Command hierarchy

[Specter]

What do the different colors mean with the moving arrows?

[archibaldthe1]

Quality of communication (green>yellow>red). As to what exactly it means - that I don’t know. likely the “buffs” are adjusted and the target info passed slower. But that’s just an educated guess.

[Specter]

Ah thanks!

[Battleshipfree99]

There're runners transferring messages beyond what the game presents. Good quality radio and additional attention from senior officers (assigned runner or else) may give a green command hierarchy.

(The latter is just personal understanding of this interesting mechanism. Sometimes the furthest squad, 160m away, gets direct command from the plt leader, i.e., green command lines.)

[Specter]

Seems to represent green is radio, yellow is wire, and red is voice. German mechanized tanks and APC's, Battalion commander and above have radios it seems, for the German Army anyways.

In your example, I presume the platoon commander had a radio to receive orders (green) and he interim used (red) to communicate the order to his squads.

[Toni]

Some info from the developers, it shows the command level:

Originally posted by andrey12345 v2.0:

Originally posted by hazxan:

You get green arrows showing the chain of command. However, there are also yellow arrows. What do the yellow arrows mean?

The color of the arrow depends on the level of the commander.
Green, yellow, red, black - decreasing (usually green or yellow)

I almost never enable "command hierarchy" outside of the deployment phase. And I know most in-game hierarchies by now, so I do not activate it there too in some cases.

Everything looks much better without these arrows flying over the battlefield (same for unit orientation and other things, never enable them)... :)

Target lines and movement lines on the other hand are important to me for quick overview in between.

[archibaldthe1]

Here is what happens when someone didn’t set up command hierarchy right (from Sdvizhkov’s “Confronting Case Blue: Bryansk front attempt to derail the German drive to the Caucasus, July 1942”):

The 26th Tank Brigade deployed into a combat formation on Hill 188.5 and began to advance to the south. As they approached the “enemy’s positions”, the tank crews opened up intensive fire from their cannons and machine guns at the infantry occupying them, unaware that this infantry belonged to the 167th Rifle Division. Seeing what was happening, the commander of the forward 615th Rifle Regiment attempted to stop the tankers, but was killed by them on the spot.

And we complain about not being able to designate artillery fire ;)

[Specter]

Not entirely correct archie. That is an example of "mistaken fire" and not a positive identification of targets. To reduce fratricide, if you lose contact with the surrounding elements you always have to be even more cautious when you give the order to "fire."

[archibaldthe1]

Originally posted by Specter:

Not entirely correct archie. That is an example of "mistaken fire" and not a positive identification of targets. To reduce fratricide, if you lose contact with the surrounding elements you always have to be even more cautious when you give the order to "fire."

I would argue this is not a case of a "lost" contact, but of a case of commanders unaware of each other's orders while operating in the same sector. And that is because the command hierarchy for them is different (so essentially a case of a messed up hierarchy, just on a very large scale).

[Specter]

I see your point but command and control and command hierarchy in the game mechanics are not identical. Command and control includes a lot of things like OpOrds, After actions reports, logistics and so on. The game mechanic just shows who's in-charge of who and how well their communication level is.

However, proper target identification is a basic tactical rule. There is a lot of chaos in a givrn day of battle and a unit could end up in a wrong grid square from just poor navigation or being forced out because of heavy firepower or whatever.

But the example you gave previously details a mistaken attack. The morning oporder briefing didn't have the proper intelligence obviously and someone didn't give good sitreps and spotting reports. I've been through this kind of stuff in real life.

That's why the rule of thumb in any case is to have a positive ID before giving the order to engage. No matter what!

[archibaldthe1]

Yeah, nothing like that can happen in-game, there is collateral damage, but no chance misidentifying a friend from a foe. The game also follows (as far as I can tell) your sited "positive ID" - the shooting starts on when the enemy icon is "visible and identified". You can get an indirect fire going towards an enemy that's no longer visible, but I think that's not because the original requester is asking to fire on the disappeared target, but rather because the battery is still firing the old mission. I am not sure if friendly fire is taken into account for indirect missions. Maybe someone else knows.
It would be interesting if in-game the units had the same ambiguity in spotting friendlies as they do in spotting the enemy and if the fire missions were called on "suspected" locations (to clarify - don't expect that to happen, maybe in the next game...) That would make one think twice before mixing units from different formations.

[Specter]

The game does use different colors to represent how much information you have on a enemy unit. But, yes you always know where your guys are on your side, including allies.

When it comes to real life there is such a thing as "area fire." You may not see the enemy but you know they are there and you suppress the position with different levels of fire intensity depending on the circumstance. A reason for doing this is so a separate unit can close distance to assault.

The game represents this by using the "G" key to target and area. Draw a line with the "G" key to suppress a tree line or whatever. It's kind of cool you can use a Heavy Machine gun platoon to do this and have your mortars provide a smoke screen using the same mechanic, mostly.

[Specter]

One thing Graviteam could do to add "fog of war" to the game is you as the player won't know the exact position of allies that may happen to be in the same battle. So, if one of your units potentially 'sees' an ally they would have to properly identify them. Or, you could be a careless commander and start dropping mortar rounds on the "?" units.

[archibaldthe1]

Originally posted by Specter:

When it comes to real life there is such a thing as "area fire." You may not see the enemy but you know they are there and you suppress the position with different levels of fire intensity depending on the circumstance. A reason for doing this is so a separate unit can close distance to assault.

The game represents this by using the "G" key to target and area. Draw a line with the "G" key to suppress a tree line or whatever. It's kind of cool you can use a Heavy Machine gun platoon to do this and have your mortars provide a smoke screen using the same mechanic, mostly.

Fire at the ground is 100% player-controlled, and the computer opponent cannot use it. (From what developers explained). So unless you are into a very advance DM’ing, this can hardly lead to friendly fire from either side. Automated fire (initiated by either side on their own) as far I know only starts when the opponent is “visible and identified”. it’s a moot point given that no ambiguity around either own or allied troops exists, yet if this uncertainty did exist, it would manifest itself in actions driven by the AI, not those of the player (players get the god’s eye, except possibly in the case of allied BG involvement, but that’s a relatively rare event).