Attacking

[RockinHarry]

..One simple example without flags: An attacker is given the order to gain possession of a hill... The defender is given the order to just hold the line...

What does "gain possession of a hill" mean exactly?
Why not just plonk a flag on the hilltop so that we'll know for sure who possesses the hill at the end?

And what does "hold the line" mean exactly?
Why not just plonk several flags along the line so we'll know without doubt at the end who holds them?

See, playing without flags means there are too many grey areas, wheras by using flags everything is clear-cut in black and white..;)

"If somebody tells me something is not a clear-cut black and white issue, I say 'Why the hell not?" - John Wayne

In the described case, "possession" means enough terrain on that hill that you can place heavy weapons and FO´s in to excert control on the village and surrounding terrain. That´s what hills are good for (if not heavily wooded), to command the surrounding terrain and provide LOS far into the enemy territory (or to prevent the enemy from the same benefits) Do you think of that, when you see a flag plonked on any hill?

I´ve seen many scenarios where a (big) flag was placed on such hills that do not have any military meaning (example: a heavily wooded hill that does NOT provide any observation into the surrounding landscape. ) You just have a terrain feature that BOTH human opponents have to fight for cause the scenario designer decided to put a flag there.

"hold the line", do not let the enemy break in or through the chosen line (MLR = main line of resistance). A RL commander normally decides on his own where to employ available units and heavy weapons. The higher command gives a general A-B line (setup zone in CM) and the sub commander (the player) then distributes his units, by considerations of terrain (cover and concealment), tank proofness, lines of fire ect. This is thinking a player has to make, NOT the scenario maker by enforcing a particular setup by use of flags.

Why do you need flags to evaluate whether your opponent has broken your defense line?? Why does your opponent need to know what parts of your line are more important than others? The scenario maker sets these things in stone at a micro level when placing too many flags for these purposes. Many battles don´t even have the opponents know where the main lines of defenses are. Why should I let him know by placing flags at obvious palces?

War is anything but black and white, so should be realistic CM battles.

Maybe a more simple game setup to support the general idea is to have a scenario that just makes use of the exit map victory goal. The attacker needs (part of) his units exit the map, while the defender has to prevent this. You don´t need any flags to get this type of game working. Now both players need to evaluate what terrain parts will support their particular goals. Now should I place a flag on the only hill on the map? If the attacker decides to use a valley that is not commanded by this single hill, should the scenario maker enforce the attacker to split forces for capturing a tactical meaningless map spot?

Off course a scenario needs to offer these tactical possibilities to employ different ways for winning a particular sides goals. If you have a 500 x 500m map, a river with a single bridge, ect. then there´s surely no possibilities for employing different tactics and you can go well with just plonking a single flag onto this bridge. But that´s just not my style of game and 90% of the games possibilities is simply wasted.

Another example; when placing a flag onto a bridge and one opponent takes possession of the flag, what is it worth, when the enemy still can place heavy fire on the bridge which means in real life the one who grabbed the flag can not cross significant forces to make full use of it?

Same for various sorts of bridgeheads. When is a bridgehead secured? when the enemy can not take the crossing points under observed fire anymore! Most scenario makers simply plonk a flag on the enemy side of a river (enemy defending) and tell the attacker to cross and capture the flag to win that bridgehead. That has nothing to do with the real battles fought and real decicisions that were made to fight these battles.

No problem when many players use CM as a simplistic competition game with WW2 background to have some fun. It´s just not my style of play (which goes more towards "reenactement" and combat studies)