Will artillery be more flexible this time around?

[Guest]

I don't make complicated scripts for my personal scenarios. In a lot of ways my AI scripts are very much like QB scripts - they're fairly generic. Mostly just variations on "advance to here". AI troops on the attack use artillery well and with regularity. So special scripting may *help*, but it is not *required*.

[ChrisND]

I usually dedicate one AI group to "special" and relatively immobile very location-specific units, such as FOs, to guarantee them a good position. YMMV.

[Lt Belenko]

I don't play CMSF, but I remember in CMx1 FOs were bullet magnets. I've had FOs go from Hide to Unhide and die. Will it be the same in CMBN or are most targets treated equally?

FTs were bullet magnets too, but I understand they won't be around till later modules.

[Rocky Balboa]

I can't speak to CMBN but in CMSF an FO is considered a high value target for the AI. If they are spotted, you can pretty much bet they will invite unwanted attention.

[Battlefront.com]

Anyway, no rolling artillery unless that is changed from CMSF.

It hasn't changed because...

From your comments I guess the kind of fire missions you are thinking off are probably out of the scope of a typical CM engagements (especially the one with the smoke).

Exactly what I thought there's a HUGE difference between tactical, operational, and strategic use of artillery. CM is a TACTICAL game and therefore tactical artillery usage is what scenarios should have. Anything else is outside of the scope/scale of the game and is as inappropriate as having massed B-17 strikes.

As for the AI stuff...

I think this has been covered pretty well. There's a couple of issues here, some of which are realistic, some of which are scenario designer problems, and some of which are limitations of what the AI can do. In terms of the latter, we made a recent change that should help avoid FOs on the move from continuing to move while spotting.

BTW, last night I was testing a CM:BN scenario I made to test out new AI Scripts. I was concentrating on what was going on with the flank attack portion of the force when all of a sudden... 105s came raining down on a PzGren Platoon that I had in an all-too-obvious assembly area. I lost about 20% of my grenadiers and 2 halftracks. I had forgotten I designated that area fore fire support. Doh

Steve

[Gryphonne]

It hasn't changed because...

Exactly what I thought there's a HUGE difference between tactical, operational, and strategic use of artillery. CM is a TACTICAL game and therefore tactical artillery usage is what scenarios should have. Anything else is outside of the scope/scale of the game and is as inappropriate as having massed B-17 strikes.

As for the AI stuff...

I think this has been covered pretty well. There's a couple of issues here, some of which are realistic, some of which are scenario designer problems, and some of which are limitations of what the AI can do. In terms of the latter, we made a recent change that should help avoid FOs on the move from continuing to move while spotting.

BTW, last night I was testing a CM:BN scenario I made to test out new AI Scripts. I was concentrating on what was going on with the flank attack portion of the force when all of a sudden... 105s came raining down on a PzGren Platoon that I had in an all-too-obvious assembly area. I lost about 20% of my grenadiers and 2 halftracks. I had forgotten I designated that area fore fire support. Doh

Steve

New AI scripts Steve? You've piqued our interest; please, do elaborate

[Battlefront.com]

I can't speak to CMBN but in CMSF an FO is considered a high value target for the AI. If they are spotted, you can pretty much bet they will invite unwanted attention.

Correct. And that's the way it should be. When you see some dude with a big radio on his back, you would probably not think "hmmm... maybe he's just ordering a pizza"

One major difference between CMx1 and CMx2 is Relative Spotting. In CMx1 there were all kinds of situations that could crop up where a unit would become the recipient of the Yellow Lines Of Death syndrome. As much as we reduced that behavior over the years of CMx1 development (heh... you should have seen CMBO Alpha!) it was never possible to really dilute it enough.

Now with CMx2, and Relative Spotting, there is a natural filter in effect that prevents automatic attention drawn to a particular high value target. The way it works now only the units which actually spotted, or were informed about, the high value target can use their weapons on it. Even in CM:SF's relatively open, LOS friendly environment the difference from CMx1 was really apparent.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

New AI scripts Steve? You've piqued our interest; please, do elaborate

Heh... no, just a tweak to the AI behavior in general. Remember, the Scripts only tell units roughly what to do, where, and for how long. There's still a lot of independent AI at work so units travel over the best terrain, use their weapons to their best effect, take cover when necessary, etc.

Steve

[Gryphonne]

Heh... no, just a tweak to the AI behavior in general. Remember, the Scripts only tell units roughly what to do, where, and for how long. There's still a lot of independent AI at work so units travel over the best terrain, use their weapons to their best effect, take cover when necessary, etc.

Steve

Darn, I thought you threw some new bone or somefink A question though, some time ago (I can't actually remember when) I found a post of yours saying that you guys were working on some kind of new AI template, any chance you could elaborate on that?

[MrSpkr]

Anything else is outside of the scope/scale of the game and is as inappropriate as having massed B-17 strikes.

[snark]What? No B-17 strikes in the game? That is so historically inaccurate!

Next thing you know, you guys will tell me that the Bren guns don't have tripods or that the machine guns can't run![/snark]

Steve

[MarkEzra]

I am not enthusiastic about the arty in CMSF.Let aside the preplanned bombardment,the AI most of the time cannot use the artillery.

Be prepared to be enthused

[wokelly]

CM is a TACTICAL game and therefore tactical artillery usage is what scenarios should have. Anything else is outside of the scope/scale of the game and is as inappropriate as having massed B-17 strikes.

Rolling barrage is not something that happened on the operational scale or strategic scale, rolling barrages were tactical level artillery plans. The CW forces regularly shot company and regimental sized attacks onto objective with rolling barrages, which based on CMAK and CMO are not battle sizes that were uncommon. If this game is only going to do platoon level battles than yeah rolling barrages may be out of the question, but I was expecting CMBN was going to have larger scale battles than previous CM2 titles had.

[JonS]

The US tried the rolling barrage too. But only once.

[CBR]

The US tried the rolling barrage too. But only once.

AFAIK the use of rolling barrage was also used on the first day of Operation Cobra.

It would be a shame if such a feature is not included. Perhaps not directly player controlled, but more like a preplanned thing that the player will try keep up with.

[MrSpkr]

AFAIK the use of rolling barrage was also used on the first day of Operation Cobra.

It would be a shame if such a feature is not included. Perhaps not directly player controlled, but more like a preplanned thing that the player will try keep up with.

I would think you could simulate this using pre-planned artillery strikes, one after another, each a little further back, with limitations on ammunition, etc., to make one lift just as the next is starting.

Steve

[CBR]

Hm yeah I guess that is an option. Can scenario designers do something too? I remember noticing some sporadic early artillery in CMSF...

[Battlefront.com]

Remember that "scope" is important to keep in mind. A rolling barrage is something that requires two very important elements:

1. A LOT of planning

2. A LOT of guns with a lot of ammo

And it was usually preceded by a fairly big, long general barrage. We're talking about hours of artillery fire.

It's outside of our scope, though of course a couple of times it could be argued it was within the scope. It's not important enough to cater to.

Having said that, you can do it in the game fairly realistically as it is. Buy a ton of artillery, plot it all during Setup with delays, limited number of rounds fired, and bingo... you've got yourself a rolling barrage. You can't change how it fires off or where during the battle either, which is completely realistic.

Steve

[Paper Tiger]

Syrian AI controlled artillery definitely =/= German AI controlled artillery I suspect Real Time players will find the going much tougher against a WW2 AI opponent with mortars on call. You just can't leave anyone sitting around in LoS of enemy units for any length of time. And without body armour to protect your troops, artillery is lethal... biggest killer in any scenario I've played so far

[Battlefront.com]

My Panzergrenadiers can attest to that. Whole platoon... combat ineffective for offensive combat ops. Which wouldn't have been such a problem if I wasn't on the attack

Steve

[MikeyD]

You could construct yourself a true-life "opening phase of Cobra" scenario. It is probably within the game's parameters (as long as you're playing Allied). But who wants to keep 200 tanks nose-to-tail under cover the first three hours of a scenario blasting and blasting away at the far end of a map with battalions' worth of artillery then rolling forward over the charred corpses of your opponent for the last fifteen minutes? Admittedly, it would be quite the instructive 'demonstration' scenario for the amateur historian to witness. It would also be a demonstration of why you never get scenarios like that.

[Other Means]

If you have a look at the Liverpool demo thread you'll see the AI used on-map mortars effectively to kill two greyhounds.

It certainly does work.

[Blackcat]

The US tried the rolling barrage too. But only once.

The article that you linked to had this in an early paragraph,

"During World War I, the rolling barrage was the normal method of artillery fire in an attack. Experience indicated that such a barrage was both wasteful of ammunition and ineffective, since we had no positive means of coordinating its advances exactly with that of the infantry."

Those two sentences are so utterly wrong, as anyone who has done any serious reading on the Somme would know, that the author's credibility must be open to serious doubt.

[Lt Belenko]

Rolling Barrages can be simulated with cratered landscape, massive building damage, and reduced strength units. Also providing a spotter or two that calls in the "final" strike at the start of the game - pre-turn 1.

[Wodin]

Towards the end of WW1 the rolling barrage was pretty much perfected...though it took a long time and alot of lives before it really started to make a difference due to terrible miscalculations in how much Arty was needed and the speed of the barrage which often was repeated over and over again during many offensive actions during the War and the faith in eelan and offensive spirit with some of the Generals didn't help...an awful amount of new tech and new methods in Arty came into play through battlefield experience during WW1 which during the last 100 days was used to excellent effect...something the Germans didn't do well in their offensive in March 1917...maybe because they weren't as experienced in attack as the Entente where...

Sorry to go off topic....

There is a user made CMSF scenario which recreates a WW1 battlefield to a point with trench's and loads of Arty...was a fun scenario...

[wokelly]

Remember that "scope" is important to keep in mind. A rolling barrage is something that requires two very important elements:

1. A LOT of planning

2. A LOT of guns with a lot of ammo

1. I agree with a lot of planning, in my mind the rolling barrage would be something your organize during the setup phase of the battle. For example in CMA there was an option to drop artillery in a rectangle shape, with the user being able to dictate how wide that rectangle was. A similar system, dictate the width of the barrage and the direction it should go, input when pauses should take place for it to resume.

Rolling barrages were not flexible, so once the setup phase is over your control over it would be non-existent, if you can't keep to the schedule you are boned like in real life.

2. Lots of arty and ammo was not something the Allies had problems with. It depends on what the battles are. Major operations saw huge stockpiles of arty ammo available for use, while minor attacks were often affected by arty rationing for larger attacks. If the battles we face in game are major attacks, arty ammunition should not be a major factor in limiting the use of artillery. For example I recently read a great account of a single day battle by an British infantry regiment at Rauray at the end of the Epsom battles. Over 10,000 rounds of Artillery ammunition was spent during the defense against 2nd and 9th SS attacks over a 12 hour period, including 3000 rounds by the regimental mortars (5 guns each firing 600 rounds).

And it was usually preceded by a fairly big, long general barrage. We're talking about hours of artillery fire.

CMO and CMAK had scenarios which represented this with lots of craters and understrength units which simulated this without actually doing it.

It's outside of our scope, though of course a couple of times it could be argued it was within the scope. It's not important enough to cater to.

Having said that, you can do it in the game fairly realistically as it is. Buy a ton of artillery, plot it all during Setup with delays, limited number of rounds fired, and bingo... you've got yourself a rolling barrage. You can't change how it fires off or where during the battle either, which is completely realistic.

Steve

Well I disagree its outside the scope of the game, especially for the CW forces which used rolling barrages extensively for their set piece operations, your answer tells me it is not on the drawing board. For the CW module I would hope the devs at battlefront may reconsider. If the game focuses on platoon combat it is outside the scope, but if we are doing company and regimental sized attacks (stuff which CMAK and CMO had) it is within the scope.