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tips on taking out units in trenches?


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I'll admit that I'm having a tough time assaulting defenders in trenches. Any tips on the best way to go about this (aside from blasting them out with direct tank fire)? Is infantry fire more effective at certain angles to the trench line? Is there a minimum distance where trenches cease to lose their effective cover? Any help would be appreciated.

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If you can get your guys into the trench with the enemy, you can concentrate the firepower on individual squads, rolling up the trench as you go, while getting the same cover benefit as the target. Very difficult though without MG/mortar suppression and a few trees to block LOS from the target's buddies in the trench with him.

[edited to include the following:] Use the "assault" order when you get right up to, and inside, the trench. Give Hill 312 on the CD a try. It's pretty fun, short, small-sized, and requires some trench assaults. You have enough support units to provide suppression as well.

[ October 11, 2002, 02:40 PM: Message edited by: Agua ]

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Smoke 'em and enfilade fire from the flank, or flamethrowers both work well.

Of course, neither is particularly easy to do, though flamethrowers seem much more survivable in BB.

Shows you why WWI was so miserable. Put a bunch of MG's in a trench and try to pry 'em out with an infantry charge. Good luck.

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I have had success if I can surround the trench first with about 3 or 4 platoons, works well especially if defender is hiding that way easier to set up for the assault. Of course this isnt always possible just depends on how well the trench is supported by other units.

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Originally posted by Doodlebug:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Vergeltungswaffe:

Smoke 'em and enfilade fire from the flank......

Shouldn't a properly laid out trench be zigzagged to avoid enfilading fire along the whole length of the trench? Is that included in the cover bonus calculation?</font>
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Originally posted by Agua:

Use the "assault" order when you get right up to, and inside, the trench. Give Hill 312 on the CD a try. It's pretty fun, short, small-sized, and requires some trench assaults. You have enough support units to provide suppression as well.

Damn. Just tried this one and got caned. I got all my units undetected up to the end of the trench line and assualted. Every single unit stopped short of the trench and either went to ground or tried to play plink-plink. They were completely decimated. When some of them got into the trench on the assualt order, they then decided that they would change their orders to "run out into open ground".

Not a man came back down that hill.

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One question, Affentitten, did you put plenty of suppressive fire with covered arcs on the trenches prior to and during the assault?

If not, the excellent job you did in getting your troops up close, undetected would go for naught. If you did, then you did everything right, and just had bad luck, unfortunately for your men.

Not a single man came down the hill. Damn.....

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I think my 'mistake' was using the advance/assault orders too early. Since I had no way of judging the disposition of enemy units on the hill and there was quite a bit of open ground to cover towards the end, I was effectively charging up the hill. As it turned out, my men were nearly on top of the enemy before any LOS came. I could have sneaked or moved them up the hill from that angle and they would have arrived fresh. Unfortunately, by the time they got into contact, most of them were borderline exhausted and all of them were "tired".

I was using all my mortars and MGs to lay fire across the top of the trenches. It was frustrating to watch every unit go to ground within two or three meters of the end of the trench and be picked off, most of them panicking and running into the open kill zone surrounded by trenches.

Two of the bog-standard Russian squads up there had kills of 35+ at the end of the game. I'd picked off only 5 of them.

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Affentitten,

I wrote a AAR of my (very!) successful 1st try at Hill 312, it was my 1st full battle in CMBB (I'm also playing Yelnia Stare as the Germans in a PBEM, and did the simple Tutorial, too). I've bumped it for you, but to search for it...see the next sentence.

My browser at work doesn't support the full URL at BFC, so search the CMBB forum, with "Hill 312 AAR" in the text, and member # 5107 for yours truly.

SPOILER...

This is a lil' micro-summary before you read the full AAR: I moved fwd along the left flank until I was even w/ the left flank Bunker MG. Then I used 'advance' to move two split squads past the left firing arc of the bunker, thus revealing an MG. This allowed me to eventually reveal many Soviet units (at range!) which I pounded w/ MG34, 50mm and 81mm mortar fire, and rifle fire from two Platoons. Suppression is the KEY! That and not moving too many troops into the open until you have HAMMERED the Sovs w/ all available means.

Hope this helps,

SM

[ October 14, 2002, 06:47 PM: Message edited by: Silvio Manuel ]

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HILL 321 SPOILER ********************

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Afentitten. Get ALL your men up to the spot of woods near the end of the trench on the Russian right. Personally, I used advance to contact to get them up to the spot of woods (scattered trees? don't remember). As the Russians closest to you in the trench will begin to appear, adjust the cover arcs of the MG34's down in the little village to cover only the portion of the trench that is putting out fire on your troops. From that spot in the woods, use "advance" to move as many of your guys to a position from which they can fire upon the trench as you can. After a turn of this (maybe before), you should see the Russians ducking down every now and then. THEN assault with a squad or two into the trench. They should start beating a line out of that trench for elimination in the open.

See if that doesn't work for ya.

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Originally posted by Affentitten:

I think my 'mistake' was using the advance/assault orders too early. Since I had no way of judging the disposition of enemy units on the hill and there was quite a bit of open ground to cover towards the end, I was effectively charging up the hill. As it turned out, my men were nearly on top of the enemy before any LOS came. I could have sneaked or moved them up the hill from that angle and they would have arrived fresh. Unfortunately, by the time they got into contact, most of them were borderline exhausted and all of them were "tired".

I was using all my mortars and MGs to lay fire across the top of the trenches. It was frustrating to watch every unit go to ground within two or three meters of the end of the trench and be picked off, most of them panicking and running into the open kill zone surrounded by trenches.

Two of the bog-standard Russian squads up there had kills of 35+ at the end of the game. I'd picked off only 5 of them.

I agree with your assessment. Tired/exhausted troops fight poorly, and I suspect that was the problem.
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Originally posted by Doodlebug:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Vergeltungswaffe:

Smoke 'em and enfilade fire from the flank......

Shouldn't a properly laid out trench be zigzagged to avoid enfilading fire along the whole length of the trench? Is that included in the cover bonus calculation?</font>
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Originally posted by buckshyesh:

I think that the "Trench" marker really models a slightly more complex "system" of trenches, not just a single straight ditch. The zigzagging is abstractd. Therefore, fire down the length of the trench system is not more effective than fire perpentular to the trench system.

I believe your right- that had me baffled in Hill 312 once I was "rolling up" the trench.

[ October 15, 2002, 04:39 PM: Message edited by: Silvio Manuel ]

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yeah, the key was using the right combo of moves on the attacking side:

SPOILER

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I advanced the infantry on the wooded flank, using move to contact with a sqaud leading ahead of the rest of the platoon. I considered using a half-squad, but the full squad came in quite handy when they bumped into the russian platoon also advancing through the woods. I managed to cutoff several of the russian squads and sent them packing. The rest of the force advanced up the slope out of LOS of the MG bunker on the far flank. I then advanced troops into the wooded area, concentrating all fire on those troops at the closest end of the trench. The slope of the hill prevented the other trenches from firing on my units, so I had the firepower advantage on that end of the ridge. My MG's supressed troops further down the line. Started to assault into the trenches, rolling up the defenders and they started to break. As a surprise, the hardest part of keeping the attack moving was my troops tiring from assaulting down the length of the trench.

Spent the final turns knocking out the remaining pillboxes.

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  • 2 months later...
Originally posted by buckshyesh:

I think that the "Trench" marker really models a slightly more complex "system" of trenches, not just a single straight ditch.

That would explain something for me. In _Haunted Hill_, towards the end, I had a sqaud or two facing a trench, with another squad in line with the trench, ready to jump in the end of it...

I thought to myself, "Well, as soon as he jumps in there, he's going to be completely uncovered to the enemy squad in the trench on the other end, so it's going to be ugly, quite likely..."

But it wasn't- he jumped in, and he and the enemy exchanged fire in much the same way as if they were both in medium cover, like scattered trees.

If you ask me why I say that, well... it "looked" that way.

Eden

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Why the fixation on "taking" the trench? Just pound them at medium range with Mgs, mortars, and infantry, whatever helps. Eventually they will rout adn run away, only to be mowed down. Then you simply STROLL into the empty trench (assuming it's unsupported, if it is, you ASSUALT into it. ;)

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