getting around the delay.. possible?

[ctcharger]

I thought I read somewhere that if you give your units 3 waypoints that you never expect them to actually reach, you can just adjust the waypoints each turn and they will react immediately. Is that true? Good tactics or a bit of a cheat?

[exsonic01]

fb.asp?m=4610977

This is a bug, so I don't use this in any games because makes this game too easy.

[Hub6Actual]

At best, a loophole. At worst, a cheat. The basic tenet of the game is to illustrate friction in command and getting inside the enemy’s OODA loop, and this goes against that.

[ctcharger]

Ok thanks, hopefully it will be fixed in the next game.

[mirrorshades]

Have to confess that I have taken advantage of this more often than not. I'm certainly not an expert, but a lot of times the delay on that first waypoint seems incredibly aggressive to me. I understand that there may be situations where it makes sense, but sometimes it just seemed needlessly long.

[Hub6Actual]

There is a book written by Daniel Bolger, that revolved around his experiences as a mech infantry company commander at NTC Ft Irwin in 1982. One thing it points out well is friction under combat conditions (even when simulated, as at the NTC). After you read that, you may decide that if anything, the delays in the game are lenient. The book is “Dragons at War - Land Battle in the Desert” by Daniel P. Bolger. The book is very approachable for both the pro and the layman. Another book of his that is a good read is, “The Battle for Hunger Hill.” He was in command of a battalion training at the JRTC at Ft Polk, Louisiana in that one. Some of his other books are kind of dry and repetitious, but these two are good.

[exsonic01]

My personal experience of such battlefield friction: Platoon Leader completely lost in the woods.

During one field exercise me and my team was working as OPFOR recon element. BLUFOR attacking and OPFOR defending scenario, and we were conducting counter recon/SF infiltration mission.

We detected one platoon sized BLUFOR element approaches from very wide flanking route. They were almost following ridge line of outer boundary of exercise AO. But those terrain was notorious for its toughness. We were watching them, but their flanking route was too wide, so we concluded they would not make in time before exercise is over. And that was correct. In addition, after exercise is over, we heard that the platoon was totally lost in the middle of mountains and woods [:D] They just marched based on wrong mountains.

What I've heard is, the platoon leader of that platoon was new guy just graduated from Academy, so no experience neither knowledge about terrain of AO. And it was zero moonlight condition. Back in late 1990s ~ early 2000s, ROKA doesn't have enough night visions to issue. Flanking route he chose should pass through tough mountains as it is kinda ridge-line route, so he was unable to communicate, and it was middle of the attacking exercise so he couldn't try any comm due to radio silence order. Those conditions forced him to decide to make a wrong turn in the middle of the dark forest in the middle of the mountains. And such things are really easy to happen. His order was flanking the trench line of OPFOR, and CHQ gave him some choice of flanking routes. But he wished to impress his boss and wished to overachieve to get the title of "very good platoon leader" (the attitude sometimes can be seen from new Second Lieutenants fresh Academy graduates) so he chose very wide flanking routes which was not suggested by CHQ. He thought that those suggested flanking routes would be too easy to predicted.

Imagine your platoon completely lost the track in the forest, and heading strange wrong direction in the middle of FPC-RS. That would be funny yet will make you angry [:D]. Also, in real or in exercise, we all know friendly fire really happens. But in FPC-RS, I never saw friendly fire.

[ctcharger]

I worked with a guy who was a tanker in the National Guard. He said 2nd Lts were constantly trying to use their compass while riding in the tank.

[DeletedUser1676996457]

mirrorshades, I feel exactly the same. The delay system is a bit agressive to me as well. I do find the game more enjoyable and dynamic with this, not necessarily easier. The ETA still depends on several factors such as the terrain, morale, readiness...I wonder if SS could apply a togable switch for that aspect, but it might be too gamey...currently I find myself using this exploitation regularly.

[CapnDarwin]

We are looking at a number of changes to how delays and command nets function in Southern Storm. Delays at the lower level are too big in some cases and some players can aggrivate the problem with changing orders too quickly or too many times in a command cycle.