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Request for reading on the SOP of a mechanized infantry assault/attack


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1 hour ago, John Kettler said:

delliejonut,

Happy to assist! This is the official take on the matter. YMMV in applying this to the game.

FM 17-42 ARMORED INFANTRY BATTALION

War Department

November 1944

http://www.easy39th.com/files/FM_17-42_Armored_Infantry_Battalion_1944.pdf

Regards,

John Kettler

Just skimmed through the first few pages and it looks like exactly what I needed. Thank you!

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delliejonut,

You're welcome. Believe you'll find it quite the informative and educational read. As FMs go, this one's nicely done, with some excellent graphics conveying not just Armored Infantry Battalion material, but matters which can be broadly employed in playing CM, such as the discussion of terrain compartments relative to line of advance or retreat. When attacking, you want corridors on or parallel to you line of advance. When defending, you want the corridors perpendicular to the inbound attack. The what to do and what not to do illos are solid, and for several kinds of wargaming, all that coverage of order of march, formations, when tanks lead, who's on point and whatnot are gold.  One item in my brief dip into it particularly stood out. That is the drill for when the FO is either killed or unable to be reached: Advance provision is made for Armored Infantry Company COs to operate on one artillery fire net. This implies two things: 1) Calling for artillery is normally the exclusive province of the FO, and 2) no one lower than the Company CO should be able to request fires. Another standout was a flat statement the Armored Infantry Battalion employs fire and maneuver all the way down to the squad. This wasn't true for all armies.

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited by John Kettler
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12 hours ago, IICptMillerII said:

Check out http://battledrill.blogspot.com/

Its a blog written by one of the members of the forums who also helped with some 3D animation work for some of the CM games. Its real world tactics applied to CM and how to do it. Very useful resource.

I've read through all of those topics several times. It seems like he hasn't updated it in quite some time though. Is there anything new to check out? Bil is quite the intelligent analyst and tactician.

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6 hours ago, John Kettler said:

IICPTMILLERII,

Great resource! Wonder whether he'll ever resurrect the Blowtorch Scenarios from CMx1's CMBB?

Regards,

John Kettler

Errmm that was not Bill that made these - it was myself and Charlie Meconis :)

See link in my sig...

Edited by George MC
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10 hours ago, delliejonut said:

I've read through all of those topics several times. It seems like he hasn't updated it in quite some time though. Is there anything new to check out? Bil is quite the intelligent analyst and tactician.

It does seem like he has been dormant for a while now. I have no idea why, or if we can expect anything new anytime soon unfortunately. Still though, it is a good resource as is. 

Another good resource is the Armchair General youtube videos:

I've found that even though I've watched them through a few times now, it is still worthwhile to go back and rewatch them as a kind of refresher course. They do such a good job of covering the basics, and theyre also just fun to watch, in my opinion.

Finally, there are these videos made by Slim on the forums here:

Its an ongoing project of his, but there is already a ton of great info in the episodes hes released. Again another great resource. 

None of these resources cover exactly how to conduct a mounted assault, but they all cover tactical basics that when applied to any situation, should produce results. And as I said, if you've already seen all of these, they are still worth rewatching. 

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11 hours ago, George MC said:

Errmm that was not Bill that made these - it was myself and Charlie Meconis :)

See link in my sig...

I've never heard of them! I'll go ahead and check it out now.

 

2 hours ago, IICptMillerII said:

It does seem like he has been dormant for a while now. I have no idea why, or if we can expect anything new anytime soon unfortunately. Still though, it is a good resource as is. 

Another good resource is the Armchair General youtube videos:

I've found that even though I've watched them through a few times now, it is still worthwhile to go back and rewatch them as a kind of refresher course. They do such a good job of covering the basics, and theyre also just fun to watch, in my opinion.

Finally, there are these videos made by Slim on the forums here:

Its an ongoing project of his, but there is already a ton of great info in the episodes hes released. Again another great resource. 

None of these resources cover exactly how to conduct a mounted assault, but they all cover tactical basics that when applied to any situation, should produce results. And as I said, if you've already seen all of these, they are still worth rewatching. 

I've never seen SLIM's tactics videos, I'll look now.

 

I can safely say though I would be really stoked if Bil continued updating the battledrill blogspot. It has been the single most useful resource on tactics I've found. I referenced it a lot during a DAR vs meatgrinder, and it's one of the few games I won against him (who himself beat Bil in a DAR on this forum).

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 4/30/2017 at 1:05 AM, delliejonut said:

I've read through all of those topics several times. It seems like he hasn't updated it in quite some time though. Is there anything new to check out?

 

On 4/30/2017 at 11:59 AM, IICptMillerII said:

It does seem like he has been dormant for a while now. I have no idea why, or if we can expect anything new anytime soon unfortunately. Still though, it is a good resource as is. 

Not sure if I will get back to that BLOG anytime soon, maybe someday, but no promises.

Cheers

Edited by Bil Hardenberger
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I'm sure there are a lot of lurkers like me that greatly appreciate Bil's contributions over the years.  I recently reread some of his AAR's and his blog, and replayed the training exercises from the blog.  I'd pay for a training pack by Bil.

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@Bil Hardenberger , second these sentiments. Reading your blog is a major (read: HUGE) part of the reason why I was able to become ladder champion over at FGM the year before. My playstyle was haphazard at best, then I read your strategies and methodology. I applied them to Paper Tiger's scenarios and learned a lot of lessons about real life tactics and their in game application. I have a much deeper appreciation for every PBEM now, win or lose. Thanks for your hard work!

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On 5/15/2017 at 7:47 PM, Bil Hardenberger said:

 

Not sure if I will get back to that BLOG anytime soon, maybe someday, but no promises.

Cheers

 

2 hours ago, Gnaeus said:

I'm sure there are a lot of lurkers like me that greatly appreciate Bil's contributions over the years.  I recently reread some of his AAR's and his blog, and replayed the training exercises from the blog.  I'd pay for a training pack by Bil.

@Bil Hardenberger , second these sentiments. Reading your blog is a major (read: HUGE) part of the reason why I was able to become ladder champion over at FGM the year before. My playstyle was haphazard at best, then I read your strategies and methodology. I applied them to Paper Tiger's scenarios and learned a lot of lessons about real life tactics and their in game application. I have a much deeper appreciation for every PBEM now, win or lose. Thanks for your hard work!

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On ‎4‎/‎30‎/‎2017 at 11:59 AM, IICptMillerII said:

Its an ongoing project of his, but there is already a ton of great info in the episodes hes released. Again another great resource. 

None of these resources cover exactly how to conduct a mounted assault, but they all cover tactical basics that when applied to any situation, should produce results. And as I said, if you've already seen all of these, they are still worth re-watching. 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmW_vcwM_qxukdDjpfUEerpICUzTrTKek

I made a complete playlist for ease of access to both Jeffrey Paulding's videos and my own.

Mechanized Infantry will be covered in TTP Part 5, but given there is a demand for it, I might bump it up to Part 4.
That won't be for another month of two, though. Real Lifetm has happened.

Edited by SLIM
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2 hours ago, SLIM said:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmW_vcwM_qxukdDjpfUEerpICUzTrTKek

I made a complete playlist for ease of access to both Jeffrey Paulding's videos and my own.

Mechanized Infantry will be covered in TTP Part 5, but given there is a demand for it, I might bump it up to Part 4.
That won't be for another month of two, though. Real Lifetm has happened.

Sweet. Thanks for making the playlist. Having nearly wrapped up my current mechanized assault I noticed several errors I made. First and foremost was knowing when to unbutton and/or dismount! It almost like a man-sized target several feet in the air is an easy target to hit :P. Once your first or second gunner gets killed, your halftrack driver panics and sends everyone riding along into a nervous state for the rest of the battle, which usually spreads to the rest of the platoon. This sucks. When not transporting, it worked better to keep them buttoned until maneuvered into a good firing position, with a target selected or in view. 

So I learned a few things. As I was attacking over flat ground, I realize I should should have used my halftracks as transports first and have the tanks provide supporting fire until they reached their disembark point, then break off scout teams as needed to man the halftrack mgs and use them for suppression. Then again, AT guns are pretty scary. So I could be missing something completely, I still don't feel super confident about using mechanized forces. Looking forward to your video.

Edited by delliejonut
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I just still don't really get how an armoured division would have fought in any aggressive way.

In the game at least, the moment your tanks get into LOS of an enemy AT gun, they are toast. Armoured cars too. Halftracks even more. Usually they never see what hit them, and if they do get a spot on the enemy gun, they will fire one shot, it will miss, then the gun crew will duck down and the tank will promptly forget about that target. Hopefully it won't be too long before the next orders phase so I get a chance to do manual area fire.

I don't understand how any armoured formation could have advanced in any assertive way when they could at any moment get wiped out by a couple of well-hiden AT guns.

In the game, my armoured advances feel more like mine clearing. On my belly, proping slowly for enemy defences using infantry, then waiting patiently while I bring down mortar fire, or slowly flank the position, then creeping slowly forward with the tanks again, hoping I actually took out that gun. This approach works, but I sometimes wonder what the big deal about tanks was, given that they were so vulnerable.

And BTW I don't mean to say there's anything wrong with the game in this regard... Just that I'm a bit puzzled why tanks are praised so much. They seem like "glass cannons".

Maybe the main point of armoured formations (tanks&halftracked infantry) is just that they can advance while mostly disregarding enemy artillery?

Edited by Bulletpoint
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