Trench warfare 100 years later

[Aeraaa]

Originally Posted by Isto

Imagine, a squad waiting in ambush in forest and enemy squad comes within close range of 8 men with automatic weapons who open fire. I say dead squad game says 2 men killed.

Company of soldiers marching through field and two machine guns in the forest with elevated positions opens fire, i say at least half of the company if not the whole company - game says 2 men killed.

Also, irl every single soldier would be pinned down immediately, in the game couple squads has a change to be.

Of corse, there is also the game mechanics of turn based combat that could not be exploited in the real life.

In my opinion the game is fine as it is and would not be so interesting if it would be more realistic in that regard.

Here I need to tell that a squad moving around the battlefield is not 8 men nicely packed together for a camera shot like in a typical Hollywood movie. A squad occupies the ENTIRE hex in the game (which is 50*50 meters area, approximately anyway since we're talking about a hexagon and not a square). In addition, a squad also has specific formations IRL, designed to maximize the protection of the squad. So in an ambush maybe only the pointman was spotted and whacked, but the rest of the squad immediately took cover and returned fire (or fell back). It is a game's illusion that a spotted squad means every single person in the squad got detected. Entire squads wiped out is not a common thing but it can happen and I do remember instances of squads evaporating with the first shot of an enemy squad from 50 meters away.



As for the machinegun comment, I will advice you to look at more historical cases than the first day of the Somme. Again, machineguns do not mow down an infantry company that has most of its soldiers covered and concealed (and yes, there is plenty of both even in an apparently clear hex). In fact, that is why most fire range performances of weapon systems do not match actual combat performance. You rarely have many targets to shoot and for more than 1-2 seconds at best. High rate of fire though can be a very persuasive tool for the enemy to keep their heads down and do not try any silly ideas like advance or shoot back. That is why suppressive fire is so important and why firepower (either explosives or fast firing weapons) is the dominant factor in a firefight, even more that accuracy.

I do agree though that fire should have a bigger effect on the morale of the people on the receiving end. Something like ASL's system would be perfect (squads that are receiving heavy fire can be broken, which means they are pretty much useless and their only goal becomes retreating into cover unless a leader rallies them).


the short version: weapons do not massacre entire formations because said formations do not expose themselves to get shot at in the first place.

[Isto]

Thinking an ambush wont work against troops that sees it coming.

Let the point man to walk past the ambush and shoot when the rest of the squad has a back visible.

In where i live there are lots of places with no cover at all. Just flat ground with 0-10 cm of height difference. (Man made fields that have crops 2 months in a year)

Sometimes these areas are kilometers wide enveloped by forest with rocks. (Lakes in winter)

And rest of the terrain is forest as far as you can see. (All natural terrain is covered in a forest.)

These things have been recorded to happen in real war.

There is also things when 2 soldiers capture whole squad of enemy troops ambushing them in forest and so.

Given, against cityfolk conscripts done by ppl that live in the countryside.

Thinking that irl routed and retreating units might shoot back so in my opinion the morale mechanics in the game work just fine.

[Imp]

Try reading more books before you comment on real life.
Open terrain like you mentioned if the squad had any sense they would be dispersed and using bounding movement.
Close ambush in jungle or street cleaning according to you no one would advance ever in that sort of terrain because they would all be dead.
Vietnam they quickly found out if you want a successful ambush those first 2 kills better take out the men in command, you might get your result then otherwise it’s a close quarters fire fight.
A nutter hero type on either side could change the outcome, you want a defender look up the Gurka who lost an arm to a grenade and still took out 31 Japanese.
Attacker read about Kursk biggest tank battle ever lots of infantry to, it was the beginning of the end for Germany because they could not afford the losses but they somehow advanced for a while against prepared positions with impossible odds.

[Isto]

Know only about local history and terrain.

Crop fields are made intentionally so that defending would be more easy in the boarder. Terrain have been terraformed so that large portion of the country can be flooded in a water if enemy forces invade too deep. Large underground vaults have been built and so on.

Long history of enemy invasions for some reason, there aint even anything valuable here. Maybe just because they can.

People fear that it might happen again.

Lying in wait under the snow when fresh snow have rained on the top is hard to spot and can be done in open terrain too. Its also warmer than outside the snow. All equipment might not function and only specialized vehicles may be used.

Groups travel in lines when using ski's. The first one makes lanes for rest of them. Extremely there might be more snow than the height of a man.

Often there is snow half of a year.

[Suhiir]

As much as every combat situation is similar to every other one it's also unique.

There are always situational variables the good commanders (be they officers leading a division or sergeants leading a squad) take into account. And as always, movies are NOT a good source of information.

You mention skis ... story time:

Back in 1976ish the Norwegian government decided it was time to relax their post WW II policy about foreign troops being permitted on Norwegian soil (don't know the details, it was just what we were told at the time). So, since the USMC was slated for Norway in the event of WW III they sent some up there for a joint exercise with the Norwegians. And FAR more importantly to test the currently stockpiled/issued cold weather gear (90% of it failed miserably, modern Marines may thank us for sleeping mats, an idea we stole from the Norwegians, and Gore-Tex cold weather gear). So we found ourselves near Tromsø in November ...

Of course everyone (in Norway at least) knows US Marines spend all their time in jungles (WW II and Vietnam) thus know absolutely nothing about snow. Needless to say the guys from Colorado, Utah, Montana, Minnesota, Alaska, Maine, and other states were skiing is fairly popular all strapped a pair on and paid the Norwegian base camp a 4 AM visit. For some reason they didn't seem to expect us to do it to them at all, much less before they could do it to us