A review and critique of ground forces in version 1.93

[Ehndras]

PS: The British are coming! 

Would LOVE to see more examples of variance in element behavior based on class, size, and armament.

We have to-hit variance for INF/mobile/static already. We have limited range variance between LGT/MED/HVY arty/aa. What else can be implemented to make things more chaotic, thus interesting? Collateral damage against allied elements at certain engagement distances from specific types of weapons should be a thing by default: never call heavy arty on the front lines in the middle of an active close-quarters engagement unless you want to send your boys home for a closed-casket funeral complete with flag and a letter of thanks signed by the President.

Following real-world examples, a tank clearing the way for mechanized infantry advance would focus-fire on enemy armor of sufficient classification (firepower v firepower & armor x target strategic value / distance) as opposed to wasting shots on IFV's and infantry accompaniment while ignoring the tank literally right next to it. If you can drop bombs or use arty to aerial-disperse anti-armor pellets within x km, save the tanks for mop-up duty. However depending on engagement distance and who gets to you first, it makes perfect sense to see tanks fighting off fortified or assaulting infantry while being flanked by enemy tanks. You don't nuke a village, you firebomb it. Escalation of force, logical use of firepower matched with target prioritization, automatic or even opt-in (alien intel screen?) designation of high-value targets, etc.

Sure, arty the wrong quadrant and gib a bunch of enemy infantry or non-combatants, but context dictates whether you armor armor leading the advance against heavy fortifications pre-softened by sustained artillery and aerial bombardment, or if you want limited heavy infantry harassment to draw out enemy armor, follow up with limited arty, and then send in the armor.

Ground force battles have incredible potential with the right additions!

[kenlon]

All of the things you posted about asymmetrical warfare are both utterly true, and completely irrelevant.

Formation organization in Aurora has nothing to do with what tactics are actually in use, they are abstractions.

Assume two sides. Both have only one combat element designed: 

Code: [Select]

Irregulars
Transport Size (tons) 3     Cost 0.06     Armour 8     Hit Points 8
Annual Maintenance Cost 0.0075     Resupply Cost 0.25
Light Personal Weapons:      Shots 1      Penetration 4      Damage 4

Vendarite  0.06   
Development Cost  3
On one side, you have 10,000 irregulars organized into one unit, plus appropriately sized non-combat HQ.
On the other, you have 100 units of 100 irregulars each, again with appropriate non-combat HQ.

In an ideal world, these should be evenly matched forces. Neither of them have access to any force multipliers, so it should come down to a near-even meatgrinder.

The question is, is that the case under the current ground combat model? (It would be really nice if we could get a more detailed look at the under-the-hood formula used, since all we have now are posts from Steve from multiple years ago that may or may not be accurate.) If simply splitting up an equal number of identical elements in more formations gives you an advantage, then ground combat balance will come down to what degree you are willing to spend time organizing ludicrously wide sub-formations, which is inelegant, to say the least.

EDIT: I will say that more detailed organization should be able to provide you with advantages based on use of support/RE forces with appropriate weapons choices, as I detailed in my post about revamping how AA/bombardment works when supporting things, but simply splitting up identical forces and leaving them all front-line should not.

[Ehndras]

So current mechanics are more simplistic and arbitrary, somehow rewarding tons of small units as opposed to single large units... That's a tad disappointing.

Apologies if I foamed at the mouth a bit earlier, I'd just love to see more dynamic ground force simulation. Probably no to the degree mentioned, but the arbitration seems a bit too... Well, arbitrary.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Quote from: Jorgen_CAB on Today at 04:40:08 AM

I don't like the META gaming of big vs small as in I have many very tiny and you have large formations so I win as you waste you large formations shots at my tiny formation... or I use formations twice to three times yours and win as I get much more breakthroughs and don't waste fire-power.

That kind of strategy and game mechanic "abuse" is not fun as it makes no reals sense from a RP or real life perspective. All military organisations are broken down into a hierarchy that are very similar for a reason from fire-teams to cores and armies.

Inaccurate, mate. Read up on the Battle of Kunlun Pass, the 1940 Hundred Regiments Offensive, and well over a dozen successful Chinese v Japanese battles during the Second Sino-Japanese War. (Mid-to-late WWII). Particularly note the Battle of Wuhan, resulting in 1.2m casualties, that directly let to a Japanese shift in focus and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Some big, many small, but inferior Chinese forces took one hell of a toll on Japanese forces all around.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_engagements_of_the_Second_Sino-Japanese_War

What you described as META is precisely the tactic Chinese forces often used against Japanese invasion, with arguable success. They often used small multi-unit infantry maneuver tactics to encircle, trap, and harass Japanese forces with vastly superior armament and armor accompaniment. While Japanese semiautomatic rifles and mortars outranged the Chinese, and Japanese armor did their thing, they remain susceptible to being tricking into focusing fire on secondary targets while being flanked by grenadier-riflemen fire teams.

Hell, from my dad and uncles' stories from Vietnam, it worked horrific wonders against our forces. To his dying day my dad couldn't smell certain things without going into a fugue state, and one of my uncles offed himself about 2 years ago after decades fighting his PTSD. Iraq-Afghan wars with similar results. One standard-issue ahole in compact sedan sporting a 500 Lb of TNT equivalent can achieve massive collateral damage out to 1.5k Ft or somewhere around 450 meters, while some randos who found Soviet-era support armament, stripped them, and stuck em on the back of a truck could do serious damage to infantry and air elements alike with minimal investment.

Remember the wealth and tech disparity. Consider Garfunkel's C# Aurora RP series: see how various nations are running negative on wealth, thus ruining their economy and industry? Imagine the cost of maintaining low-tech forces vs high tech forces while simultaneously fielding a space-capable navy.

It costs a guerrilla squad jack-all to weld a stolen soviet set-up onto a resurrected scrapyard 4x4 and seriously piss off their rivals with that half-assed Technical, while it costs hundreds of thousands, or millions, for our high-tech "solution." Its why its such a pain in the ass to fight in the Middle East, why the Vietnam war was such a mess, why no one wants to invade the continental US or russia, or stage raids on a Brazilian favela like my cousin Wagner, commander of the 4th Battalion of the Policia Militar de Governador Valadares did earlier in his career.

They achieve more against us by draining funds via the costs of deploying overwhelming firepower than any actual damage they can do.

Its said that morale is the most important aspect of any conflict, and its hard to feel victorious when you're launching missiles at pickup trucks and trying to type up a report at the FOB while a bunch of jackoffs mortar-bombard you every. single. god. damn. day. Ineffectively, but that's not the point. One of my cousins couldn't sleep for a year after returning from Kandahar because they'd randomly wake up expecting impacts, and now sleeps like a baby while blasting heavy rock or metal. The psychological and tactical effects of low-tech lightly-armed squad-level harassment are ABSOLUTELY not META, at all. One can easily cite historical precedent at every technological level during every major conflict and era-based doctrine throughout modern history, with plenty of old-world examples as well.

No... you are talking about set piece battle (small scale)... I'm talking about operational wars... the fighting we see in Aurora are essentially wars not set piece battles.

It simply does not work like that on a world scale. Operation Barbarossa was not concluded in a manner of days or weeks... neither was WW2 for that matter. Most wars take years to conclude because they have variable intensity for many different reasons.

The more troops involved the slower and more problematic it will to get the formations in them to have full intensity all the time. I have no problem of a few platoons having a quick fight... but armies and corps should be able to fight for month or even years at times.

The META of small vs big is GAMEY mechanic... period... and have nothing with reality to do on this scale... it is very arbitrary.

[Ehndras]

Understood.

...How many troops do NPR's tend to use? I might be seriously misjudging how many troops to build. Thought division+ would be excessive due to transport module capacity.

[Gyrfalcon]

You should prepare to field and deploy multiple divisions of troops against the NPRs - Steve's Crusade AAR includes multiple combat drops against the precursors and swarm enemies, and in the drop linked, he deployed a full division worth of troops.

[Ehndras]

Holy crap. Well, looks like a complete paradigm shift must take place in the United American Alliance Army & Marine forces..

Thanks for the tip

[Black]

I am currently figting precursor forces of some 17000tons and I deployed 200000 tons of troops, That is for me 1 Corp with 3 Divisions (1 armored, 2 infantry) divided each into 4 regiments.

It is important to realize that the terrain of the planet can greatly increase the power of defending force, so you may need much higher number of troops to dislocate relatively small force from forested mountains, that was fortifying since the beginning of the game (and that is colony cost 0 planet). Planet that is freezing hellhole with high atmospheric pressure will be much worse if you don't have specialized forces.

[Father Tim]

In other words, based on the combat reports I've seen a hit rate of ONE PERCENT vs fully-fortified defending troops is not unreasonable, meaning that 'Xenophon's Ten Thousand versus one hundred units of one hundred each' basically eliminated the effect of unit size -- neither side could manage any breakthroughs.

[Ehndras]

Would you say those mechanics behaving as intended?

I guess from an XCOM-ish "aliens invade, inferior humans with history of warfare excel on home turf" perspective.

...But a one-percent to-hit is just ridiculous.

[Vasious]

All of the things you posted about asymmetrical warfare are both utterly true, and completely irrelevant.

Formation organization in Aurora has nothing to do with what tactics are actually in use, they are abstractions.

Assume two sides. Both have only one combat element designed: 

Code: [Select]

Irregulars
Transport Size (tons) 3     Cost 0.06     Armour 8     Hit Points 8
Annual Maintenance Cost 0.0075     Resupply Cost 0.25
Light Personal Weapons:      Shots 1      Penetration 4      Damage 4

Vendarite  0.06   
Development Cost  3
On one side, you have 10,000 irregulars organized into one unit, plus appropriately sized non-combat HQ.
On the other, you have 100 units of 100 irregulars each, again with appropriate non-combat HQ.

In an ideal world, these should be evenly matched forces. Neither of them have access to any force multipliers, so it should come down to a near-even meatgrinder.

The question is, is that the case under the current ground combat model? (It would be really nice if we could get a more detailed look at the under-the-hood formula used, since all we have now are posts from Steve from multiple years ago that may or may not be accurate.) If simply splitting up an equal number of identical elements in more formations gives you an advantage, then ground combat balance will come down to what degree you are willing to spend time organizing ludicrously wide sub-formations, which is inelegant, to say the least.

EDIT: I will say that more detailed organization should be able to provide you with advantages based on use of support/RE forces with appropriate weapons choices, as I detailed in my post about revamping how AA/bombardment works when supporting things, but simply splitting up identical forces and leaving them all front-line should not.

Is the idea world where they both meet in the same field?

Hmm

On one hand Large formation don't mechanically have internal sub structures
Small formations do, and said officers but to what extent do they matter

But I am one of those people who cares more of the RP side of things than what is most effective.

I might be getting caught up with, the lowest Ground Officer we get is a Major so it seems the right thing to do to have company sized formation, but the original deign might have been Bridge/Regiment sized formations as per VB as the base line sized unit, outside specialty forces such as marines for boarding actions.

[Father Tim]

Would you say those mechanics behaving as intended?

Maximally dug-in infantry (Fort 9, or a 9-in-10 chance to 'ignore' what would otherwise be a hit) in 'perfect' terrain (Terrain Mod 12, or a 12-in-13 chance) being hit only 0.77% of the time?  Yes, I would say that is behaving as intended.

Whether or not that intended behaviour is a good thing is another debate.

[Pedroig]

Would you say those mechanics behaving as intended?

I guess from an XCOM-ish "aliens invade, inferior humans with history of warfare excel on home turf" perspective.

...But a one-percent to-hit is just ridiculous.

Actually it is not.  It is pretty generous overall.  We are not talking snipers or XCOM here.  Suppressive fire is a thing, blind fire/spray and pray is a thing, shooting "over there" cause that's the direction incoming rounds are coming from is a thing.  And to be quite honest, most "combatants" can't shoot worth a smege.

[Demonius]

After throwing about 200k of troops against a rift valley Prec Fortress, and finally defeating them, I am at pretty much the same Point that has been mentioned up to here several times. Sticking together the remains of the smashed Combat brigades and replacing out of a mishmash of replacement Units.

While I have done  that by now and am somehow satisified with the result, and am rebuilding Units, one thing is still amiss for me. I did build a supply truck only unit to replace the used up logistics of the brigades, Regiments and batallions, and have forwarded the time a bit, but all the old units still show their supply Level as a various mixture from 0 to other sub-100% figures and it never changes.
Shouldn't they either consume the supply trucks or Refill from the home planets reserves or am I missing the "resupply Ground troops" button somewhere?

[kks]

After throwing about 200k of troops against a rift valley Prec Fortress, and finally defeating them, I am at pretty much the same Point that has been mentioned up to here several times. Sticking together the remains of the smashed Combat brigades and replacing out of a mishmash of replacement Units.

While I have done  that by now and am somehow satisified with the result, and am rebuilding Units, one thing is still amiss for me. I did build a supply truck only unit to replace the used up logistics of the brigades, Regiments and batallions, and have forwarded the time a bit, but all the old units still show their supply Level as a various mixture from 0 to other sub-100% figures and it never changes.
Shouldn't they either consume the supply trucks or Refill from the home planets reserves or am I missing the "resupply Ground troops" button somewhere?

Afaik they can only resupply from formations up from them in the hierachy. So you would have to put the supply trucks in the highest HQ formations for best effect.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg109760#msg109760