Smaller Units = Smaller Maps?

[Slappy]

I like the big maps for the campaign, but am wondering if there is provision for smaller than 1kmx1km maps for smaller unit engagements.

It looks like there would be plenty of opportunity for relatively small MEs to meet up, particularly in the early phases of an engagement, and out of the way of the main thrusts. If two platoon or company sized units are engaged, is there a way to use a smaller engagement map?

I could easily see these smaller units fumbling around a square km of wooded terraing for an hour without engaging each other. It would seem that fighting these battles on the large maps would make small unit engagements less likely to lead to real estate changing hands or at least less enjoyable for me (more unit pushing, less actual fighting).

Any word or consideration on this?

[Philippe]

smaller units fumbling around a square km of wooded terraing for an hour without engaging each other = reconnaisance

[citizen]

I sincerely hope they do not reduce map size to cause engagements amongst small ME's or increase them when bigger units meet.

Changing map size gives away too much intel. If I move a Coy onto a map where I suspect you have a single Platoon, I'd expect a small map (say 800m x 800m) if it was variable. If I start the battle and the map is 1500m x 1500m, I'd instantly know that I have stumbled upon a much larger force than I expected.

I should not get this info for free. I should have to make a probing attack to see if my operational recon was accurate.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Slappy:

It looks like there would be plenty of opportunity for relatively small MEs to meet up, particularly in the early phases of an engagement, and out of the way of the main thrusts. If two platoon or company sized units are engaged, is there a way to use a smaller engagement map?

I could easily see these smaller units fumbling around a square km of wooded terraing for an hour without engaging each other. It would seem that fighting these battles on the large maps would make small unit engagements less likely to lead to real estate changing hands or at least less enjoyable for me (more unit pushing, less actual fighting).

Well, since each 1x1 quadrant is controlled by He Who Controls The Flag, there isn't any obvious reason for that. OTOH any designer who included platoon sized maneuver elements in his campaign should be flogged.

[PzKpfwIII]

Originally posted by Sergei:

Well, since each 1x1 quadrant is controlled by He Who Controls The Flag, there isn't any obvious reason for that. OTOH any designer who included platoon sized maneuver elements in his campaign should be flogged.

No, anyone who uses one-platoon MEs as blocking forces should be flogged. I'd hope a German player in the early to mid-war period would have lots of MEs made of infantry companies and armor/armored car platoons - he could then throw them into different battles with flexibility, whereas his early war Russian counterpart (or mid to late war inexperienced formations) would not have this flexibility and be forced to employ companies or even battalions as single entities - will be an excellent way to model tactical flexibility.

No one is saying only one ME per map; think of a German regimental sized kampfgruppe spread out on a 20 km front - pick and choose a StuG platoon here, a half-tracked SPW infantry company there. I think that will be an essential component of correctly modelling a very real advantage "elite" or well trained formations had over newly raised units, etc.

[Philippe]

Forgetting about the game for a moment, if this were real life I would expect a division to have a reserve, an MLR, and a patrol zone in front of it. The patrol zone would have platoons, squads, and sections moving around in it to see what was out there. Whenever an action would start, you would often be uncertain at first if you were dealing with a patrol skirmish, a probe, or a full blown assault. I would hope that whatever mechanism for handling this kind of thing gets used, the realistic gathering of physical behavior doesn't get branded as gamey.

I think I saw a comment from Hunter that seemed to imply that the presence of small enemy units wouldn't prevent larger units from moving forward. If that is the case, your reinforced company spends an hour moving into a sector patrolled by a platoon. During the next hour it assaults an adjacent sector held by another company. The patrolling platoon, if it survived, can either find its way back to the main line, or mill around in the enemy backfield until it runs out of food and ammunition. Its presence would impose a slight delay, but not much. Isn't this how it works in real life?

[Slappy]

I think that Phillipe has gotten the point I was trying to make here. I'm not talking about gamey blocking moves or splitting a whole division up into platoon size elements. That said, I do think that there are legitimate regimental / devision level engagement uses for small units.

1. Flanks. I'm not going to have an entire batallion+ across every km of a 10km front, particularly as an attacker. I'll hold parts of the line with considerably less and parts with more. In these out of the way areas, I think it is perfectly possible and historical to have most of the action be sub company sized recon, counter recon, spoilers and feints. Relatively static fronts often have most of the action between the MLRs.

2. Recon and Screening. Even where the main thrust is coming, the front of the column is rarely heavy armor or large foot infantry formations. One of the things that I'm looking forward to in Campaigns is actually getting some advantage out of formations like armored car units and motarized / armored infantry that are expensive and largely useless in traditional CMBB play.

Sure, there are some times when PSWs are useful in traditional play, but no one plays with armored PzGren formations as they are far too expensive and blow up too easily against any real armor. In the campaign however, faster movement makes them a real asset. Why wouldn't I have small, fast units out in front of my main line trying to grap information and real estate and hold it until relieved by a more combat oriented but slower unit?

Let's say that I have a scouting / spearhead unit (armored inf platoon and armored car platoon) that has moved into a village quickly and is trying to hold it for time or is trying to push through a lightish defensive picket of a platoon, a light gun and a couple of MGs. This could be an important engagemet to determine who holds terrain for the next several hours.

Do I really need a 1000m map to accomodate these actions? Do I really need a map that big at night in the fog and rain? It just seems like a hassle to push my units around for the extra 300-500m.

Citizen's FOW concern though is legit.

[Sailor Malan]

Originally posted by Slappy:

Do I really need a 1000m map to accomodate these actions? Do I really need a map that big at night in the fog and rain? It just seems like a hassle to push my units around for the extra 300-500m.

From my point of view, I like the tactical approach phase of a CM battle. I could enjoy low unit density battles more than the big Btn per side slogs. Imagine: do I just have a single platoon in that village, or 2 full companies strung out in the woods around it. IRL, bluff and uncertainty are real players. Successfully holding off a small recon from your MLR, with a couple of platoons should be a major objective sometimes: is that it, or did I fail to find the main force behind it? It addresses so many of the limitations with CM at present - when else do you get rewarded for not using all the forces on the map!?

I think CMC as described by Hunter et al has real promise.

[PzKpfwIII]

Originally posted by Slappy:

Originally posted by Slappy:

[QB] 2. Recon and Screening. Even where the main thrust is coming, the front of the column is rarely heavy armor or large foot infantry formations. One of the things that I'm looking forward to in Campaigns is actually getting some advantage out of formations like armored car units and motarized / armored infantry that are expensive and largely useless in

traditional CMBB play.

Sure, there are some times when PSWs are useful in traditional play, but no one plays with armored PzGren formations

as they are far too expensive and blow up too easily against any real armor. In the campaign however, faster movement makes them a real asset. Why wouldn't I have small, fast units out in front of my main line trying to grap information and real estate and hold it until relieved by a more combat oriented but slower unit?

Let's say that I have a scouting / spearhead unit (armored inf platoon and armored car platoon) that has moved into a village quickly and is trying to hold it for time or is trying to push through a lightish defensive picket of a platoon, a light gun and a couple of MGs. This could be an important engagemet to determine who holds terrain for the next several hours.

The whole question of "player recon" has yet to be addressed - mainly I suppose because we haven't seen the game yet, huh. My own thoughts are expressed in another thread, they may bear repeating here. You do make a good point about recon units being used to seize and hold terrain and I suspect this will be an important feature of operations - or hope so.

As for information gathering, I wonder how this will be handled? The Operations map seems to plot enemy units, with appropriate Fog of War; will the actions within the CM:BB battles impact what can be seen at the operational level? (ie if your tactical forces discover an armored company on one map sector, will they automatically be added to the CM:C situation map?)

Or will there be other ways to reveal units on the operation map other than 'bumping into them' via a tactical battle? If so this would mean recon is being abstracted - I guess it comes down to what the designers have going on with the Operational map.

Personally, I would think reconnaissance may be one of those things best simplified by the game engine - leaving the "real life" burden of Intelligence gathering - to the computer and letting the player concentrate on the real world burdens of the combat commanders. In other words, the regimental commander - the player - will let his staff (the computer) gather, collate, track and update information on the enemy. In CM:C I thought this would be done by allowing the player to click on enemy icons on the strategic grid and finding what info is known on the enemy units.

You would almost have to let the computer handle this, otherwise a human player will either

a) have to keep written side notes on what forces he is up against

or

have the ability to manually input data into the CM:C operational map in order to chart what unit types and strengths he is able to ascertain by his "recon".

I think this is unwieldy and the computer should probably handle recon - it has a better ability to collect the data and realistically, the regiment/battalion/company commanders would have this data "processed" by the Intelligence staffs

beforehand.

There are certain types of intelligence that can ONLY be simulated by the computer, such as unit identifications. In the real world, you would search enemy dead for insignia, paybooks, identity tags, etc. but in CM:BB - you have no ability to do that. To simulate that type of intelligence, it has to be fudged by the computer.

The only real intelligence you could garner by fighting a 60 minute battle in CM:BB would be troop types opposite. Even positions of anything but fixed fortifications would simply change by the time the next battle got set up in the next 60

minutes. Plus the human player would have to make mental notes of everything he saw, and potentially remember it for several days or even weeks if PBEM an engagement during that 60 minute phase.

So for those reasons, I'd say the emphasis in CM:C should be less about "recon" and more on the actual fighting.