed to make the CM engine do what I want it to do - moving the tanks into hull down, using bounding overwatch with the infantry, having HE-throwers and MGs ready to supress firers I don't know about yet - that stuff is (for me anyway) fairly mechanical and automatic.

It's just my opinion, at the end of the day. Bottom line all I'm saying is that "I think CM's great!"

Here's another anecdote as to why. Like I said, I've had a bit of RL experience with battalion staffs, and as it happens - in days long gone - I had to do training in both desert and Central European environments.

To me, it is just uncanny how well CMBB and CMAK capture the "feel" of both of those very different environments, when it comes to battalion-level staff decision-making. Better, by far, than the computer simulations the Army was using to train its battalion staffs.

And now it's going to get better! Life is great!

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Sorry, girlfriend phoned and I had to cut that short, I left out my response to the last bit of your post.

I don't doubt you have real life military experience, and I think the problem is you ARE misinterpreting what I'm saying. In all honesty - go back and reread what I said and ask me specifics, cause I think you're just plain not getting something that is intuitive to me, but probably being probably poorly stated at my end. Or read my proposal in the new thread I started, I expanded a bit on my idea presented here. Until company commanders are blocked from perfect information shared throughout an entire force, there can be no way of simulating a battalion action.

None of which means you can't "play big games." I reiterate that there is a difference between the two. You were playing a "big game" in which you managed to keep a reserve in place. Kudos - good tactical decision. You'd make a good company commander.

I dunno. Company commanders need to be willing to use force of will to get subordinates to risk their lives, and good company commanders can deal with the death and injuries that go along with that, and keep on functioning. Maybe when I was younger I might have had a chance, but now I'm such a pacific old guy I get nervous about friendly casualties in a computer war game. I doubt I could hack the real thing, now.

Once we calm down, the game offer still stands.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

Andreas posted,

“But good news from Steve.”

I agree 100%, and I am a huge fan of big games .

Although I am such a fan of huge, semi-operational games I still would not change the fact that CM is optimized for platoon v company games. It is the fact that CM is optimized for such small games that makes it the truly absorbing, immersive game it is. It is the “exact” location of that MG team, that AT gun, that creates the excitement as you try to ambush troops commanded by one of your chums. Seeing the battlefield through the eyes of your squad and tank commanders is where the fun comes from. But everyone to their own.

CMX1 could/did produce great games right up to brigade level, in my view. In CM you play many roles, battalion commander, company commander, platoon commander but also squad commander. In fact your primary role is that of squad/AFV commander. Hence you see the battlefield from the point of view of the squad commander, not the company and battalion commanders. One way to think of CM is that you are playing the role of squad commander and platoon commander, but from reasons of fun, and greed , enjoy simultaneously playing the roles of lots of squad and platoon commanders. But even when you have a reinforced battalion to commander, your primary role is still that of squad and AFV commander. Just lots of them at once .

But as I posted earlier, and Steve reinforced, when CoPlay and more powerful hardware arrive I am confident I will be enjoying semi-operational games more than ever. The thought of four odd battalions on a 4km by 4km map with half a dozen players on each side will take CM to new levels of excitement.

All the best,

Kip.

[jim crowley]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

I'm not even sure we'll have a Battalion HQ available onmap for the first release.

Steve

If you have more than one company to control would you not need a higher HQ of some sort above that of a single Co. HQ?

[Andreas]

I think what Steve is saying here is that they won't put something on the map that has no role there, i.e. is not thoroughly modelled. Which I think we can all agree was the case for the BN HQ in CM1.

So you'll still be able to play with 1/2/many battalions (if your rig can hack it), but unlike in CM1 there won't even be a pretense (because that is what it was) that the command chain is modelled.

That raises the question of OOBs however.

[flamingknives]

Indeed, especially as all the interesting things for the British are at battalion level or higher.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

Indeed, especially as all the interesting things for the British are at battalion level or higher.

Hmm...

=> the first game won't have CW troops in it!

[Andreas]

Depends on how they do it. You could still offer individual support companies/platoons, just not on the same basis as at the moment, where they are integrated in the battalion. Basically if there were little change from CM1 we would be talking about a proper OOB treatment for the support section (guns in batteries, mortars and HMGs in platoons etc.).

[kipanderson]

Jim,

Just to reinforce something I ranted about earlier.

With CoPlay it is near inevitable that you will get some form of “command game” features you always hankered for.

If you imagine that there are four players on one side, three company commanders and one battalion commander, with each player only able to see/spot what the units he “directly” commands can see/spot, then you have in large degree the game you always wished for. The battalion commander would not be able to see what squads in the rifle companies could see. Only what battalion assets such as mortar, artillery, AT guns could see.

As soon as you have any form of “vertical command structure” it may work to isolate the most senior commanders. What I believe you are after. The most junior level of commanders see/spot all that their own units can spot. So company commanders can see all that any of the units in their companies can see. But battalion commanders can only see what their own icon, plus battalion assets and special attached units can see. They have to communicate with company commanders by text message.

Jim, as you can see I am as enthusiastic about this form of “command game” you would be. CoPlay can bring together the sort of game you wish for, and maintain CM as the near magical experience it was with CMX1. The company commanders still playing the type of CM I enjoy so much, while those playing the more senior commanders play the type of command game you wish for.

Live team play, as tend to think of CoPlay, brings a new dimension to CM in many exciting ways .

All the best,

Kip.