River Issues

[Troll]

Just a few things that should be worked on to improve realism.

Permanent bridges should be able to be destroyed and or damaged by engineers/arty fire/ air power etc to bring realism to the game. Different ways to calculate the damage could be as follows. 1 full strength engineer unit platoon could have a 5% chance of damaging a bridge, 2 engineers 10% and so on. Now there is a difference between damaging a bridge and destroying the bridge. Each permanent bridge should have a certain amount of strength points. Lets say 50 points just as an example. To destroy the bridge you would have to eliminate all 50 strength points. Damaging the bridge is a different matter. If 1 full strength engineer platoon is successful in damaging the bridge then 5% of the strength points are removed, 2 engineers 10% and so on. Once the bridge loses lets say 50% of its strength, the bridge is still usable but movement limitation is limited just as if there were wrecks on a road, or a block on a road. Once the bridge points are reduced even further, this would limit what types of vehicles could cross the bridge. As an example medium or heavy vehicles could no longer cross the bridge just like heavy tanks could not cross a medium bridge or medium tanks could not cross a light bridge etc. Infantry could always cross a damaged Permanent Bridge but at a reduced movement rate depending on the amount of damage. There should also be units to repair a damaged bridge just like units which can remove wrecks. A destroyed Permanent Bridge can never be repaired. Having the Permanent Bridges impervious to any type of damage is ridiculous.

River crossings

There should be no realistic reasons why you should not be able to cross a river or major river and have to have shallow water to begin the crossing. As a kid we had a rowboat, canoe and a few rubber rafts which we used to fish in the Schuylkill river in PA. The depth of the water where we would launch the boats was at least 6' deep and we simply pushed part of the boat in the water some got in and the others pushed the remainder of the boat in the water and jumped in or all got in and pushed off the bank with paddles. There is no realistic reason why you should need shallow water to cross any type of river with a raft crewed boat etc. in this game and should be changed.

River crossing vehicles and River Depth

Both the Allies and Axis units in WWII had vehicles which could cross water obstacles depending on how deep the water was. They should be added to the OBs. Additionally rivers did not always have the same depths at all points along the length of the river as this game does not depict, and I am not referring to placing shallow water hexes. Some points on the river may/could have a depth of 20' some other point 10' some points 4' etc. If a scenario is designed with a river, each point (hex) along the length of that river should have a designated depth and the depth of the river can be found just like pressing the coordinate key. Crossing deeper water by vehicles/inf which can actually cross the river at that point, would place sever movement costs on the units which could cross in that hex and possibly be disrupted after crossing but should still be able to cross the river a certain points without the use of a bridge, boat, ferry, or adding a shallow water hex etc.

Just some thoughts
Any feedback is welcome
Joe

[ScoutsOut]

I second everything...TJ

[Huib Versloot]

I disagree with everything

CS is a game and games have limitations to as what can be programmed and what not. I don't have issues with the current way rivers and bridges are modelled. It fits the game scale and corresponding level of detail.


It is easy to say something has to be changed, it is a different matter to actually program it. I don't see much benefits looking at the more urgent issues and recources available for development.

The permanent bridges can be damaged with an easy workaround in the design. Actually sometimes it is desirable that they can't be destroyed (for example the Nijmegen bridges)

[John Given]

I pretty much agree with all points Troll, however,

1. Shallow points in a minor river use fjord / ford hexsides to simulate shallow places where units can cross.

2. For JTCS, there are German and U.S. units in the oob that are amphibious. I'm not sure about the other nationalities.

3. I agree that bridges crossing major rivers, along with pontoons, need to be made destructible by engineers as well as artillery and even airstrikes. However, I'm not sure this can be coded into the game engine. Jason Petho might know.

4. I would like to see more engineering vehicles used in the game for bridging under combat conditions. Jasson Petho told me once that there are U.S. units in the oob that are capable of this, so this tells me that the capability has been coded into the game already. It is entirely possible that this technology was rare / undeveloped in most nations at the time. I have seen old photos of WWII-era German bridgelayers, so I know they had bridgelayers as well. I seem to recall from my old Panzer Leader days the Brits had a unit called the Valentine Bridgelayer, so there's that.

[Troll]

1 My basic thought process concerning the Permanent Bridges is and that in real life, they can be and were destroyed and damaged, and 2 you can compile code for this game to do anything you want it to do, you just have to write the code. You could write code to make a jeep fly if you wanted :) and 3 What about the Remagen Bridge?. The Germans and the Allies and with a few exceptions destroyed just about every bridge that crossed the Rhine. I guess the bottom line for me is that anything made by humans and or nature can be overcome in one way or another. As far as vehicles crossing the rivers and deep spots, I am not refering to the DD Tanks or Ducks, but there were other vehicles which had their exaust systems modified to do this type of crossing but with limitations.

Joe

[Scud]

Maybe, but don't forget the 6 minute game turn. If engineers arrive at a bridge on turn 2, how long will it take them to wire up the bridge with explosives and detonate it? Even not under fire I have to believe it would take awhile.

Using air power to destroy a bridge, however is a much more interesting point, and I'd have to agree. Be a lot of fun in some scenarios. I'd want it to be a designer's choice, though, more than a game-wide feature.

As for river crossing, I agree that one should be able to launch a boat from any riverside hex, regardless of river depth, provided you could get a boat to that spot in the first place (obviously cliff side hexes, heavily wooded hexes, shouldn't work). As it is now, one can only assume the river in that spot is running too fast to launch a boat.

It is easy to say something has to be changed, it is a different matter to actually program it. I don't see much benefits looking at the more urgent issues and recources available for development.

Although I agree with this, it never hurts to put forth ideas. I've found the Matrix people to be very open to the "can do's" and "can't do's". The "shouldn't do's", can, of course, be discussed here. :)

Dave

[Troll]

Hi Scud, yes the 6min rule is always a real life issue. Right now I am playing 2 games of "A Close Run Thing" of 45 turns and @ 6mins a turn that comes out to be 270 mins or just 4 1/2 hours of actual time, even though the scenario represents the first 5 days of the actual battle. So there can be a time issue in many scenarios. But as I said in my post, the engineer can only damage the bridge on a number of turns and if fortunate enough, may eventually destroy it and that is why a large bridge should have high defence values and the time factors to plant explosives etc. That is how I factored in the damage part of my idea and the 6min rule. In 6 mins or 12 mins or even more mins, engineers could blow a whole in the roadway to make things more difficult to move across the bridge. or damage the structure in some way that weakens the bridge. I also agree that it should be a designers choice, and that you could not launch a boat from prohibited terrain.


Thanks for your feedback guys gals

Joe

[Huib Versloot]

The time span of a turns is a different discussion. There are virtually no scenarios where a turn represents indeed 6 minutes, hence there are no designers I know of who consistantly use(d) the concept that a turn is 6 minutes. Not the current designers, nor the original Talonsoft designers. It simply doesn't work in practice.

My "problem" with most of the suggestions for rivers/bridging here is that they are probably too detailed for this game scale. I have also not come across historical situations in my scenarios where I would need this level of detail.

I agree however that a crewed boat should be able to be launched from any hex bordering the river. I'm not sure if it can be programmed to make that possible, as I think it might have implications on other boats (landing craft) that would normally not be able to enter a land hex.

[Herr Straße Laufer]

River crossings

There should be no realistic reasons why you should not be able to cross a river or major river and have to have shallow water to begin the crossing. As a kid we had a rowboat, canoe and a few rubber rafts which we used to fish in the Schuylkill river in PA. The depth of the water where we would launch the boats was at least 6' deep and we simply pushed part of the boat in the water some got in and the others pushed the remainder of the boat in the water and jumped in or all got in and pushed off the bank with paddles. There is no realistic reason why you should need shallow water to cross any type of river with a raft crewed boat etc. in this game and should be changed.

Hey Joe,

Nice points.
I grew up in King of Prussia and now live in Lansdale. I know that Schuykill river. Don't you think that it would be considered a minor river in the game system? Think about crossing it and still having movement points left? :chin:

The Delaware is one that is more like a Major river? :smoke:

In the crossing of either you still have to consider that the units involved would have to be combat effective when they come out the other side?
The game has it's issues when it comes to those kind of details; such as launching rafts, light boats, etc..
How much can be cleaned up, in scale, and how much can be simply programmed in is another issue altogether?




HSL

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Hi Scud, yes the 6min rule is always a real life issue. Right now I am playing 2 games of "A Close Run Thing" of 45 turns and @ 6mins a turn that comes out to be 270 mins or just 4 1/2 hours of actual time, even though the scenario represents the first 5 days of the actual battle. So there can be a time issue in many scenarios. But as I said in my post, the engineer can only damage the bridge on a number of turns and if fortunate enough, may eventually destroy it and that is why a large bridge should have high defence values and the time factors to plant explosives etc. That is how I factored in the damage part of my idea and the 6min rule. In 6 mins or 12 mins or even more mins, engineers could blow a whole in the roadway to make things more difficult to move across the bridge. or damage the structure in some way that weakens the bridge. I also agree that it should be a designers choice, and that you could not launch a boat from prohibited terrain.


Thanks for your feedback guys gals

Joe

Joe, I like your thinking.
I wish that some of the scenario designers would look more to the scale of the game when creating scenarios. But, that is simply completely another issue, that cannot be changed.

I think that pontoon bridges, even a full hex wide, should be subject to the bridge destruction rules that exist for hexside bridges. They are so much easier to effectively damage? :eek1:



HSL

[Hawk Kriegsman]

nor the original Talonsoft designers.

You could not be more wrong. It was absolutely their intention. I quote from the various Talonsoft Game Manuals.

EF Guide (1995), Page 1: "A game turn is equivalent to 6 minutes of real time."

EF Campaign CD 1 Manual (1997), Page 1: "Each game turn is equivalent to about 6 minutes of real time."

EF II Manual (1998), Page 2: "Turns are equivalent to approximately 6 minutes of real time."

WF Manual (1998), Page 2: "Each game turn is equivalent to about 6 minutes of real time."

RS Manual (1999), Page 17: "The game scale is 6 minutes per turn and 250 meters per hex (exceptions: Game Turns during a night scenario represent a longer period of time due to units normally moving slower at night, and the scale of some smaller islands maps has been "stretched" slightly for playabilities sake)."

Pretty clear to me as to the original designers intent.

It seems that the current Matrix game sees it the same too.
John Tiller's Campaign Series Manual (Matrix 2008) Section 1, Page 13: "Combat is performed on a “hex grid” map that has defined wargaming for over three decades. Each “hex” represents 250 meters; with 4 hexes to a kilometer or 6 hexes to a mile. Turns are equivalent to approximately 6 minutes of real time."

Now as you have stated that is a discussion for a different thread.

New post for river thoughts.

Thanx!

Hawk

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Permanent bridges should be able to be destroyed and or damaged by engineers/arty fire/ air power etc to bring realism to the game.

If you are talking hexside bridges then I agree 100%.

There are plenty instances of smaller bridges being taken out this way.

If you are talking full hex bridges then I disagree 100%.

I am unaware of major bridges being destroyed by gunfire or artillery. By conscentrated air strikes absolutely taken out, by close air support. No.

Having the Permanent Bridges impervious to any type of damage is ridiculous.

Possibly you could have major bridges be considered wired for a scenario, but as Huib correctly points out that is well beyond CS scale.

River crossings
There should be no realistic reasons why you should not be able to cross a river or major river and have to have shallow water to begin the crossing. As a kid we had a rowboat, canoe and a few rubber rafts which we used to fish in the Schuylkill river in PA. The depth of the water where we would launch the boats was at least 6' deep and we simply pushed part of the boat in the water some got in and the others pushed the remainder of the boat in the water and jumped in or all got in and pushed off the bank with paddles. There is no realistic reason why you should need shallow water to cross any type of river with a raft crewed boat etc. in this game and should be changed.

Did you and your friends do this in uniform, with boots on, combat webbing, ammo, 2 days of food, rifle, baynoet, e-tool, first aid kit, loaded ruck sack, etc.... in the rain, snow, sleet, while being shot at or under artillery fire?

I will assume no. That is the best reason I can give you. It is easy in a shorts and t-shit. Not so much in full combat gear.

Also CS has no provisions for screwing up a boat loading (tipping over, overloading, etc...)

I think the loading process is fine. I do agree that once loaded shallow or deep water should not matter. I think the issue here is deep water also represents ocean and seas. Tough to put a row boat in the ocean.

Maybe the better option is to add a third type of water, like ocean. :chin:

That way manpowered craft can use shallow or deep water, but not ocean.

River crossing vehicles and River Depth
Both the Allies and Axis units in WWII had vehicles which could cross water obstacles depending on how deep the water was. They should be added to the OBs. Additionally rivers did not always have the same depths at all points along the length of the river as this game does not depict, and I am not referring to placing shallow water hexes. Some points on the river may/could have a depth of 20' some other point 10' some points 4' etc.

There are all sorts of vehicles in the game that can do this. The game already takes this into account with fords, deep rivers and shallow rivers. Placing shallow water is how you take into account for shallow spots where veicles can cross.

Most vehicles I believe have a fording depth of 3 to 4 feet.

At CS scale this is just fine.

If a scenario is designed with a river, each point (hex) along the length of that river should have a designated depth and the depth of the river can be found just like pressing the coordinate key. Crossing deeper water by vehicles/inf which can actually cross the river at that point, would place sever movement costs on the units which could cross in that hex and possibly be disrupted after crossing but should still be able to cross the river a certain points without the use of a bridge, boat, ferry, or adding a shallow water hex etc.

This level of detail is well beyond CS scale. I am not even sure if Combat Missions has this level of detail.

Although a ferry type of special building would be nice and could prove to be useful.

Thanx!

Hawk