Cannon-fodder

For more information on just how rubbish tank hunters are as AT units, just look up the keywords 'useless', 'why?', 'pointless' and 'waste'. The problem is that they, for some reason, insist on chucking molotovs at the tanks before anything else. So there they are warming up a freezing Panzer crew, while it blasts them to smitherenes with HE. however, as fire support, they are remarkably effective. Think of them as just under the power of half squads, but much more brittle. The trick is to keep three or more with a platoon, and then you have, at 40m, 300+ extra firepower, able to be deployed from better flanking/suppressing angles. Well, to this I would say that it is quite uncommon. To be honest, if your opponent is stupid enough to advance armor without an infantry screen, then he deserves it. TH can, of course, kill tanks at close range. But then, so can normal infantry squads, ATRs, and especially 'zooks etc. So, THs are cheap, a definite advantage, but not that reliable as AT weapons. Use them, but don't expect massive AT capability.

Paco's got it perfect there - the idea is that, when you move your advanced position forces out of their zone, along the fallback line, they should be out of LOS of the enemy, unless the Enemy gains the position which your advanced units fell back along. Your further back lines should be able to hit this position as hard as possible, like a long range ambush to cover your retreating units. This is correct, I was trying to describe what GreenAsJade wanted to know about. As you can read, I named this strategy that of an 'Advanced Position'. TimG

I must admit I am of the opinion that there is no way that Germany could have won the war. The fact was that Russia's enourmous economy would have crushed Germany, in the same way that America's war time economy crushed the Japanese. However, perhaps it might have been possible for Germany and Russia to live side-by-side in a fascist+communist armistice. America would not have fought this, and it might have produced a 3-way Cold War... worth considering anyway? TimG

Well, I play other games too... I've always enjoyed a quick fragfest on UT2004 or CounterStrike. There are good games out there apart from CMBB, I just find that it's one of those rare things I can return to indefinately.

Yeah, I've noticed the same thing in England... Can't even FIND a copy of CMAK on its own, and don't wanna shell out £15 on two games I already have. I've also noticed that today's average gamer is incredibly stupid. I've tried to introduce Combat Mission to loads of people, and they've barely even made an effort, usually since 'the graphics are too crap' or because 'it's too hard'. Shame, this game deserves to really be something. Even PC mags ignore it. In the next CM, the guys really need to get the graphics looking good.

On the German recon system at least, I refer you here It's a pretty reliable American intelligence report on German recon. I know this doesn't answer your questions about recon troops directly, but it should give everyone a better idea about what they were for. TimG

Elastic Defense in Depth probably isn't what you're looking for in Combat Mission, and I'll explain why in a sec. First of all I should point out that pk's post is an excellent description of elastic defense but, if you can't be bothered to read it all, here's the basics: Elastic Defense in Depth was designed by the German army in WW1 due to a very real problem that had just come about: 5 men with a machine gun could probably hold a 25m stretch of trench just as well as thirty. You see, all the extra men did was provide something for the artillery to hit. The idea was that, by lowering the number of men, you were less likely to lose them to artillery, and you could train the remaining squad to quickly set up and fire the Machine Gun. If the enemy managed to break through the first line of trenches, they would have had a ridiculously high attrition rate compared to the defenders, meaning their first line (often consisting of many decimated 'waves' of attacks) would not have the man power, ammo or machine guns to hold off a German counter attack. It also meant that, in a war of attrition, the defender would sustain far lower losses compared to the attacker - something vitally important in a static, constant battle line like that of the trenches in WW1. It must be remembered that this strategy was just that : a strategy, not a tactic. Now, this idea is all very well in Combat Mission, but it forgets one VERY important thing: with the advent of tanks (and thus increased mobile firepower), Machine Guns and entrenched troops could be stopped much more easily. If you leave your MGs and short range AT weapons unsuported out there, they will get picked off by overwatching tanks, no question. So, you may wonder what use Elastic Defense in Depth is. The answer is, in its present form, not much. It had to be reformed and, surprise surprise, the Germans did this in WW2. Instead, they used an 'Advanced Position', best described here in this American intelligence report of the time: When using this advanced position, it is most important to remember that you want your troops ALIVE. I've seen far too many people just leave their units in the advanced position, while they get decimated. If you can get your units out, through a route covered well by tanks, AT and MG fire, you can even trick a foolhardy attacker to race after your units, thinking he's opened up a line in your defense. Then you can hit him! Fundamentally, 'Layered Defense' (as we might as well call it from now on) consists of multiple battle lines (probably only 2 on a small/medium depth map), the front ones with less firepower and a well covered line of retreat, and the behind ones with enough fire power at their disposal to not only cover this retreat but also perhaps to launch counter attacks. I myself use it almost all the time, since it gives you such tactical flexibility. Think about it: if your opponent is even a tiny bit reckless with his attack, his recconnaissance and maybe even his main attack (only if he's very stupid) may get caught up in your advanced position's fire. This could delay him, lower morale, weaken units and make him expend precious artillery/ammo on a position you've very sparsely populated, and don't care much about anyway. Just as a final point (hadn't meant to write an essay!), REMEMBER that your advanced position is expendable - completely expendable. You shouldn't ever be slow to evacuate it before men start dying. 9 times out of 10, your opponent will overreact, use up his precious artillery assets, and move his tanks/ units in a way that will disorganise him for your Main Line of Resistance. Oh, and don't be afraid to move your Main Line of Resistance around a bit, depending on what your advanced position does to the concentration of the enemy force - it's there for aggressive recconnaisance too! You can look at an interesting set of articles on German strategy here - Certainly helped me! TimG

So can you kill a tank without explosives? I've tried but with no real success. It just strikes me that an entire squad of infantry is more than capable of destroying a tank when they're a couple of meters from it.... shoot through the machine gun port etc?

If you 'move' across open ground in CMBB, you'll get mowed down. No question about it. The ONLY way to advance troops across more than 40m of open ground is to suppress any infantry on the other side, whether that be with HE, MGs or arty. One good way to advance infantry across opne ground is to lay down a heavy smoke barrage. This will make your troops practically invisible to the enemy, so you can get them pretty close. I would still try and get some kind of overwatch, suppressing fire etc. anyway, since smoke won't be 100% effective. Assualt and Advance really aren't particularly useful - it tires units out way too quickly. If you only need to travel 40 meters or less, then Advance can be useful as it tends to lower casualties. Assualt is best used either to pull suppressed units out of fire zones, or to go the final 10m till you're 'on top' of an enemy squad. TimG

Hoping some of you guys can give me some help here... Can you take tanks out with infantry by assaulting? How do you do this? Any tips on it? Any other good anti-armour tactics I should know about? I'm asking because I've been playing through the preset missions, and I always find that, while I can win infantry wars, I have serious problems with enemy armour. I've had particular problems with Romanian tanks which are just crap at KOing Russian T-4s. Thanks, TimG

Fantastic mod! Nice work!

When people hear the reccomendation 'keep your tanks pretty close together,' I think it can be quite misleading, since the speaker gives no indication of the actual distance involved. The problem with the 'bunching' tactic you seem to favour is that it doesn't allow any real flanking fire on high armour opponents, and also leaves you yourself relatively vulnerable on the flanks. My solution tends to be to organise tank platoons 'close but not too close'. I can have a distance between each tank of anything from 20 to 150 meters. This doesn't mean that the tank platoon doesn't act as a cohesive unit, but it does give me flexibility. If you are familiar with the V formation, I can't reccomend it enough. It means you can shift your entire platoon's firepower VERY quickly to front/flanks by moving very little. Anyway, hope this helps, and remember, don't be afraid to pull out of tank duels - often it's a wiser option than putting your trust in God:) TimG

Reading the posts, it strikes me that all the tips for succesful Halftrack ferrying involve 3 different tactics: 1) Avoiding fire - the halftracks are kept in cover as much as possible and brought to safest distance before infantry is disembarked. 2) Overwatch capabilites - the halftracks are used as faster MGs and/or to keep the other overwatching MGs and Mortarts up to speed. 3)Flanking an enemy - round the side/back of enemy forces, and you can hit 'em in the rear... or can you? Now, the problem with 1) is that if you wish to avoid fire anyway, you might as well use trucks - they accomplish roughly the same goals and are a hell of a lot cheaper. Besides, as you pick your forces generally BEFORE you see the map, there is no way to guarantee they will be much use for this kind of operation. As for 2), this is all very well, but do you really need a particularly mobile overwatch. I've always favoured armour, since HE is so much more effective. In addition, overwatch can really take its time a bit since you don't have to, and really shouldn't, rush an advance. 3) is a great idea in theory, but utterly useless in practice. First of all, any form of flanking maneouver involves not really knowing what the enemy has on that flank. A canny human opponent will have areas of flank advance covered with some form of AT. So, what's my solution? Well, nothing definite, but for starters I would consider very carefully whether you actually NEED halftracks. Personally I use trucks a fair amount on larger maps to ferry my reserves about. However, they are always ferried to areas I have reconned and already hold with an advance force. I have also had a lot of success with using trucks on the defence - it allows me to set up with a small forward position, and therefore 'absorb' the main enemy push. Then I allocate my trucks to where I need them. So, in summary, halftracks are glorified transports. Yes, they ahve a bit of armor and an MG, but 9/10 times this doesn't help them much at all. Stick with trucks, and NEVER try to assualt with infantry mounted in ANY vehicle. Hope this helps... TimG

There's a few good passages in 'Panzer Leader' - the extracts from the handbook he prepared etc. Still worth a read if you want an insight into upper level command of armored forces. As to books worth reading for armor tactics, i reccommend having a look through the 'Rommel Papers' - many extracts in that alluring to tank tactics. Also talks about the first implementation of 'Bounding advances' for tanks, under overwatch - at least the first one I can think of. Other than that just pick up and read little sections from books like 'How To Make War' (not a great tankers reference, but does the trick occasionally). Also I found that reading up on AT gun use helped a lot - often you want your tank to act like a mobile AT gun. The 'Rommel Papers' were also particularly helpful to me in this respect.