Routing British Troops

[JonS]

Dude - you already got a response from Steve on that. What more do you reasonably expect?

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Right.. but what have the Spartans and the French Guard got to do with anything? Their training was far less exhaustive than the modern British/US Army.

Umm . . . I strongly disagree with this. The Spartans trained from childhood for combat, making their training, if anything, MORE exhaustive than the modern US/British forces. The Old Guard didn't receive as much training per se, but they were hardened veterans of many campaigns and arguably the toughest infantry in Europe at the time.

[Destraex1]

What makes you think western forces are so hard? Maybe in the media, but on the field you may find that the media and unit accounts don't match so well.

I'm sure units retreat (aka rout) all the time if they are not properly kitted and supported by the bigger technological friends.

[Fūrinkazan]

To be admitted in the french guard you hand to have 10 years of service and at least participated to 4 campaigns.

You can see in this article, for exemple how efficient they were.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_hanau

For the Spartans, i really doubt that a modern man can stand their trainning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartan_Army

They used to kill the babies that were not judged strong enough to be soldiers.

The young boys were in military life at the age of seven, living almost naked and forced to steal food to survive.

They had the reputation to never surrender and never retreat.

And i guess that everybody knows Leonidas and the 300 spartans:D.

I saw a documentary about a battle in Afghanistan were US, French and Afghan troops had to free a village from the talibans. About 800 men + air support against 200 talibans.

Afghan troops were in the front and when they received fire from the talibans

they started to withdraw. An experiment Afghan leader made them go back to the attack. The french used a milan missile against buildings to help the progression.

One french soldier died in the action, killed by a rpg. He was the driver of a VAB and his friends had to wait the night to recover his body.

Real soldiers are much more cautious than we are in the game.

I saw a Marine officer saying that they used to spot the ennemy and take position in places were they could eliminate them out of the range of their weapons.

In the game, what was the experience of the troops you had to face.

If you have crack or elite Syrians against Veterans US or British who will rout the first ?

Now let's take a look at the old Book of the Ancients. I mean CMBO manual.

Page 77 : "This does not mean, however, that as experience grows, soldiers turn into emotionless robots but they learn to deal with certain situations. and even more importantly, how to improve their chances of survival."

About experience, i think that sometimes too much crack and elite on the battlefield, especially for Syrians. See CMBO manual : "you will encounter troops of this caliber only rarely", "only a handful of personalities/squads"

And this can be the cause of unrealistic results. I understand that maybe scenarios designers try to make balanced battles and this must be very difficult.

For exemple, if you take the list of panzerwaffe aces, only ten have more than 100 tanks destroyed. From 168, Kurt Knispel, to 100, Albert Kerscher.

I have a list of 50 tank leaders and the last as 8 victories.

For Knispel, it took years of very hard battles and luck, to reach this level of experience. I really doubt that there are men with this experience in the Syrian tank formations.

Fear, bravery, experience, fanatism, are certainly really hard to simulate in a realistic way. But i think that with time and some tweaking, BFC will certainly do very impressive things. I think that the game engine allows a lot of possibilities.

[7thGalaxy]

Yes I can see, but there is nothing to compare - you can't possibly compare the spartans or the old guard to modern forces. The entire exercise is utterly meaningless.

Now, if you would find me an example in a modern war with highly trained blue forces bugging out and going missing... then please do.

[Scipio]

If you have a problem with the term 'Missing' simply extract the 'Version 120.brz' using the mod tools, open the file 'strings.txt', locate the entry 'Men Missing', replace it with something you feel more comfortable with, as for example 'Men withdrawn' and save the file to your mod folder.

I really wonder why western troops shouldn't route. Even Brits and Americans are human beigns, well, at least almost . Keep also the timeframe of a battle in mind. If you are nearly killed in your tank, you will be shocked, but because of your good training you recover after only one hour. But most CMSF battle don't even last that long...

[Fūrinkazan]

I don't want to compare modern forces to those of the past, but humans are still humans.

Sparta was the only city without walls. They told to what we consider now as childern how to kill, to ignore death and pain.

Why ? Because they had to face hand to hand combat. This is one thing to pull the trigger, use a missile, it's another to kill a man with your own hands.

I think they were able to face horrible things that we would not accept for our soldiers, and we certainly don't want our children to kill people.

I don't know if many soldiers would like to stay in line under artillery fire. And launch an attack staying in formation while your friends are hit by bullets or artillery. I have a good book about medics at that time and the wounds were horrible. The battlefield of Eylau was a butchery for exemple.

When i see what WW1 soldiers had to endure, i just can't imagine the hell that it was (20 000 dead in one day during the Somme offensive for the british)

The difference today is that we care much about our soldiers life.

As i said they engage at longer distance and i don't think there was any hand to hand combat. When the resistance is to hard, they take better positions and use their support. That's wiser and safer.

I would say that in more conventional war like Irak, the enemy simply cannot resist without airforce, technology, modern weapons. What would it be against a modern powerful country ?

I'm not a specialist of modern warfare, but it seems that during the first gulf war there was about 100 000 dead irakians against 240 dead for the coalition. After WW2 The US troops could inflict heavy losses to other small countries (Vietnam : 58 217 Killed for the US, south vietnam 255 000 and north vietnam 1.5 millions including the civilians, war in Corea : NATO 3094 dead 520 000 dead in combat for North Corea).

I saw documentaries about US British and French troops in Afghanistan.

They take a lot of precautions, and use a lot of firepower.

One case was interesting. A french tv jounalists team were following french troops and were taken under the fire of Talibans. We never saw any of them,

and despite there was a lot of shooting and bullets real close they were very hard to spot.

They decided to withdraw, and in order to do so, they shot an AT4 i think in the buildings were they supposed the fire was coming. And then a missile Milan, if i remember well, to disengage. I don't know if they hit or kill a single Taliban.

In the game i had very rarely "!" soldiers with veterans US or British troops. They retreat, when under heavy fire when they have casualties but very, very few "!".

I saw a thread about the distance of engagement for infantry i think.

Some people engage at 100 m.

I prefer, especially, with the British troops, engage at longer distance 300 or more depending on the weapons i have.

When i started to play i used to advance and force the engagment when i was under fire. Now i try to spot, and engage at the distance that i want.

I can tell you that the British can be devastating if the open fire at distance, their weapons are precise. Manoeuvring and flanking is also essential i think.

The only case i attack at closer range is night combat or when enemy is heavily supressed in buildings. At night, with night vision you can assault at less than 50 m without being spotted in good conditions. I wiped out an entire Syrian company in one minute in an assault like this.

If you're not equipped with NV, you can try to crawl at less than 20, 15 m of a trench. Then grenades, and assault. I'm experimenting with differents tactics for night assault in buildings, but it's harder to find a good solution.

To resume, it's normal that we have routing troops in my opinion, because we have much more close combat than in real life. Anyway, there are no supermen on the battlefield and even the best can panick or surrender. They resist much more time than recruits who will run at the first shot.

The level of experience of the two opponents is also crucial. This can change completely the result of a battle.

[7thGalaxy]

I'm sorry, but I can't in honesty say that anything in that last post has relevance. I just don't think that modern troops would just bug out and go missing like that - it seems unlikely that any western troops could possibly just go awol on a battlefield like they seem to be doing. I have no problem with them finding cover and sitting there for a bit, but, like I say, find me an example where people have just gone, as they appear to have done so in my battles, and gone missing. I can't see modern forces disappering without alerting their CO to what they are doing, and seeking permission, which is what routing is.

Sparta/the Old Guard were from totallly different eras, and I don't think we can really draw any meaningful conclusions from them with regards to modern training and warfare.

[Destraex1]

7thgalaxy is your name a mechwarrior formation?

I doubt western troops would go awol in such small lightning operations like a real front line that had years to stabalise would offer more opportunity to do.

But retreating or hiding without orders involuntarily or voluntarily would happen regularly.

[JonS]

Fūrinkazan:

If you have a problem with the term 'Missing' simply extract the 'Version 120.brz' using the mod tools, open the file 'strings.txt', locate the entry 'Men Missing', replace it with something you feel more comfortable with, as for example 'Men withdrawn' and save the file to your mod folder.

That's some great advice, right there.

Jon

[MikeyD]

it seems unlikely that any western troops could possibly just go awol on a battlefield

There's going AWOL and going AWOL. I knew an old Pacific jungle fighter who, after two solid years of the most brutal island fighting simply decided he didn't want to die for his country after all. So whenever he heard that his unit was going forward (the Peleliu islands, I believe) he'd hop in a handy Stuart light tank to take it for a 'test spin'. A patch of sand, a slight incline, a sharp left turn and voila - the Stuart shed a track, reliable as clockwork. Sorry sarge, it takes half a day to get the track back on these darned things. Bad luck again, I guess. The guy lived past age 80.

In game terms this means a soldier freaking out and deciding it would be better to survive the battle in a snug basement. When the fighting dies down he can always 'limp painfully' back to his unit and explain his absence.

[Starlight]

Have just finished the first Brit mission, I can say that yes "UNITS" retreat under heavy fire where they did not before.

Let me clarify that - "UNITS", both the Brits and Syrians retreated in my mission, generally when pinned and panicked and usually when in the open.

The Brits did so when I used poor tactics and 2 sections decamped too close to a building full of Syrians without any smoke cover, losing 3 soldiers and then bugging out a short distance.

But equally, when I assaulted a building with overwhelming odds a Syrian squad and a Syrian HQ unit bugged out of the building both running for their lives through a set of interconnected buildings.

It would be interesting to go back and play some of the previous campaign missions to see what effects the new version has.

I like the new version, requires much more careful planning and better tactics for building assault.

[Fūrinkazan]

JonS :

I don't have any problem with routing troops or the word "missing".

I think that all serious wargame must simulate human behaviour.

So, sometimes veterans can rout and fanatics conscripts can fight to the last man.

I took exemples in history to show that even the best troops can rout or surrender.

I took exemples of modern wars, especially Irak, to show that western troops had a so powerful advantage that their opponent could not resist. And we don't have hand to hand combat or very few it seems.

I took Afghanistan to show that our soldiers are much cautious than we are in the game and that they engage at long distance so they have the possibility to retreat in good order if things are not going the right way.

Think of the firepower that we use against 200 Talibans equipped with light weapons (800 men, A10 for air support, missiles etc...).

We are playing a fictionnal conflict. What would happen in real life.

Somthing like in Irak : Embargo, massive airstrike, then assault by the most modern army in the world, with veterans troops. I don't think that Syrians would do much better than in Irak.

In the game we can face veterans, and i've seen cracks and elite With complete equipement, and in good conditions.

I think that to simulate this conflict we should have Regular or less Syrians, against regular or veterans, with somtimes a few crack, elite, US or British.

Syrians shouldn't be in good conditions when it's time for the ground assault.

Much less tanks, incomplete formations due to the preparation of the attack.

It seems that in real life, no western tank has been destroyed by an ennemy tank. How many Abrams and Challenger do we destroy in the game ?

Does it mean that the game is unrealistic or that scenarios are ? Or that we use bad tactics ?

Has i said, i really doubt that they are cracks and elite tankers in Syrian forces (in the definition use in the game). If we put in scenarios crack and elite Syrians doesn't it false the result of the battle ?

It's like having a lot of elite tankers in Allied forces in WW2. There were certainly a few, but much less than for the germans.

If our troops rout in the game, it's maybe not a game problem but for me or the level of experiment of the troops, or the tactics.

This game is great, but as i said i miss prisoners and man running on the map and sometimes exiting the map.

I guess that BFC used the "!" system because it must be difficult to simulate this with 1:1 representation of infantry.

7thGalaxy, maybe this would cause you less problem to see panicked soldiers running away and rejoining after a few minutes, or living the map, than vanishing troops. That's the only big thing i find frustrating.

We put our pixel soldiers in situations that maybe are not the reflect of reality, this may explain why they rout. We are trying to simulate battles that are equilibrated while it's not the case in real life.

I still believe that any soldier can break under heavy pressure. And that's not different for modern men.

Another little exemple :

The 7th Armoured Division in Normandy, the famous desert rats.

They fought in North Africa, and Italy.

June 44, the first company of hauptsurmfurer Mobius attacks with 8 tigers in the direction of Villers Bocage. 5 Cromwell tanks are abandoned intact by their fleeing crews.

[Wengart]

I don't have a problem with blue troops routing when the situation calls for it. But, they seem to do it a bit too much, especially when their vehicle is hit.

On the British demo mission I had one spartan get hit by an RPG, one man was killed. I sent an APC to pick them up. Over the next several minutes, with the APC sitting not more than a few meters from them, the squad routed one by one.

Eventually the crewmen, who's gunner was killed several minutes ago, recovered and got in the APC. From there he went on to join the fight, while the squad of British infantry continued to route one by one.

In this situation losses were light, and the infantry squad took none. But, the resulting route seemed uncharacteristic for the situation.

[Fūrinkazan]

I have just finished a QB, and of course i managed to get one of my Challenger destroyed:D.

The crew did not run away and they killed an rpg team.

The Syrians, despite heavy losses (21 dead, 7 wounded, 3 tanks and 2bmps) had no missing soldier. Brititsh were veterans, Syrians regular.

I took a look at the editor.

We have 6 levels of Experience, 6 of motivation, 3 for the physics, and 6 for the level of command.

What would be the results of veteran with poor motivation, tired and with poor command ?

This makes a lot of possibilities that certainly can change a lot the way troops react.

And there is the environment. Are they under fire ? How far is the ennemy ? What kind of weapon is shooting at them ? Do they have wounded or killed in the group ? Do they have friends close ?

With the old CM system, your men would certainly have run away, out of the danger zone, and after a certain time, you may have them go back to fight with a "!" for rattled making them more likely to panick.

I think that tank crews are sometimes too though. It seems that this is less the case with the new version, but before, we could see crews attacking before the infantry in QB. I really doubt that when your tank is hit, with the shock, the noise etc... You can go back to fight immediatly.

So, i think we should ask ourselves what are the setting of the scenario before judging the way soldiers react. This doesn't mean that there is no need for some changes.