In which a considerable number of pixeltruppen were deleted in the pursuit of hard data.

Seriously though, no surprises for CM vets here, but anyone new to the series will probably be a little surprised at the disparity in effectiveness between foxholes and trenches. Especially when trenches are twice the points cost!

This will probably help when I start reeling off statistics (%age casualties on the left).

***

Basics: Fortifications

Welcome back to Combat Mission where we are, once again, going to do terrible things to the pixeltruppen in the name of science.

This time we are going to test how effective different types of field fortification are at protecting troops from artillery fire.

Foxholes, Trenches and Ditches

We’re going to test three different types of fortification: foxholes, trenches and ditches. Combat Mission also features different types of bunkers, but they’re modelled more like immobile vehicles so they’re a bit different.

Foxholes and trenches are, for want of a better term, game objects. They suffer from a pretty common gaming issue in that they’re 3d models and can’t penetrate the game’s ground level. So they sit on top of the ground, unlike real foxholes and trenches which are dug into it.

Foxholes consist of four individual fighting holes. When pixeltruppen occupy the same action square they’ll try and get into the foxholes. Trenches, meanwhile, provide a single linear protected area. This is uncomfortably wide in CM, but you can fit more troops in them and unlike foxholes you can add more sections of trench to make continuous networks and move under cover.

Ditches are really only found in Combat Mission Shock Force and they stand apart from the foxholes and trenches because they are actual terrain deformities. In a lot of ways, they’re a better kind of trench because they’re narrower and flush with the ground, but they have some significant drawbacks.

Because they’re part of the terrain, they come with the map: players can’t position them where they like and they’re constantly visible: everyone knows where they are. Foxholes and trenches are the opposite because they’re 3d objects: players can position them in their deployment phase like any other unit and the enemy can’t see them automatically, they have to spot them.

There are pros and cons to all of these, but what we’re focusing on is how much protection they offer.

Setup

Before we start firing shells at things though, we need to nail down the format for our tests.

I’ve settled on using precision 155mm shells to make sure the artillery fire is reasonably accurate and Canadian rifle infantry as targets because they split into identical four man fire teams. I’ve set up fifty fire teams on a flat plain, they’re arranged up in a grid with 45 metres between them.

For the tests, each fire team will be set to hide, to make sure they’re minimising their profile, and then they’ll be hit by 3 contact fused Excalibur high explosive shells from an AS90 section. For each of our four categories: nothing, foxholes, trenches and ditches, we’ll do one test where they’re targeted directly and another where the square next to them is targeted, so an 8m offset.

There are 200 pixletruppen in each test, to get the results we’ll see what percentage are still alive after they’ve been hit. Simple stuff.

There are a couple of flaws in this setup. Firstly, 155mm is a big shell and the fire team targets are only 45m away each from other, which means that shells hitting one target could easily inflict casualties on another. I’m not too bothered about that because the target variable is going to be the same each time, just with varying levels of protection.

Second, the trench and ditch targets are only one unit long, which is much shorter than they would typically be in a battlefield situation. This has implications for lateral near misses that could have fallen into a trench or ditch if it were longer, which would likely cause more casualties. On the other hand, extending them would start to add another variable in trench shape which I didn’t want to get into.

Finally and in a similar vein, placeable trenches default to an east-west orientation, which mirrors the default axis of opposing map edges that control the direction of artillery fire. That’s a complicated way of saying that incoming shell fire is going to be going along the trench and not across it... which might have an impact on the chance of shells falling directly in. I didn’t clock this until I was part way through and it was too late to do anything about it, but the trenches and ditches are both the same orientation and foxholes don’t suffer the same issue so I don’t think it should matter that much.

Tests

Control

First up, we have our control. We need to see how effective our artillery is when the pixeltruppen don’t have any protection at all. If you’ve played any CM you probably have a good idea of the chance a four man fire team can survive 3 rounds of 155 hitting in close proximity and there are no surprises here.

With direct targeting, the target teams suffered 99% casualties. There were 2 survivors. With an 8m offset, that casualty rate drops to 78.5%, from 198 kills to 157. That’s a big drop, but it’s still not exactly a good time.

Testing

With that established, we’ve got our yardstick to measure the fortifications against. First up we have the foxholes, which reduced the casualties to 55.5% for direct targeting and only 16% when we applied the offset.

Trenches were considerably less effective: still up at 80.5% casualties direct and 31% offset.

Ditches, meanwhile, were a little more interesting with 67.5% for direct and 9.5% when the offset was applied.

Results

There are some pretty obvious trends here. It’s clear that any kind of fortification is better than none, especially when there are no direct hits.

It’s also clear that foxholes offer more protection against artillery fire than trenches. That makes sense: foxholes offer four very small targets whereas the CM trench offers a single larger one.

This is really the Achilles heel of the placeable trenches. At least visually, they are definitely far too wide and far too shallow to offer effective protection. It’s hard to nail down exactly what extra protection they might offer in game engine terms, but it’s clearly not as good as that offered by the foxholes.

Trenches do have other advantages, like being able to link together and allow movement under cover, but how useful those are is going to be very situational.

Interestingly, the ditches pull in both directions. They suffer from the same problem that the trenches do if targeted directly. That is, they’re not compartmentalised like the foxholes and everyone dies if a shell actually gets in. But at the same time, they offered the most protection against near misses.

I suspect that’s because they’re an actual terrain feature as opposed to a game object.

Conclusion

Ditches are an edge case though, because they’re only present in Combat Mission Shock Force. The more useful comparison is between foxholes and trenches… and it looks like foxholes are the better choice.

There is a huge caveat to all this though. None of these types of fortification allow the pixeltruppen to fight from cover. Yes, foxholes and trenches can protect troops from incoming fire, but they get that protection by dropping down and losing their field of fire. In other words, protection comes at the cost of suppression.

And if your opponent knows what they’re doing, getting suppressed is usually the first step towards getting mopped up.

As always: it’s much better to not get engaged at all.

So, that’s a quick look at the protective quality of some Combat Mission field fortifications. Hopefully that cleared up or confirmed how useful they are. If you’d like to see these videos early and support the channel you can do so via Patreon and Youtube Memberships. Whether you do or not, thanks for watching, and I’ll catch you in the next one.