C & C

[James Crowley]

Just wondering how C&C in CMBN compares to that in CMX1?

C&C in CMX1 was essentially platoon based, in that not having company or battalion level HQs present had no detrimental effect; other than not having substitutes for lost platoon HQs.

What are the consequences of the loss of HQs at any level and are they cumulative?

What are the effects on squads, teams and vehicles that are out of command, for whatever reason?

[JSB]

I suppose this will be well explained in the manual.

In CMSF, when playing US, it's hard to feel because it's almost impossible to lose contact.

When playing syrians, it's different and certainly very close to what will happen in CMBN.

You'll have several kinds of contact; visual, audio, and radio.

Contact keeps morale and allows the units to share informations on supposed ennemy locations, which is crucial due to relative spotting introduced by CMSF.

If you have 2 platoons on the map, the Coy leader allows them to share these informations - assuming C2 links are not broken - (? markers appear after some time, even if the unit did'nt spot anything by itself).

A unit aware of a threat will react more efficiently.

If the Coy leader isn't on the map, the two platoons don't communicate.

That's what I observed from my CMSF games.

There is no more command delay.

[James Crowley]

Presumably, at this time point, squads were reliant on voice/visual contact only, in relation to Platoon HQ.

Is this limited by distance and/or LoS; or any other factors?

[stikkypixie]

Presumably, at this time point, squads were reliant on voice/visual contact only, in relation to Platoon HQ.

Is this limited by distance and/or LoS; or any other factors?

It depends on the difficulty level. Up to Elite, if there is line of sight, units are assumed to have visual to their parent HQ. On Iron, the same spotting rules are applied to own forces so maintaining CC becomes a lot harder.

[JSB]

Visual contact is linked to LOS, but distance plays also a role. (there is two degrees of contact: close and far).

Voice contact is linked to distance, and these two means can be added.

Radio contact will certainly be an exception in CMBN. In CMSF, radio contact can be established between infantry units as long as they are not moving. Almost all vehicles have a radio onboard.

[Wiggum]

In mid 1944, the US side (infantry) should have an advantage because their radios and fire-control systems were superior at that time.

And, thats even more important, those were issued in greater numbers.

In Normandy were many low quality german-troops fought this should make a noticeable differense.

The communication between platoon and company level was, most of the time, done by messengers. Sometimes even company commanders had to use messengers to communicate with battalions !

So, will messengers be simulated or abstracted somehow ?

[womble]

So, will messengers be simulated or abstracted somehow ?

My feeling is that messengers can really only carry the sort of information that you, as the CM player, will already have. Things like:

"There's armour over here. Please send us some extra AT assets," or

"Get your platoon into that farm complex, pronto," or

"Link up with 2nd Platoon on your right and provide flanking fire".

So I can't see them being directly simulated. C&C seems, from what I've read, to have most impact on the transmission of spotting information and on how 'supported' a unit feels, when it comes to assessing their morale.