Wilhammer

An interesting article on infantry loads: http://call.army.mil/products/newsltrs/01-15/01-15ch11.htm

b. Recommend that White Phosphorous & Colored Smoke be made available at Ammunition Supply Points. It has been proven that WP has been invaluable as an offensive weapon. Also colored smoke is most easily picked up by air observation and therefore should be used almost exclusively by light artillery for marking air targets. ROBERT C. McCABE, Lt. Col. 419th Armd FA Bn., Commanding Quoted from this: http://www.419th.com/mccabe.html

Redstone Arsenal in WW2 http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/studies/welcome.html

http://www.3ad.org/testimonials/wwii/pacios/wwii_36air_pacios.htm Here a guy talks about an action near Aachen that sounds like a fine scenario. He mentions WP beingused for a smoke screen tactically.

http://www.milmag.com/features/bulge01.html Near the bottom the guy talks about taking out a Panzer with a WP hand grenade.

A Sherman tank crew oral history. http://www.tankbooks.com/giffdarp.htm

Christmas Present at Hemroulle http://thedropzone.org/europe/Bulge/463dpfa.html

It would be nice to have the ability to either "store" purchase points or trade in VPs or both to allow us to "request" additional support later in the battle that you may or may not use. That would add a whole new dynamic to QBs, would it not?

JasonC, That is the best explanation of the cost bias (unintentional) that favors the Germans I have read. The Sherman thing is particularly way off, and your other arguments are right on (with me).

Jeff, I never did like that explanation. Seems to me that the battlefield is so confusing, how could you determine on bit of kicked up dust and damage from another? Otherwise, yes, it is a deliberate design decision for the opposition to have near perfect intel on area fires.

This is very similar to the problem with the German SMG squads carrying the same ammo load as rifle squads, while they in truth expend it faster. IIRC, BTS is correcting this with CM2:BB.

Very bice. Did you notice any difference in time after the shell hits that the round emits smoke? Notice that the 150 rocket has an interesting characteristic I was not concious of, because I have never bought rockets. It fires 50 rounds very quickly and puts down a very long duration smokescreen of 2.5 minutes. That could prove most useful.

It is said that the 29th ID before the St. Lo operation was actually three divisions, one buried, one in the hospital and one in the field. This after about 6 weeks of combat, IIRC. Michael Doubler's Closing With The Enemy has a chart in the back of all US divisions deployed to NW Europe, and IIRC correctly, the average ID suffered about 85% casualties, and some around 200% or more. In an action as intense as the ones we fight in CM, 50-70% casualties is likely, and I feel that is about right. [ 08-24-2001: Message edited by: Wilhammer ]

I too have never done the AI advantage thing, just force increases. What does the AI advantage do, exactly? How does it improve the AI? Does it actually get smarter (by taking longer to consider actions) or does it just improve force quality? Or Both?

I'd like to add a tip on terrain recon.... I use the rotate command (any move command will due) and trace it out to great length to check LOS. This especially works great for contour checking. Try it, plot movement for a unit, and as you check out places to stop them (esp hulldown positions), trace a rotate command from your current plotted waypoint. Follow the pink line, and "see" from this potential future position how it follows the lay of the land and how it passes near obstacles. This is the closest thing I have found to checking LOS from any point on the map. I prefer to get in the habit of using the rotate command for this to avoid accidentally forgetting I did this so that some poor unit wanders off the plan. This helps me a bunch.

"Prior to the 1860s, units marched in formation, fought in formation, and aimed mostly at individuals while trying to hit units." Not exactly correct. Units aimed at Units. Marking individual men was rare and impractical for most soldiers due to the shortcomings of weapons. We also recognized prior to most European nations that the primary purpose of an Army was to DESTROY the other army, not neccesarily outmanuever it and force a "gentlemanly" surrender followed by pardons all around. We often fell back on the old ways, but for the most part we employ either an ignore them or all out kill them method of conflict resolution. No hard and fast rules, but general historical observation is all I offer. The Americans became notorious during the French and Indian Wars for targeting officers with sharpshooters, and earned more "praise" for this in the Revolution. The primary technology that made that possible was the individual talent of the marksman, especially in home made/customized weapons and ammunition. This is relatively unique to the American experience due to the fact that it was an army of well armed citizens (the well-regulated militia). Hunting was a way of life, a neccesity, while in most European countries, hunting was a privilidge of the few, and firearms were for the most part withheld from citizens. Interstingly, Marlborough started the employment of column formations in order to increase shock value and thus win. His reason was based on the reality of the lack of sustainable fire, and this closing in tight formation took adavantage of the pause in reload for mass firing of weapons. Also, columnar formations are easier to control. The US in Europe used column tactics, for much the same reason, but the pause in enemy fire was due to suppression fire or smoke. The purpose of suppression fire is to, of course, get the enemy to stop shooting while you attempt to overrun it or another it is supporting. The American method of it depended on firepower, and during World War II, an HE gap existed between combatants, the Americans becomeing (in)famous for liberal application of it in combined arms attacks. Heck, we through everything we could at the enemy.

How I use it offensively: It really depends on the size of the map, but lets say it is medium and you want to spend 1500-2000 points. Split squads and send the "B" units out in front, varying degrees of depth beyond the "A" providing overwatch. "B" bounds, halts. "A" bounds to "B". "B" leads next cycle. Soon, something wil open fire on a "B" unit. Since it is low morale, it typically will suffer few casualties and run away. Its morale state is moot, as once it merges with "A", it will assume "A's" state. Except for guns, RLS and snipers, most infantry are deployed in clusters. As needed, we further define and collect intel while plotting an attack and a barrage. A smoke mission is planned as well, but since I typically use light stuff that shoots quicker, I have to delay plot. My goal is for the Big Stuff to land about 10 seconds before the smoke mission. The smoke deploys, the Big Stuff is either lifted, or best drifted to behind the enemy position. Under smoke and during the barrage, I have the assault move through, and the location usually falls. The barrage that was drifted backwards is designed to pick up a few more casualties as the enemy force withdraws, and to catch any units moving in to reinforce. I often times drop barrage after the smoke and delay my movement so that the defender will raise his head in expectation of my attack, and increase vulnerability of the Big Stuff. The barrage is immediatelly lifted, and the smoke is replenished (this is when the chart would come in handy, how soon would I have to have the second smoke barrage land?), my men are launched to assault a stunned enemy. Mix up the methods, and the opponent is jumpy. However, its greatest weakness is the pathetic amount of ammo given FOs.

60mm as smoke is not very good, but sometimes all you have. My uses for it; 1. Damn, that enemy ATG! Smoke it and shell it with 60mm. 2. Damn that enemy AFV! Smoke him too. 3. Limited success for taking a small point, like a section of woods or a building by laying smoke just before you move on it. As a general smoke screen, forget it.

Surely written about in the past, but lets revisit this for the sake of review and the newbies. Smoke is a valuable offensive tool, and sometimes just as valuable defensively. What I would like to have put together is a guide to smoke usage, arranged by Weapon, Emit Time (smoke once it hits has a time before it is effective), persistance (how long does the smoke stay in effect), and coverage (realtive value; a 60 mm smoke round blocks less well than an 81 mm, and a 105 does better still). Perhaps this should be added to the Artillery Tables recently posted here, except it needs to take into account the direct fire weapons. With much CMing behind me, I have noticed that the Attacker uses far more smoke than the defender does. It is nearly mandatory for a succesful attack to be combined with a smoke barrage, while most defensive smoke use rarely includes a barrage, and if it does, it is not nearly as thick or ammunition consuming as one that needs to be sustained for the offensive. Considering the above, is it not reasonable to recognize that a defender gets more firepower out of his off board arty than an attacker does? And, since the attacker must depend on smoke more, should the attacker have a higher quantity of direct fire smoke than normal? Arty costs the same whether attacking or defending, but I suggest that the defender gets more killing power from his as he does not have to divert some of his fire missions to smoke missions. Then again, if timely executed, a smoke barrage THEN -FFE barrage- WITH infantry/armour combined arms sequence attack works well enough, a defender can't really stop it from succeeding. BTW, in a QB I typically spend everything I can on Off Board Artillery. Smoke for approach coverage, and heavy stuff for killing seem crucial to any success.

To Paraphrase "The nation secured virtually complete control over a generation by mandating that boys and girls join child care organizations, where the corporate state gained total power over their daily lives, development, and future. Only those who had proven themselves and had fully internalized socialist delusions could join the Elite, who would one day occupy leading positions in the Federal Governmanet or Corporate board. We provide evidence of the pressure the youth organizations exerted and what it meant to be excluded from them (for not being PC)."

How 'bout a lego mod

It never occured to me that untowed guns could be gamey for any reason. When does a meeting engagemnt get defined? It could be that this simulates a local counterattack running into an enemy attack, thus overwatching guns is perfectly reasonable. And, another issue: Was this; Sound Tactics? OR (eeegads!) Gamey? A unit, a half squad, spots a unit. A tank, that cannot see the spotted unit, and is hundreds of meters away, can see very close to the spotted unit (and never has LOS to it); So, I target the area with AFV area fire, and I kill the unit (a gun). And that is how you get indirect AFV fire in CM. Gamey? I don't think so, but then again I do. I have done this many times when the AFV was close to an infantry unit, but not from such alarge seperation of space. Not gamey when relatively close to each other, gamey is far apart. I kinda feel guilty about my lucky kill

I have wondered why we have yet to see the greyscale mod for CM...

Darwin the Clone

How I get around this, sort of. The dancing soldiers of course. That's right, I plot them to waypoints that are safe, and if I need to delay a guy, I plan for by plotting very small moves, around 4 directions, and then plot back to the path. Each turn, I just subtley adjust course as needed, even changing speeds, so that I can co-ordinate movements. Dancing soldiers happens when you need to slow some unit's progress, so you have them back track, step sideways, and then back on course. [ 08-14-2001: Message edited by: Wilhammer ]