Disengaging

[IainF]

Hello all,

I've just got this great game and am needing some advice on how to best make units disengage once they are targeted by the enemy.

I've twice now had a couple of platoons stuck on a ridgeline/treeline happily letting themselves get plastered down to nothing over a couple/few turns - having them on hold or screen orders didn't seem to make a difference. I did try ordering them to Hasty move straight back, but again still nowt happening.

Any suggestions on what's best to do in such situations or is it just down to their reactions to orders being banjaxed by all the incoming? (Although if it were me I'd be telling the driver to hit reverse pretty sharpish!).

[RogerJNeilson]

I share your need for help on this one. I 'get' the hold order means HOLD. But I'm using tons of screen orders and I think in this case the unit should have the sense to shoot and scoot rather than park and perish.

I understand that they may be waiting for orders that never come, but if that's the case how do you get units to pop up shoot and then disappear from view, surely the best tactic going in the heavily artillery dominated situation - especially where the nasties seem to have pretty much instant fire support.

Roger

[cbelva]

The proper application of the screen order has been hotly debated by the development team and by players on different forums. I have advocated for a fairly loose trigger in pulling units back upon contact with the enemy (especially for recon units). However, quite a few players have not like that and wanted screening units to hang around longer especially if they were in good defensive terrain like woods or urban. My belief was "use the hold command" in those cases. Because of the demand by the players, the trigger for screen command was tightened up in the 2.06 build (in other words, I lost the argument). Screening units will hang around and throw a few rounds at the enemy (especially if they are in good defensive terrain) before deciding to bug out. The consequence of this is that more units (more than before) using screen are going to die because they will wait until they are being engaged to decide to fall back. In this evolution of the game engine, you can't have it both ways. We plan on changing this in the 2.1 version of the engine by giving the player some SOP control over units, but that will be in 2.1 of the game engine which you don't have now so it does not help you. What this means is that you are going to have to plan very careful and anticipate when you units are going to need to fall back. When a unit does decide to fall back/scoot because they are in a screen command, they fall back guicker than if you gave the order (the time penalty on a unit that decides to scoot backwards due to his screen order is less than if the player gave him a hasty move). This time delay is basically the time it takes for a unit to pack up and load their vehicles (if they have any). If they are on foot it will take a while. Remember the hexes are half a kilometer apart so they have to drive the distance of half a km to leave a hex.  

With that being said, players need to keep this in mind:
Once a unit is targeted by the enemy, disengagement is very difficult. It has always been that way in combat, but it is even worst today do to the range of modern weaponry. For a unit to properly disengage they have to be well trained and in good order. It takes a lot of discipline to disengage under fire. The other alternative is for a unit to rout and this you use complete control over that unit. For most units, once the shooting starts, falling back orderly is not an option. They just don't have the discipline or the energy needed to pull it off. If they do disengage, they will rout which is just as bad if they died as far as that battle is concerned. Also, many runners tend to die as they turn their back on the enemy to run away. The long reach of the weapon systems in modern combat just exacerbates the problems in disengaging. Word to the wise, get units out of harms way before the bullets start flying if you don't want them to stand and fight or die.

[RogerJNeilson]

Appreciate the detailed response.

So say I want a tank unit to 'shoot and scoot' can I use the three waypoint system to get this effect?

Waypoint 1 & 2 on the location I want them to sit at, waypoint 3 the scoot away to safety point?


Roger

[IainF]

+1 for that reply, I thought that it might be the reason it was happening.

I'll just have to stop my 'just one more go - they'll be alright' mentality.

[Mad Russian]

Successfully disengaging is the hardest maneuver to do in real combat. Hands down. At least that's what all our training and all my research shows, since luckily I never had to try it in an actual combat situation.

Correspondingly it's also the toughest maneuver to do successfully in FPC as well. This takes a lot of practice to get the timing down for when to give the pull out orders. The tendency is to leave them in place one orders segment too long. Even for those of us that play this game system a lot.

Good Hunting.

MR

[cbelva]

ORIGINAL: Roger Neilson 3

Appreciate the detailed response.

So say I want a tank unit to 'shoot and scoot' can I use the three waypoint system to get this effect?

Waypoint 1 & 2 on the location I want them to sit at, waypoint 3 the scoot away to safety point?


Roger

If the enemy is getting close the best thing to do is leave them on screen (even with the tightening of the scoot trigger) and hope that they pull back quick enough. Once the enemy gets too close, it's too late for you as the player to pull them back. You can try to move them back yourself with a movement order and hope that get lucky, but you in all probability will watch you good troop die in place.

Every time you give a unit a movement order, there is a time delay which is based on the time it takes for units to receive the orders and then distribute them down to the lower echelons , to pact their bags, and then to move the 1/2 km to the next hex. So, giving orders is not the best way to "scoot" away from the enemy when he is closing in on you. If I want my unit to get out of harms way in the quickest manner, I normally give it a screen order and hold my breath with my fingers crossed.

[budd]

I remember the issue from before units were bugging out quickly and leaving good defensive terrain and moving into the open and getting hammered. It does seem to have swung the other way quite a bit, he's right we can't have it both ways. My question is does terrain affect the chance that the unit will move away while in screen mode or is it the same across all terrain types? Better defensive terrain unit holds on more in screen, lesser defensive terrain the unit will move away quicker.

[cbelva]

The better the terrain for defense, the less the chance that the unit in screen will scoot away. They tend to want to hang onto good terrain. They will bug out quicker if they are sitting open terrain.

[budd]

thank you, that's important to know, because yelling at my screen telling them to bug out wasn't working to well.

[Mad Russian]

ORIGINAL: **budd**

thank you, that's important to know, because yelling at my screen telling them to bug out wasn't working to well.

Good Hunting.

MR

[cbelva]

ORIGINAL: **budd**

thank you, that's important to know, because yelling at my screen telling them to bug out wasn't working to well.

Hmmm -- That always seems to work for me.

[budd]

follow on question or possible feature request. Does distance from enemy have any bearing on a unit in screen mode bugging out? Like an enemy being 2 hexes away increasing the chance the unit pulls back. 5 hexes i'm cool, 4 hexes i'm ok, 3 hexes i'm starting to worry, 2 hexes or less they need to get the hell outta there.....unless of course there in hold stance.

[cbelva]

Hey budd, short answer is yes. If you look in the UDP you will see a line that says "Perf. Standoff" and then a number of hexes. That number is based on the unit itself (each type of unit has a unique perf standoff range) and their orders (which alters the unit's perf standoff). A unit with a screen order will have a larger perf standoff than a unit in hold. Prior to 2.06 units would start to move out of their hex and fall back whenever an enemy unit moved into their perf standoff. Say if it was three hexes, when the enemy unit moved moved into a hex in its los that was three hexes or less away. Now in 2.06 (to me anyway) they start to think about moving out when an enemy unit moved into it perf standoff range. If they are in a defensible terrain hex, they will think about moving less. Personally, I was against some of these adjustments and argued against them, but they players wishes on the forums held sway with the powers that be (Capn D and Rob).  This is not "bad feeling" on my part just a reality. None of us on the development team have gotten everything we wanted in the game. We all have had to make compromises. And I think we have a pretty good game as it stands right now. We are always looking at new ways to improve. However, we are at a point where we realize to get the fine tuning adjustments that we need Rob is going to have to make some major changes to the code--thus version 2.1. We are trying to shake Rob free from from Red Storm so he can get to work full time on the next version.

[budd]

Thank you Sir......Game is solid and most importantly it's fun. I hope they do move on [big bugs not with standing] My personal opinion is that they should put out a scenario /campaign pack of some sort to keep up the momentum from the 2.06/steam release. Hell that berlin map is big enough to support a lot of scenarios and a few campaigns, get that map to MR..... AAAA... don't mind me i'm just a consumer who wants to throw more money at ya[:D]

[cbelva]

One thing to think about, you and other players can made/design scenarios/campaigns and post them on the OTS website. Feel free to use any of our maps in making your own scenarios/campaigns

[IronMikeGolf]

A lot of what we are wrestling with are things that would be executed by lower level leaders and also already be decided prior to contact: "if the enemy reaches that highway, displace to here, if you take rounds from this direction, reposition to there" types of things. There is no order delay for such things. IMO, this is the biggest disconnect from reality for this game engine. This sort of things implies a rules engine that can accommodate things like alternate and supplementary positions and the plethora of control measures (phase lines, sector boundaries, objectives, etc) so units can maneuver autonomously and automatically, according to doctrine and the operational plan.

So, trying to get this particular behavior tuned by tweaking the reaction range for units in Screen posture will not likely succeed. Doing things by issuing orders is challenging with this engine because all orders are the same, i.e. there is no differentiation between those issued by a brigade commander and those by a platoon leader. The delay is the same for a battalion hasty attack and a platoon's survivability move.

If we had a way to distinguish between those two orders above, we might be able to wicker something that is closer to a real situation. We could do that by basically making a company or platoon level order nearly instantaneous and let the higher level order be subject to normal delay.

What are some characteristics of these low-delay/no-delay orders and situations?
1. They are not attacks or assaults
2. Units are not suppressed (i.e. Readiness is not below some threshold)
3. Units begin and end movement inside command radius

[cbelva]

Hey Jeff,

We do hear you and understand the frustration in this area. And we realize we are not going to get the type of behavior you are talking about in this game. The engine in its current condition can't do it. There is a lot more that Rob and Jim wants to add to this engine before they are through with it. However, that being said, even with it's limitations it does give you a fairly realistic simulation of being in command and control on a modern battlefield. I am a player like most people on the forum. I know basically nothing about programing. I got involved early on to give a players perspective to Rob and Jim. Many of these things your brought up we have been talking about for some time.

I trained to fight this war. I spent time in an 80's area cavalry unit and as a staff officer in a mechanized brigade. Everything we trained for was theoretical. No one really knew how this war would have played out--or even how the tactics would work. I doubt that fall back positions would have lasted the first day. That was theory--units would be able to engage the enemy and then pull back to positions that had been prepped and planned for your years. In modern warfare it is going to be extremely difficult to disengaged once you are engaged. Weapons are just too powerful, accurate, and long ranged. The hexes are 500 meters across. It would take a vehicle a few minutes on a road with no one shooting at him to drive across it. It will take highly disciplined unit and time to extract itself for an engagement and pull back in good order. Many of the engagements would in all probability either be more like meeting engagements or with defenses that was hastily prepared. The tempo in all probability would be just too fast.

Things I would like to see added to the game as it moves forward:
1. The ability to set scooting triggers for individual units. That way the player could decide how fast he wanted units (like his recon) to pull back. When he first sights the enemy or does he want him to fire a round or two before falling back.

2. The ability to set the direction you want units to scoot towards. The program now goes thru a set of conditions in determining the direction to scoot. It does a pretty good just, however, sometimes it causes the unit to scoot into more trouble instead of away from it.

3. Ability to set engagement ranges.

4. An AI that can defend a position. This has been my number one grip about the game. The AI wants to attack and has a hard time sitting still. I does real well in meeting engagements and attacks. It does poorly in the defense.

Hopefully we will see changes in the game in the next version (Southern Storm). However, Red Storm is what it is for now. I would not recommend "shelving" Rec Storm because it does not do these things. I think a person would be missing out on a great game that does a lot of things right. There will never be the perfect computer games. Just too many variables and unknowns. Especially for this time period. I have not found a game that puts me back into the TAC/TOC like this game does.

[pzgndr]

ORIGINAL: cbelva

Things I would like to see added to the game as it moves forward:
1. The ability to set scooting triggers for individual units. That way the player could decide how fast he wanted units (like his recon) to pull back. When he first sights the enemy or does he want him to fire a round or two before falling back.

2. The ability to set the direction you want units to scoot towards. The program now goes thru a set of conditions in determining the direction to scoot. It does a pretty good just, however, sometimes it causes the unit to scoot into more trouble instead of away from it.

3. Ability to set engagement ranges.

4. An AI that can defend a position. This has been my number one grip about the game. The AI wants to attack and has a hard time sitting still. I does real well in meeting engagements and attacks. It does poorly in the defense.

This will help. #2 requires an additional input to set a fallback position. If there were unit facings and an SOP setting to retreat 500m or something then that would be easier. For all units, we definitely need SOP settings for engagement criteria (range/type of target - hard or soft) and disengagement criteria (when/to where?).

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian
Successfully disengaging is the hardest maneuver to do in real combat.

This is true for being decisively engaged and everybody is fighting and shooting like hell. But for ambushes and recon units that should have a clear plan for disengagement well before becoming decisively engaged, it should be a relatively smooth maneuver (shoot or don't shoot, then scoot). Currently, players cannot control such maneuvers in the game and end up watching helplessly as units take unnecessary losses.

For defending a position, the game also probably needs a clearer definition of a hasty/prepared defense. If you just roll into a position and start fighting and become decisively engaged, it's exceptionally difficult to disengage. But if units get sufficient time in a position (30 minutes or so, minimum) to find decent primary/alternate/supplemental hull-down fighting positions, covered movement routes, and develop a disengagement plan, then disengagements should be better. That's something else to consider for the next game version.

[RogerJNeilson]

Following all this, and finding it very interesting as someone who is new to the period.

The issue I cannot really sort in my head is if the size of the hex is that big, when an artillery barrage falls on the unit it is so accurate. Fair enough but given the size of the hex could the unit on screen orders not be allowed to have shifted round the hex so its not at the precise place the fire was called down upon? I accept that if you are holding its your own lookout that you get nailed, but screening surely in that area would involve shifting round.

At the moment my armour is sitting in a hex on screen orders and getting whacked for sometimes up to an hour..... or is there something in the targeting regime that lessens the effects of the fire if the unit is screening and therefore a little mobile?

Or does an artillery strike obliterate the whole hex?

Roger