Real life or gamey? (newbe question)

[Praetori]

So I suspect the Western ROE in the above case reverts to standard US policy in 1945: if your cute little gingerbread town flies white bedsheets out all its windows, we assume you surrender. But as soon as our men take fire, we will ****ing annihilate the entire place. Don't bother whining that it's SS fanatics and they had guns -- you should have talked them into leaving or else told us where they were. They are you and we have been forced to come here because of you. Talk to the hand, dirtbags.

And any commander employing such tactics should (according to international law) be put on trial for it. Not saying anything about the laws in themselves. But a lot of people got away with some pretty terrible things during WW2 because of the consensus that the nazis deserved it.

Nowdays, with all the media exposure it's less likely to get away with actions that injure or kill civilians.

In game the player is at the mercy of the scenario designer and how much points he rewards for keeping civilian buildings intact.

[Erik Springelkamp]

So I suspect the Western ROE in the above case reverts to standard US policy in 1945: if your cute little gingerbread town flies white bedsheets out all its windows, we assume you surrender. But as soon as our men take fire, we will ****ing annihilate the entire place. Don't bother whining that it's SS fanatics and they had guns -- you should have talked them into leaving or else told us where they were. They are you and we have been forced to come here because of you. Talk to the hand, dirtbags.

I am grateful the Canadians in 1945 were a bit more careful in April 1945 in my home town.

Here it was the SS - even Dutch SS - that took a 'last stand' in Groningen, forcing 3rd rate German soldiers - mostly railroad security forces - to fight to the last bullet.

Parents of friends of mine have seen German soldiers throwing ammo-boxes into the sewers when officers were not looking to get to that last bullet faster.

So it cost us a good part of the Mediaeval buildings in the city centre, but for the famous church tower active citizens managed to reach an agreement: the Germans would not enter it, and the Canadians would not shoot at it.

Active citizens also managed to negotiate the surrender of large groups of Germans who succeeded in escaping their leaders.

Still, 200 citizens killed, 200 Canadian soldiers killed, 200 beautiful houses destroyed.

[dan/california]

It is worth remembering that the systems, in terms of both precision fires and communications, to do what is routinely expected of Western troops today were barely concepts in 1945. For that matter a lot of them were German concepts. Von Braun is merely the best known example. Truly useful engineering data and ability were the surest way to avoid unpleasant post war questions about how you had spent the last few years.

[Dietrich]

In CMSF, the time Blue has available to achieve its objectives is never long enough to wait for a B-52 to arrive overhead and conveniently rain JDAMs. *shrug*

For what it's worth, just because I'm American and play Blue 99% of the time doesn't mean I'm profligate with the firepower available to me, at least not the firepower of the civilian-building-obliterating sort.

[jnt62006]

Reeling it back in a bit, remember, in the CMSF backstory, Syrian-backed terrorists just nuked a bunch of white people,

Do we still have "bunches of white people" in this country?

[LUCASWILLEN05]

It is perfectly reasonable for a scenario designer to simulate ROE if he wants to in a particualr game. While the background campaign does have a dirty bomb attack traced to Syria as the Casus Belli the international press would be covering the war in great detail and it would not look good if the US was portrayed as acting in an unjust manner, inflicting large scale civillian casualties, destroying mosques, hospitals, schools etc due to a profligate use of heavy weapons. In oper terrain the US can make maximum use of firepower and the Syrians would know this. So, like Iraq in 2003 it would be sensible for them to fall back into the cities where the ranges are much shorter and they force the US to choose between taking heavier losses or relaxing ROE with the resultant bad press.

Luke

[Major SNAFU]

Oh, and Smash: Here's something I posted to help another newbie. Hope it's useful:

One of the reasons the CM2 game has a linited appeal compared to mass market is that it is the opposite of an exciting action-packed wrist-twitch game. The Major and others can tell you about RL tactics, while I just use "gamer common sense" in terms of playing the game:

CMSF usually requires a lot of patience especially in the first 10-20 minutes. Firstly, (unfortunately) recon troops (and snipers) seem to have no particular spotting or hiding advantage. Yes, that sucks, but there are so many other super features, and hey, it's a game. So, you use em as recon cos of their label, but they do not have some form of invisibility shield. Also, generally, the last thing you want to do is race vehicles around to do recon as they will just get killed.

The first turns are critical. As an experienced player, I have found it most successful to start thus:

1) ensure most units esp AFV's are hidden from enemy POV.

2) move "recon"/inf teams using HUNT with multiple waypoints maybe 10-50 meters apart depending on the map and a 15-30 sec pause at each waypoint to allow time for spotting. (Your biggest enemy is/are enemy ATGM's (anti-tank guided missiles) which can kill just about anything you have at long range.)

3) So, the name of this game is ID the ATGM's and kill them (preferably with mortars and airpower) BEFORE exposing any important vehicles like tanks

4) Only after you have established as much as possible a safe zone clear of ATGM's should you bring up your AFV's like tanks (which I find rather brittle and usually are only useful (in CMSF) as heavily armored HE chuckers).

5) Use vehicular direct fire weapons (AFV's) to demolish enemy positions as much as possible BEFORE sending in any inf.

6) NEVER, NEVER rush into an unknown/building or area (unless it's been under observation for several minutes by many, many eyes with binocs - you acquire a feel for what's safe to do and what isn't with experience).

There's lots more that comes with experience, but the above imo should keep you alive long enuff to become a vet.

Note that once you see a "?" enemy sign, you should leave as many units as practicable just observing that location. It can take several minutes of nothing but observing (and that can suck if you're used to action games), but your units will start to ID the enemy units.

My observation based upon a handful of scenarios so far is that sometimes, due to the design of the scenario, you have to violate #6 to get AFVs in compliance with #1 because you may (and at this point I now feel that I have to assume, unless the designer specifically states otherwise) that your set up zones are in rage and LOS of at least 1 OPFOR ATGM.

[abneo3sierra]

My observation based upon a handful of scenarios so far is that sometimes, due to the design of the scenario, you have to violate #6 to get AFVs in compliance with #1 because you may (and at this point I now feel that I have to assume, unless the designer specifically states otherwise) that your set up zones are in rage and LOS of at least 1 OPFOR ATGM.

I think generally that is poor scenario design... I will design so that my units have to pass through , for example, a road that may be under ATGM surveillance, but I think it is poor design to set it up so from the very beginning, before you have even made a tactical choice, you are subject to vehicle losses. If I want to simulate a loss at the beginning of a scenario like that, I will just put in a damaged or destroyed vehicle, or tell you that there is a minefield there,and let you try to maneuver around it, etc.