New Schmuck in need of advice

[Jayzthegamer]

So I played Combat Mission BoM and recently preordered CMSF2 and I've dabbled with the Black Sea and other demos. I have 2 main questions (or points I need advice on) in pretty much every mission I lose a good portion of my armoured vehicles, now if it were like 1 APC I forgot to track or whatever not too bad, but when I lose the entire tank troop in breaking the bank I think I'm doing something wrong, so yea any pointers on that would be lovely, secondly much shorter question is should I try to keep my platoon size elements together? again citing breaking the bank I was debating between using 1 platoon and using sections to SBF and Flank or if I should have 1 platoon SBF and the other move around.

 

Sorry for the long post any advice in general is also greatly appreciated

(help a noob today)

[domfluff]

Firstly, Bil's site is *Amazing*

http://battledrill.blogspot.com/

1) The Modern games are a lot more lethal, and a lot less forgiving of error.

2) Urban combat is really hard, even for the professionals. Losing troops is normal, and it's a inch-by-inch, miserable process of "solving" one house or street at a time, sometimes.

3) It generally useful to keep Platoons together, for a couple of reasons, but mostly around Command and Control (C2). The main upshot of keeping C2 is that your units will share spotting contacts (spotting the enemy faster), and they will have some defence against suppression (keeping your suppression down and your firepower up).

The way it tends to work, as per Bil's site, is that a platoon has an objective, and may have elements attached to support it. In Breaking the Bank, I split up the Javelin team into two (Javelins are great anti-armour, but they also spot really well), one with each platoon, and also assigned an engineer, sniper team and Challenger MBT to each of them. 

You generally want to engage the enemy with as little of your force as possible, so that you maintain maximum options - one of those options is to halt the advance, and bring in a second platoon to assist. That's a little trickier in complex terrain, but it still applies.

IanL maintains a great FAQ thread: 

Possibly the most valuable in there are:
 

and

 

[Erwin]

Generally...  In the small map built-up games one needs to use the vehicles like fragile big gun snipers.  Generally one should use the (expendable) inf to spot enemy positions.   Then suppress positions that could bring AT weapons to bear on the locations where one wants to put one's vehicles.  Then bring up the vehicles and use their big guns to destroy the enemy positions and kill the enemy.

[MikeyD]

I have this same problem playing WWII titles. I select Tigers to play and wind up greatly over-estimating my invulnerability. Which always gets me into trouble. Someone once said that (real world) battlefields look uninhabited. Because everyone is doing their best to be concealed, camouflaged, behind terrain features, generally not get noticed. Because if you get noticed someone's going to clobber you,

[Lethaface]

15 hours ago, domfluff said:

You generally want to engage the enemy with as little of your force as possible, so that you maintain maximum options - one of those options is to halt the advance, and bring in a second platoon to assist. That's a little trickier in complex terrain, but it still applies.

Great advice (not only the quoted bit)! However I'd like to apply a slight nuance: I'd say make contact / recon with the smallest possible force, but engage with maximum force in order to gain fire superiority asap. That said, it's good to keep reserve's in place to respond to the unfolding action (no plan survives first contact with the enemy) and maintain good overwatch, but I'd say that's all part of the 'engage' process.
Of course over committing to an engagement while neglecting flank/rear security isn't the intention of engaging with maximum force. Engaging with maximum force prevents feeding your assets peace-meal to the meatgrinder / enemy.

[domfluff]

2 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

Great advice (not only the quoted bit)! However I'd like to apply a slight nuance: I'd say make contact / recon with the smallest possible force, but engage with maximum force in order to gain fire superiority asap. That said, it's good to keep reserve's in place to respond to the unfolding action (no plan survives first contact with the enemy) and maintain good overwatch, but I'd say that's all part of the 'engage' process.
Of course over committing to an engagement while neglecting flank/rear security isn't the intention of engaging with maximum force. Engaging with maximum force prevents feeding your assets peace-meal to the meatgrinder / enemy.

True. There's also a consideration about diminishing returns - if one squad can suppress the enemy by themselves, there may be no reason to order three squads to do it - doing so is (can be) a waste of resources, and exposes more of your force than you need to (as well as the aforementioned flank security, etc. - if all of your platoon is firing at a given target, then none may be watching the flanks).

There's tons of nuance, obviously. (That's why CM is worth playing.) This is part of the reason why you need a plan with survivable fail-states - if you're not likely to win a firefight, you need a way to break contact and get out. That's a lot trickier if you've already committed the entire platoon to the line.

The need to bring down devastating firepower quickly is a lot of the reason behind things like the MG teams in Modern US rifle platoons - since you have a large amount of firepower concentrated in a small space, it's easier to build up to fire superiority with minimal commitment - sending an MG team or two to bolster a squad can be a lot easier than getting a second or third squad on line.

There's also a difference in how you arrange for a deliberate attack on a known position, and how you manage a move to contact - I think it's reasonable to hit a well-scouted enemy position with two of the three squads in a platoon, with supporting assets, but I'd still usually leave the third behind as flank/rear security, and as a reserve for when things go horribly wrong.

[Erwin]

41 minutes ago, domfluff said:

if you're not likely to win a firefight, you need a way to break contact and get out. That's a lot trickier if you've already committed the entire platoon to the line.

This one of the hardest things to do as it requires discipline.  It is so easy to keep reinforcing failure thinking "if I can just get a few more units here I can win".  Knowing when to run away (to fight another time at another location) is important.

[Seedorf81]

There's a very stubborn part in me that keeps on thinking that it should be possible to get a win without too many casualties.

And I keep on getting frustrated when I lose men or machines. Which unavoidable results in anger and very bad tactical choises with more casualties.

It is imperative that you realize that the outcome of war/combat is usually more of a numbers game than anything else.

You can be a Combat Mission Manstein, but still have to accept that there will be slaughterhouse massacers. The gruesome reality dictates that " the last man standing" is the victor.

In order to achieve local numerical superiority in " Breaking the bank" I transferred all the troops from the right side of the map to the left.

That made the difference between being butchered, and being butchered but still having men enough to conquer the left side of the map. Maybe this will work for you.

Recently a collegue that I hadn't met for sometime asked me where my hair had gone.

Well, I've been playing Combat Mission since the first release and I cannot count the times I pulled my own hair out from the unbearable frustrations that playing Combat Mission ( try the Market Garden module to really get my point) gave to me.

But.. if you get an unexpected hard fought win, or you plan a brilliant move that turns out as you planned, if you succeed in killing a lot of enemies through good tactics, then Combat Mission is the best game you'll ever play.

 

[Erwin]

16 minutes ago, Seedorf81 said:

I keep on getting frustrated when I lose men or machines. Which unavoidable results in anger and very bad tactical choises with more casualties.

Me 2...  After CM1, CMSF1 was terrific training in how to win with minimal if any casualties. 

The WW2 titles were hard as one had to accept many more casualties.  And CMBS is horribly bloody.

Not sure if CMSF2 will also be much more bloody than the original.  Hope it keeps to the same philosophy of giving Blue enuff power to win with hardly any friendly casualties.  ie: One loses if one suffers more than a couple WIA/KIA.  It is very satisfying to win in that way.

Edited November 6, 2018 by Erwin

[JulianJ]

6 minutes ago, Erwin said:

And CMBS is horribly bloody.

LOL.  I find a certain sort of masochistic satisfaction out of that. Sort of the One Unsmoked IFV is king of all it surveys.

[domfluff]

1 minute ago, Erwin said:

Hope it keeps to the same philosophy of winning with hardly any friendly casualties.  It is very satisfying to win in that way.

If you're playing Blue, then sure

The main difference that CMSF 2 will have are things like hidden trench systems - having visible trenches from the scenario start guts an awful lot of the game, so hiding these will force better recon, etc.

CMSF has two main things that define it, and both are problems that are not easily solvable without casualties. Urban terrain can be a nightmare to crawl through, and it's terrain that absolutely benefits the Red forces over the Blue - RPG-7 and AK's are at their best at close quarters in built-up areas, and unconventional forces also get civilians they can hide between, making spies and IED's very disruptive tools.

The other unsolvable problem are ATGMs - the WW2 titles have issues spotting AT guns, but the ATGM problem is far worse, in many ways. The ability to reach out and frag an Abrams from  a couple of km away, and potentially relocate to a secondary position is amazing, and in Syria this is something which exists in the hands of the Syrian regulars and insurgents alike. This is a problem that Israel uniquely faced in Lebanon, and never really solved. Combined with the lack of pre-battle spotting of trenches, and it's going to be a lot harder to pick out likely positions before the game starts. Drones might help, but they're not too hot at finding static infantry.

[Erwin]

1 minute ago, domfluff said:

Drones might help, but they're not too hot at finding static infantry.

In RL they seem to be successful if TV footage is to be believed(?).  But in CM2, after spending hundreds of hours testing MOS's TOC scenario, have found drones to be useless in spotting infantry or moving vehicles.  (These were Elite Drones with Elite JTACS!)   In CM2, drones are only good at spotting stationary vehicles.

[domfluff]

5 minutes ago, Erwin said:

In RL they seem to be successful if TV footage is to be believed(?).  But in CM2, after spending hundreds of hours testing MOS's TOC scenario, have found drones to be useless in spotting infantry or moving vehicles.  (These were Elite Drones with Elite JTACS!)   In CM2, drones are only good at spotting stationary vehicles.

In real life, they get longer to do the job - spotting time here is in minutes or seconds, and you don't have as many people doing it. I've certainly used them to spot stationary and moving vehicles, but infantry take much longer to show up (often impractically long). You do get better results with smaller "Observe" missions, which is worth noting.

Obviously they're a lot better than nothing, and let you spot things which you can't otherwise see at all (e.g., behind a hill).

[RexSaur]

7 minutes ago, domfluff said:

 - RPG-7 and
The other unsolvable problem are ATGMs -

^This!

These are the main reasons for my causalties. Even if I suppress the **** out of the enemy they somehow manage to fire an RPG which takes out half of my squad in one hit. ATGM likewise. Even when surpressed they one-shot everything.

Small arms fire hardly kills anything in this game. Even if I manage to flush the enemy from a building, I have 3 squads firing at them while they run in panic through the open without killing a single enemy. I just had a squad take out a BMP after 4 shots from the AT4s. The crew bailed out but was able to run around half the map without taking casualties from my 2 squads firing at them. Meanwhile a suppressed ATGM took out my Striker. The only things that kills reliably are the larger calibers.

[domfluff]

46 minutes ago, Seedorf81 said:

It is imperative that you realize that the outcome of war/combat is usually more of a numbers game than anything else.

Now, them's fighting words

I recognised a while ago that I have a strong bias towards manoeuvre. I do think it's pretty trivial to show that position and timing can, in the right situation, completely overturn any numerical advantage, and I generally think it's worth pursuing those avenues first, pretty much all of the time. That's definitely my bias talking though - and it's one that's certainly possible to exploit.

On the other hand, there are situations where you're forced into full-frontal violence, and there's not much you can do about it. Recognising those situations are key. I had a recent PBEM on a too-small map that was essentially just a long firefight from start to finish (it couldn't really be anything else). Not the most interesting CMBS game ever, but there was still room for some nuance in how the firefight was won.

[Erwin]

3 hours ago, RexSaur said:

^This!

These are the main reasons for my causalties. Even if I suppress the **** out of the enemy they somehow manage to fire an RPG which takes out half of my squad in one hit. ATGM likewise. Even when surpressed they one-shot everything.

Small arms fire hardly kills anything in this game. Even if I manage to flush the enemy from a building, I have 3 squads firing at them while they run in panic through the open without killing a single enemy. I just had a squad take out a BMP after 4 shots from the AT4s. The crew bailed out but was able to run around half the map without taking casualties from my 2 squads firing at them. Meanwhile a suppressed ATGM took out my Striker. The only things that kills reliably are the larger calibers.

That skill may come with experience.  I know how frustrating it is when an enemy you'd think was suppressed suddenly pops up and kills you.  But, I find that now happens rarely.  One has to way "over-suppress" much more (shooting for more minutes) than you'd ever think is required.  (Also, I dunno what's up with your guys, but my guys are quite good at shooting enemy running away.)  I do make sure my guys are mostly Rested or Ready. 

[IICptMillerII]

3 hours ago, RexSaur said:

These are the main reasons for my causalties. Even if I suppress the **** out of the enemy they somehow manage to fire an RPG which takes out half of my squad in one hit

This is one of the many reasons why one needs to split their squads and ensure good spacing. An RPG that hits 4 men is not as bad as an RPG that hits 9. 

3 hours ago, RexSaur said:

Small arms fire hardly kills anything in this game. Even if I manage to flush the enemy from a building, I have 3 squads firing at them while they run in panic through the open without killing a single enemy. I just had a squad take out a BMP after 4 shots from the AT4s. The crew bailed out but was able to run around half the map without taking casualties from my 2 squads firing at them. Meanwhile a suppressed ATGM took out my Striker. The only things that kills reliably are the larger calibers.

As a general rule of thumb, this is 100% true in real warfare. Small arms fire accounts for only a small amount of total casualties inflicted on the battlefield. This is as true in WWII as it is in modern day, in general. Artillery, to include mortars, accounts for the single largest percentage of kills. This is followed by large caliber weapons such as tank cannons/IFV guns. Below that are crew served weapons, such as general purpose machine guns. 

While one example does not prove a rule, this is a pretty good glimpse of small arms fire against targets moving in the open at pretty close range. You'll notice the target is not put down until after he moves through the open and becomes stationary in a small structure easily fired at, and that later in the video you see just how much firepower was focused against the targets. Fair warning, this video is NSFW as it shows people being shot at, and later wounded men being tended to. 

Hopefully this gives you some insight into the real world effects of small arms fire, and may help to explain some of what you are seeing in game. 

[MOS:96B2P]

5 hours ago, RexSaur said:

These are the main reasons for my causalties. Even if I suppress the **** out of the enemy they somehow manage to fire an RPG which takes out half of my squad in one hit. ATGM likewise. Even when surpressed they one-shot everything.

In game once suppressive fire stops the suppressed troops often recover in 30 seconds.   Continuous Area Target is needed for continuous suppression.  

As an example: If you aim at the sniper, he'll duck. Then, with him out of LOS, your men will stop shooting, his morale will recover, he'll pop up and shoot your guys, in turn they will shoot at him, he'll duck, recover, repeat.  Area Target will keep the incoming fire at his location even when he is out of LOS.

The other side of the coin is that you can suppress the OpFor team so much that it results in a permanent pin where you can't drive them off.  You start to think you need to close and hose to get rid of them (which is another dangerous drill).  So sometimes it is beneficial to let up a little bit so the OpFor will run away or pop up a head to spot.  Then your troops can shoot it off.

As is most everything in this game it depends on the situation.  I might try some Area Targeting at identified OpFor positions and go from there. 

PS - As @IICptMillerII said it is generally best to use squads split into fire teams.  Especially in close terrain like MOUT.            

Edited November 6, 2018 by MOS:96B2P

[MOS:96B2P]

@IICptMillerII that was an awesome video.  Thanks for sharing.  I subscribed to that channel.   

[RexSaur]

On 11/7/2018 at 12:25 AM, IICptMillerII said:

This is one of the many reasons why one needs to split their squads and ensure good spacing. An RPG that hits 4 men is not as bad as an RPG that hits 9. 

As a general rule of thumb, this is 100% true in real warfare. Small arms fire accounts for only a small amount of total casualties inflicted on the battlefield. This is as true in WWII as it is in modern day, in general. Artillery, to include mortars, accounts for the single largest percentage of kills. This is followed by large caliber weapons such as tank cannons/IFV guns. Below that are crew served weapons, such as general purpose machine guns. 

While one example does not prove a rule, this is a pretty good glimpse of small arms fire against targets moving in the open at pretty close range. You'll notice the target is not put down until after he moves through the open and becomes stationary in a small structure easily fired at, and that later in the video you see just how much firepower was focused against the targets. Fair warning, this video is NSFW as it shows people being shot at, and later wounded men being tended to.

<snip>

Hopefully this gives you some insight into the real world effects of small arms fire, and may help to explain some of what you are seeing in game. 

Yes, I believe that. However I just played through the Combat Mission Black Sea demo and small arms fire is definitely more effective there. Maybe it is intended because Black Sea plays in the near future? I don't know but the infantry squads in Black Sea feel a lot more capable than in the shock force 2 demo.

[Erwin]

CMSF is set in early 2000's, CMBS is contemporary...  So effectiveness has improved.

[MikeyD]

US Army infantry squads in CMBS carry the M4A1 carbine with x4 magnification ACOG sight and a 'full auto' option. In CMSF2 they carry an M4 carbine with x1 magnification sight and no 'full auto', just single shot or 3 round burst. The distinction is subtle but its enough to lower unit effectiveness compared to CMBS. Plus, in CMBS a squad gets a dedicated sharpshooter carrying some serous hardware. In CMSF2 the squad marksman maybe gets assigned an ACOG scope for his M4 if he's lucky.

In CMSF2 the 800 pound gorilla in the game is the Marines. Long-barreled M16A4 with x4 ACOG and full auto capability, full 13 man squad. You can feel the firepower difference playing Marines versus Army.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

On ‎11‎/‎6‎/‎2018 at 12:26 PM, Erwin said:

In RL they seem to be successful if TV footage is to be believed(?).  But in CM2, after spending hundreds of hours testing MOS's TOC scenario, have found drones to be useless in spotting infantry or moving vehicles.  (These were Elite Drones with Elite JTACS!)   In CM2, drones are only good at spotting stationary vehicles.

You too huh? 

Goddam myopic piece of electronic junk! 

[Erwin]

Hey... our reputation scores are running neck and neck.  We should start voting for each other and soon we may actually get enuff reputation to have credibility!  

[Vet 0369]

On November 6, 2018 at 11:25 AM, IICptMillerII said:

As a general rule of thumb, this is 100% true in real warfare. Small arms fire accounts for only a small amount of total casualties inflicted on the battlefield. This is as true in WWII as it is in modern day, in general. Artillery, to include mortars, accounts for the single largest percentage of kills. This is followed by large caliber weapons such as tank cannons/IFV guns. Below that are crew served weapons, such as general purpose machine guns. 

One study I read in the 1980's regarding the number of small arms rounds per "kill" showed that as the rate of fire of a rifle increased, so did the number of rounds per kill. It's hard to remember exact numbers, but using bolt action rifles in WWI were about seven or nine rounds to one kill. In WWII with the semi-automatic M1, it was in the hundreds of rounds per kill. In Vietnam, when we adopted the M-16 with full auto capability, it climbed to thousands of rounds per kill. That was one of the reasons for the change to three-round bursts.

There is also the phenomenon of "phantom fire." That is when the infantryman actually thinks he's firing, but actually isn't. I have read that it's much more common than most know.