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CMRT - BETA AAR - Soviet Side


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Chain of command is, and should be, key ( as an aside; loss of morale being the only penalty at present.

But that loss is pretty significant. Out of command a team or squad is less likely to stay put and keep fighting when they start taking fire. They go to shaken faster and more often. I have no doubt that keeping C2 when the bullets are flying gives you a non trivial advantage.

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The other issue that is confusing about this is that on the basis set out in the manual, the icon next to the battalion hq does not indicate 5 Coy's status vis a vis Battalion but rather Battalion's status vis a vis brigade / regt. But aren't Battalion HQs the highest level of command in the game? Or is there an off-map higher level of command which a battalion can be in or out of command with depending on whether it still has its radio man?

I had always thought (partly because I believe what I read in the manual ... :)) that the answer to this was "yes": so that, for example, to be able to call in higher level off map artillery that would not be part of the structure of the on-map units, there must be an off-the-map C2 link to assets that are controlled by the brigade / regiment?

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I don't know what's available for types, but for ground attack, the types I'd find most appropriate are the Il-2, P-39 and P-63. This is because they were favored for the role, hit harder and the crews were specifically trained for ground attack. Pe-2s are dive bombers, but all the footage I've seen of them involved level bombing such as the B-25s, B-26s and A-20s did.

Quick comment: P-39s and P-63s were almost exclusively used as standard, air-to-air combat fighters so would be inappropriate as CAS aircraft in CM. Incidentally, I don't think P-63s would have been operational at the time of Bagration and I also seem to remember that it was explicitly agreed that the Soviets would not employ them against the Germans. Kingcobras were therefore Asian-front only aircraft.

Pe-2s were very good medium bombers, dive bombers and occasional CAS-style ground-attack aircraft. Think of them as light equivalents of the Ju-88.

In any event, whatever air support you buy should involve at least a pair. The Russians didn't fly solo missions as a rule.

John Kettler

This mildly annoys me, in terms of CM's depiction of CAS. Almost all CAS missions flown on all sides involved several aircraft fighting as a unit, not one pilot signing his own death warrant by flying repeated, low-level attack runs over a single target-area. I would far rather CM modelled CAS by having at least 4-8 aircraft turn up at once, strike the map in one or maybe two turns' worth of attacks and then vacate the area before AAA is fully awake and/or they're spotted by an enemy fighter patrol. Think 30 seconds of a hellish cacophony of pistons, gunfire and ordnance and then the fast diminishing sound of pilots jinking their way to safer airspace.

Bil, thanks for yet another AAR. I can't wait to see how this one develops. :)

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Quick comment:

This mildly annoys me, in terms of CM's depiction of CAS. Almost all CAS missions flown on all sides involved several aircraft fighting as a unit, not one pilot signing his own death warrant by flying repeated, low-level attack runs over a single target-area. I would far rather CM modelled CAS by having at least 4-8 aircraft turn up at once, strike the map in one or maybe two turns' worth of attacks and then vacate the area before AAA is fully awake and/or they're spotted by an enemy fighter patrol. Think 30 seconds of a hellish cacophony of pistons, gunfire and ordnance and then the fast diminishing sound of pilots jinking their way to safer airspace.

I agree with this. Other than during the last stages of the Falaise pocket I think it is fairly unlikely that pilots would have been carrying out several strafing runs in the same area

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This mildly annoys me, in terms of CM's depiction of CAS. Almost all CAS missions flown on all sides involved several aircraft fighting as a unit, not one pilot signing his own death warrant by flying repeated, low-level attack runs over a single target-area. I would far rather CM modelled CAS by having at least 4-8 aircraft turn up at once, strike the map in one or maybe two turns' worth of attacks and then vacate the area before AAA is fully awake and/or they're spotted by an enemy fighter patrol. Think 30 seconds of a hellish cacophony of pistons, gunfire and ordnance and then the fast diminishing sound of pilots jinking their way to safer airspace.

I concur.

-F

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This mildly annoys me, in terms of CM's depiction of CAS. Almost all CAS missions flown on all sides involved several aircraft fighting as a unit, not one pilot signing his own death warrant by flying repeated, low-level attack runs over a single target-area. I would far rather CM modelled CAS by having at least 4-8 aircraft turn up at once, strike the map in one or maybe two turns' worth of attacks and then vacate the area before AAA is fully awake and/or they're spotted by an enemy fighter patrol. Think 30 seconds of a hellish cacophony of pistons, gunfire and ordnance and then the fast diminishing sound of pilots jinking their way to safer airspace.

Another agreement with this from me.

This aspect will - or should, anyway - become much more important in v3.x, with ground AA units now able to to fire back directly at the CAS aircraft. Repeated runs by one aircraft over a (relatively) small target area is an invitation to be shot down, and as such was avoided wherever possible.

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I had always thought (partly because I believe what I read in the manual ... :)) that the answer to this was "yes": so that, for example, to be able to call in higher level off map artillery that would not be part of the structure of the on-map units, there must be an off-the-map C2 link to assets that are controlled by the brigade / regiment?

I've done a quick test on this which suggests that the manual is wrong and that the platoon icon on a squad C2 indicator is telling us whether the squad is in C2 with its platoon, rather than the platoon being in C2 with its Company.

I'll put the images on another thread so as not to disrupt this thread

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Agree that aircraft should not be bought in single units, but flights which attack sequentially, but they do not attack en masse, unless you want a high rate of fratricide. Historically, there are plenty of accounts of the last pairs of a flight having the roughest time as they flew through a fully awakened AA defence.

If you are buying flights of aircraft, perhaps the proficiency of the flight could be an average, with each individual plane having a separate ranking. Even better, flights could be intercepted by the AI CAP (if available, depending on an air superiority rating) and a random number allowed to attack.

Talking of AA doctrine, the Germans would vacate any non-AA vehicle and let the specialist units deal with the air threat. The Russians were encouraged to fire everything in the air, which could be surprisingly effective or lead to large casualties, will that be modelled?

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How an air attack was carried out was dictated largely by the target type. Obviously, multiple aircraft would not simultaneously attack a CM-style point target but would be forced to make consecutive attack runs. Attacking an area hundreds of metres across though (an airfield or battlefield, for example) would absolutely be carried out en masse, or even in line abreast, precisely so as to minimise exposure of each aircraft and the flight as a whole to AAA.

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Guys, I don't want this AAR to be derailed by side discussions that have nothing to do with the AAR itself. If you guys want to talk about CAS stuff, please start up a thread and talk about it there (one was just started today). But as a quick reminder, CAS has almost no place in a WW2 tactical game of this scale/scope at all. So arguing for better realism means arguing for us to remove air support options entirely. Be careful what you wish for :)

Steve

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Still moving forward.. KT1 has not been reached yet.

I sure hope Elvis doesn't have an artillery barrage plotted in these woods...

12297496494_ba94bac542_b.jpg

This image shows how I plan my advances with the Russian squads... I will keep the team with the LMG furthest back, with the best visibility into and around the area I am moving into... the second team (rifles) will advance with the lead team and stop short to cover the final push by the lead team (SMGs) to the final destination.

All movement will be through cover, and covered terrain as much as possible. I will attempt to use these tactics whenever feasible while I scout.. the squads will scout split, but together.

12297235083_cd35de1c1b_b.jpg

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Still moving forward.. KT1 has not been reached yet.

I sure hope Elvis doesn't have an artillery barrage plotted in these woods...

12297496494_ba94bac542_b.jpg

This image shows how I plan my advances with the Russian squads... I will keep the team with the LMG furthest back, with the best visibility into and around the area I am moving into... the second team (rifles) will advance with the lead team and stop short to cover the final push by the lead team (SMGs) to the final destination.

All movement will be through cover, and covered terrain as much as possible. I will attempt to use these tactics whenever feasible while I scout.. the squads will scout split, but together.

12297235083_cd35de1c1b_b.jpg

Sweet use of the UI to show numbers and weapons!

Your lead unit: that last movement order looks like SLOW. Why crawl them up into the woods?

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