Glider

Yes, in fact any objectie defended indirectly... you are using a number of HMGs to prevent the enemy from reaching some important cover.

Kingfish, I obviously failed to describe the situation I had in mind properly. I am refering to those frequent situations where several HMGs are trying to prevent enemy from reaching a certain objective (flag, town, woods) by firing from 500m+ ranges. Your test, as I understood it, dealt with a direct assault on a HMG position.

I do apologize for any insult, real or perceived, I might have uttered here. I already said that I do not care whether the tactics can be described as "gamey" or not. It is just something I would not like to have to do - i.e. spend twice as much time ordering infantry units around in every game. That said, it seems to me that the thread has moved past the issue of "tricks" and "gamey practice" towards a far more useful area of tests and tactics analysis. I do think that we could really benefit from your opinion.

Since the BFC is not planning to issue any new patches we are stuck with what we have That aside, I would not like to see tinkering with so essential a part of the game engine as inf morale and firepower just in order to address this relatively minor issue. Another thing, I was just thinking about the whole support weapons/double the number of targets issue... here is another frequently encountered situation: Your 5 MG42 HMGs are set up to cover hundreds of metres of open approaches to an important town. Suddenly two Soviet inf companies appear. Your HMGs have a decent chance of pinning&routing the inf before it reaches the town. Now change just one detail - all Soviet units are split into halfsquads and spread out as much as possible. You now see more than a battalion worth of inf markers. Almost no chance of stopping them all, IMO. What do you think about this use of halfsquads?

There are other situations where advantage is considerable (but not so big as in cases of two halfsquads firing at a single squad from short ranges). a) Every situation where an on-board support weapon is firing at you. Two spread-out halfsquads will be less suppressed than one full squad. Every situation where you are involved in long and medium range inf firefights. Split your squads into short-range and long-range elements, hide the short-range elements, let the long-range elements fire. The result - you retain 90% of your long-range firepower and you save 50% of your ammo.

Ace Pilot, very interesting results that, I think, show that the morale penalty is there. However, is the morale hit big enough? Just one question - how far away the split halfsquads were from each other? From your "one ground tile" I would say not far enough (about 40m) for MG fire to affect *only one halfsquad* with one burst. If you placed halfsquads on two different tiles surrounded by water and ran the test we would have a better simulation of real game situations.

Not only that, but if a squad is split into two halfsquads you need two mortars (or two HMGs) to keep it under fire, while you need only one to keep a full squad under fire.

It is possible that I jumped to conclusions. During both games I identified about 10-15 halfsquads and not a single full squad... and I noticed that my inf was badly outnumbered, despite the fact that we obviously spent similar amounts of points on armour and support units. However, our game was not the main issue here... the high effectiveness of halfsquads was. For instance, even in the centre my two platoons of infantry supported by 150mm gun and 105mm FO were unable to force your two halfsquad platoons to withdraw.

I agree, I can only say that I *feel* that, for instance, an enemy inf company divided into halfsquads is much more difficult to defeat, both when attacking and defending. But it is a very strong feeling. I would also say that it takes a good player to use all the advantages the halfsquad tactics has to offer (and my opponent is, I think, one of the very best). But, when used properly it really gives your forces a significant boost.

Actually no, inf units are not prone to switch targets easily. The second game over, it is a 50:50 draw. I would have lost had it not been for a Soviet Airborne crack SMG platoon (squad FP 560 at short ranges) that managed to repulse a wave of charging halfsquads despite being submitted to heavy mortar fire. There is nothing definite I can say about this game... just a very strong feeling that the enemy infantry was much more difficult to suppress and defeat than it should have been. About two platoons of enemy inf in woods presented me with 15 unit markers... much more difficult to suppress with on-board support weapons that can target only one target at a time. Also, thanks to the fact that he had about twice the number of independently operating inf units (halfsquads), my opponent managed to spread his infantry in a semicircle, thereby increasing the effectiveness of his crossfire and reducing the suppression effect of the return fire. All in all, my feeling about this game is - if your opponent is using halfsquads you have to outplay him to get a draw.

First impressions: I played/am playing two battles against halfsquad-horde armies. Playing as Germans I was defeated, my 2+ - 3- German inf companies overran by a battalion+ of Russians and Romanians. I had a 105mm spotter, about 8 81mm mortars, 4 Hetzers and 2 75mm SPWs but all that hardly slowed the enemy down... due to the abundance of targets the support weapons were far less effective than usual. In the other game, where I am commanding Soviets, I managed to ambush and wipe out about two platoons of his troops and to kill most of his on-board AT and inf guns. However, that only means that I managed to hold the line, since my ambushing troops wasted almost all of their ammo killing halfsquad after halfsquad... the ammo expenditure during the ambush exceeded by far the amount that should have been used to kill the same amount of enemy inf in full squad formations.

Essentially this is the worst case (and inevitable) final result. Everybody splits squads, everybody takes double the time to complete the order phase, nobody gains anything.

Yeah, all things said and done it is just that. I do not want to play games where I need to split every single infantry squad in order to have a chance of winning. I am not very interested in whether it can be defined as gamey or not. It is, for me, a tedious practice that reduces the fun factor quite a bit. I think it has been convincingly shown that one squad will have much better combat capabilities when you split it. So much so that two German rifle halfsquads set more than 40m apart will defeat a Russian SMG squad at 20m every single time. Now that is unbelievable news for anybody who read all those long "how to defeat Russian SMG squads" threads.

I don't know, I don't have time to test right now, my guess is that they would do much better, but still be at disadvantage (compared to the squad vs squad situation where the SMG squad would always win) since both SMG halfsquads would be taking suppression any time one of the German halfsquads fired.

You get that kind of results because you keep halfsquads fairly close to each other. All inf units within a certain range (about 40m I think) from a target are being suppressed when that target takes fire. Try spreading out the halfsquads so they do not both get suppressed when one of them takes fire. The results will show you how a pathetic Rifle squad managed to defeat SMG monsters at 20m ranges

Yeah, ordering around two battalions of infantry split into halfsquads... equal to four battalions worth of orders. Oh joy.

I don't see any logical contradiction Yes, I don't intend to use it a lot Yes, one of those hopefully rare occasions. I can't allow the club performance to be affected by my reluctance to use the halfsquad tactics against people who use it all the time.

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I suppose that you created an obstacle that could not be overcome by either a full squad or a halfsquad assault. The advantage halfsquads have is not overwhelming, otherwise the game would be unplayable. It just gives you an edge.

I would just add that they are better in another freqently encountered situation: Exchange of fire at medium ranges between two inf forces in cover. Split squads save ammo since you hide the short-range element and let the long-range element fire. Also the enemy support weapons have twice the number of targets they need to suppress.

In my opinion the essential problem is this: If two opponents are evenly matched and one uses halfsquad hordes - he will most probably win. I am playing two mirror games against the opponent (from the beginning of the thread) that is using halfsquad hordes. While I lost one game I pulled every trick in the book and then some in the other and sprang a few nasty ambushes. What it gained me is an about equal position... because the halfsquad system provides him with additional survivability. When ambushes and artillery barrages start he simply has twice as many inf units and twice the chance that some of the units will survive unscathed.

I simply wanted an extreme test. We all know that the German Rifle 41 squad is one of the worst close-combat units and that the Russian 9-men SMG squad is... a monstrosity. That the Rifle 41 should have stood no chance against the SMG devils, yet they won repeatedly.

Five tests, scattered trees German Rifle 41 sqad divided into 2 halfsqads, both firing at a Russian 9-men SMG squad at 22m. All units outside HQ radius. The result: The Russian SMG squad panics and runs away in 5 out of 5 tests.

It doesn't matter very much... from my tests I would say that the advantage is so great that an ordinary German rifle squad split into halfsquads would defeat even a Russian SMG squad during a short-range firefight in a forest. I'll try it out now...

Strange, my CMBB splits even your German 41 squads (FP 124) into two halfsquads, FP 62 each.