What is correct about these impresions

[Federico]

Hi,

I just found these impresions on another forum and I was wondering if you guys think they are correct:

"The soldiers do not really use the terrain like real soldiers and there are problems with getting them in LOS/LOF because of the grid system they use. In hedgerow country this gets insane. I've had Panzerschrek teams that can't fire, because the soldier is the only one that has LOF while the anti-tank 'man' is in the wrong spot -- all within a single grid. You'll find your ambushes falling to pieces because of subtleties in the LOS/LOF system.

The system is also mismatched between the 1:1 and the abstraction. Essentially, squads have enormous amounts of firepower available in terms of small arms without being appropriately penalized for concentrating due to the generous bonuses they get against area fire effects. You can often win any CMx2 scenario by concentrating all your forces and overwhelming anything they come across with small arms fire.

There is also no such thing as a covered fire position in CMx2. Any unit that is firing is vulnerable to fire as much as you can see their body exposed. Men can't go prone against cover, but have to kneel, making them more vulnerable to small arms than normal (which only aggravates the problems already) and makes automatic weapons like LMGs difficult to control.

Foxholes and trenches have been added, but they can't be placed wherever you like. They have to be in the center of a grid, and since terrain like hedges and walls align along the edge of a grid, means you can't have infantry dug in along lines oriented to cover or concealment. Your men also can't see past the terrain, since they are too far behind it to get a view. Foxholes have problems because they're stuck in square formations of four, which means the back foxholes won't have the same LOF as the front foxholes. (No you can't control orientation.) The effect of this is that you only benefit from entrenchment in open terrain along the axis of fire.

In addition, they've made all hedges (not just "bocage") into significant positions by adding terrain elevation lips to those features, making attacker cover unrealistically available and melding concealment with cover in ways worse than they already did in the original series. (that is, "exposure")"

Thanks for the help,

[cargol]

I think that it would be better to play the game by urself and then reach to conclusions.

I could write a tone of praising for CMBN ,as i think that the game rocks, but that wouldnt make me right as maybe my opinion isnt objective.

Bottom line dont listen to others but urself and if you enjoy it then by all means play it.

[Blackcat]

I'd say the anonymous poster on some other site has played the game for a short period of time. He or she has a point about foxholes and trenches but tries to make too much of it, but much of it is complete tosh. Cargol is correct though, play the game fr yourself and make up you own mind.

Oh, I did like this line, "You can often win any CMx2 scenario by concentrating all your forces and overwhelming anything they come across with small arms fire." I'd like to meet him in a PBEM, or rather my mortar crews and other HE chuckers would.

[Mattias]

I would say that all the observations have merit. However not even when counted together they amount to more than pointer to future refinements. As a whole the game stands firmly on what it delivers, and the more you play you come to appreciate the subtleties of the simulation. I didn´t think I would be saying this after having struggled with issues like the ones mentioned by the OP in CM:SF but now that I have seen how the game engine works in a world war 2 environment I think I can finally can cut my attachment to CM1.

The same details that deliver this exceptional gaming experience are also, as well all know, home to the devil. There there will always be issues. The question is if you have a good game all things considered.I for one will not be going back to playing CM1 like I did in the CM:SF years, other than to sate some odd Ost-craving.

M.

[Federico]

Im playing the game and love it. Dont get me wrong.

Just asking because Im not savy on technical issues as how the grids work, abstraction and the placing of trenches mentioned above.

just wanted to know if that assumptions are correct or not.

thanks

[Mattias]

Oh, I did like this line, "You can often win any CMx2 scenario by concentrating all your forces and overwhelming anything they come across with small arms fire." I'd like to meet him in a PBEM, or rather my mortar crews and other HE chuckers would.

I´ll be sure to keep that in mind

M.

[Wengart]

"The soldiers do not really use the terrain like real soldiers and there are problems with getting them in LOS/LOF because of the grid system they use. In hedgerow country this gets insane. I've had Panzerschrek teams that can't fire, because the soldier is the only one that has LOF while the anti-tank 'man' is in the wrong spot -- all within a single grid. You'll find your ambushes falling to pieces because of subtleties in the LOS/LOF system.

Using the face command prevents this from happening.

You can often win any CMx2 scenario by concentrating all your forces and overwhelming anything they come across with small arms fire.

Not sure what they are talking about. Intelligently concentrating your forces is bread and butter attackers strategy, but making a giant blob and running at the enemy will also end up getting a lot of your men killed.

Foxholes and trenches have been added, but they can't be placed wherever you like. They have to be in the center of a grid, and since terrain like hedges and walls align along the edge of a grid, means you can't have infantry dug in along lines oriented to cover or concealment. Your men also can't see past the terrain, since they are too far behind it to get a view. Foxholes have problems because they're stuck in square formations of four, which means the back foxholes won't have the same LOF as the front foxholes. (No you can't control orientation.) The effect of this is that you only benefit from entrenchment in open terrain along the axis of fire.

This is an actual issue.

I

n addition, they've made all hedges (not just "bocage") into significant positions by adding terrain elevation lips to those features, making attacker cover unrealistically available and melding concealment with cover in ways worse than they already did in the original series. (that is, "exposure")

The hedges they are talking about are actually bocage.

[Federico]

thanks for all the aswers.

[womble]

The system is also mismatched between the 1:1 and the abstraction. Essentially, squads have enormous amounts of firepower available in terms of small arms without being appropriately penalized for concentrating due to the generous bonuses they get against area fire effects. You can often win any CMx2 scenario by concentrating all your forces and overwhelming anything they come across with small arms fire.

I think you might find that mortars have something to say about that, and DF HE chuckers. Also, since bullet flight and intersection is mapped, if you concentrate in depth, suppression effects of incoming fire are magnified by the number of targets.

There is also no such thing as a covered fire position in CMx2. Any unit that is firing is vulnerable to fire as much as you can see their body exposed. Men can't go prone against cover, but have to kneel, making them more vulnerable to small arms than normal (which only aggravates the problems already) and makes automatic weapons like LMGs difficult to control.

I've seen troopers firing prone. Not over cover like a wall or somesuch, obviously, but if the cover has elevation, it will cover the lower part of a kneeling trooper, and is better than being in the flat open. However, the flat open does offer some cover; I've seen single troopers find a little hollow that meant it took minutes of several squads fire before someone tagged him. Prone fire from behind (at least the lesser kind of) bocage? I think so, though I can't definitively test it just now.

Foxholes and trenches...

Fortifications are a kludge, definitely. Trenches don't seem to make a speck of difference; see the screenshots thread where there's one of an overrun trench captioned 'mass grave'. Matches my experience.

[stikkypixie]

"The soldiers do not really use the terrain like real soldiers and there are problems with getting them in LOS/LOF because of the grid system they use. In hedgerow country this gets insane. I've had Panzerschrek teams that can't fire, because the soldier is the only one that has LOF while the anti-tank 'man' is in the wrong spot -- all within a single grid. You'll find your ambushes falling to pieces because of subtleties in the LOS/LOF system.

I haven't had this problem (yet). The game warns you if there is limited LOS (the grey line) and giving a face order helps. There are some occasion where it can happen probably, but not enough to be a problem in my opinion.

The system is also mismatched between the 1:1 and the abstraction. Essentially, squads have enormous amounts of firepower available in terms of small arms without being appropriately penalized for concentrating due to the generous bonuses they get against area fire effects. You can often win any CMx2 scenario by concentrating all your forces and overwhelming anything they come across with small arms fire.

I don't understand this part. There have been threads where the suppressive effects in the game is not enough, and it seems the guy that posted this seems to say that it's too much. I have found that once you gain fire superiority, you tend to win the battle, but as far as I know that is the whole point . The reverse is also true, you can easily overwhelm attackers with concentrated fire.

There is also no such thing as a covered fire position in CMx2. Any unit that is firing is vulnerable to fire as much as you can see their body exposed. Men can't go prone against cover, but have to kneel, making them more vulnerable to small arms than normal (which only aggravates the problems already) and makes automatic weapons like LMGs difficult to control.

I have seen guys shooting prone. Obviously they can't do that while they're behind a wall. It is true however that there isn't a fortification type, that allows troops to only expose their heads. But in the game you can use bunkers for that.

Foxholes and trenches have been added, but they can't be placed wherever you like. They have to be in the center of a grid, and since terrain like hedges and walls align along the edge of a grid, means you can't have infantry dug in along lines oriented to cover or concealment. Your men also can't see past the terrain, since they are too far behind it to get a view. Foxholes have problems because they're stuck in square formations of four, which means the back foxholes won't have the same LOF as the front foxholes. (No you can't control orientation.) The effect of this is that you only benefit from entrenchment in open terrain along the axis of fire.

I don't have much experience with this, but I know that foxholes can be moved inside a tile. You just have click carefully (obviously there are only certain places where they can be placed).

In addition, they've made all hedges (not just "bocage") into significant positions by adding terrain elevation lips to those features, making attacker cover unrealistically available and melding concealment with cover in ways worse than they already did in the original series. (that is, "exposure")"

Hedges can be jumped, low bocage cannot.

[Lt Bull]

"The soldiers do not really use the terrain like real soldiers and there are problems with getting them in LOS/LOF because of the grid system they use. In hedgerow country this gets insane. I've had Panzerschrek teams that can't fire, because the soldier is the only one that has LOF while the anti-tank 'man' is in the wrong spot -- all within a single grid. You'll find your ambushes falling to pieces because of subtleties in the LOS/LOF system.

Yes, that can be annoying. Can't say it has happened often enough to me.

I don't know what they mean by "without being appropriately penalized for concentrating due to the generous bonuses they get against area fire effects".

What kind of statement is this? How is this any different to reality? Sounds like a legitimate combat tactic to me.

If your guys shots at the enemy, they can shoot back at you and CMBN guys can go prone.... err, what's the problem here?

Foxholes are generally used where other cover is not available, like in open ground. Being able to "see past" terrain (like walls/hedges in front of a foxhole) while in a foxhole technically is unrealistic.

I can't see what the issue is here? They reckon that hedges give too much cover/concealment?

[stikkypixie]

Fortifications are a kludge, definitely. Trenches don't seem to make a speck of difference; see the screenshots thread where there's one of an overrun trench captioned 'mass grave'. Matches my experience.

I think troops fighting in trenches will last longer than fighting in the open. But the trenches in CMBN are definitely not World War 1 trenches.

[Baneman]

I think troops fighting in trenches will last longer than fighting in the open. But the trenches in CMBN are definitely not World War 1 trenches.

In my limited experience, a squad behind a bocage "hump" will massacre a squad in a trench facing them. Better than being in the open ? Maybe, but not by much.

[womble]

I don't know what they mean by "without being appropriately penalized for concentrating due to the generous bonuses they get against area fire effects".

They might be referring to the 'HE nerf' that is applied to compensate for the 'action point bunching' effect. Realistic troop intervals along a linear barrier would make a team occupy more than one action spot, which isn't catered for in the engine. Thus a team is generally constrained by the engine to be more bunched than they would be in real life. To compensate for this, the effect of HE bursts is somewhat reduced.

Still doesn't mean mortars won't make mincemeat of your grunts though

Foxholes are generally used where other cover is not available, like in open ground. Being able to "see past" terrain (like walls/hedges in front of a foxhole) while in a foxhole technically is unrealistic.

I think what people are after when they stick fortifications behind hedgerows is a simulation of the scrapes the Germans made in the Bocage, which did add considerably to the survivability of the defender, by all accounts. Difficult to do with foxholes and trenches, as has been mentioned, but it occurs to me that it might be more appropriate to use bunkers. I think perhaps the demo scenarios (BtB in particular) have to some extent fixed some peoples' minds on trenches and foxholes being combined with Bocage to make fighting positions, which doesn't really work.

[WineCape]

The devil is for some in the specific details, real or perceived, The angel, for others, in the game as a whole.

[gunnergoz]

My personal observations:

- If your men are bunched up, break up the squads into teams and move them separately.

- Hedgerows (bocage) did have "raised lips" made of earth and this gave troops immediately behind them extra protection, much like brush growing on a low berm...which is what bocage is, except it often includes a ditch too.

- Trenches work for me. I see men getting hit if they stand up in them, but that is not a fault IMHO...they are not WW1 6 foot deep trenches, they are more like 4-5 foot deep that I associate with WW2.

- Foxholes are in fact the only issue I concur with of the 4 you mention.

[Guest]

"The soldiers do not really use the terrain like real soldiers and there are problems with getting them in LOS/LOF because of the grid system they use. In hedgerow country this gets insane. I've had Panzerschrek teams that can't fire, because the soldier is the only one that has LOF while the anti-tank 'man' is in the wrong spot -- all within a single grid. You'll find your ambushes falling to pieces because of subtleties in the LOS/LOF system.

Individuals can and do shift within action spots. If a squad spots an armored threat, its AT gunner will (depending on suppression, etc.) move to engage it.

Also, if you *really* want to cover a particular axis, or set up an effective ambush, you have a number of options for doing so, including splitting teams and giving cover arcs. Just dumping a bunch of guys in one spot and thinking "it's an ambush!" don't necessarily make it so. The TacAI is good at finding cover, but it can't read your mind.

The system is also mismatched between the 1:1 and the abstraction. Essentially, squads have enormous amounts of firepower available in terms of small arms without being appropriately penalized for concentrating due to the generous bonuses they get against area fire effects. You can often win any CMx2 scenario by concentrating all your forces and overwhelming anything they come across with small arms fire.

Find, fix, and finish. As pointed out elsewhere, concentration of force and fires are key tactics in modern warfare. The trick is not getting half (or all) of your guys killed in the process.

And if a shell / mortar / rifle grenade / hand grenade falls in the middle of your assault formation while they're on their feet you're going to take a bunch of casualties. I see it happen all the time. Last night I had a platoon assault stopped by a pair of sadly well-placed mortar rounds.

There is also no such thing as a covered fire position in CMx2. Any unit that is firing is vulnerable to fire as much as you can see their body exposed. Men can't go prone against cover, but have to kneel, making them more vulnerable to small arms than normal (which only aggravates the problems already) and makes automatic weapons like LMGs difficult to control.

This person needs to spend a little more time with the game, I think.

Foxholes and trenches have been added, but they can't be placed wherever you like. They have to be in the center of a grid, and since terrain like hedges and walls align along the edge of a grid, means you can't have infantry dug in along lines oriented to cover or concealment. Your men also can't see past the terrain, since they are too far behind it to get a view. Foxholes have problems because they're stuck in square formations of four, which means the back foxholes won't have the same LOF as the front foxholes. (No you can't control orientation.) The effect of this is that you only benefit from entrenchment in open terrain along the axis of fire.

Foxholes are staggered.

Also, ummm - what's flanking? Gosh, it's getting into a position where the enemy's frontal cover isn't, you know, covering him so well. Almost all entrenchments are most effective along a particular axis - which is why you protect their flanks with additional, mutually supporting positions.

I dunno what he means by "only in open terrain" - entrenchments in close terrain seem to do a fine job when properly deployed. There are different priorities, yes, including a stronger need for all-round defense, but that's for the player to think of and prepare.

In addition, they've made all hedges (not just "bocage") into significant positions by adding terrain elevation lips to those features, making attacker cover unrealistically available and melding concealment with cover in ways worse than they already did in the original series. (that is, "exposure")"

That's just not true. Bocage has lips. Because it actually did. Hedges - no lip. Again, I think this person needs to spend more time with the game.

I'd say the commenter needs to spend more time in the game, and brush up on his tactics.

[Sgt Joch]

Area fire: others have addressed it, area fire is less effective and less accurate than direct fire. That is also to prevent gamey exploits where you concentrate the area fire of all your units into a AP where one of your other units has spotted something, thereby getting around relative spotting.

AP grid: CMx2 uses a 8x8m grid which is a 6x improvement over the 20x20m grid in CMx1. BFC would like to eventually move to a 1x1m grid, but no computer in existence now could run it. LOS is traced from each soldier, but LOF is traced from the center of the AP, which is why you sometimes have LOS, but no LOF. It's not perfect, but better than any other game out there.

Bocage: a lot of time was spent on Bocage in CMBN and it is more finely detailed than in CMBO. You have many different terrain tiles: high bocage, low bocage, hedge, to which you can add elevation changes and all sort of foliage to come up with infinite variations. With the existing fortifications: trenches, foxholes, bunkers, mines, you create defences as effective as the ones Doubler described in his article. You just need to play around and get used to the system, all the tools are there. Again, is it perfect? Of course not, but there is a point of diminishing return in simulating Bocage which was only a factor for 2 months and only in the US sector.

[LarsS]

In my limited experience, a squad behind a bocage "hump" will massacre a squad in a trench facing them. Better than being in the open ? Maybe, but not by much.

I tested this. Had two identical American companies face each other, one behind a 500 m stretch of bocage, the other in a 500 m continous trench. Did a couple of battles at 100 m, 200 m and 300 m range, respectively. It wasn't even fun to watch. Massacre sure is the correct word for what happened in every case. Consistently the guys in the trench got wiped out within a few minutes, while the boys behind the bocage usually suffered around 10 casulties.

As a reference, I tested the same forces (minus mortars), but this time in a full row of buildings (1-story modular) vs the bocage at 250 m range, for a couple of battles. The bocage gave decidedly better cover, but the losses here were more like 100 to 30-40, and the battles petered out due to the lack of ammo. To get the fight started I had to do some area fire on the bocage, since the opposing forces could not spot each other at the start of the battle. Also, I kept sending my guys in the buildings back after they had bugged out and sought the safty behind them.

Lessons learned: always put your units behind bocage. I guess the bocage combination of thick earth/rock/root cover with nice concealment is more or less an ideal defensive feature. And that's why the bocage in Normandy was such an issue.

Someone should test concrete bunkers vs bocage.

[gunnergoz]

Baneman - not to dispute your results, but consider that bocage provides both cover and concealment, whereas trenches provide only cover. If the game models bocage correctly, there will be some times when the shooter behind bocage is harder to locate,pin down and hit than a shooter sticking his upper body out of a trench. This would mean that, given equal numbers and over time, shooters behind bocage get the upper hand no matter what else happens.

[phantom67]

Only place where I'd say that guy has a point is regarding trenches and foxholes. Personally I'd prefer the old CMBB-style foxholes and trenches, but I can't say that the current way has killed the game for me, but then again, I haven't really played all that many defensive scenarios either.

[Lt Bull]

I think what people are after when they stick fortifications behind hedgerows is a simulation of the scrapes the Germans made in the Bocage, which did add considerably to the survivability of the defender, by all accounts. Difficult to do with foxholes and trenches, as has been mentioned, but it occurs to me that it might be more appropriate to use bunkers. I think perhaps the demo scenarios (BtB in particular) have to some extent fixed some peoples' minds on trenches and foxholes being combined with Bocage to make fighting positions, which doesn't really work.

Well I am sure many people have it in their heads that "foxholes along bocage" is something perhaps expected because of what they saw in Close Combat, which had exactly that. But as you say there are (by all accounts?) accounts of this actually happening in Normandy. Are we really sure they were used as we are supposing?

Are we making assumptions that Germans could make these foxholes AND have LOS through that thick bocage WITHOUT having to at least dig vision slots at ground level through the bocage itself? I see basic problems anyway:

Given that bocage is thickest and made up of rocks/dirt/roots at the the base (several feet thick), and that the level of the ground on BOTH sides of the bocage was roughly equal in height then:

a) it wouldn't be anything but a huge undertaking to actually dig/cut ANY slot through the bocage probably requiring special tools

anything but a HUGE vision slit would be able to give them a suitable LOS arc through the bocage..then again:

- would this vision slot collapse under the weight of the bocage above it?

- wouldn't the height of the grass/weeds/shrubbery on the other side of the bocage also play a significant role in blocking the LOS through any vision slot cut at essentially ground level through the bocage?

Are there ANY accounts of Germans having to dig any vision slots through bocage so they could see through the bocage while sitting in foxholes?

Considering this (for the first time really), I think the notion of placing foxholes close to one side of a hedgerow and expecting to have a decent/effective defensive LOS through it seems a bit suspect.

[TheVulture]

I think what people envisage with foxholes combined with bocage are these kind of German fighting positions dug into the bocage base:

[akd]

Well I am sure many people have it in their heads that "foxholes along bocage" is something perhaps expected because of what they saw in Close Combat, which had exactly that. But as you say there are (by all accounts?) accounts of this actually happening in Normandy. Are we really sure they were used as we are supposing?

Are we making assumptions that Germans could make these foxholes AND have LOS through that thick bocage WITHOUT having to at least dig vision slots at ground level through the bocage itself? I see basic problems anyway:

Given that bocage is thickest and made up of rocks/dirt/roots at the the base (several feet thick), and that the level of the ground on BOTH sides of the bocage was roughly equal in height then:

a) it wouldn't be anything but a huge undertaking to actually dig/cut ANY slot through the bocage probably requiring special tools

anything but a HUGE vision slit would be able to give them a suitable LOS arc through the bocage..then again:

- would this vision slot collapse under the weight of the bocage above it?

- wouldn't the height of the grass/weeds/shrubbery on the other side of the bocage also play a significant role in blocking the LOS through any vision slot cut at essentially ground level through the bocage?

Are there ANY accounts of Germans having to dig any vision slots through bocage so they could see through the bocage while sitting in foxholes?

Considering this (for the first time really), I think the notion of placing foxholes close to one side of a hedgerow and expecting to have a decent/effective defensive LOS through it seems a bit suspect.

Germans frequently cut fighting positions into the base of bocage, creating de facto bunkers. This would take some time. More frequently, both sides dug foxholes along the base of the bocage for cover only, not as a fighting position. They could then emerge from the foxholes and and take up fighting positions along the hedgerow itself. The latter is more or less feasible in the game. As to the former, bocage in game actually provides cover somewhere between unimproved bocage and a covered fighting position dug into the berm.

[womble]

Are we making assumptions that Germans could make these foxholes AND have LOS through that thick bocage WITHOUT having to at least dig vision slots at ground level through the bocage itself? I see basic problems anyway:

No. We're assuming that some people seem to think that sticking a few APs of foxholes directly behind some bocage will produce some kind of synergy with that bocage in order to get the sort of effect that 'dug into the bocage' germans got with fortifications like Thevulture has shown.

It is evident that this synergy does not occur, and, as you point out, most or all of the foxholes are unsighted through the line of the hedge. Maybe it needed to be a special terrain type: "fortified bocage", or maybe bunkers would actually be a better simulation.

Do you actually read what I write when you quote it back?