The Infantry

[Yoozername]

I would like to see subtleties like panzergrenadier being bumped back up in supply when near a half-track etc. This showing the advantage of mech units to carry ammo. I would like to see similar negative effects to isolated troops.

Also, if a infantry unit is isolated, it's SOP might be downgraded to show it's not capable of such heroics.

[Andy Brown]

Yoozername,

I think that Mad Russian's fundamental point remains. At the moment we have a game where different aspects of combat are modelled in differing degrees of detail.

Now that's not necessarily bad. In any game, it's always necessary to abstract some things, or even leave them out altogether, and there are numerous aspects of PC: O I'd like to see developed before worrying about grenade inventories.

Nevertheless, that sub-30m firepower bonus exists and it upsets my anally retentive equilibrium to think that a squad can blitz its way from one end of a street to the other using it repetitively. It seems inconsistent with a system that does track smoke grenades which arguably are just as historically applicable to the same activity.

The point you make about the infrequency of close assault casualties is relevant. Added to my limited experience of the PC: O game system, it adds further weight to the argument that grenade inventories are not a high priority. The current system works reasonably well, is of concern apparently to few players and is probably low on the list of features most people want to see improved.

That doesn't mean it shouldn't be on the list.

Cheers,

Andy

[Mad Russian]

ORIGINAL: Yoozername

I basically posted it in regards to the statement 'Grenades are the deadliest weapons infantry have', or words to that effect.

I would agree that 'deadliest' could be viewed from many angles. Also, my perspective is from the squad level, the basic building block for the infantry unit equal to a single tank in relationship.

If we want to go up the scale to where you have mortars, artillery, fighter bombers, medium bombers, heavy bombers, or even naval gunfire up to battleship level in support of infantry units....well then, no. I agree they aren't.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: Andy Brown
Nevertheless, that sub-30m firepower bonus exists and it upsets my anally retentive equilibrium to think that a squad can blitz its way from one end of a street to the other using it repetitively. It seems inconsistent with a system that does track smoke grenades which arguably are just as historically applicable to the same activity.

That was my objection to bullet/shell counting matter. I would rather an abstraction of out of ammo and weapon stoppage all rolled into one. The player then had an idea that the weapon wasn't usable for a time but in a random amount of time it could be usable again. Maybe ammo resupply or maybe unjam the weapon. It is on the windy side of the Overmind for me.

[Ratzki]

If you abstract too much then the scale of the game will not match the game's scale as it is now. Maybe the scale that we play at needs to be adjusted.

[Mad Russian]

The issue is where the line gets drawn. How much abstraction or game play vs how much simulation. That's always the dilemma.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Yoozername]

So, this is now a 'game scale' thread because of grenades?

I was looking at some weights of ammo and saw some data regarding US 'pineapple' grenades vs. M1 Garand rifle ammunition. It basically comes down to: Would you rather carry 3 more grenades or 64 more 30 cal rounds?

[Mad Russian]

There is a weight issue with grenades. No question.

There certainly is with the German grenade bundles.

This discussion is about the infantry combat model as a whole not just grenades.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Ratzki]

ORIGINAL: Yoozername

So, this is now a 'game scale' thread because of grenades?

It all depends at what level we want to give orders at. If we want to give orders all the way down to squad level, maybe the number of grenades needs to be shown as an exact figure. But at platoon level, I don't think so. I mean do we want to issue orders for each squad, where to move, route to follow, who to shoot at, ect., or just order the platoon HQ to move to a certain location, mark out the HQ's route and let the AI move the squads. You could have options in the order menu of the HQ as to how it's squads move, do they stay in heavy cover or light cover, and at what speed do the squads travel at. Targets could be chosen by catagory, attack armor, soft skinned, infantry, MGs ect. The AI would then take care of each squad in the platoon as to it's final location, again modified by your orders through the HQ.
Ehh, just thinking out loud.

[Yoozername]

Should the game model rifle grenades individually? Or how about what type of grenade? Both the Germans and the Soviets had a bunch of types. I really don't see the point.

I don't believe grenades are modeled as separate attacks but just fudged into infantry firepower. Similar to ASL actually. I really think that what mobius proposes works good enough for my tastes. To me, PC is really a tank-centric game.

But Ratzki does have some points regarding micromanagement. One of the design goals of PC seems to be a 'platoon-level-game'. Even though smaller elements are depicted.

[Mobius]

To me grenades being separated out is not important. I was more interested in the LMG of the squad being separate from the rifles. The rifles fire at their target and the LMG fires at its target. Now in rifle squads the LMG has the same ballistics as the rifle so that is not a problem.
Firepower being all wrapped into one number for both allows only one target being engaged at a time with all the squad's weapons. In that scheme fireteams would rule squads as the laws of small numbers would mathematically favor them.

[Yoozername]

Do bow MGs on tanks fire at separate targets than the main gun?

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: Yoozername
Do bow MGs on tanks fire at separate targets than the main gun?

No. All MGs are combined into one series of factors.

[Andy Brown]

ORIGINAL: Yoozername

One of the design goals of PC seems to be a 'platoon-level-game'. Even though smaller elements are depicted.

Having played the game for a few weeks now, I'm coming to the conclusion that, unless you are prepared to develop a Panther Games quality AI, designing any kind of wargame above squad level on realistic 3D terrain maps is a pointless exercise.

When playing PC: O, try as I might to think "in platoons", I keep getting dragged back down into the weeds of squad and individual weapon team activities. Unless I am able to give a platoon a task and some geographical constraints (eg, defend THIS village, attack THAT woods from HERE), all I find myself doing is playing Combat Mission with a less capable engine.

The platoon focus may work for AFV combat but, on the Ostfront, AFV combat rarely happened without some sort of reference to other, dismounted activities that PC: O was clearly not developed to recreate in the same detail.

Having said that, I do find that the comparative simplicity of PC: O commands makes playing easier than CM. I find with PC: O that I think mostly about WHAT to do and spend much less time figuring HOW to do it.

But I still end up thinking squads, not platoons.

Cheers,

Andy

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: Andy Brown
When playing PC: O, try as I might to think "in platoons", I keep getting dragged back down into the weeds of squad and individual weapon team activities. Unless I am able to give a platoon a task and some geographical constraints (eg, defend THIS village, attack THAT woods from HERE), all I find myself doing is playing Combat Mission with a less capable engine.

The platoon focus may work for AFV combat but, on the Ostfront, AFV combat rarely happened without some sort of reference to other, dismounted activities that PC: O was clearly not developed to recreate in the same detail.

But I still end up thinking squads, not platoons.

That's not so bad from someone's perspective. Gen. Barry McCaffrey: Learn to see down two levels but command down just one

... battalion command taught me ... to see down two levels but command down one. When I was a battalion commander I always knew where my platoons were. I knew everything about what platoons were doing -- but I was only about giving orders to company commanders -- period. At every level [of] the chain of command, if you command down one level and see down two levels, it is not very hard to be effective.

link
So if you command at the platoon level, know where your squads are and what they are doing.

[Andy Brown]

ORIGINAL: Mobius

So if you command at the platoon level, know where your squads are and what they are doing.

Exactly my point. As a company commander, I need to know what my squads are doing but I shouldn't command them directly, hence the need for a well developed AI.

As a battalion commander (arguably still within the scope of PC: O), I need to be commanding companies but thinking platoons, which probably expands that AI requirement.

Otherwise, like I said, I'm merely playing Combat Mission using a less-developed engine. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that (PC: O does have one or two features that CM lacks) but I'd argue that, overall, it's pretty obvious which is the better SQUAD level game.

Andy

[Mobius]

Using a lot of resources to come up with a humanistic AI may not be all that useful. Especially, if it does have human tendencies it may not behave like a player wants it to behave.

The strategies of the Commander, on the other hand, involve not simply making a decision; just giving his troops an objective and then walking away wouldn't be a very effective or efficient way for a commander at the company level to run a battle. Instead, the commander takes what all of his men are telling him (both with their reports (platoons) and with the actions that they take (squads)) and turns that into a successful battle. If, for instance, a platoon has attempted to assault a pair of buildings and the commander notes that two of the squads involved are currently spending their time finding cover rather than attacking, he most likely would decide to support the attacking units with more suppressive fire. If, at the same time an enemy force attacked another of his platoons, however, the commander would likely order the assaulting platoon to withdraw and commit his reserves against the attacking enemy force.

In addition, more often than not, the people under the commander are not contributing to the overall solution unless the commander has resolved exactly what that solution is. The chances of a unit wasting their time are high; they do not know, nor are they required to know, what else is going on. It is the commander's job to make all of these units work together, and to ensure that a solution a) has been found and b) has a high likelihood of success.

[Yoozername]

CMx1 was not realistic. Not on the level of Armor or Infantry. It was just some fun stuff for those ASL fans to do on a computer. It was made by Civvies. It showed. Combined with the lack of Relative-Spotting, it was just a good intro into what computers could do for the ASL crowd.

I want to directly contradict these assertions that a infantry squad is equivalent to a single tank at some level. In WWII, the basic infantry squad did not have weapons, communications, mobility, teamwork or many other battle aspects that armor has. Some armored infantry units MIGHT approach these 'tank-qualities' but most infantry types WON'T.

[Yoozername]

Before I forget, again, my pet peeve with Wargames at this level is the lack of 'Command-Posts'. If you read accounts of battles during WWII, the importance of command posts becomes especially important to infantry battles. Some accounts seem to reveal that WWII was just moving command posts forward or backward. Actually, games should 'award' flags based on not just friendlies in the area but who has the closest CP to that flag.

[Andy Brown]

Mobius,

Not sure what you're quoting there (more of Gen McCaffrey?) but I think you've made my point. If PC: O is not to be just another squad-based game, and if the 3D terrain model is to be retained, then all the intra-platoon stuff you allude to needs to be automated.

Yoozername,

CMx1 is yesterday. Sure, lots of people still play CMx1 but CMx2 is, IMO, the way things are going and the model from which PC: O needs to differ.

In many combat models, it often makes sense organizationally to equate squads or heavy weapons teams with AFVs. This implies nothing about their relative combat powers.

Good point about command posts, although I would argue that the commander more likely to be successful is one prepared to leave his CP when required and control his battle from a tac HQ closer to the front. At company level, tac HQ and CP may be synonymous. At battalion level, even in WW2, they are more likely to be separate entities. The admin and coord functions required at battalion level are usually performed better by a CP staff removed from the action than by a command group looking for a good place from which to control a fight.

Cheers,

Andy