Shoot & Scoot

[Herr Straße Laufer]

The units are platoons, not individual tanks, as we all know. Factors such as optics and radio communication are fudged in favor of the Germans, vs the Russians, I believe.
Of course, the Russian player can always insist on playing with variable weather, but thats another can of worms...

There are many factors that make the Germans slightly better than the Soviets. Optics, radios, superior ammunition, better tactics, more experience, and an extra man in the turret all made the Germans better on an individual and operational level.
The Soviets did not come close to matching the Germans in those areas (exclusive of the turret crew) until later in the war. The Soviets even admit that their lack of radios was huge in large moving battles.
Variable visibility is no great equalizer as LOS can become greater and not just less?

The game does break down into who uses their units to the best abilities, of the individual units, to perform the larger task of killing the enemy and gaining victory.

RR

[RADO]

Greg:

I suppose we shall simply have to agree to disagree on what are "historical values". It seems that you believe them to be the values that one can obtain by lining up two pieces of equipment and measuring: range, penetration, chance of a hit and armour thickness, slope etc.

I would take that as a starting point (step A), and then line up forces from known engagements and see if historical results are possible. If they are not, then I would tweak the values until the historical results were possible. I would then attribute the tweaks to intangibles that the measurements in step A were not able to account for.

My guess is that the latter is the approach used by the original game designers, which is one reason why the values don't (exactly) match the testbench numbers.

umbro

Umbro,

Actual values are the starting point for any historical simulation. There has never been a game on WW2 (land combat) created that used real values, and all that I have seen have always had a "pro German" element built into the mechanism, for reasons that I simply do not understand. CS is no exception.

Doctrine is an important element in WW2 combat. It was the German military doctrine, and not their equipment that allowed them to do as well for as long as they did. Had Soviet military doctrine been on par with Germany, I sincerely doubt that the German invasion of Russia in 1941 would have passed beyond Minsk.

Even the French had better tanks in the West that Germany had in 1940. The Soviets used their armor as infantry support, and not as a separate entity as did the Germans. It was the combined use of equipment and tactics that made the Germans formidable. Posterity tells us well what happened once the Allies adopted the equivalent.

CS is a game, as I have previously stated, and a very good one, even with all its inaccuracies and flaws.

Until someone comes out with one better, I will continue to play it.

- Greg

[The Rattler]

I think as far as shoot and scoot goes it is like a normal day to day tactic. Leaving you armor exposed is asking for trouble especially against longer range weapons.It would seem a bit funny to have a rule that ment you had to leave armor in los of enemy once in contact.

Somtimes you may set up an ambush and hope the opfire works with the possibility that if sent into retreat from return fire, your unit retreats to a hex out of view.

It would be nice to have an extra option for opfire as regards armor and what units they opfire at. Being able to set opfire for tanks only for instance.

LOS is fine for me as you dont see the units in hexes straight away when advancing unless they opfire or you have had the hex under watch for some turns or bump into them by trying to enter that hex. Thats where the recon units come into it. Good spotters for unmoving/non firing units though may take some turns before spotting..
The hexes being 250m across its an overall representation. Due to that scale units hiding behind buildings or small ridges cannot be represented individually like say CM.

just some thoughts.

[Gordons HQ]

Yes very good point about leaving your units in the LOS, that was not really what I had in mind.
Just some kind of discouragement to over use of the tactic so it's not the forgone conclusion it often at present seems to be.
I think Huib stated it was all too easy to count op fire of units which remain in the LOS and under observation, I mean It's pretty easy to count to two or max three.
Therefore you can often come out of hiding put a shot or two in and retire into hiding with little prospect of fire being returned and generally with impunity unless something unspotted can fire upon you.
I like some of the ideas put forward that make you a unsure of the amount of op fire a unit has remaining, so it's no certain if you do this tactic whether infact fire will be returned upon you.
After all I think at best this shoot & scoot would be a slightly risky event to say the least.

Cheers

Gordon

[Huib Versloot]

Greg:

I suppose we shall simply have to agree to disagree on what are "historical values". It seems that you believe them to be the values that one can obtain by lining up two pieces of equipment and measuring: range, penetration, chance of a hit and armour thickness, slope etc.

I would take that as a starting point (step A), and then line up forces from known engagements and see if historical results are possible. If they are not, then I would tweak the values until the historical results were possible. I would then attribute the tweaks to intangibles that the measurements in step A were not able to account for.

My guess is that the latter is the approach used by the original game designers, which is one reason why the values don't (exactly) match the testbench numbers.

umbro

This is more or less how Jason and I re-did the Dutch 1940 forces for the last update. Somewhere along the line the original makers went all wrong (due to lack of historical and factual knowledge probably).

Huib

[The Rattler]

Ideas of extra opfire is interesting.......the extra fire being at reduced firepower.....that would make moving forwards a bit more uncertain again.

The 100 action points represent so many minutes of battle time? so say two shots at 35ap's each at this scale is actually many shots in "real time" x unit strength(numbers)

[Hawk Kriegsman]

This is all very fine guys and a great discussion, but I think we are getting a little off track and should be dealing only with one issue at a time.

Unfortunately when topics get discussed on this forum they tend to drift. It is nothing intentional, it just happens. If one really feels that a topic has been taken over and is being ruined by a poster/posters then one should use the report button so that the mods can become aware of the situation.

Just a reminder, the issue I was bringing up was the overuse of shoot and scoot in PBEM games.

With all due respect you have no real way of knowing if it is overused or not. You can logicaly only speak to your games. It has not been my experience in the 10 years I have been playing the game that scoot and shoot is a problem at all. It can be countered with effective planing and I have seen people mess it up with disastorous results.

One of the ways you can deal with the problems you have with shoot and scoot tactics by playing like minded opponents.

This suggestion I offer would give you a measure of relief from scoot and shoot while keeping it the game for others.

Thus making the games an unrealistic simulation of what occurred on the battlefields of WWII.

It is not unrealistic. Shoot and scoot was used considerably in WW2.
An infantry man would pop his head up from cover take a shot move a few yards and do it again. Tank doctrine from many countries was to move into hull down position, take a few shots and back out and go find another spot.

Units did not just stand there for 6 minutes or so blasting away. The historical evidence I have read does suggests otherwise.

There have been some good ideas put forward which may discourage the overuse of this tactic.

I am very curious as to what other tactics you don't like.

I think the beauty of the game is that you can try different things.

I mean if we all want a 100% historical simulation than it seems to me that there is no real reason to play. For a 100% historical simulation one would just need to pick a battle hit a button and watch the battle unfold as it happened.

Its not what I would want in the game as I want to see if I can alter history with my play, but to each his own.

Although I have no idea whether any of these are able to be designed into the game, or indeed if that is what others would like to see done. However it is giving us food for thought and perhaps Jason could answer that for us.

I personally do not see many people clamoring for this change at all.

I truly think that you could not remove shoot and scoot from the game. Most motorized / mechanized units will always be able to pop out one hex, take a shot and duck back. The only way to prevent that is if the game does not allow you to fire if you move during the turn. Then it becomes a different game all together.

IMO I think it would improve the game and it seems I am not alone in this thought.

I totally agree that you are not alone in your thoughts. Just as I know that I am not alone in my thoughts on shoot and scoot.

Exactly how many others agree we may never know unless you add your comments and thoughts.

I would think that the fact that only a handful of members posted on this subject may indicate that the majority of people are satisfied with the game as is or don't find it enough of an issue to get involved with.

I think any discussions on the ranges of vehicles and other aspects members want to discuss then please could they start a new thread.

Like I said above thread tend to wander on this forum.

Thanx!

Hawk

[Huib Versloot]

Ideas of extra opfire is interesting.......the extra fire being at reduced firepower.....that would make moving forwards a bit more uncertain again.

For some possible improvements on CS it is a good idea to look at how they did it in HPS PzC series. It was basically the next John Tiller game after CS. Some changes they made there no doubt originated from lessons learned when they made CS. Defensive OP fire is one of them.

Huib

[Hawk Kriegsman]

There is no question that IF a game designer were to make the weaponry and armor defensive values that more realistically portray the historical, it would in fact require a complete re-working of scenarios. I play CS because IMO, there is not a better game available on the subject at that scale.

That doesn't mean someone should not attempt to make one, and that is my point.

All the best.

Greg

Unfortunately you can't easily model the complete ineptitude of the Allies early in the war. What the Germans accomplished was staggering if you consider it.

I suggest to you to find any and all games you can concerning France 1940. I have played a ton of scenarios and games types. It is nearly impossible for the Germans to win unless the Allies follow the Dyle plan.

We as Generals of out computer (and cardboard) armies no where the historical general screwed up. So it very hard for the actual ineptitude of the various generals (or supreme leaders) to be modeled. Seriously in any strategic simulation of the East Front do you as the Germans follow the doctirine of not retreating until it is too late? No of course you don't.

So the place where advantages and disadvantages are most easily placed by game designers is in the attack, defense, movement and morale values of the units.

Thanx!

Hawk

[umbro]

It seems to me that shoot and scoot was not a very effective tactic pre-extreme assault. In general one was better off shooting until the defender was disrupted and overrunning, thereby capturing the enemy or pushing his LOS back and thus hiding your own forces. Thus, those extra APs were more often used to close and overrun not run away. However, extreme assault has had the (perhaps) unintended consequence of promoting tactics associated with direct fire effectiveness, and thus shoot and scoot is promoted.

However, to counter this unintended consequence with as minimal impact on other aspects of the game as possible could perhaps be achieved by changing opfire as below:
1) Instead of all SPs of a defender firing opfire at once only a portion do per opportunity (perhaps half)
2) the AP cost to opfire is calculated as (APs to fire)*(SPs firing)/(SP of unit)

In this way the total volume of opfire is not increased, but it becomes more difficult to drain opfire and predict when it will happen.

There are two effects:
1) Opfire becomes slightly less effective overall (because the attacker fires first his chance of inflicting loss or disruption on the defender before all the defender SPs have opfire is higher)
2) Shoot and scoot becomes less predictable as an attacker cannot know with certainty how much opfire face him.

umbro