Level of detail in formation movement

[wodin]

Just played a Narvik scenario a 15 day long scenario that I finished in 9 days. Lost 1600 men and 1 gun to 4460 enemy killed and 24 guns. The problem I mainly find whilst playing the game is something that is mentioned often. I find units retreat way to easy whilst in the attack. It feels that my men seem to run forwards then at the drop of a hat run back then run forwards again on and off during an attack. I'd have thought especially in an attack units would hold together with far more grit than they do. Fair enough if you've lost half your men in a few minutes but this isn't the case...just taking fire and a few casualties seem to throw them off guard and send them scurrying. Maybe instead of retreating in these circumstances there should be a going to ground mode. I can see men hitting the dirt under fire rather than retreating on and off during an attack.

[Arjuna]

wodin,

We have overhauled the reaction rules for BFTB. I think you will find it much better. It won't be long.

[wodin]

Getting excited...

[RockinHarry]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

A unit, of whatever size, is the lowest element in the game. It does not have any sub elements. Hence a company sized unit does not have its own advance guard within the game mechanics. Rather it has an occupied area ( as defined by its frontage and depth ). When it takes fire it determines the number of personnel/equipement that are exposed based on the formation type, the angle of fire and line of sight. Each formation type will specify a certain percentage of the personnel/equip exposed to fire. Eg road column only has a small percentage if hit from the front and a large percentage if hit from the flank. Further, when firing we divide the unit into three zones- forward, middle and rear. Separate line of sight checks are done from each zone of the firing unit to each zone of the target - eg front to front, middle to middle and rear to rear. This filters out a certain percentage of targets and firing weapons if there is no line of sight for a particular aspect. In general a greater percentage of heavy weapons are assumed to be in the middle and rear zones.

I hope that helps to explain how it works.

Wished I´d found this entry sooner, yet it answers a couple my questions in another thread. New question: Assuming an infantry company, what are its heavy weapons that would assumed to be placed in the middle and rear zones of the footprint? I do not see a "heavy weapon" class in ESTAB. As example a HMG as component of an infantry Coy, according to ESTAB would still be "small arms", although it´s actually a "heavy weapon". At which part (forward, middle, rear) of an infantry units footprint could I expect to be the HMGs then? If it´s not treated as heavy weapon, is HMGs then distributed uniformly with regard to given formation?

[wodin]

I too missed that bit of info.

Interesting..this is whee I think some think the game does monitor each coy or whatever in hi detail even down to where individual squads are with in the footprint..though that would be amazing I imagine the game would just be a stuttering mess on larger scenarios. Though in the future I'd love it if the lowest unit say coy did have sub units down to squad..similar to Tigers Unleashed (game needs fixing) which breaksdown the force of a platoon down to individual soldiers.

[RockinHarry]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Thanks for your response GoodGuy.

But from my manoeuvre experience I can tell that it takes a platoon leader, and even a Coy CO a relatively small amount of time to have their units pull back after first contact, especially with small Coys. With bigger Coys (say ~120 men) shouting orders may not work/spread fas enough, so you employ runners (if there are no radios), which takes around 5 mins, if the unit hasn't scattered too much.
In the German Army (nowadays), if it's then necessary to employ a rear guard (eg. enemy moving, or light to moderate enemy fire), the platoon may leave a squad (Gruppe) or a half-squad (eg. with MG) as rear guard, maybe even assisted by members of the platoon HQ squad, which is used as reserve, but which also has additional snipers and an AT-weapon crew (eg. Panzerfaust 3-T or 3-IT-600).
If a given platoon/Coy has just made first contact, but decides to break contact, then it doesn't take some 20 or 30 minutes until the given unit is able to retreat.

We already model this as a reaction. It's called a Retreat - ie a retrograde move under control of the local commander. It's automatic and not under the player control. The reason for that is that it is a tactical response, not one that an operational commander makes. I don't believe the game would be better for allowing the player control of such actions. They are supposed to be fulfilling the role of the operational commander, not the company unit commander. Our engine is designed to model oeprational command decision making - ie it's about macro management not micro management. This may not be to everyone's liking. I admit that. There are plenty of other games out there that cater for micromanagers.

Having said that, perhaps the real issue is identifying situations where a retreat is invoked that we currently don't invoke one. I'm all for improving the AIs ability to react.

Another valuable piece of info I was looking for.

"retrograde move under control of the local commander". Is that local commander the unit commander or its direct superior? So if an infantry Coy unit is about to retreat, is that the decision of the Coy CO or its superior Btl CO? [&:]

With regard to the prescribed in another thread situation of entrenched infantry retreating without noticable pressure (no personnel losses, high morale ect.), what is the deciding factor for retreat then? From my observation, some variables obviously are proximity and combat power, as well as amount of enemy units. Is there a certain ratio involved like, if enemy is at close combat range and force ratio odds are at least 3:1 then better "retreat"?

[Arjuna]

Normally, local commander = unit commander for retreat purposes.

[BletchleyGeek]

Very nice discussion.

ORIGINAL: GoodGuy

The Withdraw order should result in the deployment of a rear guard blocking force while the main body disengages. The rear guard should delay to the objective in leaps and bounds if it has two or more line units.

Well yes, but this goes for units (say a Bn) where sub-units are involved. If there's just a tiny Coy or even an understrength unit involved (with less than say 70 men), then you don't have the overhead created by fully blown command chains say of a Bn or even a division. Some engagements/order delays in the game do not feel right on company level, that's one of the points I tried to bring forward.

Now if you don't want to employ this method, then simply order them to Move with min aggro, so they won't spend their time firing at the enemy. But I would recommend splitting the force, issuing an immediate Move to the main body and then issue a subsequent one to the rearguard. That way your main body, with all its support troops, will have a change of disengaging.

I don't use the method you described anymore, as I had tank units (for example) that kept loosing 1-3 vehicles during such "makeshift" retreats on many occasions. I was able to verify my observation by reloading the savegame (right before I ordered the move with min. aggro), so it wasn't just coincidence.

I don't know if it's about the units' frontage which may change for a move order, or something else, since I don't know what's going on under the hood, but it felt like the tanks turned their backs (in order to move away) and "collected" a few shells with their rear armor, at least.

An attack is often the best (if not the only) way to have a tank unit perform a retreat without substantial losses, which is odd. An attack order coupled with "move"-orders/waypoints, would make the unit move out right away (without ANY additional delay - besides the level of order delay set by the player, as it will reorg' at the FUP), but engage several times if higher aggro settings were selected. A minimum aggro settings then could (and would) sometimes result in an "uncontrolled" retreat or even losses, as described above.

How easy - or feasible - is a withdraw order issued? It all depends on the fires that the enemy can put on that unit. Units - which don't rout or retreat - will try to deploy and take cover. This means that your retrogade, say Bn, movement just got stuck. If the fires are very intense, your guys won't go anywhere, material, personnel and cohesion damage will mount, until it routs. If you want to unclog the withdrawal you'll need to suppress the enemy.

That might mean to concentrate artillery barrages on the enemy so they are forced to take cover themselves. Or some other way - such as units performing an attack - to suppress the enemy. So that an attack makes withdrawal successful is hardly surprising.

As you said, it's all about cover and the terrain. You can't expect to retreat easily from say - a town on top of a hill - which has a strong enemy formation covering its frontage. Nor - I think - one can forgo the self-preservation "instincts" in the AI reaction code.

[wodin]

Off topic..I wondered why I get confused between RockinHarry's posts and Bletchlygeeks..it's the avatars..