Improving Night Move Disruption

[76mm]

While I like the night move disruption rule, I think it could be improved in a couple of ways:

1) The current rule makes it very difficult to rotate defenders in/out of defensive positions or to assemble attackers in jump-off positions before an attack at dawn, both of which often occur at night. Given that these kind of maneuvers would be planned, short-distance, moves in friendly territory, it seems odd to treat them the same as blundering around in no man's land at night. For instance, a move into attack jumping off positions for a dawn attack could be carefully planned and slowly implemented to minimize the chance for disruption.

In particular, I would propose that move of no more than one hex into a hex alread occupied by a friendly unit, would not be subject to Night Move Disruption. Of course coding something like this might make it not worth it, but I thought I'd toss it out there.

2) On the other side of the coin, very often I am able to conduct a successful night assault after which my attacking units are not disrupted. It seems odd that a unit is so likely to become disrupted when moving in friendly territory, but when attacking at night, they often are not disrupted. I would think that that chances of a unit being disrupted after a night attack, even a successful one, would be much higher than currently (I saw in the manual that units are twice as likely to become disrupted at night, but I don't think it is enough, because currently units are generally not disrupted after successful night assaults).

Would be interested in others' view on this...

[Dog Soldier]

The primary purpose of the night disruption rule was to prevent the 24/7 operations at full scale. Some night movement is still possible. Full scale movement as during the day no longer is practical. The addition of a night disruption percentage addressed a problem that had existed in the series for a long time.

Night turns are four to six hours long depending on the title. While movement costs and movement allowance (including the movement cost to assault) are unchanged, the longer time period represented in night turns models the planned, short-distance, moves in friendly territory. It essentially requires 2x or 3x the time at night to cover one hex in deployed mode at night than during the day.

Units are not blundering around. A sentry could accidentally shoot an officer rendering the moving unit 'less effective' when dawn comes. An enemy sniper might accomplish the same. Also enemy firing a machine gun burst at 'noise' or dropping a few small mortar rounds in the direction of noise or light sources could cause a unit to go to ground for a time, maybe even be pinned until daylight. There are many reasons. At the scale of the game, there is no need to have a direct fire attack resolved to simulate this. The disruption at night from the rule simulates these and many other events that caused units to be unable to fully function at dawn after a night maneuver. The disruption of the unit is temporary again achieving the feel we were looking for without a complex set of variables to program to simulate a variable time frame for a unit to reorganize after a night move. I think the rule elegantly achieves the uncertainty for the player that a night moving unit will be ready to go at dawn every time.

I had originally proposed that all movement at night had to be in travel mode, not just that confined to roads to avoid night disruption. The idea was that units could make limited moves at night. They would be vulnerable to night disruption or enemy fire in travel mode if the rotation of the units was discovered by the enemy. Such discovery in game turns could be disastrous if a unit disrupted in travel mode and had to endure the other player's turn in such a state. My thought was this risk would make players more cautious as they should be about night movement. Inexperienced players would learn fast.

Not all rotation of units at night was successful. I would disagree with your proposal to have a 'free move' of one hex at night. Perhaps on a static quiet front the maneuver has a high probability of success. During a break through by the attacking side or after extensive fighting perhaps the chances of success are less.

Terrain and which game title was being simulated would make a big difference. The steppes around Stalingrad in winter would be vastly different than in the city. Making a rotation in the desert would be different in Crusader (where there are several accounts of units becoming lost or simply passing the enemy at close range, neither side realizing who the other was) than in Alamein which was a more set piece battle. Tunisia was another case altogether with an excellent road network.

How would you compare night movement in France 1940 with movement in Moscow 1942? Summer versus winter, variances in the light provided by the moon or lack of such due to clouds. All fairly complex modeling which JT did not want to get into.

The night disruption percentage as it is now a broad brush stroke to simulate the 'feel' of night movement at the operational level of the game system rather than to capture an exact situation. One can and does make night movements with high quality units (read better leaders not represented at the unit level) even in M42 with 60% chance of disruption. If the unit disrupts, how quickly can it rally? In game terms those attacking units can move up at night , then rally (read reorganize) to be ready for a dawn assault. The game mechanism works quite well in this case. Poor leadership units (average and lower quality) do not work so well at night and are better left to rest.

As to your second point about night assaults, they may work well against disrupted enemy units that have already yellow or red fatigue from the day's fighting. They may fail more often against units with low fatigue (less than 50 fatigue points). Against the AI things work much better than against a human opponent in PzC. Most all play testing of new concepts like the night disruption rule was geared toward PBEM play by very experienced PBEM players.

Your chance of severe fatigue from a failed assault may render the attacking unit from green to red fatigue requiring the better part of a day or more to recover in most titles. Once you get burned with a night attack, you will reconsider the value of assaulting at night.

Dog Soldier

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

For what it's worth, IMO, going from past conflicts on into the modern era to present day, more and more activities are being conducted at night. I served from 78-82 and 91-95 and despite all those years before I joined, while I was and the years between my volunteering and the second round I was in, being Mech inf, nuke security near the front during the Cold War, mech inf again and then the second time, was all Light Inf, no matter how much you train, things still get disrupted during night operations, not always, but still frequent enough. Besides the things mentioned by Dog Soldier, you have to consider the route the lead element or single man takes might not be exactly the one selected. Other obstacles could be a fence no one knew or thought about that disrupts the timing and slowing the advance because the only way around it was wide enough for only one man at a time. One cannot know everything about a battle area or movement route. The lead element could take a wrong turn resulting in more time to get to where they are going. I have still been able to move most of my units at night without too much disruption. If anything, I would think because WWII was more in the beginning of doing things at night, disruption at night should be higher or leaving it where it is at, movement would cost more making things much slower.

Something I would rather see is a change in contact for units in travel mode. Of course it would be a random percentage because it could go either way. I am in a tourney where I had PG company in tmode run into a small para unit, movement went to zero and my next turn it is broken, an A or B quality unit at that. I can accept the broken as part of the going either way because it could also have just been disrupted or unaffected, that is the random part of it. Considering whether it is a day or night turn is irrelevant because we are talking at least two hours per turn. I find it hard to believe every unit will always stay in tmode, especially the better quality uniits. There should be something that will automatically change the unit from tmode to tactical mode similar to units in squad battles going to ground when fired upon. That would make more sense to me. The opening volley may have been enough to break a unit, but it should be more random and a unit deploys rather than staying in tmode all the time. Just a thought.

[Dog Soldier]

First I would point out that not all titles have a value in the pdt for night disruption. the patches added an entry placeholder of zero. Perhaps as a community we can determine what a good value for each title published before T43 or F14 should be.

I would expect the MC titles to want something a little less than what can be used in PzC.

Bottom line, is this parameter can have a big effect on a two or three day scenario where the VC are geared to knowing people would fight on through the night. The best impact is in the campaign games where this rule really changes the tempo making people think ahead on that last daylight turn whether to remain in contact or not with the opposing force.
Best to have both parties agree on it before the game starts.

OJW - has an interesting point about travel mode. However, I would like to ask, should a unit be able to deploy as you propose after the first second or third defensive fire from the unit 'bumped into' or after a defensive artillery barrage is called down on the luckless travel mode unit? Should only defensive fire be allowed as you propose while the unit is vulnerable? I can see that being abused. Defensive fire can never even happen in many cases.
The current arrangement where your opponent is allowed to pummel the travel mode unit in his turn simulates not an end to end arrangement as each player takes a turn, but an abstraction of what happened in those two hours without a strict sequence of 'this happened in my turn, now that happened in your turn'.

I, for one, like the current arrangement as is makes one think hard before barreling down a road or across country in travel mode. And if there are enemy units in your backfield waiting to ambush such a unit, then better rear area security is required or maybe a judgement that the front is broken, fluid or whatever one wants to call it and move much more carefully, even in 'safe zones'.

Dog Soldier

[76mm]

Dog Soldier,

Thanks for your detailed comments; as you point out, there are certainly many factors involved. Your point which I found most convincing is that if you want to move units up into attack positions to be ready at dawn, use good quality troops and move them in the night turn so even if they disrupt they have a decent chance of rallying to be able to assault at dawn.

However I proposed the one-hex-into-friendly-occupied hex exemption because I do think there could be situations where night moves could go more or less smoothly, because routes have been reconoittered, marked, with guides from adjacent units, etc. But these would probably be a small subset of night moves, so no big deal.

I still find night assaults too easy to do without disruption, however. While I'm playing against the AI, I don't understand why that is particularly important; whether I'm assaulting a disrupted AI or human-controlled unit, shouldn't the result be the same? Generally I don't do night assaults unless I'm rather confident that they'll succeed, and if they do succeed the attackers are almost never disrupted, which seems odd.

[ComradeP]

One could argue that the way units in T-mode are attacked currently isn't entirely historical, because the game sort of assumes all men are on the same meter at the frontline. They are not actually moving in column formation, as every single man in a formation seems to be vulnerable.

That's one of the things I've been waiting for in PC wargames, now that the PC can do the calculations: variability in how many men in an on-map unit are actually at the frontline. In most wargames, you can move a unit up and essentially attack on the march, even though realistically a larger formation would take hours or most of a day to deploy to a combat formation. The game more or less penalizes you for using larger units, because if you use a battalion you have a statistically higher chance that the unit will be disrupted or broken than all 3 or 4 companies if you'd use companies. Also because after the first company makes contact, you're less inclined to move all of the others in as well.

A historical Hell's Highway situation seems to be unlikely in the game. Historically, the Germans might infiltrate back into a village. They would shoot up the leading Allied platoon(s) in a transport column, then the Allied troops closest to the village would dismount to engage the Germans. All in one night. In the game, in the first turn the leading unit might be disrupted or broken and might not recover until dawn, if that.

As such, the game sort of makes defending bottlenecks with smaller units at night more effective/economical than it would be historically, because there's a smaller chance the attackers can remove them from their position before dawn.

[raizer]

Disagree comrade. It is not as cut and dry and you posit. Your companies will acquire fatigue x3 faster than battalions. So if you are defending at night with a company and I hit it with arty it could get 20-40 fatigue over the course of one single turn from one unit...you assault it with a battalion its fatigue will hit 100-all in one shot. Company units could get whacked with 150 fatigue in one night move while the same unit in battalion would take less than 5o. If you keep your units in battalion strength the fatigue will only be 1/3 as bad. Same goes with the more important thing of Fatigue recovery-REST. Your units recover quicker when they are made whole, into battalions, instead of resting and recovering in little company units.

So defend with small units at your own risk.

Now if you have to move at night...with good troops you can break them up, move them as companies and then reform all the ones that did not disrupt into a big as group as possible.

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

I personally don't agree with companies suffering more than battalions for the simple fact, that even today, unless you are into military history like us, you don't know much of what is going on past your company. So, if a bn is broken down into companies, it should still be the same rate suffered.

The only real solution I could think of for the tmode is to create a tactical travel mode, moves slower than travel mode, but faster than tactical mode, half way would be good, maybe a little faster. Casualties/fatigue would be less than tmode, but more than tactical mode. There was a difference between a unit moving from one town to another behind the front and a unit advancing toward or in enemy territory in travel mode. In the latter case, the soldiers are supposed to be on alert and covering both sides of the road they are travelling on so there is a difference than just your standard travel mode to change camps or reserve positions vs advancing. IMO, it is worth thinking about.

[Dog Soldier]

I still find night assaults too easy to do without disruption, however. While I'm playing against the AI, I don't understand why that is particularly important; whether I'm assaulting a disrupted AI or human-controlled unit, shouldn't the result be the same? Generally I don't do night assaults unless I'm rather confident that they'll succeed, and if they do succeed the attackers are almost never disrupted, which seems odd.

"While I'm playing against the AI," says everything. I think if you play a human opponent you would not find such 'easy meat' as what the AI leaves for you.

Here is how a human would deal with the situation that you will never see playing the AI.

That disrupted unit may have been retreated so now you need to risk night disruption to move back into contact in your turn. After moving up, you then may not possess the MP required to assault that turn.

My turn, I pound your pursuing unit(s) with artillery and retreat the disrupted unit again. It is already disrupted, no risk to me except for the fatigue gained for night movement.

Your second night turn you move up again, risking disruption for those units which survived the artillery bombardment or rallied after being disrupted by it. You end your turn again without sufficient MP to assault.

My turn. Not only can I hit your pursuing units with artillery, but also you now walked in to a couple of hexes packed with fresh defending troops who, at the least, shoot your pursing unit(s) to Hades or, if you disrupt from a repeat of last turn's artillery bombardment, assault your up to now pursuing unit(s) causing huge fatigue on your troops, push your boys back a hex or two, and leave your troops in no condition to continue pursuing should I decide (as the Germans usually do in M42 winter) to continue to retire to a better line of defense at dawn.

Score - You have for your efforts a gaggle of badly mauled troops in one unit or several.
Me - I have one unit still disrupted but no longer pursued as it retires while the other units move off as a fire brigade to the next hot spot. Maybe one of my 'hit squad' units stays behind to make sure no other new enemy units try to push on this area until the companion unit recovers from disruption and some fatigue. I can bet it will before your troops do.

While this tactic may not always work, it will more often than not. There are many more things a human opponent will do that you will never see playing the AI. Nothing is certain in war or PBEM play as it is when playing the pinata called the AI.

The AI never thinks more than one turn at a time, IMHO. A human opponent obviously will.

The AI is your drill sergeant at boot camp. It will teach you the basics. When you arrive at the front though, the 'old hands' will want to rub that green off you fast so you do not get them killed. Be prepared for all your well thought out tactics that worked so well in 'training' against the AI, to go out the window for the most part when you play PBEM and you get your head handed to you. The best push through this initial frustration and are rewarded by learning how deep the rabbit hole goes in this series of games. There are many subtleties in these games that are only revealed by experience. And experience comes from bad decisions. I know. Been there, done that.

You will have many hours of enjoyment after this second learning curve. After all this is a hobby and a game. No chance having learning cut short as in real war.

Dog Soldier

[ComradeP]

raizer: I'm mostly talking about moving in travel mode and encountering an enemy, where with the current engine you have a disadvantage if you advance with a battalion.

Two examples:

-A battalion moves 2 up the road in T-mode. It bumps into an enemy unit and is fired upon. Considering that it's in travel mode, there's a reasonable chance it will either disrupt that turn or during your opponent's turn.
-A battalion splits up into companies and only one company moves 2 hexes up the road. The company might get mauled by the defensive fire of the defender, but the rest of the battalion is still perfectly fine, without the enemy knowing where it is.

If, in the case of the examples, the defender was 2 hexes up the road, so your units only move 1, and the defenders assault your company, they will end up adjacent to the rest of the battalion.

In the case of the second example, you now know where the defenders are and can prepare to attack them. In the case of the first example, you get a situation like Dog Soldier described and are essentially always 1 step behind the enemy.