xerxes
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Posts posted by xerxes
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I use Assault much more than I used to. I don't use it to try and "overrun" the enemy. It's quite effective for getting across an open section that's under mg fire. Fewer casualties and less chance of suppression.
If you're getting forced to sneak while assaulting you have a mix of:
1. Too much enemy firepower in the area (and the converse, you haven't suppressed enough of the shooters)
2. Troops aren't high enough quality
3. You HQ doesn't have enough heart
4. Your terrain is just too exposed
Assault doesn't guarantee you'll make it.
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Fallback foxholes can also be used to create lateral reinforcement paths across open terrain. Some maps make it easy to cut the defender into sections and attack each in turn. A row of foxholes can give you just enough to cover to regain defensive mobility.
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Keep it as italy but set the terrain to sand or arid rocks. You can make Italy look just like Palestine.
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Make sure a nasty defender hasn't left a forward tank hunter team in cover that you wouldn't normally pass through.
i.e. Touch all the cover anywhere near the path of your FO moving forward.
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Only a very rare few have ever witnessed this event though many have heard of it or seen pictures. Count yourself among the chosen!
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I agree. Spotting infantry is simply to easy, even under EFOW. When I was testing "Haunter in the Dark", a scenario in which 60 small teams of germans attempt to ambush a bunch of T34s in a town at night, I was rather surprised to find out how easily the small teams, even in cover, were spotted. Two guys attempting to sneak under the cover of darkness are actually awfully hard to see at 30-40m. The T34s consistently spotted them.
I vote for EEFOW (Extra Enhanced Fog of War) in the next incarnation of CM.
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Ugh, that's rather bad and certainly does sound like quite a bug.
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I think you'll find a lot of friendly fire occurs at greater ranges with lower quality troops. It seems that vets and cracks are much better at night on the friendly fire criteria. Conscripts are just plain horrible at night.
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I find most briefings to be quite reasonable. "Expect only light resistance" is always interpreted as inaccurate. It's just code for "we don't really know what's out there."
I don't expect briefings to be anywhere near 100% accurate. I do think reinforcements should be pretty well laid out in most cases though not tied to an exact turn number. I can't imagine many troops really arrived at the precise minute they were expected.
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I don't think it's overdone, your setting is arid rocks. If you set it to sand you won't get hardly any rough terrain.
If you're QB was part of an escarpment, you'd expect that most of the map would be rocky/rough.
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Kingfish is correct.
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I think BTS used the same model for the different variants of the CV series. Some of which did have two mgs.
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The Italians did have the best tankettes and the best ATRs of the war. Too bad WWII didn't start 5 years earlier, the Italian equipment would have been unbeatable.
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The Italians collapsed in East Africa even though they had significant advantages in men and material.
The Italians collapsed in North Africa even though they had significant advantages in men and material.
The Italians collapsed in Greece even though they had signficiant advantages in men and material.
Notice a pattern?
Arguing that the Italian military was anything but terrible is absurd. Some of the units in the Italian military were good (artillerymen, paratroopers, Ariete, etc). It was a case of 95% bad, 5% good. The 5% couldn't come close to making up for the 95%. Not having a decent general in the lot was the crowning failure.
That's not insulting Italians or revisionism. I applaud the Italians for not being interested in extending a meglomaniac facist dictatorship with their blood.
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Prep fire with arty is very effective at night due to the increased morale effects. A quick prep bombardment followed by a very rapid attack can make excellent progress in a night fight.
With your infantry you want to make sure you have signficiant numerical superiority at the point of attack. It's more difficult for you to use overwatch but it's also more difficult for the defender to create interlocking defensive fields of fire. Initially fire will suppress and disrupt your infantry, you want to have enough to be able to keep pushing. As the attacker at night it's easier to concentrate your forces since you can use the cover of darkness to manuever undetected.
Lead with expendables (lmgs/half squads) to get an idea of where the enemy is. You won't get exact IDs but if you have supporting hmgs in position they can provide very good area suppressive fire. When your units take fire look to see where the shooter could be. Given the LOS restriction you can often narrow the shooting position options down to 1 or 2 locations. Hose those down and move forward to close and get positive IDs.
Naturally you want you heart-bonus commanders in control. A heart bonus company HQ is particularly valuable.
Unlike daytime warfare, you can operate your tanks and infantry in very close proximity. (since long range AT fire is impossible) Your tanks won't panic in the same way as infantry and as long as the lead is flying you have less to fear from enemy infantry close assaults on your tanks. The tanks really help you hold your attack together. And keep those tanks together, don't send them off in penny packets.
A second use of tanks is to create diversions. The tank noise contacts will be picked up by the enemy. It will be hard to distinguish a tank feint from a full on attack.
Onboard mortars can be very effective at night, make sure you havea double command bonus HQ targetting for them so you can stay outside the minimum range restriction. The HE shells of mortars in woods are also very suppressive.
Just some things to think about.
The worst way to conduct a night attack is to spread out your attack and mount weak attacks at multiple points. A weak attack can be easily turned back a night.
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I personally find manportable FTs extremely useful support weapons. My opponents agree with me, and I don't play people who suck.
Are FTs a great QB purchase? No. For a variety of reasons. FTs are hard to use well. The QB map generator doesn't create FT friendly maps even in towns. HTs to ferry FTs are expensive to purchase. You can load up on cheap smg units, etc, etc.
The more relevant question is how to use them effectively in scenarios which is where most CM players will encounter them. If you don't know how to use FTs, it will hurt you badly in a fair number of scenarios. Saying FTs "suck" isn't really helpful to the player who is given a pioneer company in a scenario to support his mission. Early brit armored cars also "suck" but if that's what you have you better darn well figure out how to use them effectively.
Walpurgis is absolutely correct in describing the importance of using area targeting out of LOS as one effective deployment tactic.
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If the enemy has packed troops into a relatively small area, the FT on a "miss" can often hit other enemy units. Always a bonus.
The trick with area targeting and conserving FT ammo is to use a pause and then a sneak to stop the FT from continuing to shoot after the first 1 or 2 flame shots.
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I think you might be misunderstanding. The amor angle listed on a unit is the angle of the armor relative to a "level" shot at it. In your picture, if the target unit had an armor slope of say 20%, then the actual angle for caculating penetration in the situation you drew would be 20%(armor)+30%(angle of the shooter) = 50%.
If you were shooting down at the same tank from a -20% angle, then the slope for penetration would be 20% - 20% = 0%.
Hope that helps.
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Accurate or not, I've found HT mounted assaults to be very successful in many cases.
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I don't care for mounted assaults, the infantry is swept off too easily and then out of position.
The major exceptions are for moving quickly over wire or AP mines. A quick mounted dash over wire is extremely helpful.
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The most basic solution is to plan your attack to avoid such a situation. On most maps there will be approach lanes that don't allow long range mg fire from the back of the defenders side.
If it looks like a single mg is slowing your advance, then you can advance a large number of squads at the same time (advance + hide). The mg can't target everything. The squads that get rattled should go to hide and let other squads take the heat.
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I've never tested it but it sure seems that if you're firing at the front you don't have much chance of a track hit. Seems like you need a side shot.
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oh yeah, you blew yourself up. Happens quite easily with the light armored + large gun afvs. It's really good if the crew is trying to thread the needle past a nearby house, hit the house, shrapnel hits them and they all abandon. If you check the kill screen they probably got credit for killing themselves. Seriously.
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Redwolf has a good, and historic point. Many British offensives were started at night with infantry making the first moves.
Got a Good City Fight?
in Combat Mission - Scenario Talk
Posted
Death of a Legion is a battalion sized Italian/Canadian cityfight.