What was the real length of an engagement?

[Kristian S-W]

Hello,

browsing this forum for a long time now, I finally decided to register and take part in the discussion.

I always was asking myself, how accurate CM is handling the duration of an engagement. "The British at Anzio" scenario for example. The Germans attack with more than battalion strength supported by tanks. The British are dug in with sightly less infantry and have tank support too. After 40 turns the "battle" is decided and one of the sides is more or less annihilated, most likely the defender. My question is, how long would have such an engagement lasted in reality? I cannot imagine that this happened in 40 minutes.

Kristian

[Vergeltungswaffe]

The problem with standalone battles, particularly against the AI, as I am guessing your's was, is that no consideration is given to force preservation and so casualties are often much higher than in real engagements, where one side or the other would give way when things went south.

If you ever get the chance to play against other people in a campaign setting, where keeping your troops alive is paramount, you will typically see a lot more caution, a much more palatable casualty rate, and less conclusive battles, as was the actual norm.

[Joachim]

In CM the CO doesn't need to write letters home. That's why you loose excessive amounts of your force.

Real engagements have to consider being able to fight tomorrow, too. Which might see a quick end to an assault - either the defender chooses to evacuate or the attacker chooses another point for an attack. So the question ain't "how long would have such an engagement lasted in reality" but "Do such engagements happen in RL ". And mostly they do not happen.

CM scens are usually "balanced" - ie both sides have a chance to win and the players know that. They also know the approximate enemy strength. And they want to have fun - ie have some shooting. In RL Dorosh's sig line holds: "Strategy is the art of not playing fair" - ie you try to make sure the enemy's chances are low. And you do run away from battles.

If you change the objectives in CM from "flags" to loss ratios and strategic ground, then add some uncertainty about the opposing force, you will see changes in player behaviour. In a multi-player campaign I witnessed a btn sized force abandoning an attack across bridges when encountering fortifications (wire) at those bridges. In 60 turns there were just a few rounds fired (except for some arty barrages). Losses amounted to nil vs a hidden AT hit by a lucky arty round. Boring PBEM - but solid decisions on both sides. An all-out attack would have led the attacker into a kill zone by a similar sized force.

Gruß

Joachim

[Moon]

Another thing to keep in mind is that CM (and this is true for CM1-3 as well as for CMSF) only simulates the absolute culmination of a given "battle". Preparations are made, orders are issued, troops are more or less in position. If you'd add all that stuff that is - purposely - left out of CM (hey, it's a game!) you would probably arrive at a fairly realistic timeframe for what history books would refer to as an engagement.

And that's a second thing to keep in mind: what is called a "battle" in many books really is a large scale campaign (by CM standards) involving regiments and armies. Many of the scenarios from CM would not find their into books at all, or would be mentioned as small scale skirmishes at best.

[Kristian S-W]

And that's a second thing to keep in mind: what is called a "battle" in many books really is a large scale campaign (by CM standards) involving regiments and armies.

Yes, I did know this. That's why i wrote "battles" in quotation marks. According to the rest of the replies, it seems that I missed the point. But now I see, the difference is more intensity of battle than the timeframe.

[pavlov]

Perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a "firefight" instead of a "battle"

[dieseltaylor]

There is an artificiality in the battles as the parameters define your force - and that of your opponent.

However this can be overcome to a degree by using the random settings. Most people find it a bit scary to have no idea if their random generated allowable pick of crack troops with no casualties is going to be a good thing.

After all the opponent may have green with a 50% casualty rate which could mean an enormous force awaits. Or it could be as mean as your force. What do you choose to buy?

It certainly makes for caution unless you are playing silly time limits like 25 turns.

To an experienced player telling me the date and the type of terrain and the points available, with no randomising factors, no casualties , and no planes, and I can get a pretty good guess what will be bought. A few minutes into the battle and your suspicions may be confirmed. It does make the fighting a mite predictable.

[RockinHarry]

Another thing to keep in mind is that CM (and this is true for CM1-3 as well as for CMSF) only simulates the absolute culmination of a given "battle". Preparations are made, orders are issued, troops are more or less in position. If you'd add all that stuff that is - purposely - left out of CM (hey, it's a game!) you would probably arrive at a fairly realistic timeframe for what history books would refer to as an engagement.

And that's a second thing to keep in mind: what is called a "battle" in many books really is a large scale campaign (by CM standards) involving regiments and armies. Many of the scenarios from CM would not find their into books at all, or would be mentioned as small scale skirmishes at best.

Too true. What the CM series entirely fails to simulate, is pre battle recconaissance. Normally each engagement (well...at least the majority) would assume to have combat reccon sent in first to locate forward lines, as well as few details of the enemy positions, before you as commander would start to make a battle plan. Most scenario makers do not give this consideration either. You always have to start making battle reccon, when actually you are to start the attack. In order for this to work, scenario makers should give a considerable amount of extra turns, so one can send in the reccon and wait for results, before one would deploy or move forces into their jump off points and make the battle plan. There´s no such thing in the game and also using briefing text is not a good substitute for missing pre battle reccon. CMSF handles it just little better by enabling the scenario maker to load up some battle map into the briefing screen.

Surprisingly the pre battle reccon feature was already simulated in wargames of equal scale, but unfortunately most game companies do not take these ideas up for their own designs. HPS Tigers on the prowl/Panthers in the shadows have a working, though abstracted pre battle recon feature, based on amount of infantry units (assuming these always send combat patrols out) and an abstracted reccon value, taking into account air superiority (air reccon possible or not) and other stuff. I think these are rather simple calculations, fairly easy to implement into a game, with the end result that you at least have a minimum knowledge of enemy fortifications, as well as some MG or gun nests, that surely would have been discovered before the battle starts. CM always simulates lost (visual) contact between both enemy armies, which is anything but true in reality, particularly in "assault" style battles.

Hopefully one sees something of equal quality in oncoming CMX WW2 modules.

[dieseltaylor]

If I ever get around to doing scenarios I would try to pre-position some binocular equipped troops on board with no firepower to make themselves too unpopular.

And/or have recon vehicles with demountable "crew" enabling them to last long enough to be useful and also to pre-find useful LOS.

As reinforcements can be a bit binding I am also contemplating the force being onboard from the start but arranging sufficiently difficult terrain so that the troops appear much as reinforcements might but totally under your control as to where and how they actually get to the primary battlefield.

Often I have been reduced to rage where units appear that are not listed, where the designer drops 20 units on the same entrance road, where briefings get stupidly coy about telling you what your force consists of, or even on which road they will appear. : )