Elvis vs. JonS DAR Discussion Thread

[sfhand]

A funny thing just happened. I was doing some chores and trying to remember what orders I gave my troops when they reached the woods on 154. And I am pretty sure I gave them the "Quick" order to run them into the safety of the woods!!!!

When I came back to the computer to post about it Jon asked me the same question!!

My guess is, as it appears to be the case in CMSF, moving units suffer spotting penalties vs stationary units. This understanding leads me to believe stationary smg units set up just past visibility range from the treeline would pretty much stop an infantry advance into the woods. As a result I'm having difficulty imagining the taking of those woods without first dropping a lot of HE on them. Is it going to be possible to area fire HE into wooded slopes (I've had LOS/targetting problems with this in the past)?

[JonS]

sfhand,

quick was probably the worst command Elvis could have used to move into the woods. Low sit-awareness, low combat readiness. Having had a look now at jus how many men he was moving in ( :eek: ), I think if he'd used Hunt instead of Quick he'd probably have smashed my forces up there at least as much as he was smashed. I had better than even odds on him, so I think I'd have still won the initial battle but have had much less to play with later on.

HE can be targeted beyond LOS. Not far out of LOS, but enough to allow supporting fire for attacks on positions that'd otherwise have to be attacked naked. Also, you can use area fire - or linear, I suppose - and make the area big enough to encompass the area you're interested in. I did that several times during the battle. The trade off is you get a thinner distribution of rounds, and some rounds are 'wasted' because they fall in parts of the targeted area you know there aren't any enemy.

[sfhand]

This is very true,nothing motivates a soldier to fight on no matter what then knowing that surrender will lead to certain death at the hands of some Taliban fighter that doesn't care about Geneva convention articles,or rules of War.

While I agree with the underlying point of your post about surrendering I don't much care for your example as it seems rather one sided to me. Regardless of my views, I don't think this board is the place to discuss war crimes...

[Rocky Balboa]

My guess is, as it appears to be the case in CMSF, moving units suffer spotting penalties vs stationary units. This understanding leads me to believe stationary smg units set up just past visibility range from the treeline would pretty much stop an infantry advance into the woods. As a result I'm having difficulty imagining the taking of those woods without first dropping a lot of HE on them. Is it going to be possible to area fire HE into wooded slopes (I've had LOS/targeting problems with this in the past)?

I agree it looks like thick woods will be something to be avoided while on the attack. From the defenders stand point, there appears to be a sweet spot within the thick foliage that allows the defender to spot & target infantry while remaining hidden and untouchable to heavy armor/MG direct fires from the wood line.

Perhaps as in RL, the attacker can move slower and use some form of bounding overwatch to limit exposure but just from this battle it looks like a good dug in defender in heavy woods will be a very tricky nut to crack. And of course this is as it should be.

[sfhand]

sfhand,

quick was probably the worst command Elvis could have used to move into the woods. Low sit-awareness, low combat readiness. Having had a look now at jus how many men he was moving in ( :eek: ), I think if he'd used Hunt instead of Quick he'd probably have smashed my forces up there at least as much as he was smashed. I had better than even odds on him, so I think I'd have still won the initial battle but have had much less to play with later on.

HE can be targeted beyond LOS. Not far out of LOS, but enough to allow supporting fire for attacks on positions that'd otherwise have to be attacked naked. Also, you can use area fire - or linear, I suppose - and make the area big enough to encompass the area you're interested in. I did that several times during the battle. The trade off is you get a thinner distribution of rounds, and some rounds are 'wasted' because they fall in parts of the targeted area you know there aren't any enemy.

JonS, thanks for the quck reply... most likely the Fast command would be the absolute worst command! I've had guys diced up pretty good in the woods of CMSF using the Hunt command by what I assume were stationary forces (Mark Ezra would know for sure). It will be great to have the game in hand to test this!

[BFCElvis]

I agree it looks like thick woods will be something to be avoided while on the attack. From the defenders stand point, there appears to be a sweet spot within the thick foliage that allows the defender to spot & target infantry while remaining hidden and untouchable to heavy armor/MG direct fires from the wood line.

Perhaps as in RL, the attacker can move slower and use some form of bounding overwatch to limit exposure but just from this battle it looks like a good dug in defender in heavy woods will be a very tricky nut to crack. And of course this is as it should be.

Rocky, there things I could have done to dealt with the situation better. However, when I attacked I didn't think for a second he would have men set up that deep in the woods. Never occurred to me. I assumed he would be set up with an LOS to any approach I had. If I had stopped and then issued Hunt orders I believe I would have been more successful. Also, if I had issued a area fire order 10-15-20m in front of my men and issued a Move order I may have done better. The thing is that in this case I really believed I was running to safety...not a buzzsaw.

[Battlefront.com]

Thick woods... one only has to look at the border battles like Hürtgen Forest. Progress was measured in meters sometimes, even though we're talking about Battalion scale engagements. IMHO I think CM:BN so far is shaping up to simulate this a little better than CMx1, though CMx1 did it pretty well overall.

We don't think Global Morale is as necessary as it was in CMx1, which is why we haven't put in a similar feature. Some reasons:

1. CMx2 has less Borg problems than CMx1, and Borg problems are the #1 factor in pushing battles beyond where they should go.

2. Having individual soldiers makes it easier to simulate multiple partial effects concurrently. In CMx1 a Squad was a single lump and we had to be generous, at times, with how that lump was negatively affected by its surroundings. Otherwise the overall results would be unrealistic. This gets back to the recent discussion about "design for effect". In situations where subtle differences in real life can add up, an "engineered" solution (like CMx2) tends to handle a wider array and degrees. In short, units in CMx2 are inherently reluctant to do stuff once they are hit hard in more situations more of the time than was possible in CMx1. As the DARs clearly show.

Steve

[dan/california]

So we know Elvis wouldn't do it over the same way. Hopefully we will get another DAR soon to illustrate some different approaches. Or the game itself, actually I vote for that one!

Elvis, you have not discussed your use of artillery in great detail. Could illuminate when and where you called in supporting fires, your target reference points, and so on.

[Rocky Balboa]

Rocky, there things I could have done to dealt with the situation better. However, when I attacked I didn't think for a second he would have men set up that deep in the woods. Never occurred to me. I assumed he would be set up with an LOS to any approach I had. If I had stopped and then issued Hunt orders I believe I would have been more successful. Also, if I had issued a area fire order 10-15-20m in front of my men and issued a Move order I may have done better. The thing is that in this case I really believed I was running to safety...not a buzzsaw.

LT Dyke indeed .... but to be honest, I’ve made that same mistake countless times with CMSF, believing in the invulnerability of my troops one moment only to see them laying dead in the street the next. This to is the reason why I choose WEGO for most battles and certainly for one of this size. There is really only so much you can think of when playing RT and using a quick or fast move when hunt or assault would have been better suited is just one example.

Of course in RL an inept commander in this situation would be saved by his well train and experienced NCO’s .

LT Dyke: Sgt get your men into those woods quickly, were too exposed on this wood line ...

Sgt: LT, your crazy!! we go charging into those woods I’ll lose half my squad .....

Sgt: Ok Pvt. Tube Guy, you’ve got the point !!

Tube Guy: WTF!!! Why is it always me?

[BFCElvis]

Elvis, you have not discussed your use of artillery in great detail. Could illuminate when and where you called in supporting fires, your target reference points, and so on.

The arty? There were three main times I used artillery.

The initial advance up Hill 154 I used linear fire along the tree line from the center going West. It landed right where I ordered it. For that I called 3 on map 60mm mortars using indirect fire. I also called in a short mission of off map 105mm artillery. You can see the tree bursts in some of those screen shots. I have no idea if any of this had an effect. It was covering fire for the advance and did it's job of preventing fire from there...assuming there was anyone to even fire.

The next concentrated mission I called in was using just on map 60mm mortars to come in on Hill 144. They may be what ended up giving the breathing space to finally knock out the sniper. I can't be 100% sure. Jon may have a better idea.

The last main arty usage was on the Villa. I had gotten into a position where I could target most of the Western side of the Villa. At this point in the game I was no longer concerned with preserving the 105mm for later and felt it was more important to level the Villa. Unfortunately those rounds did not land where targeted and most fell in front. However, in conversations with Jon later he did let me know that the arty was effective in rattling his cage.

One thing that was hard to tell at times when the indirect fire of the on map mortars was going on was whether or not all of it was coming down on target. There were times that it seemed arty was falling all over the place and very often in my area of operation but no where near my men. So I was never sure if some was errant fire on my part or German artillery.

[GreenAsJade]

Thick woods... one only has to look at the border battles like Hürtgen Forest. Progress was measured in meters sometimes, even though we're talking about Battalion scale engagements. IMHO I think CM:BN so far is shaping up to simulate this a little better than CMx1, though CMx1 did it pretty well overall.

We don't think Global Morale is as necessary as it was in CMx1, which is why we haven't put in a similar feature. Some reasons:

1. CMx2 has less Borg problems than CMx1, and Borg problems are the #1 factor in pushing battles beyond where they should go.

2. Having individual soldiers makes it easier to simulate multiple partial effects concurrently. In CMx1 a Squad was a single lump and we had to be generous, at times, with how that lump was negatively affected by its surroundings. Otherwise the overall results would be unrealistic. This gets back to the recent discussion about "design for effect". In situations where subtle differences in real life can add up, an "engineered" solution (like CMx2) tends to handle a wider array and degrees. In short, units in CMx2 are inherently reluctant to do stuff once they are hit hard in more situations more of the time than was possible in CMx1. As the DARs clearly show.

Steve

Yeah - I can totally see this... definitely one of the good aspects of individual solider modelling.

GaJ

[GreenAsJade]

Nobody has asked a question about this but I do want to post a thought or 2 about my initial assault on Hill 154.

...

But organizing the covering fire for the advance, setting the arty to arrive near the edge, getting the Shermans in place to cover the entire field with smoke and putting the troops in place to launch the move. It was fantastic fun. And watching it come together so perfectly that I committed a second platoon, 4 Shermans and the field guns to the advance was exhilarating. Watching it all fall apart in the kill zones of those woods was a serious bummer.

That's CM!

GaJ

[JonS]

The initial advance up Hill 154 I used linear fire along the tree line from the center going West. It landed right where I ordered it. For that I called 3 on map 60mm mortars using indirect fire. I also called in a short mission of off map 105mm artillery. You can see the tree bursts in some of those screen shots. I have no idea if any of this had an effect. It was covering fire for the advance and did it's job of preventing fire from there...assuming there was anyone to even fire.

Nope, there was no one there.

The next concentrated mission I called in was using just on map 60mm mortars to come in on Hill 144. They may be what ended up giving the breathing space to finally knock out the sniper. I can't be 100% sure. Jon may have a better idea.

Nope, the sniper survived the battle. IIRC, that 60mm didn't cause me any inconvienience.

The last main arty usage was on the Villa. I had gotten into a position where I could target most of the Western side of the Villa. At this point in the game I was no longer concerned with preserving the 105mm for later and felt it was more important to level the Villa. Unfortunately those rounds did not land where targeted and most fell in front. However, in conversations with Jon later he did let me know that the arty was effective in rattling his cage.

Yeah, this one was more effective, I talk about it a bit in one of the posts I made in my AAR thread. It caused some cas, not heaps, but it distracted the HMG gunners for a while, and the dust stirred up blocked their LOS for several minutes, which was right about the time Elvis was moving up along the flank to Hill 144.

There was another mission - 81mm mortars I think - that fell in a tight group to wipe out one of the HMGs on Hill 144. That was right after the second JgPz was destroyed, and they were located right next to each other so I don't know whether the JgPz or the HMG was the intended target.

One thing that was hard to tell at times when the indirect fire of the on map mortars was going on was whether or not all of it was coming down on target. There were times that it seemed arty was falling all over the place and very often in my area of operation but no where near my men. So I was never sure if some was errant fire on my part or German artillery.

Yeah, I had exactly the same problem, compounded because the voice ques for the Germans weren't in the version we used. There were times where it seemed there were four or five seperate fire missions coming down on various places, and it was very hard to figure out what was who's. Overall I'm fairly sure most of my indirect was wasted because it either fell in the wrong place due to bad drills on my part, or fell in the right place but too late because Elvis didn't hang about anywhere for too long.

I think I also probably used my indirect too early, but hindsight is 20/20

[Vark]

Is the morale state in CM2 affected by running or moving quickly? I really hated that in CM1. Running troops have a poorer SA but they are also harder to hit, in CM1, running was just a way to move your troops faster around the battlefield, when you did not expect contact. It was therefore impossible to reproduce the tactic of sprinting for cover when under fire as the 'running in a dream' advance order was the only sensible way to move under fire. There are countless clips of modern soldiers running under fire as they relocate fireteams in staggered pairs and an equal number of WWII clips of troops running under fire.

[JonS]

Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't.

I can't possibly imagine why anyone would think it should work every time.

[Gryphonne]

Is the morale state in CM2 affected by running or moving quickly? I really hated that in CM1. Running troops have a poorer SA but they are also harder to hit, in CM1, running was just a way to move your troops faster around the battlefield, when you did not expect contact. It was therefore impossible to reproduce the tactic of sprinting for cover when under fire as the 'running in a dream' advance order was the only sensible way to move under fire. There are countless clips of modern soldiers running under fire as they relocate fireteams in staggered pairs and an equal number of WWII clips of troops running under fire.

I think this is covered with the "assault" command, already in CMSF. It's one of my favourites; you see the fire teams sprinting one by one, and providing cover for each other.

[ChrisND]

Is the morale state in CM2 affected by running or moving quickly? I really hated that in CM1. Running troops have a poorer SA but they are also harder to hit, in CM1, running was just a way to move your troops faster around the battlefield, when you did not expect contact. It was therefore impossible to reproduce the tactic of sprinting for cover when under fire as the 'running in a dream' advance order was the only sensible way to move under fire. There are countless clips of modern soldiers running under fire as they relocate fireteams in staggered pairs and an equal number of WWII clips of troops running under fire.

I don't think there's any arbitrary morale hit any more. However, if you have them running around under fire, they are bound to take morale hits anyways. The AI will also now opt for Fast moving towards the nearest cover or waypoint if they decide the incoming fire is getting too heavy.

[Other Means]

The morale hit is a function of their greater exposure I'd guess, as this would function in a range of scenarios.

No insider knowledge in that answer, sorry

[Lt Belenko]

While I agree with the underlying point of your post about surrendering I don't much care for your example as it seems rather one sided to me. Regardless of my views, I don't think this board is the place to discuss war crimes...

Then to keep it more along WWII lines of discussion: There were more Jerry/Tommy surrenders in Afrika than Ivan/Fritz surrenders in the Ostfront.

[Michael Emrys]

There were more Jerry/Tommy surrenders in Afrika than Ivan/Fritz surrenders in the Ostfront.

Perhaps percentage wise, but something like three million Soviet soldiers surrendered. I don't know how many Germans did, but I'd guess roughly a third of that number.

Michael

[MeatEtr]

Thanks again for the DAR guys, great job on it!

In regards to 'what's next', I have two acronyms for you:

QB DAR

or maybe video of somebody going through the QB process.

[dan/california]

But MANY of those Soviet surrenders came in the first year or so. Whole Russian Army's simply punted. They were just caught completely by sunrise in the initial German push, I am still not sure how they held it together.

But as the war went on, and Stalin started to get together, he can say quite truthfully "that it takes a brave man to be a coward in the Russian army". This was not always advantageous. There are any number of anecdotes about units following orders that were not only suicidal, but uselessly suicidal, because the major new he would be shot by his own side if he even attempted to question them. I think there are some cases of this where the Germans were concerned as well.

One of the weird little facets of World War II continues to fascinate me is how the Germans treated Western and Russian POWs completely differently. It just illustrates something very unusual in the way their minds worked.

The Western Allies of course reaped great advantages from treating prisoners very well, and making it known that they treated them very well. I am sure this made a great difference in more than a few cases on decisions of whether the fight to the death or not. And it probably helped with the reintegration in West Germany into Western Europe after the war as well.

[Erwin]

Regarding PR, you are obviously correct. But, we have to bear in mind that Britain and the US had not been invaded, had families and entire communities massacred, cities deliberately destroyed and been labeled as untermensch to be destined to be slave labor etc.

The Soviets came for revenge, and it's hard to blame them.

[dan/california]

Regarding PR, you are obviously correct. But, we have to bear in mind that Britain and the US had not been invaded, had families and entire communities massacred, cities deliberately destroyed and been labeled as untermensch to be destined to be slave labor etc.

The Soviets came for revenge, and it's hard to blame them.

If I was really going to blame the Soviets for something, it would be the way they treated their own people.

I was just trying to point out the fact that there are great advantages to convincing the other side they can surrender without being crucified, though. However, there is no shortage of proof throughout history that other factors have often conspired to keep this from being the case.

[dan/california]

Indeed, convincing the Russians otherwise was one of Hitler's greater blunders.