This is why I stopped playing...

[Apocalypse 31]

I hadn't played the game in a while. I stopped playing due to frustration and overall lack of fun. The campaign was hard, and got to the point where it just wasn't really fun anymore; even when I was able to squeeze out a win.

Anyway. I see that Aris has released a hefty amount of work so I decided to give the game another go.

I load up Vierville. I start with a movement to contact for the high ground on the right flank. I'm moving my two rifle squads in traveling overwatch, with one squad forward and my second squad and HQ following, along with my 60mm.

My first squad makes visual contact with a German MG team in the woodline.

I immediately maneuvered my forces and established a support by fire with my HQ squad and 1 x rifle squad in the buildings overlooking the treeline with the 60mm in support. Second rifle squad is maneuvering on the left flank and will assault once fires are lifted. Squad 1 and HQ begins to suppress the area with rifles and MG's.

In the meantime, the LT is working his radios, simultaneously calling for 105mm support and working his 60mm. Instantly, I had steel rain coming down along the wood line. Just as the last round impacts, my 2nd squad begins its assault into the woodline from the left flank.

My 2nd squad begins its assault from the left flank. A German field gun delivers two rounds killing three of my men, but the assault squad continues its assault. A German HQ squad is spotted within close proximity of the German MG...not a big deal..my assault squad can deal with it, and besides, the Germans just took 15-20 rounds of 60mm and 105mm mix...

wrong

My assault squad gets repulsed by a German HQ squad. Not even close! I dont think my guys squeezed off a round.

I pulled back my assault squad, and fired another salvo of 60mm, impacting almost ON TOP of the German HQ squad. My platoon leader (in over-watch, within a second story building) is killed by a member of the German HQ squad (in the open, after taking at least 25 indirect fire rounds).

I then attempted a right flank assault of the MG position, considering that the Germans in the woodline had been taking indirect fire from a 60mm, 105mm, and a slew of MG's and rifles.

The German MG squad was still up, fully functioning, and able to repulse my rifle squad.

I don't browse these forums much, but I ask...Is there something wrong here? Is there a programming bug with indirect fire or suppression? Realistically, there's no way that any element would have been able to survive a minimum of five minutes of direct fire from two squads, plus 60mm and 105mm indirect fires.

I'm not asking for CM to be easy, that would be boring. But this is not realistic, and certainly not fun.

[Vanir Ausf B]

It's good to hear a complaint that US 60mm mortars are not effective enough, and that infantry is too resilient and resistant to high explosive. My experience had been more the opposite; that artillery is a little too effective and 60mm mortars are the most effective weapon in the US arsenal. My guess is that the German HQ has been very lucky in this instance.

[Agua]

I will just say that I beat my head against the wall going that same route with that initial platoon, over and over and over. Try a different approach, as in save that damned wooded hell for last.

[Guest]

As an aside, I'd argue that getting complaints about indirect fire being too effective AND not effective enough probably means we're not far off the mark.

More to the point CPT Mike, if your experience is unrealistic, then:

1) Are you saying that units in a treeline should be unlikely to survive five minutes of 60mm / 105mm fire, let alone direct fire from two full squads of infantry?

2) And likewise, that units assaulting positions that had been heavily doused with indirect fire, were rarely repulsed?

Because I'm pretty sure both of those things happened often. More often than not, I'd wager. What, precisely, was unrealistic about what happened? Where's the bug?

[Pak40]

Mike,

It seems like you're asking for a formula to be applied here. i.e. 60mm + some 105mm = dead. It's not like that. This is not Company of Heroes or Sudden Strike.

I've used 60mm in direct fire many times(which is more accurate than indirect), it's one of my favorite tactics to use in close bocage busting tactics. I'd wager that 80% of the time a 60mm can neutralize a squad in 10-15 rounds. However, 20% of the time I'm wrong and I pay the price when I try to assault their position. There is no rhyme or reason to why part of the squad survives one time but may not survive the next time. And quite frankly, this is the MOST REALISTIC part of Combat Mission.

[Paper Tiger]

I stopped playing due to frustration and overall lack of fun. The campaign was hard, and got to the point where it just wasn't really fun anymore;

Actually, I can sympathise with this. I stopped playing the game a few weeks ago too. I was hard at work getting the Canadian 'Road to Carpiquet' campaign up and running and the missions are hard. I just got fed up playtesting 'hard' missions and stopped playing as a result. Now, I'm getting back into the swing of things and have no interest in playing anything 'hard' for a while. I'm looking to have some fun for a while. And there's not a whole lot of that around at the moment. Plenty of 'Difficult' and H2H though.

Once the game stops being fun to play, you get less forgiving of perceived 'errors' and are more likely to complain about something that is a one-off. So let's just let the guy get it off his chest. This game is just too damned good to stay away from for any long period of time and hopefully, when he gets back in the mood to play it again, there will be more 'fun' stuff for him to play with his game modded by Aris.

[John Kettler]

Paper Tiger,

And I have no prior experience with CMx2, since my rig couldn't run CMSF. I count myself fortunate there's CMBN out for the Mac! If the hell I went through militarily in Road to Berlin was at Basic Training settings, I shudder to think how difficult it'll ultimately be.

Regards,

John Kettler

[womble]

If the hell I went through militarily in Road to Berlin was at Basic Training settings, I shudder to think how difficult it'll ultimately be.

The "Difficulty" settings don't really make much difference to winning/losing in themselves, just they just change how easy it is to operate the game. And arty call times, which AIUI apply equally to both sides.

[winkelried]

fire support has to do a lot with suppression - to make the enemy keep their heads down. i don't think that mortar fire up to 81mm against (prepared) defenses does a lot more than suppress the enemy (as in RL IMHE).

so i often try to get an LMG or two (BAR or Bren) to keep firing at the enemy position (light target to keep ammo usage low) - a tank is even better (just MG s firing) - and if possible to get a smoke screen on the enemy position before i start my assault.

when i use artillery (or heavy mortars) bigger than 105mm i get best results with anti-personnell fire (meaning overhead explosion) to inflict losses on the enemy. another tactic with arty is to use the harass to keep the enemy down and then to get around them. just be careful with safety distance with these calibres.

BUT: Assaulting against the Germans is a bloody business. The allies don't have a lot of firepower with their BARs and Brens, except if you can get some tanks or HMG in to support you.

[Apocalypse 31]

Lets not get confused here. I wasn't assaulting a German Company-sized element.

It was a 2-man MG squad, and a HQ squad....

They sustained five minutes of direct and indirect fires (105mm!!!)

I'm not sure how some of you can argue that this is a realistic game. That's not the least bit realistic. You can disagree with me, but I've been on the receiving end of indirect fire in real life (82mm mortar and 57mm rockets) and I'm telling you that the pixeltruppen in the woodline should've been broken by the time my assault squad reached them...let alone repulse my guys with one MP40.

At the time I thought that calling for both 105 and 60mm would've been a bit overkill!

[JonS]

I'm not sure how some of you can argue that this is a realistic game. That's not the least bit realistic. You can disagree with me, but I've been on the receiving end of indirect fire in real life (82mm mortar and 57mm rockets)

And yet ... here you are to tell us about it.

[winkelried]

i ran this show a bit differently - i started with harassing fire (anti-personnel) with the 105er on a line stretching from one edge of the wood to the other and roughly 20-30 m inside the wood using approx 40 rounds (thats about 10 minutes). i always give maximum time, so i can get my assaulting troops in position and then cancel the fire mission when i want to begin the assault. this minimizes time for the defender to recover. cleared the forest afterwards against weak resistance - still some guys alive. still got this annoying flanking fire by the 150mm IG and the 81mm mortar though - lost 2 soldiers to them.

btw: i had the pleasure to get into a 105er barrage in RL - no losses in my patrol just some flattering nerves, including mine.

[stikkypixie]

As an aside, I'd argue that getting complaints about indirect fire being too effective AND not effective enough probably means we're not far off the mark.

More to the point CPT Mike, if your experience is unrealistic, then:

1) Are you saying that units in a treeline should be unlikely to survive five minutes of 60mm / 105mm fire, let alone direct fire from two full squads of infantry?

2) And likewise, that units assaulting positions that had been heavily doused with indirect fire, were rarely repulsed?

Because I'm pretty sure both of those things happened often. More often than not, I'd wager. What, precisely, was unrealistic about what happened? Where's the bug?

Maybe it's not the lethality of the incoming fire, but the way troops seem to able to recover very quickly from their suppressed state. In games I've played, it seems that unless you attack the very second the barrage stop, there is almost no suppression effect. Don't know this works in real life, but this combined with wooded areas can make assaulting a position very frustrating.

Maybe it's not the survavibility rate

[Vanir Ausf B]

The last thing this game needs is increased vulnerability of infantry to explosives.

[YankeeDog]

Hi Capt,

I'm not sure exactly how to respond to your experiences because, in general, my game experiences are that the amount of ordnance you laid down should have been more than enough to render the enemy position you describe combat ineffective, if not kill all of the enemy outright and render close assault unnecessary.

If I understand you correctly, you were directly confronting only two relatively small enemy teams: an LMG team and an HQ unit. There was also an enemy infantry gun that got involved, which was some distance away and able to interdict your movement to a degree, at least along certain routes.

Facing this strength of enemy, with 2 squads, a 60mm mortar, a Plt HQ unit and some 105mm at my disposal, I would not expect to need the 105mm at all -- even for an enemy in very good cover, I would expect a couple of turns of fire from the 60mm, plus a good amount of suppressive fire from the squad automatic weapons teams as the assault teams close would generally do the trick just fine. This is my experience in the game, pretty much every time.

Now, in CMBN, just as in "Real Life", nothing is 100% for certain, and you will sometimes get a bad luck incident where an enemy soldier somehow survives the mortar and MG fire and manages to rally just long enough to fire off a burst of automatic weapons fire or toss a grenade just as your assault team(s) close in. This can cost you a couple of casualties, but usually doesn't really affect the final outcome; it just means you take the position at the cost of 2-3 casualties, vs. 0. As I'm sure you know, war isn't chess and sometimes no matter how much ordnance you put downrange, some bad guy who survived by hiding in a ditch or under a staircase or whatever manages to get off a parting shot, taking someone with him.

So, without further information, I can only conjecture that either (a) you had COLOSSALLY bad luck, and experiences a 1-in-1000 bad luck incident, or ( there are some technical faults in your execution. It sounds like your plan of action was fine, but there are some particular details to how the Find-Fix-Flank-Finish routine be executed using the CMBN UI and commands available; I suspect this is where you may be coming up short. The devil is, as always, in the details...

Perhaps you could post some pictures or a save game file for us to look at, so we can figure out what happened more specifically?

[winkelried]

Maybe it's not the lethality of the incoming fire, but the way troops seem to able to recover very quickly from their suppressed state. In games I've played, it seems that unless you attack the very second the barrage stop, there is almost no suppression effect. Don't know this works in real life, but this combined with wooded areas can make assaulting a position very frustrating.

Maybe it's not the survavibility rate

in the cold war one of the rule of thumb was, that you had 45 to 60 seconds to get your act together after the artillery preparation on your position stopped or moved. So we trained to get out of the cover in the firings positions (or what remained of it) within this delay.

btw - that's one of my main points where i would like to see an improvment: that you can have the crew of heavy weapons (ATG, IG) in a good cover (house, bunker etc) and leave the weapon in the firing position to give better survivability under artillery fire.

[YankeeDog]

Maybe it's not the lethality of the incoming fire, but the way troops seem to able to recover very quickly from their suppressed state. In games I've played, it seems that unless you attack the very second the barrage stop, there is almost no suppression effect. Don't know this works in real life, but this combined with wooded areas can make assaulting a position very frustrating.

Maybe it's not the survavibility rate

I think this is mostly realistic. Time and again, "Combat Lessons Learned" and AARs from the period stress the importance of following up preparatory artillery strikes quickly, even to the point of risking taking casualties from one's own artillery. Better to lose one man to friendly shrapnel, than 3 to an enemy MG...

In fact, this is something the Americans were not very good at in the early stages of the Normandy campaign -- captured German officers interviewed after the campaign frequently mention that, while the American artillery fire was effective at disrupting and suppressing their positions, there was often enough of a delay between the end of the artillery and the beginning of an assault for them to reconstitute an effective defense.

In CMBN, in addition to executing your assault quickly on the heels of the artillery strike, it's also a good idea to follow up on the artillery with other suppressive fire, such as MGs -- for example, area fire with MGs into the general location of the enemy positions after the artillery has stopped falling, as your assault group closes the distance. Once a unit is pinned, it only takes a relatively light volume of incoming fire to prevent the unit from rallying; it's easier to keep a unit heads-down than it is to get it to go heads down in the first place. So use those ammo-deep MG teams to "maintain the pin", while the assault group closes in to do the dirty work.

[Destraex1]

I thought I read somewhere that they turned the arty down in this game. Could be wrong.

[Vanir Ausf B]

You are not wrong. They lessened the effect of HE compared to what they thought was strictly realistic in order to compensate for the fact that infantry in the game are forced to bunch up tighter than in reality. Nevertheless, in my experience small caliber HE, both direct and indirect, is much more lethal in CMBN than it was in the CMx1 games. In the earlier games 60 and 81mm mortars were primarily only good for suppression. Now they kill pretty reliably, the OP's single experience notwithstanding.

[stikkypixie]

I think this is mostly realistic. Time and again, "Combat Lessons Learned" and AARs from the period stress the importance of following up preparatory artillery strikes quickly, even to the point of risking taking casualties from one's own artillery. Better to lose one man to friendly shrapnel, than 3 to an enemy MG...

In fact, this is something the Americans were not very good at in the early stages of the Normandy campaign -- captured German officers interviewed after the campaign frequently mention that, while the American artillery fire was effective at disrupting and suppressing their positions, there was often enough of a delay between the end of the artillery and the beginning of an assault for them to reconstitute an effective defense.

In CMBN, in addition to executing your assault quickly on the heels of the artillery strike, it's also a good idea to follow up on the artillery with other suppressive fire, such as MGs -- for example, area fire with MGs into the general location of the enemy positions after the artillery has stopped falling, as your assault group closes the distance. Once a unit is pinned, it only takes a relatively light volume of incoming fire to prevent the unit from rallying; it's easier to keep a unit heads-down than it is to get it to go heads down in the first place. So use those ammo-deep MG teams to "maintain the pin", while the assault group closes in to do the dirty work.

This is what I ended up doing. My "gripe" if you can call it that, is that there can NO delay whatsoever. There is also the contradiction between keeping several hundreds meters away because of danger close, and needed to be on top of the enemy immediately. At a certain point 88mm artillery were dropping 50m away from my front units.

[c3k]

Capt Mike,

I certainly hope this won't sound like I'm on the "fanboi" wagon, but...

Without knowing specifically what you were facing, it is hard to form an opinion as to the relevance of your complaint. Obviously, you think the game isn't realistic. That's what you stated. But, without seeing the forces and terrain, no one else can form their own opinion.

I know you've been around these forums for awhile (quite a bit in CMSF?), so I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but there may've been other factors at play.

1) Direct fire suppression: was your infantry support TARGETing, TARGET LIGHTing, and was it at a KNOWN enemy, or was it AREA FIRE? That alone points out 4 different levels of potential effectiveness. TARGET LIGHT as AREA FIRE is the least effective.

2) If a 60mm round detonates 50m off-target, does it matter? (Recognize that, as I believe has been confirmed by BF.C, HE has been somewhat "nerfed" to counter the enforced "stacking" of 1 team to an 8m action spot. This solution is great for realistic targeting of squads and platoons with artillery. It is less good when firing at an individual.) It sounds like you were targeting a 3 (?) man HQ team and a 2 man LMG team. It is HARD to nail 5 individuals with indirect fire.

3) Were the Germans dug in, behind defilade, sheltering behind bocage, etc?

4) The morale status of the Germans/US makes a HUGE difference in "toughness". If these were elite SS with +2 leadership (and possible fanatics, though the player never knows about that), then they would not run. Similarly, if the US were green, -2, then all their firepower would be less effective and losing 3 men from the German HE would take the wind right out of their sails.

5) Difficulty level: If you play on ELITE or IRON, you won't know if the Germans get light wounded (yellow). How do you know they're not laying there, bleeding from shrapnel due to the arty, and just holding on and firing back due to fanatacism? Equally, how do you know that there isn't a company just back of the treeline, lending moral support to those in front?

Now, I'm not saying that ANY of the above are the case. Nor am I postulating that you're wrong. I _am_ trying to highlight how you could be glossing over some possible explanations for the behavior you related to us.

In my experience with the game, not having been personally attacked by 82mm or 57mm fire, it gets MOST things right. Especially if you give allowance for outliers. In fact, it's the outliers which give the game the narrative, to me. I zoom in and am amazed at the one guy from the squad who survives all incoming and keeps fighting. (Audey Murphy?) That is more fun than a regimented mathematical approach with no exceptional outcomes.

I've slogged through "University of Hard Knocks". That sucked. Burn up a company to get a squad over the bridge. Use that squad to help a company get a platoon up. Then that platoon+ helps get a company over. A battalion gets reduced to a company just to gain a lodgement. It's a grind. I've also ripped along through "Devil's Descent". A fun romp. Two TOTALLY different game experiences.

If you have a savegame, have you tried the platoon assault again? Was the outcome the same? Try it 10 times, replicating your orders as best you can, and see how many times the Germans hold out. You may've gotten the one outlier the first time.

Is that platoon assault the only reason you don't enjoy the game, or are there more reasons?

Regards,

Ken

[YankeeDog]

This is what I ended up doing. My "gripe" if you can call it that, is that there can NO delay whatsoever. There is also the contradiction between keeping several hundreds meters away because of danger close, and needed to be on top of the enemy immediately. At a certain point 88mm artillery were dropping 50m away from my front units.

First of all, it's important to know what "Danger Close" means -- "Danger Close" is the range at which a given support asset is estimated to be a POTENTIAL threat to friendly units. "Danger Close" does NOT mean "any fire from this asset should always be targeted at least this far away from friendly units." In fact, by most doctrines, on the assault, supporting fire is *supposed* to be called in substantially shorter than "danger close" ranges. It's a red flag for planning purposes, a risk to be balanced with other risks and objectives, not a doctrinal prohibition.

However, in general, my experiences in the game do not match yours. In fact, several times I've been burned because I put artillery down on an enemy position, and then the enemy position went totally silent for several minutes. So I assumed the enemy there was totally wiped out and didn't bother to send an assault team up to spitting distance to verify. Then much to my chagrin, some enemy MG gunner or AT crewman "revives" several minutes later, and starts firing into the flank/rear of my units, which by this time have already bypassed the position. Ouch. I now never assume that artillery/HE fire alone has wiped out an infantry position, and every effort to put boots on the ground within 20m of any previously known enemy positions to verify that's no one is still alive there.

[Pak40]

Lets not get confused here. I wasn't assaulting a German Company-sized element.

It was a 2-man MG squad, and a HQ squad....

They sustained five minutes of direct and indirect fires (105mm!!!)

I'm not sure how some of you can argue that this is a realistic game. That's not the least bit realistic. You can disagree with me, but I've been on the receiving end of indirect fire in real life (82mm mortar and 57mm rockets) and I'm telling you that the pixeltruppen in the woodline should've been broken by the time my assault squad reached them...let alone repulse my guys with one MP40.

At the time I thought that calling for both 105 and 60mm would've been a bit overkill!

You're not the first battle commander that's been disappointed in the results of his tactics. I'm sure many men have died thinking that the enemy "must surely have be wiped out by now".

By the way, I've read many accounts of soldiers in artillery barrages. Many have survived to tell their tale and many were not broken. Read "No Better Place to Die" - this chronicles the attack/defense of the La Fiere Causeway by elements of the 82nd Airborne. The defenders were under intense artillery fire of all sizes for a LOT more than 5 minutes and yet the surviving soldiers were not "broken" and the 82nd held the eastern end of the causeway. Like I said before, there is no formula - get that out of your head.

I think if you play that scenario again several times with the same artillery tactics, you'll find that it does the job more often than not. You just happened to be in one of those improbable occasions where it came back to bite you and now you're pissed because it didn't work up to your formula. It's happened to me many times and I get pissed every time also, but I realize that there are random lucks and bad lucks in war. **** happens. get over it.

[Vinnart]

I just got done playing Veirville, and won it with few casualties.

I think what happened to CPT MIKE is not the work of just the enemy troops in the woods. SPOILER There is more enemy with fields of fire covering the approaches to the woods than just the enemy in the woods, and a platoon of reinforcements move in there too.

If you try to go for the woods in the beginning of the mission it is a bad strategy as he found out. The woods should be left for last.

This is what worked for me: SPOILER

When the mission opens I moved the single platoon into the houses on right flank to observe the woods without making contact. This was done with short cover arc. I set the 60mm mortar behind the house, and used the HQ to call in harassing fire missions on point targets. From the top story of the house in the manner described I could see deep into the woods, and could see the reserve enemy platoon move in. I went the whole battle without my recon being discovered.

When the bulk of the force arrived I started moving in on the town with a two-prong attack. One sweeping in from the left flank, and one moving in on the edge of the town overlooking the main road going through Veirville . I spotted an Infantry gun in the rear of the town, and called in 105’s, and 60mm mortars on the gun. The timing for the 105mm couldn’t have been better, and a few lucky spotter rounds landed right in the path of the reinforcements moving in. The enemy ran right down the main road, and got caught by my troops over looking it. It turned into a turkey shoot. The infantry mopped up the remnants supported by the Stuart tank and I took the town. Once it is taken you will find the enemy overwatch positions that overlook the woods approaches once you get troops into the warehouses on the right edge of the town.

Now for the woods. I used a short mission with the 105mm to take out the infantry gun in the town, and had plenty to spare. I then had my HQ in the building on the right flank dump all remaining rounds on the enemy in the woods which I could see well. The fire mission was accurate, and devastating. The Germans then surrendered.

Try this approach if you have a tough time with the mission. Don’t rush!. Wait for reinforcements before pressing the assault.

[Apocalypse 31]

You guys can defend it all you want and poke holes in my strategy, which was by the book fire and maneuver, but the bottom line is that it's poor game mechanics and a huge turn off. How so many people can say otherwise blows my mind.

Some will say "bad luck" and I can deal with that, but when it happens over and over, in multiple scenarios then its otherwise. As I said in my original post, this is why I stopped playing this game the first time.