Jump to content

Elvis vs. JonS DAR Discussion Thread


Recommended Posts

As a few of you have noticed, we had two of CM:BN's Beta Testers, Elvis and JonS, square off against each other in full public view. For those of you who might have missed out, here are the two threads:

Elvis, Captain America

JonS, Major Übergoober

On the first pages are Tables of Content that allow you to read the "official" action summaries. The rest of you can delve into the details and learn such things as who TubeGuy is or that die Grüne Punkt was actually started by German soldiers cleaning up weapons and ammo from fallen comrades. Oh, and lots of Shermans bellowing smoke because this time Elvis was quite sure the coast was clear!

For an even quicker summary, the battle went sorta like this:

Elvis launched an attack, he got his butt handed to him in one place, but basically fought JonS into the ground in other places. JonS put up a valiant fight, and cost Elvis dearly, but in the end didn't disrupt Elvis enough to pull off a victory. Technically JonS won by quite a bit, but as he pointed out there were some errors in the scenario's Victory Conditions and once corrected the likely conclusion was a Draw. It certainly looked that way from my perspective.

Now, the reason for this thread is for JonS and Elvis to be in the same virtual place at the same virtual time (they are on opposite sides of the Earth in real life) to answer questions, explain their thinking, compare notes, probably make fun of each other's mistakes, and definitely brag in excess of their successes. Because let's face it... why play if you can't beat your own chest and razz your opponent? :)

Steve

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 291
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I'll start things off with my own observation and see what these fine gentlemen have to say about it.

The battle was VERY fluid in some areas and completely bogged down in others. What struck me was how little JonS needed to bog down much larger forces, but how quickly things fell apart when the small force was eventually neutralized. One of my personal complaints about CMx1 sometimes was that small forces tended to skip over the tying down the enemy bit and instead went right to neutralized. I'm not talking about a single crack Panther or what not, but a handful of infantry vs. a force perhaps 10 times larger.

Elvis, were you surprised post-game to see how little forces Jon had in places compared to what you thought during the battle?

Jon, were you surprised during the game at the results of having a few guys in the right place at the right time?

Steve

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've gotta say,the thing I was most impressed by was the ability of the German sniper.The sniper action played out in a very realistic action according to the exploits of snipers I have read about.Very good job and thanks to both of you for taking the time to do that.I hope all the time spent putting together the DAR's didn't cost you your carreers and marriages.:D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

CMBN may rate a mention in "divorce lawyers monthly" before its over.

The thing that amazed me is that defended woods, lightly defended in some cases, seemed almost impossible to advance into.

Also, the German machine guns didn't seem to pull their weight. at least from the info JonS and Elvis gave us.

An excellent DAR gentlemen, I wasn't sold on re-fighting Normandy until I read it. now I am sort of frothing at the mouth. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've gotta say,the thing I was most impressed by was the ability of the German sniper.The sniper action played out in a very realistic action according to the exploits of snipers I have read about.Very good job and thanks to both of you for taking the time to do that.I hope all the time spent putting together the DAR's didn't cost you your carreers and marriages.:D

I feel vaguely uneasy about the sniper's performance, to be honest. JonS reports that he achieved roughly 1/7 of his total kills, and looking at the victory screen, that would be somewhere around 35 casualties (or 21, if considering only the killed, rather than all casualties). It's not an impossible figure, but it's really up there--IIRC, Simo Häyhä achieved no more than 25 kills a day. What was the range of that engagement, and did the rifle platoon manage to spot the sniper while they were pinned down?

Also, thank you both. That was a very interesting AAR (and very pretty :D). The breaching of the Alamo was awesome, and particularly funny given JonS' realisation that there wasn't anything he could do about it. I can't wait to see this (and Rhinos) applied to the new hedgerows.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, the German machine guns didn't seem to pull their weight. at least from the info JonS and Elvis gave us.

The HMGs got - IIRC - 5-10 cas each. Cumulatively that came to quite a few - and most of my rifle squads only inflicted one or two cas each. The big benefit of the HMGs that I found was their depth of ammo, and their ability to deny an area to the Americans. Elvis was happy to prove this by continually trying to ram some infantry up the middle. In the big open fields in front of la Campagne they kept going to ground and crawling about in circles. It was only in the last quarter or fifth of the game that he managed to finally make some headway and get into the forward edge of the village.

So, in terms of cas, maybe the HMGs didn't pull their weight. But in terms of denying the enemy freedom of movement they more than justified their presence.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel vaguely uneasy about the sniper's performance, to be honest. JonS reports that he achieved roughly 1/7 of his total kills, and looking at the victory screen, that would be somewhere around 35 casualties (or 21, if considering only the killed, rather than all casualties).

It was 33 in total - you can see it in the "Heros" post I made earlier today. Also, calling them 'kills' is a case of loose terminology on my part. I mean guys who went down with either the brown skull or red cross. Either way they're 'dead' as far as this scenario is concerned.

Your other point, though, is valid, but not one there's really a solution to. As has been pointed out, in the real deal once Elvis' first attack on Hill 154 foundered, and especially when his casualties started to mount, it seems to me unlikely that Elvis' boss would have pressed him to keep going. Or that his own men would have kept going, regardless of what the boss wanted. Fundamentally troops are too willing to continue to engage in combat, because their commanders - all of us, as players - don't really care whether those little pixeltruppen live or die. We continue to mash our virtual troops together long after real soldiers would have called it quits. I don't really see an alternative though, since 'real' battles are kind of boring: a long period of nothing. A few troops move, one or two get shot. Some artillery is called in. A lot more nothing. Some more movement, a couple more deaths. More artillery. Some mortars. Some more movement, then side or the other calls it quits and either cancels the attack for the day or pulls back to the next stream/ridge/hedgerow.

That doesn't much sound like the kind of game I'd like to play :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jon, were you surprised during the game at the results of having a few guys in the right place at the right time?

Yeah. My inital setup was founded on a thin, weak outpost line, backed by a strong reserve. When I saw him massing to attack Hill 154 at about the 10 minute mark, I decided to move the reserve there and form a defence in depth, but really it wasn't required. The outpost line absorbed the shock of the attack brilliantly, meaning that the defence in depth was never really tested. Actually, moving all the reserve up onto 154 was ultimately a mistake, since they weren't all strictly needed there, but only one platoon came back down off the Hill.

"Right time and right place" is key though - for the defence of das Alamo I had reasonable strength and good concentration - far more than on either Hill 154 or later on Hill 144. Yet the guys in the Villa collapsed like a paper parasol in a monsoon downpour. The big difference there is that Elvis was able to prep the ground properly with some heavy direct fire from his Shermans, and temporarily shock the defenders with the dems charges. There was practically no prepping on either 154 or 144 - he just charged in with his infantry.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Note to readers... I have NO inside knowledge of the DAR. Not while it was going on, not now. I decided to keep myself detached so I could view their respective reports and responses with minimal bias. It was a good opportunity to see some testing in action as we normally don't do this sort of thing internally. Which is why you'll see me asking questions here just like you guys. I'm curious about this stuff too :D

"Right time and right place" is key though - for the defence of das Alamo I had reasonable strength and good concentration - far more than on either Hill 154 or later on Hill 144. Yet the guys in the Villa collapsed like a paper parasol in a monsoon downpour.

I think this is a really interesting point in the battle. You were all ready for a big, Hollywood style last defense, and when it came down to it you hardly fired a shot. Anybody that didn't surrender was mowed down. And yet it wasn't like Elvis was charging in with a fresh Platoon or anything close to that! The difference between your guys with the piss-poor morale and Elvis was the Shermans. Lots and lots of big boom HE in those bad boys. And even though the field was littered with them, Elvis had plenty left for the final phase.

Steve

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First off, grateful thanks to JonS and Elvis for all their hard wrok in preparing their reports - great job, chaps, entertaining as well as very informative. I hope BF show their gratitude because you have provided a great showcase for the game.

I was very interested to read that JonS thought that his HMG's worked well as area denial weapons. I didn't really pick that up as the game was in progress, but I can now see it. This is heartening becuase ever since CMBO I have been critical of BF's modelling of heavy machine guns. Whilst with each iteration of the game their have been some improvements perhaps we are now getting close to being able to utilise them in their key role. Is there a "beaten zone" now working under the hood?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

'Cat, re: beaten zone

No, not exactly, but the effect is the same. When I had my HMGs on Hill 144 chattering away across the valley onto Hill 154 the rounds were impacting +/- 10 to 15m for range and lateral around the nominal point of aim. Also, the 'area of effect' seemed to extend beyond that. So, even when there was no nominated target except a point in the ground my MGs were still spreading the love around.

OTOH, I asked Elvis about that later, and he reckons he never noticed :o I guess in the end I was just brassing up an empty piece of forest :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The thing that amazed me is that defended woods, lightly defended in some cases, seemed almost impossible to advance into.

Me too, this may be related the type of formation movement of the infantry. In reality their would advance through the forest in a skirmish line so if they encounter enemy contact they may bring most of theirs firepower on it. If the TAC AI chooses to advance in a straight line the moment the first men get engaged the rest of the squad can't shoot cause they don't see the enemy.

Second thing is that you can order target area only on places you see, so in forests you can't provide advancing squad with cover fire on suspected enemy positions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fundamentally troops are too willing to continue to engage in combat, because their commanders - all of us, as players - don't really care whether those little pixeltruppen live or die. We continue to mash our virtual troops together long after real soldiers would have called it quits. I don't really see an alternative though ....

Have posted about this a few times, to me an alternative is making the player want to save/keep his troops alive. IMO this is where the "experience" and "feats of heroism" features come into play. Anything that can help create an identity for the unit (experience, names, feats, units etc) and identify the unit in various battles that form a campaign would maybe make a user relate to that unit more and hopefully prevent throwing away needlessly. I think this would help change the way i play the game. Sounds strange taking about it in the context of a game to be honest but after all its trying to recreate a tactical situation and real world feeling/experiences to a degree are part of this.

Pros ?

Cons ?

Edited to say ... i guess new troops coming into the line would be sacrificial lambs :)

Plus i guess you need a willingness from the user to follow the context in the first place.

In the context of a campaign you may be faced with the decision to lose "Tube Guy" (your best mate) or fail the to take an objective.

Hmm not sure if i'm convinced , just wanted to float the argument.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Scottie,

Avoidance of casualties was not the high driver in WWII that it is in military operations today. The USA in particular was extravagant in this regard, witness the Hurtgen Forest Camapign. A tactical level WWII game should no more worry about casualties than their realtime commanders did.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the result shows how carefully a designer must design the victory conditions. Some small errors in the conditions lead to completely the wrong result in this game.

I was going to say the same thing.

In CMx1 there is a real art to making a "balanced" scenario: one where each side has a reasonable chance to win if they play well. I had been thinking that the flexible victory conditions might ease this task ... but maybe they add more variables and make it even harder!

Time will tell I guess.

Also, even with the mistakes, it's only 'completely the wrong result' if you get overly wrapped around the axles about scores.

While I appreciate the sentiment, and recognise that folk can get _overly_ hung up on scores, the scores are there for a reason. If there was no point to them we wouldn't bother having them at all. So... wrong is wrong, and avoiding wrong is a tough task for a scenario designer! There is no point in saying "well, if they are completely wrong, who cares". Competitive players care...

GaJ

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Scottie,

Avoidance of casualties was not the high driver in WWII that it is in military operations today. The USA in particular was extravagant in this regard, witness the Hurtgen Forest Camapign. A tactical level WWII game should no more worry about casualties than their realtime commanders did.

Thanks for the reply. Completely understand media has an important influence on casualties these days , since Vietnam I believe. I guess all im trying to say is that if you are a company commander and you knew your troops the AAR (as JonS pointed) out wouldnt have run so long. So anything that can be done to put you in the commander shoes may help. I dont know what the answer is ' just highlighting the gap between real v simulation in this area. Cant get my head around the concept of % casualty objectives in CMSF and the concept of protecting troops without the objective concern. Maybe there is no difference. Sorry , not making a great argument here , im sure many users just dont care :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...