Thermopylae

No actual motion..but you hear scerams and rifle butts thwacking.Plus the little guys recoil.

CMHQ Chat. The answre to any opponent search also if you don't mind the odd king tiger, tournament house.

Actually, turretless vehicles work pretty well....point them down an alley and you've got everythign except it hevay front armro coverd by buildings, and the lack of a turret doen't matter...

One glaring flaw with the light empty buildings/trees on fire tactic. In RL, fire spreads, so lighting gigantic pyres near you MLR is a bad idea.

Hmmm...interesting Pillar...never really thought about that...most players I meet who are willing to suicidally charge across fields without considering the options are not exactly casualty reluctant I actually find that such players tend to make minor gains at the expense of their entire fighting force, but do make these gains. (albeit in RL the soon following counterattack would inevitably destroy them) This is an ideal example of how agression can FORCE a point. The deadliest weapon tho, is someone who acts with good tactical sense in acasualty reluctant way, but if the cause is sufficient, is willing to pay the price for such a forcing of a point if that is what is needed. Diversionary attacks may or may not fall into this category dependant. There may be times when a charging platoon is exactly what is needed to shift the enmies main fires away form your true inetent. A platoon sitting in the woods just doens't have the same threat level to a defender.

Room for one more shooter?

Pillar I believe you have encapsulated the basic ideas I was pointing out as more or less mandatory and acceppted. no one would hesiate to use them. The few deaths, small expedition lost for the better of the force type of loss. Anyone reading this section of the forums, and probably the overwhelming majority of CM players understand these concepts.If I was merely containing my post to that, there would be no point in having posted in the first place. Wow, that sounded arrogant didn't it? I don't mean to, honest. However my true point (which is being ever condensed to cope with my own failures in communications) is that you must look beyond this type of acceptable casualty. That sometimes new situations will arise that will require acceptable casualties and people will not use it because they don't think said casualties are acceptable. The large open field crossing being an example people can easily understand. Casualties in this are inherent, but sometimes its worth it. So maybe it didn't get condensed..oh well...

How you do the move isn't all that important. If you have assets to divert to suppression, by all means use them. Its the fact that one does move and acknowledges the movement is worth the casualties, instead of being holed up and completely intact, yet useless for anything more than small amounts of applied firepower.

Chris and Gremlin both have very good points. Generally speaking you don't know if your move is an audacious master stroke or not until after its done. However, when i said be willing to lsoe the men, its a good diea to make sure thier worth losing. Suicidal chargea s described by Chris are not brilliant they are usually wasteful. This type of thing isn't what i had in mind when orignally posting. (except of course when they work and you can come back here and insult me about it It is probably seeing these possible moves, after being taught again and again that doing such casuses casualties, and still acting on them, which allows for the unexpected thrust in the middle of a battle. Heres one example; You have a platoon of forces in some woods on your opponents flank, with a large field open in front of them. Directly to their front is a much feared MG bunker. Behind the buker are soem cattered treees and the VL. Its a fairly theres not much els eout here. There is no apparent means of knocking it out which won't detract from the main assualt, which is being hard fought, or without grave risk to your own armor. Most people will say "it is an open field, controlled by 3 MGs, we cannot pass." The insightful one says "we can pass that field and get behind the bunker, and place a effective force on this flank, for 6-10 casualties."

I think gremlin (no offense intended BTW ) has just typfied the most common use of casualties for advantage. the gaining of information. However, the point I was trying to make is that sometimes you need to see past the casualties for any maneuver, not just ones that have been pre-established, like recon. Caution, even reasonable and rationale caution, may not be what a battlefield situation calls for. However, most people persiste in their reasonable and rational caution ALL the time, which is what may leave them solid and capable up to their particular tactical skill level, but often denies them a stroke of brilliance or audacity. (Conversely, audacity has been known to be foolish at times) NOTE: The author often suffers from this exact tenativeness, which is why i thought to pinpoint it.

There is one concept that everyone accepts in a battle. This is the fact that "I will lose men". Everyone acknowledges this to themselves rationally, but very few use it as an insight. While they realize that there are certain definites when losing men is inevitable and nessecary, very few will ever seek to improvise their own situations in which scarifice is nessecary and useful. The best example of a pre-set definite people acknowledge is reconaissance. Every one realizes that the chance of you seeing your rifle teams or other method of recon again are slim. yet this is acceppted on the basis that it is tactically valuable to you the commander and it saves you from having whole platoons destroyed bby hidden enemies. You accept the fact that soldiers will be lost for a viable maneuver. The same concept is taken and applied in the close assualt. Very few people recognize this for what it is worth however. They stay within their pre-set ideas of what will need to happen and what losses are nessecary. A tendency to preserve men and expose them to as little danger as possible is the common trait. This line of thinking should be encouraged, but there are times when this caution must be abandoned. People see these times, and for the most poart say no, I won't take that course of action, because I'll lose men. This is often the unhinging point of a battle, allowing a small force to prevent access to a large area by threat of firepower. In reality, such a small force can be bypassed, and that critical position taken simply through bleeding for it. A platoon charging across an open field with a tank friing enfilade into them from 180m in order to turn a flank will generate casulties doubtless. But the rest of that platoon will most likely remain a reasonably coherent fighting force in their new position, and more often than not will have passed through an area the enemy considered impassable. This helps the commander significantly more than a completely intact platoon that can't be maneuvered any farther without a chnage in situation. And all for the price of half a squad of infantry or so. Knowing when to readily accept losses for position, and then acting on it, is something every CM player will be better for. And on the major plus side, that half squad of men is only digital.

(semi-rant) In the past 3 games I've played where the allied palyer bought his own force, there has always been at leats one Jackson in it. And this is understandable, since they have a big gun and quite frankly anything but a jumbo is going to go up in flames when a german gun hits it anyhow. (may be generalzing) it would seem that in the CM universe, the m10 and m18 were just little experimental things before the mass produced jackson...gaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!! I wanna see more wolverine son the battlefield! And better yet more SHERMANS! not 76 w+'s with HVSS or jumbos, but simple 75 toting shermans!!! baaah!!

Somehow i think the climbing gear would be a bit heavy to carry around in battle just in case.

Of course the real point is that you should stick with regulars because thats what was there.

Tell them that troops get a morale bonus if their platoon HQ unit is in front of them when charging because they see their leaders beign courgaeous. When they ask 'cool, they model that?" just say "yeah, of course...its CM (attach your personal smiley preference)" Tell them that artillery spotter sare best kept hidden behind ridges because even though they can't trace a LOS to the enmy, thie rindirect fire can. Tell them TRP's are essentially areas that have been pre-sighted in on by your tanks. If they fire at an enemy on the TRP, their almost guaranteed a hit. Tel them moving their tank will result in it no longer being valid because the careful pre-sighting has been lost.

I imagine that the counter to this is the revival of fire based weapons. If say a traditional 120mm or 105mm round was filled with napalm, and not designed to jet forward like a HEAT charge, just split open, could make fore some very inetresting results, especially if a sabot round or burst of light cannon fire came after.... Of course all of this is probably a mute point since modern sabot rounds punch through most anything (in ym uninformed opinion)

I remeber air traffic controller! not once did I get a plane to land..tho it came value psakced with a day in the life of a nuclear power plant operator (fun, but I either melted down the plant or caused brownouts in the weirdville), A day in the life of the President (according to the little rankings, the American people would follow me to the pits of hell afetr submitting their newborn babe sto me for blessing) Wings of Fury (actual game! woooo! strafing AA guns in gloriosio 2d!) A day in the life of a Bee. (I never really got it) and a day in the life of a slavage team member (who always somehow manged to find the object in one day)

You study micro physics mensch!? I'm impressed. Oh, BTW don't we still have a game to play from eons ago? And for the people reading the forum...i can't help you a bit! Having said that, i'll know hypocritcially sugesst that you simply stay up until the sun popos up on weekends, sleep fro 5 hrs (this is the period of least CM opponents available, 5AM - 10AM EST, and it keeps you fresh ) and then repeat! Eating is occassionally nessecary as are studyign etc...this can be accomplished betwene games or during the data transfer

I think this post proves my prescience, yesterday i read the post before nayone responded and I could see the future! I could see the inevitable response about being able to say what one wanted, the guys who were just being humorful, the "Old Guard" (nice term that, i think i'll start using it) perfectly logically pointing out that the post was in no way an insult, the resulting arguments...all in one brilliant fiery collage! And it happened! Now turn over the world to me please. On a serious note, Pillar was merely asking people to come to the tips and tactics if they wanted thoughtful conversations. He nicely pointed out that these are becoming rarer, thus the need to preserve them. And as for whining, he presented a general garment and you claimed it to be your fit? (bonus points if you know the book thats from)

Note my absolutely atrocious spelling too...but on the beer and pretzels post, yeah, the whole point is to free up that direct HE for an assualt somewhere else instead of just holding an objective .

At the request of the Pillar preview, here is a short post on a tactic not many people think about. Feel free to criticize it, offer adjustments, etc. The most common form of play is the attack. We know that a determined defensive player will rarely if ever be beaten just because you've captured an objective. It is far more liekly that the fight will continue around that objective, slwoing your assualt as you commit assetts to its defense/firefight. Now the trick is to keep your force momentum flexible without draining it in holding. Let us accept that for any attack to have serious punch it needs a form of direct HE, delivered usually by a tank. It is very ahrd to break a position without one unless you have overwhelming numbers. This nesscitates the holding of the objective with infantry to free up the tanks elsewhere. Now as with all defenses, you will need manpower, cover, and possibly AT capability. Manpower: Most likely you will need a semi-fresh platoon. If its taken over 25% losses, or if any of its squads have broken, the platoon cannot be counted on to hold. The part about broken troops is critical! Do not use any broken troops for defense! A smaller enemy who ahs been driven back can counterattack and win vs. broken troops, and if your opponent commits reserves the objective will surely turn over. Remember, any platoon that made the attack is not likely to be fit to hold. This makes reserves nessecary. As a rule of thumb there should be one platoon in reserve for every two or three attacking. Other tactics would be welcomed as this is one of my largest problems. (I tend to commit the reserve to early a spart of the asualt force) Cover: Not having the benefits of foxholes, you must make sure the area you are taking can be held without them. Typically you shuld strive tos ecure cover arund thew objective of at leats equal footing with the cover most liekyl to be used by the enemy. I.E., don't hold a grove of scattered trees 110 m away from the woods. Be willing to stay in front of or behind the objective as the terrain requires. Also, the cover shuld not be an arty magnet. Those two houses on the objective are probably going to be taking fire. Don't stay there. The thrid factor to take into account when consolidating is how assualtiable the position will be. In towns one should try to hold an inne r house line, out of the way of direct fire, and preferabbly with a road seaperating it from the next house lien so you haven easy killing zone. In the country, woods provide admirable, unless so large they provide several angle sof attack. The fianl say in the terrian you choose is how mcuh firepower can you bring to bear without packing the troops together? A single hevay building may be a strongpoint, but is very tactically weak because it allows large amounts of troops to be supressed at once, and limits the fields fo fire of the platoon. Ideally you have a staright line of defense that allows for close support, but that need sqauds to be idvidually asualted and targeted. The AT Element: Since the whole point of infantry consolidation is to free up our armro, it must bring its own AT with it. This can be solved by stickign 1 AT weapon inside each platoon, mcuh like a platoon leader, and then distributing them out when the assualt is done. This has the added advantage of giving the infantry the ability to advance agaisnt bunkers and such wihtout their own armor support or close assualts. Once the assualt for an objective is over, bring up the AT weaposn you had tariling close behind, and set 1/2 of them up for direct defense toe ngage armro whereever it appears, and 1/2 of them in rserev, to be moved to any focal point. In the case of an odd number, weight the etxra on direct defense. this complemnt of AT fire is often devastating to a counterattacking enemy, stripping him of his armor unexpectedly, or at leats making it signifcantly harder to launch an assualt, and thus the more likely he won't. If all of these factors are met, the ground you've taken can be held easily by the riflemen. The armor is now free to maeuver to whatever portion of the field it chooses, engage enemy armor, mop up troops, or lend support to other infantry. The extra HE rounds will be what makes the difference between a successful assualt and you cursing at your men for running away from the enmy when they only had to go 15m more.

Ok, well having looked at this I had a little problem with this too, and this one is completely inexplicable with the burst aim logic. A QB againts an opponent (very small probe) with comp picked forces. It happens the only thing of mine that has a main gun on it is a priest. Not ideal, but I eevvveeerrr soooo sloooowwwwlllly sneak it around my enemies flank to crack his armor. Having moved into a good position on a unsuspecting light tank/ AC (my opponent says he didn't see the preist until it fired) I give it orders to bring its front around. Well the very first seconds of the turn the MG gunner rakes the turreted tank, WHILE the priest is still pointing the other way. So while I'm doing my best civil war commander impression "turn the guns around" the tank swings its turret and blows the priest into oblivion before the gun is even halfway swung...I think this would point to a buggy issue.

Umm, your soldiers alreadys hoot whiel lying down. The animation kneeling represents squad that is unsupressed and un moving. most of them probably are lying down. The lying down figure just represents suppressed squads/team.

Most likely you expereienced Horribly bad luck. tm.

Just wondering, what does one of these look like? i realize that they were fairly ad hoc, but what would be a generic one? I'm Guessing: 1-2 Panthers + 1-3 Mk 4s = standard armor platoon