When CM revisits Normandy

[Peter Cairns]

For me a key thing will be buildings.

In CM:SF you can get away with blocks as it's modern middle eastern and I suppose it looking like an American suburb is fine, but not France in 1944.

If a Syrian village is a bit of a grid, then a French one is more a plate of spaghetti.

So we will almost certainly need a larger stock of buildings that can interlock and at least some of which have "kinks" in them. They will also need to be able to be offset so that they stick out from each other by a couple of mtrs now and then.

The good thing is that as almost every roof has a steep pitch it is probably realistic to keep units off them and so none of the problems with crossing from one to another.

Peter.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Peter Cairns:

So we will almost certainly need a larger stock of buildings that can interlock and at least some of which have "kinks" in them. They will also need to be able to be offset so that they stick out from each other by a couple of mtrs now and then.

In another thread today, Steve laid the blame for poor infantry pathing on scenario designers not removing doors from buildings abutting each other where the walls physically touched. In my opinion, that is a coding issue, not a scenario design issue. The "hack" that Charles "had to do" should probably have been a default feature - and moreover, as we move into more complex Normandy terrain (graveyards, angled roofs, church steeples, barbed wire fences, rowhouses), the coding of how these things all interact gets more sophisticated also. This will all take time to implement. Beaches and hedgerows seem a bit beside the point when we start considering mouseholing, narrow streets, gyrostabilizers on Shermans, Schürzen and the ability to lose it, duckbill track extensions and the hazards of raised cobblestone sidewalks...some of it will be chrome, finding the happy medium and the dividing line that pleases the majority will as always be the killer.

[Kwazydog]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Michael Ive seen Steves comments and I certainly dont see how he was out to 'blame' anyone on this issue. The situation was that people were using the editor in what had been an unexpected way and a solution has since been found, nothing more.

The building issue is certainly something we have considered, but the down side is that the more angles we allow buildings to be placed on the more complicated LOS calculations become, resulting in more processor intensive calculations. As such its something we will have to look into further and investigate the results.

Dan

[ February 08, 2008, 03:04 AM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

[Peter Cairns]

Dan,

I wasn't so much talking about angling buildings but rather about having a building that had a bend in it, almost like roads that have bend tiles.

Would doing it that way avoid the processor problem.

What we need I think is to find a way to have the buildings look graphically correct while minimising the LOS issues.

Hopefully there will be a way to recreate those long close continuously built up streets climbing up through towns.

Peter.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by KwazyDog:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Michael Ive seen Steves comments and I certainly dont see how he was out to 'blame' anyone on this issue. </font>

I doubt you've seen the same comments I have, Dan. My apologies, I should have done you the courtesy of providing them:

The last "door bug" we fixed was actually not a bug per se, but a problem with how people were putting together scenarios. Two abutting buildings and the designer put a door only on one interior wall. So it looked like a door but wasn't. Charles had to do a hack to make it work instead of trying to insist that all designers put two doors all the time, every time.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Peter Cairns:

Dan,

I wasn't so much talking about angling buildings but rather about having a building that had a bend in it, almost like roads that have bend tiles.

Would doing it that way avoid the processor problem.

What we need I think is to find a way to have the buildings look graphically correct while minimising the LOS issues.

Hopefully there will be a way to recreate those long close continuously built up streets climbing up through towns.

Peter.

I'd like to see the tiles abandoned altogether as far as roads go; they're simply not flexible or realistic enough, and will particularly not be so when it comes to European villages. The ability to drag and drop entire buildings would be nice too, or to angle them at other than the standard 0, 45, and 90 degrees. We have the finer 2x2 mesh now, but the outdated road tile system as a legacy from the 20x20 tiles overlaid. Hopefully this will be addressed - deep verges would be nice too, that would go hand in hand with the bocage.

[Sequoia]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

With water comes bridges.

Bocage.

Houses with sloping roofs. Church steeples and bell towers. Village wells. All the screenshots I've seen of CMSF show flat roofs. Gonna have to model it different for Europe. Can infantry go up there? Do they want to? Gotta model animations for that, if so.

On a related note, cellars. Not an inconsiderable challenge for the coders, I think.

Culin hedgerow device. This was abstracted in CMBO.

Underbelly hits. Gotta program the AI to take those shots.

Ability to split squads on historical lines rather than two man fireteams as is 2007 practice.

Panzerfaust availability.

Anti-tank magnetic mines. And a morale model to let the Germans use them.

Teller mines as improvised anti-tank device.

Anti-tank mines.

Schu-mines.

Rifle grenades vs personnel.

Rifle grenades as anti-tank device.

Open-topped AFVs and all that goes with them - mortar fire vs., close assaults against, etc.

Halftracks were mentioned above, but what about coding the vehicle to actually drive like one - mobility would be different than a full track or a wheeled vehicle. Again, these are not in CM:SF. Pretty much standard for a US armored infantry battalion, not essential for a German order of battle but certainly expected by the game playing public.

Trailers - including reverse movement. Even if just for jeeps, but some flame vehicles and SPs used trailers for ammunition. Probably not essential until you get to the Crocodile - bear in mind US forces used them, notably at Brest, though the vehicles and crews were British.

Come to that - reverse movement for German armoured cars, especially those with two drivers. An armoured car with a second driver would be at a big tactical advantage compared to a regular vehicle. This should be coded specially.

Completely different offboard artillery procedures (current US Army artillery is oncall to a lot more people than in 1944, and the Germans handled it differently also at least in terms of time of response).

Tactical air support pretty much non-existent in 1944 at the company level. But they existed over the front - so did the fact that IFF was much more crude. So you need to change your parameters to make friendly fire even more likely if you are including friendly aircraft. And make them far less lethal to the enemy as well. Would need to be treated in the engine much differently, I think, from what every goes on under the hood in a fictional Syria 2007 scenario.

Rocket artillery - Nebelwerfer and Calliope; the latter probably needn't be modelled but the former should probably be - and would you just use the MRLS model from CM:SF (is it even modelledin CM:SF?) or would you need to do something different? Should it have a distinct morale effect? Off the top of my head, I would think it would be more inaccurate than modern rocket artillery, but again, perhaps not a "must have", but that depends on the exact formation you choose to simulate.

Rain - lots of it, and not just drops on the screen - in an hour long battle, water should pool up in low lying areas, create mud, puddles, adversely effect driving. This needs to be modelled.

Fog - the ability to lift, roll, come back in again.

Night - no night vision equipment. Moon phases. Cloud cover. Starshells. Trip flares.

Ability for map designer to pack villages very densely (closer than 5 metres)

AI able to drive vehicles through same villages, including single lane roads

MGs that can go from LMG to HMG mode (MG34 on lafette mount, switchable to light mode) during the game.

Light mortars as indicated onboard and offboard.

Poor communication between friendly tanks and infantry should be modelled - again, this is much different than a 2007 model would be. Radio comms between a tank platoon and an infantry company would be much different in 1944, if such even existed in some units.

Weapons:

M-1 Garand

M-1 Garand sniper

Springifle sniper

M-1 Carbine

M-2 Carbine

M-3 Carbine

Browning Automatic Rifle

M1919 MMG

M1919 HMG

M1919 LMG

.50 calibre HMG, ground mount

Thompson SMG

M3 SMG

.45 M1911A1 autopistol

MP40

Kar98k

K98 sniper

K43

K43 sniper

MP43

FG42

P08/P38 pistol

MG34

MG42

Vehicles

Jeep

Beep

Seep

M3 HT

M3A1 HT

M16 HT

M9 HT

M21 HT

M5 tank

M4 tank

10 other types of friggin M4 tanks

M10 TD

M36 TD

M18 TD

2-1/2 ton truck

armoured cars - M20, M8

PzKpfw IVF2

10 other types of friggin PzKpfw IV

PzKpfw V

PzKpfw VI

Most StuGs than I can count

Ditto Panzerjäger types

Kübelwagen

light truck

medium truck

SP AA trucks

SP mtr vehicles

Armoured cars! 2 wheels, 4 wheels, Puma, armed, unarmed funkwagens

Ordnance

57mm ATG

75mm ATG

Bazooka

FT

5.0cm ATG

7.5cm ATG

8.8cm AA/AT

PzSchreck

20mm AA

quad 20mm AA

37mm AA

FT

German grenade bundles

New 3d models for all this, plus skins for all of them. And deciduous trees. Evergreens. Grain. Probably a whole new UI.

Program the AI to change engagement ranges. American tanks won't want to engage enemy tanks at 1500 metres the way an Abrams crew might. Model the shot trap on the Panther. Deliberate immobilization attempts. Fire smoke and HE at a Panther or Tiger, try and fool the crew into bailing out by setting his stowage on fire or filling his ventilator with fumes. M1 Abrams don't need to resort to that, but Sherman crews do. Should be modelled. Probably wouldn't need to be in CM:SF.

Schürzen. Zimmerit. Nahveirteidigungswaffe. Soft (sandbag) armour. All that stuff needs to be coded and modelled and tweaked because it was all used and CMBO didn't model all of it. It isn't a case of just plugging it into the new engine, I don't think.

German infantry tactics - do these differ significantly from the Syrians? I'm betting they do. How did a German squad do business? The MG was the centre of attention. The use of outposts appears to have been big. Should the German squad be allowed to split into smaller groups than a US squad? Either way, I'd hope to see them coded significantly differently than Syrian or US troops circa 2007. Otherwise, what is the point? Just mod the uniforms and put a different label on the DVD in that case.

I'd say there would be plenty to keep BF.C's little design team of coders and artists busy for more than a week or two in order to put out a quality Second World War title for CMX2.

[ May 17, 2007, 03:27 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

MD, I've copied a post of yours from an earlier thread giving a list of things we could expect to see in a WWII game. I thought it was a rather comprehensive list.

[Pandur]

Charles had to do a hack to make it work instead of trying to insist that all designers put two doors all the time

i find that kinda rediculous. i mean its also for me a scenario designer issue. you build a wall infront of a door, ofcourse you wont be able to go through.

everytime i build houses wich are partly joined i fly in and remove the wall of the house wich does not have the door. you dont need 2 doors at the same spot! i mean thats logical or not!?

thats actually a real bad hack in my view.

[Kwazydog]

Originally posted by Peter Cairns:

Dan,

I wasn't so much talking about angling buildings but rather about having a building that had a bend in it, almost like roads that have bend tiles.

Would doing it that way avoid the processor problem.

Ah I see what you mean Peter. Hmm, to be honest I suspect that the issue remains similar to what I meantioned above as we still need buildings to be able to be placed on more angles than is currently available. Also there is an added level of complexity in that we need to work out a way to allow designers to join these buildinds into a single solid row. It is certainly something I would like to see in game myself and it is something we will look into, but its too early at this stage to know what we may be able to do there.

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

They were the comments I had read Michael, but I hadnt taken them in a negative tone as it appears you may have. Nowhere do I see Steve blaming scenario designers for poor path finding itself, as you suggest, but rather he is commenting on them using the editor in a previously unexpected way which then resulted in the odd path finding. It was always possible to place the building so that this didnt happen, but Charles has since reworked the code to make the process much more intuitive.

Such things happen all of the time in development...at one point Charles had to totally rework the terrain LOD algorithms as people were using trenches far more than he has even expected

[ February 08, 2008, 01:49 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

[Kwazydog]

Originally posted by Pandur:

Pandur I beleive the only change is that the editor now does this automatically instead of you having to do it manually, but I would have to check for specifics.

[Pandur]

he, no problem, dont do anything you dont get money for

i dont had problems with that in the first place, so if the editior does it now, ok with me.

i just wanted to express that i found it quiet logical that steve said that some people used the editor the wrong way and so artificial pathfinding issues came up.

like players plotting movement through a wall, they wherent aware off.

EDIT: the last question in my post above was rethorical, i know it works and its logical

[hellfish]

I haven't played any west front games since CMBO, so I'm looking forward to revisiting it.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Sequoia:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

With water comes bridges.

Bocage.

Houses with sloping roofs. Church steeples and bell towers. Village wells. All the screenshots I've seen of CMSF show flat roofs. Gonna have to model it different for Europe. Can infantry go up there? Do they want to? Gotta model animations for that, if so.

On a related note, cellars. Not an inconsiderable challenge for the coders, I think.

Culin hedgerow device. This was abstracted in CMBO.

Underbelly hits. Gotta program the AI to take those shots.

Ability to split squads on historical lines rather than two man fireteams as is 2007 practice.

Panzerfaust availability.

Anti-tank magnetic mines. And a morale model to let the Germans use them.

Teller mines as improvised anti-tank device.

Anti-tank mines.

Schu-mines.

Rifle grenades vs personnel.

Rifle grenades as anti-tank device.

Open-topped AFVs and all that goes with them - mortar fire vs., close assaults against, etc.

Halftracks were mentioned above, but what about coding the vehicle to actually drive like one - mobility would be different than a full track or a wheeled vehicle. Again, these are not in CM:SF. Pretty much standard for a US armored infantry battalion, not essential for a German order of battle but certainly expected by the game playing public.

Trailers - including reverse movement. Even if just for jeeps, but some flame vehicles and SPs used trailers for ammunition. Probably not essential until you get to the Crocodile - bear in mind US forces used them, notably at Brest, though the vehicles and crews were British.

Come to that - reverse movement for German armoured cars, especially those with two drivers. An armoured car with a second driver would be at a big tactical advantage compared to a regular vehicle. This should be coded specially.

Completely different offboard artillery procedures (current US Army artillery is oncall to a lot more people than in 1944, and the Germans handled it differently also at least in terms of time of response).

Tactical air support pretty much non-existent in 1944 at the company level. But they existed over the front - so did the fact that IFF was much more crude. So you need to change your parameters to make friendly fire even more likely if you are including friendly aircraft. And make them far less lethal to the enemy as well. Would need to be treated in the engine much differently, I think, from what every goes on under the hood in a fictional Syria 2007 scenario.

Rocket artillery - Nebelwerfer and Calliope; the latter probably needn't be modelled but the former should probably be - and would you just use the MRLS model from CM:SF (is it even modelledin CM:SF?) or would you need to do something different? Should it have a distinct morale effect? Off the top of my head, I would think it would be more inaccurate than modern rocket artillery, but again, perhaps not a "must have", but that depends on the exact formation you choose to simulate.

Rain - lots of it, and not just drops on the screen - in an hour long battle, water should pool up in low lying areas, create mud, puddles, adversely effect driving. This needs to be modelled.

Fog - the ability to lift, roll, come back in again.

Night - no night vision equipment. Moon phases. Cloud cover. Starshells. Trip flares.

Ability for map designer to pack villages very densely (closer than 5 metres)

AI able to drive vehicles through same villages, including single lane roads

MGs that can go from LMG to HMG mode (MG34 on lafette mount, switchable to light mode) during the game.

Light mortars as indicated onboard and offboard.

Poor communication between friendly tanks and infantry should be modelled - again, this is much different than a 2007 model would be. Radio comms between a tank platoon and an infantry company would be much different in 1944, if such even existed in some units.

Weapons:

M-1 Garand

M-1 Garand sniper

Springifle sniper

M-1 Carbine

M-2 Carbine

M-3 Carbine

Browning Automatic Rifle

M1919 MMG

M1919 HMG

M1919 LMG

.50 calibre HMG, ground mount

Thompson SMG

M3 SMG

.45 M1911A1 autopistol

MP40

Kar98k

K98 sniper

K43

K43 sniper

MP43

FG42

P08/P38 pistol

MG34

MG42

Vehicles

Jeep

Beep

Seep

M3 HT

M3A1 HT

M16 HT

M9 HT

M21 HT

M5 tank

M4 tank

10 other types of friggin M4 tanks

M10 TD

M36 TD

M18 TD

2-1/2 ton truck

armoured cars - M20, M8

PzKpfw IVF2

10 other types of friggin PzKpfw IV

PzKpfw V

PzKpfw VI

Most StuGs than I can count

Ditto Panzerjäger types

Kübelwagen

light truck

medium truck

SP AA trucks

SP mtr vehicles

Armoured cars! 2 wheels, 4 wheels, Puma, armed, unarmed funkwagens

Ordnance

57mm ATG

75mm ATG

Bazooka

FT

5.0cm ATG

7.5cm ATG

8.8cm AA/AT

PzSchreck

20mm AA

quad 20mm AA

37mm AA

FT

German grenade bundles

New 3d models for all this, plus skins for all of them. And deciduous trees. Evergreens. Grain. Probably a whole new UI.

Program the AI to change engagement ranges. American tanks won't want to engage enemy tanks at 1500 metres the way an Abrams crew might. Model the shot trap on the Panther. Deliberate immobilization attempts. Fire smoke and HE at a Panther or Tiger, try and fool the crew into bailing out by setting his stowage on fire or filling his ventilator with fumes. M1 Abrams don't need to resort to that, but Sherman crews do. Should be modelled. Probably wouldn't need to be in CM:SF.

Schürzen. Zimmerit. Nahveirteidigungswaffe. Soft (sandbag) armour. All that stuff needs to be coded and modelled and tweaked because it was all used and CMBO didn't model all of it. It isn't a case of just plugging it into the new engine, I don't think.

German infantry tactics - do these differ significantly from the Syrians? I'm betting they do. How did a German squad do business? The MG was the centre of attention. The use of outposts appears to have been big. Should the German squad be allowed to split into smaller groups than a US squad? Either way, I'd hope to see them coded significantly differently than Syrian or US troops circa 2007. Otherwise, what is the point? Just mod the uniforms and put a different label on the DVD in that case.

I'd say there would be plenty to keep BF.C's little design team of coders and artists busy for more than a week or two in order to put out a quality Second World War title for CMX2.

[ May 17, 2007, 03:27 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

MD, I've copied a post of yours from an earlier thread giving a list of things we could expect to see in a WWII game. I thought it was a rather comprehensive list. </font>

[Other Means]

Well, now we have "sub-action spots" of 1m*1m, so maybe the buildings and scenery can be made more flexible.

I'd love to see it.

Originally posted by Pandur:

he, no problem, dont do anything you dont get money for

Words to live by.

[vertigus]

As far as rivers go, I think it should be rather easy to model them, because you don't need to model it perfectly. Rivers always were serious obstacles and it wasn't an easy task to cross them. It was always a matter of initiative, finding a suitable spot and having something to cross them with, which isn't something any unit has with them during a battle.

In my opinion game engine should only focus around fords and things like that. Deeper water is just uncrossable. Engine gets flooded, soldiers are not too keen on swimming with equipment on, etc.

As for crossing rivers in floating devices-it would be more difficult, but it shouldn't be a pontoon simulation for crying out loud. When crossing river you try to do it as quickly as possible, in shortest way possible. Not swim in circles and catch some tan on the other side. Adding a strength of water current to the vector should be enough.

Someone wrote that "high velocity small arms rounds disintegrate very quickly on hitting water". True, but that simply means a target is harder to hit. I don't think CM Engine calculates effects of hitting separate body parts anyway.

[Cpl Steiner]

Originally posted by KwazyDog:

Pandur I beleive the only change is that the editor now does this automatically instead of you having to do it manually, but I would have to check for specifics.

KwazyDog,

I've done a quick test because this is an area of the editor I've been particularly interested in for a while now.

If you place a door on one adjoining wall but not on the other, graphically there is no change (i.e. it doesn't make a door magically appear on the other adjoining wall in the correct place) but soldiers will move through the door from either side. This, to my mind, is a good fix as it makes the soldiers less likely to exit the building or use the roof and if you don't like how it looks you can simply add the missing door in the editor.

However, there is still a problem with doors in walls above ground floor. If you use Ctrl-Alt to affect all walls on one side of a building, it is possible to make a door in a wall on every level of the building. If there is an adjoining building, you in theory should be able to make all levels have access to the adjoining building through doors.

The problem is, it doesn't work. In the editor, it looks fine, but when you come to play the scenario, every door above ground is missing. There is literally a whole in the wall where the door should be, and soldiers refuse to use it.

At the moment this is a real pain because it looks like we are 90% of the way there regarding door usage except for this bug. The fact that Ctrl-Alt can be used to make doors on all levels is a great feature (and it's been there from version 1.0 as far as I know). All we need now is the code to actually make use of those higher level doors.

[Cpl Steiner]

As a follow-on to my above post, I would also like to see some sort of limited fire ability between adjoining buildings through doors. At the moment, soldiers have to enter the room of the adjoining building, where they are invariably massacred by whoever is in there. You can put a window on each adjoining wall, which allows firing through it, but this doesn't exactly look correct.

Perhaps one solution would be to allow area fire against an adjoining room through a door. You can't target the men in the adjoining room but you can spray bullets through the door/walls or make a hole and post grenades through it.

Alternatively, consider this. Why are doors always treated by the game as LOS obstructions? Surely doors can be open sometimes, or even missing altogether? Maybe the game could be modified so that doors are treated as windows for firing purposes, i.e. soldiers can gather next to them and fire through them, just like windows.

Just a thought.

[Peter Cairns]

KD,

Just a suggestion.

One way to deal with conjoined buildings that might work is extended dormas. Just in case it has a different name in the US a dorma is a vertical roof window that has it's own little pitched roof.

If these are extended to meet a wall then you can have an L shaped or T shaped building that can then be linked together. having buildings of different heights also helps as it's common to have a ridged roof meet the end wall of a higher building.

A 45' bend in a building would probably be enough to give character without LOS becoming a nightmare.

Farmhouse with one level lower attached and set back.

Farm house with one level lower at right angles.

Farmhouse with extended dorma allowing attachment of same height building ( forget the two small ones it's the large centre one that creates the tee).

Peter.

[Thomm]

Some water (lovely waves from explosions):

http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=386125&forum_id=62&gforum_id=0

Attack of the Drop Team Clones (unrelated):

http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=468860&forum_id=62&gforum_id=0

Best regards,

Thomm

[DavidFields]

Times have changed since CMBO. I don't see how they don't have beaches--from a marketing perspective.

If you tell most people/gamers you are building a Normandy game/simulation, and then don't have the beaches, I think you will get some head scratching.

Even myself, when I bought CMBO years ago, had to keep repeating to myself "Beyond Overloard", "Beyond Overlord", to understand what was going on.

Even then, weren't there people trying to build custom scenarios which looked like beaches?

What percentage of the population, if you just walked up on the street to them and said, "Overlord" would know what you are talking about? "A demon in a fantasy game", would likely be the number one answer of most gamers, and you would draw a blank on....the overwhelming part of the rest?

So, you might as well put "Normandy....But Not the Beach Landings" on the box if they aren't going to do the landings, or endure some incredible accusations of false advertising.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Rankorian:

Times have changed since CMBO. I don't see how they don't have beaches--from a marketing perspective.

If you tell most people/gamers you are building a Normandy game/simulation, and then don't have the beaches, I think you will get some head scratching.

Even myself, when I bought CMBO years ago, had to keep repeating to myself "Beyond Overloard", "Beyond Overlord", to understand what was going on.

Even then, weren't there people trying to build custom scenarios which looked like beaches?

What percentage of the population, if you just walked up on the street to them and said, "Overlord" would know what you are talking about? "A demon in a fantasy game", would likely be the number one answer of most gamers, and you would draw a blank on....the overwhelming part of the rest?

So, you might as well put "Normandy....But Not the Beach Landings" on the box if they aren't going to do the landings, or endure some incredible accusations of false advertising.

The beach landings hold pretty much zero interest for me personally as far as tactical interest goes; maybe in a naval simulation I could see the point, but in a game where you are ostensibly an infantry company commander, why play something where everything should rightfully be out of your hands and command range to start with?

[Sequoia]

The word Normandy didn't appear on the CMBO box. I don't know why it need appear on the new game. Besides I've heard it will just take place "France Summer 44" as often as I've heard exclusively Normandy.

[Melnibone]

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Melnibone:

I'll have to show this to Company Sergeant Major Woods tonight.

[Londoner]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Our perception of land operations in the Second World War has...been distorted by an excessive emphasis upon the hardware employed.

- John Ellis, "Brute Force"

It's too true. We can see that CM:SF has focused on vehicles

He wasn't just talking about vehicles - he meant all the different weapon systems - from a bayonet to a B17. IIRC He argues the significant factor in land operations was men, and how they were organised/trained, supplied and led.