Book V Tactical systems and features

The tactical game combines deck-authorised forces with real-time movement, combat, construction and reinforcement. This book consolidates the intended behaviour. Exact tuning and implementation coverage are recorded separately; old review reports are evidence, not competing rulebooks.

Battle flow and control

Setup selects scenario, faction, difficulty and a valid deck. Briefing leads to deployment, then an explicit launch countdown and battle. Deployment allows positioning and facing within valid zones; locking in must preserve orders and reject illegal placement. Selection, control groups, pause, save/load and restart remain core usability features. Unit labels and map symbols must be readable without blocking selection or targeting.

Movement supports formation orders, final facing and vehicle reverse. Fast movement uses road behaviour; ordinary movement considers terrain and obstacles. Tanks, wheeled vehicles, towed guns, infantry and rail vehicles require different physically plausible movement. A new system must not silently bypass collision, terrain, visibility or persistence.

Combat and intelligence

Cover, suppression, spotting, concealment, line of fire, weapon range and front/side/rear protection matter. Casemate and turret weapons have their own facing constraints. Smoke, dense vegetation, terrain and structures can block observation and direct fire. Destruction changes the battlefield rather than leaving an invisible original obstacle.

Both factions gather intelligence through sightings, reconnaissance, aerial observation, wrecks, prisoners, overrun positions and appropriate communications sources. Facts have confidence and age. Unobserved enemy occupancy or concealed unit state must not leak through a tooltip, target marker, sound cue or convenience preview.

The documented Hard AI composition advantage does not grant hidden-unit positions. Lower difficulties counter observed intelligence. Distinct British and Soviet coordination styles use the same resources, recruitment and combat rules; tactical doctrine is not a blanket stat bonus or permission to cheat.

Buildings and fieldworks

Eligible buildings support garrisons, capacity, floors, elevation and observation. Interior fights and outside fire follow their respective cover rules. Breaching takes time; suppression and readiness matter. Damaged buildings can collapse and produce passable rubble with revised cover. Hidden occupancy remains hidden.

Engineers build and repair authorised installations. Placement checks oriented footprints, access, terrain, territory, phase and resources. Adjacent valid fieldworks should not fail solely because of oversized circular checks. Sandbags, wire and tank obstacles have distinct effects; unfinished obstacles do not become operational early. Clearing, destruction and repairs persist.

Mines, demolition, illumination, smoke and specialist engineering content require their own supported commands and inventories. A researched equipment option is not a working mechanic merely because it appears in a list.

Transport towing and recovery

Passengers are distinct from organic vehicle crews. Compatible tanks and troop transports carry eligible infantry with finite capacity. Boarding/dismounting has time, vulnerability and interruption rules. A destroyed carrier resolves passenger survival through the actual casualty model; neither guaranteed escape nor automatic duplication is allowed.

Gun mobility follows gun weight, crew capability and compatible tractors. Light and medium guns can be manhandled slowly over short distances; heavy pieces require appropriate transport for useful relocation. Hitching, limbering, crew carriage, unlimbering and firing eligibility must agree with visible state. Decrewed guns and recovery work retain their identities.

Specialist recovery and repair draw on finite capability and supply. Recovering a damaged survivor is different from purchasing a replacement for a destroyed unit. Crew actions, weapons and vehicles must remain spatially and temporally consistent during these operations.

Logistics aircraft and artillery

Fuel, ammunition, repair and replacement resources have separate purposes. Finite stocks, travel and servicing constrain continuous combat. Indirect fire, off-map support and aircraft use explicit allocation and targeting contracts rather than giving every ground unit unlimited support.

Controllable aircraft have role, ammunition, fuel and return behaviour. Eligible survivors can refuel/rearm; losses persist at the appropriate match or campaign scope. Operational air-superiority design does not imply automatic battalion ownership. See aviation.

Tactical modes and named missions

Conquest can retain territorial command-score drain and its declared command-chain/wipeout conditions. Campaign capture objectives sit above this layer. Assault and raid missions must disclose their own victory logic rather than inheriting every Conquest assumption.

The archived mission specification records three developed standalone scenarios: fortified crossings at Süpplingen; an infantry/unarmoured-transport raid at Lappwald with a concealed officer; and fighting over Schöningen Sidings with optional captured German armoured train sections. The Lappwald officer’s death was a one-time score penalty, not an automatic full-score victory. The train sections are real, persistent combat units constrained to their track network, with capture, recapture, routing, separation and passing rules. Their exact scenario values are implementation tuning, not general rules for every mission.

Königslutter’s separate raid and illumination work must not be conflated with Lappwald. Full campaign contact-to-map assignment and larger mission slates remain distinct from standalone scenario availability.

Traits and national identity

Mechanized and Combined Arms traits express eligible support, not unconditional stacking multipliers. Vehicle readiness, range and infantry state matter. Current documented benefits include faster transfers and nearby accuracy/suppression effects; values remain tuning. Loadouts inherit appropriate base traits without double-counting the same support.

National uniforms, equipment, markings, crews and voices must reflect the selected force. A US formation temporarily sharing an internal coalition identifier is not British in the fiction. Missing national content must block or disclose an allocation, not silently substitute a different country’s tank.

Determinism and persistence

Save/load preserves identities, damage, ammunition, crew/passenger relationships, destroyed terrain, tactical orders, campaign commitments and one-time objective events. A reload cannot replay a VIP penalty, duplicate a train, refund a casualty or replenish a phase release. Performance shortcuts must preserve hidden information, gameplay outcomes and bounded resource use.

The implementation register points to current source and evidence. Consolidation does not certify all these features across every platform or declare old performance measurements current.