Idea for reinforcements....

[DaveDash]

After doing my Milk Run video AAR, where all my forces turned up in the wrong place and the wrong time (according to how I would have liked them), I thought of an idea for future releases of CMSF.

Scenario designers could flag groups of units so the player can designate where his reinforcements will turn up during the setup phase, IE he gets to place designated reinforcements. Scenario designers can still have control by designating certain groups as 'deployable' or "Not deployable".

So for example in Milk Run (and many other scenarios) it would alleviate these problems:

1. Tanks turning up on soft ground and getting bogged.

2. Units turning up on the wrong place in the map that do not match your plan.

3. Units turning up within LOF of the enemy.

4. Ability to execute a plan without running into time limit constraints, IE I don't have to waste 10 minutes repositioning my forces.

5. Realism. If reinforcements are under my command, and it is my operation, I would there-for choose where they would be deployed.

Obviously some scenarios your reinforcements are QRFs, or assets out of your control, or the scenario designer has a purpose for putting them there, which is why this should be a group toggle. Also, from a programming standpoint, I don't see how this would be outrageous since a lot of the code is already there (placing units in the scenario editor, setup boundaries, setup phase, etc)

Thoughts?

[Erwin]

If you are treating CMSF as a "game" rather than an attempt at an accurate sim, your ideas are absolutely right, as the only issue should be player-enjoyment. (And I lean towards this POV.)

However, to be a devil's advocate (and I am sure I will be corrected if wrong) chaos is the norm in RL war and you have to "go with what you got." So, a sim-enthusiast might argue that the frustrations you outline are part of what makes war a nasty business full of fiascos in which people do die unnecessarily.

[DaveDash]

Chaos, sure, after the battle is joined. But in these particular missions I am thinking of (Marines campaign Milk run, for example, and Battle for Objective Pooh) the reinforcements are your main body showing up, with the AO being screened by your recon elements.

Since it's my operation, I'd want to say 'Echo company's Assembly point is here, Tank Platoon here', etc. I can see this being screwed up from time to time, sure. However a lot of reinforcements in the game aren't actually reinforcements, but rather different elements of your force arriving to start the battle, so they should turn up in the designated spot as chosen by me.

There is one mission where what you are referring to happens. It's called SNAFU, and yeah, your stuff turns up in the middle of a battle all over the place. That's why I said there could be an option for scenario designers to flag which reinforcements can be deployed and which ones can't.

Also In some of the older missions, the scenario designers are pretty careless at checking LOS to where your units turn up. If my AAVs get lit up by T-72s across the map as soon as they arrive, I'm not going to bother with that scenario.