IronDuke_slith
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Joined: 6/30/2002
From: Manchester, UK
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quote:
ORIGINAL: IronDuke
Combined Arms copes with the sentience angle by having pre-set choices about what to do if something unexpected happens. If you think you are going to run into something, you can pre-set your forces to defend or attack etc if they come up against this. So, they merrily proceed forward and then revert to this programming if they hit something in their path.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
Which covers about 0.1% of the possible situations that can be encountered. You simply can't pre-program an evaluation of the situation that remotely compares with what a human can evalute. So, that unit you programmed to stop if it encounters something does so when it hits that truck park. The other unit you programmed to drive on does so when it bumps into Panzer Lehr. And, of course, there is no way to coordinate forces or manuever in such unplanned encounters.
How do you know what you've hit at the operational level until you attack it or at least probe it?
Besides, Combined Arms has a "Bypass" general order that allows you to tell your units to go around enemy units they encounter on their path. Also, there never was a way to co-ordinate manouevre when forces decided to step outside their Staff instructions.
Generally, units followed their AXIs of advance because going around generally meant you blundered into the axis of advance of the neighbouring unit which (depending on the level we are discussing) was either a Company, battalion, regiment or Division. This presented juicy arty interdiction targets and created traffic jams.
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And, as I said before, there is no way to implement infiltration tactics - Warfare 101 since 1918.
Infiltration tactics were a (largely German) taqctical method of screening infantry advance behind darkness or broken terrain in order to open the attack from a closer, more advantageous and surprising position. It doesn;t really have a place in the operational level unless you simulate it with a combat modifier. It was about getting a better position to attack from, and penetrating the defensive position to its depth, it wasn't an operational concept about having recce companies marauding about in the enemy's rear.
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You can't pre-program "take the path of least resistance" or "reinforce success, abandon failure". Again, the more WWI-like the topic, the better WEGO will do.
You can pre-program bypass, and like I said earlier, who did take the path of least resistance, certainly after 1942.
The Americans and British generally fought linear battles where everyone advanced along their axis of attack. the Russians were relatively inflexible once they had torn the hole in your front. The German method simply didn't emphasise this initiative after early 1942, and if there was still some initiative at the small unit level, you simulate that with greater proficiency within the game engine at an operational level.
You're asking for something which simply didn't happen all that often in practice. I can think of Peiper in the Ardennes and Wood at one point in Lorraine but American Infantry divisions didn't bypass resistance because that put you on the roads and terrain being used by the neighbouring division and led to friendly fire, traffic jams and target rich environments.
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Of course, it doesn't allow you to specify for each unit what to do at point of unexpected contact as you can in IGOUGO, but then no one ever got this kind of control in real life either so you're not losing a valuable part of a simulation, but losing an unhistorical part of any simulation.
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Not true, even at the individual soldier scale, much less TOAW's scales. Even individual soldiers had the latitude to adjust their paths to flank and coordinate against anything they encountered. No Post-WWI force functions as brainlessly as WEGO requires.
Really?
One of the reasons the Germans killed "Aufstragstaktik" (which I presume is what you are hinting at) was because it wasn't practical in the era of mass Armies to have divisional or Corp Commanders setting their own objectives based on how they saw the battlefield and it didn't really occur in the US Army anyway and practically never in the British Army of WWII.
At the very lowest level it had some validity in certain circumstances, but all of that occurs within the hex scale used during combat and is therefore better abstracted than given specific rules.
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In fact, I have to ask: Just where is the wargaming in all of this? There doesn't seem to be much more to it than pointing your forces where you want them to go and watching them go.
The wargaming is in setting realistic plans that balance objectives with necessity. Yes, I want to get forward, but that uncleared town at the shoulder of my penetration is worrying and I see Tanks massing the other side of it. Therefore, I have to launch a preemptive assault or dig in infantry and AT assets to prevent the counter attack.
You can see attacks hit thin air as the enemy pull back and enemy troops irritatingly withdraw rather than be obligingly static whilst you flank them. However, it's very fluid, realistic and the fun is in the planning. Plan better than your opponent and you win. You also (IMHO) have to plan with very Military considerations in mind.
CA complicates the planning process by giving you numerous deployment states. You don't move and attack in the same state (or rather you can move forward in at attacking deployment but much slower than if you were in a column advancing) and these various states give you a trade off between time and action. I think it works very well.
I've seen sizeable penetrations made. Narrow penetrations made and units cut off as flanking troops advancing hit stiffer resistance. I've seen the bypass order used to get a Guards Battlegroup up Hells Highway past badly hit and blocking FJ and it really puts a premium on anticipation.
Currently in TOAW, you attack, I watch where it is coming and respond.
In CA I have to anticipate, because (as in real life) if your attack is unexpected, I am already a turn behind when I plan the counter. I think it makes breakthroughs much more likely if well planned than in TOAW where IGOUGO always allows reaction. In my experience, clean breakthroughs in TOAW often rely on the enemy having nothing in range to face you with rather than not having the time to stop you and block you as your forces roar on.
It's had a long and drawn out development history but I think it will land with a bang.
Regards,
IronDuke
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RE: Defending a river line - 
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