Pelican Pal

Practically anytime you want to use an assault command the shared suppression is a problem. Hence the assault command being useless. Which is why not having a useable assault command is a problem. The AI expect that the quick command is a movement command. Not a assault command. Currently when using quick men will stop and throw grenades/fire their weapons. However, they don't do it in a manner conducive to assaulting a held enemy position. Which would work better if the assault command was actually useful in the vast majority of scenarios. Quick is a hamstrung workaround that can often result in entire sections being slaughtered as they decide to FAST into an enemy held position. If ASSAULT existed as a command much like QUICK, but with a priority on engaging targets/liberal amounts of fire and not running to your death. It would make assaulting positions much easier. Right now we have workarounds that are of questionable value.

The current assault command leaves a lot to be desired. It requires a squad with at least two elements and both elements share morale/suppression. It has very little actual utility because of this and it leaves the player without a dedicated movement type for aggressive assaults. Currently the quick command can be used to fill in the gap, but the fact that it is not an assault command results in numerous problems cropping up while using it. I would suggest that the current assault command be wiped and replaced with a new type of movement. It would be available to any unit and would operate much like quick does now. However, units would be much more likely to engage targets as they appeared and if too much fire is taken the squad would go to ground rather than switching to FAST. Essentially it would be an order best used to cover the last 20 meters to an enemy position. The men would move in firing and grenading the enemy.

Wrong sub-forum.

The current assault command has enough problems that I think it should be wiped. It splits your squad into two elements that still share suppression and morale. Which means that if anything devastating happens to the movement element the covering element is left cowering and unable to do anything, and if the assaulting unit is too small it is left without the ability to execute an assault command. I would find it much more useful is if assault was a command that allowed an element to move quickly and aggressively. Essentially a movement command that would be used for a squad to cover the last 20-30 meters are so to an enemy position. Grenading and firing their way into the position. Right now quick can kinda fill that gap, however there are a bunch of problems with it that cause all kinds of headache. The men in the unit don't move in a very aggressive manner, and will only occasionally engage targets of opportunity. Furthermore, if the squad does take heavy fire/casualties they switch to FAST movement which makes their problems even worse. As they are now running very quickly into an enemy position and are much less likely to see or engage targets of opportunity.

I've not seen any with rifle grenades in my time with the game. My central problem with urban combat/close combat is the lack of any good assault command. Quick works decently well, but it's primary use as a movement command makes it a poor work around.

Hello, I've been looking for some information describing how much protection half-tracks, like the 251, and other infantry carrying vehicles such as the Bren Carrier provided against small arms fire? I've always assumed that rifle fire at close range, less than 50 meters, would have a decent chance of punching through and that sustained fire would definitely be able to penetrate the hull.

Try a quick battle with green or conscript troops as the most common experience level. I've been messing around with that for a while and have found quite consistently that my loss rates are down over using regular troops and above.

db might be thinking of flamethrowers used against cave systems.

Does having tank riders increase the spotting ability of a tank? I would imagine that the guys riding on top could communicate with the crew in someway depending on the type of tank. So it would be like having multiple unbuttoned crew members. Any info?

The first company was all but put out of action with something like 70% casualties. Although they were able to get me parallel to the second line. The second company was able to push to the undefended third line and capture a portion of the second line while sustaining 50% casualties. The third company suffered almost no losses, however I brought them up late and they were stopped several times by mortar bombardments interdicting their advance. Which means they arrived at the second line utterly exhausted and with only minutes left in the game. Most of my losses were taken while trying to take the position parallel to the second line. The left most fortified position of the second line was able to enfilade my advance with LMG fire and a particularly deadly Pak.

I sent all three companies up the LHS. I pushed hard and as a company got used up cycled it out with the follow on company. I captured the first line and third line. I managed to capture half of the second line but ran out of time before I could get a decent push going. The terrain left my men utterly exhausted and in no real state to press an attack against a determined enemy.

It is deadly because squads in CM do not naturally have unit formations. If you send a whole squad into a woods they will moving in a tight column formations of some sort. Three russian SMGs will have anywhere from 90 to 280 rounds to fire if they are fully loaded. That is more than enough to destroy a squad as a fighting force. The lack of a decent squad level AI really hamstrings players in close range, high lethality encounters. edit: Russian forests are also not the jungles of Vietnam. Most of the fighting I've done in CM:RT has been in conifer forests with a decent amount of low level brush, but there isn't the incredible density of vegetation that you would see in a jungle.

Target light is your friend. Walking, no matter how carefully, into a woods is asking to get shot up by someone laying in a bush. Multiple squads bounding with numerous pauses and constant light fire to keep the enemy pinned. The key is that your bullets will reach slightly further than your slight. So whenever you walk up on someone they should be pinned already. | -->Squad advance slightly past firing squad. |-->Squad Firing

OT but this is a really delightful platoon sized action.

I have actually found my Soviet infantry to be quite resilient. I play them much differently than I would play Western infantry however. The platoon is the minimum sized unit I use for any sort of offensive action. Three Soviet squads moving and fighting together in a relatively dense formation (a platoon generally maneuvers within a 50MX50M area) allows the platoon to perform attacks aggressively, safely, and successfully. Regardless of the Soviet infantry type they will almost certainly have better close range firepower so the goal is to leapfrog the entire platoon towards the position. Using target light aggressively to keep enemy infantry pinned. This style of fighting does make them very vulnerable to artillery and other HE, but it makes the Soviet infantry platoon a very dangerous and resilient unit. It will tend to not take losses due to the massive amount of suppressing fire that is being poured out, and when losses do accrue it still remains an effective fighting force that is unlikely to break. I've had platoons with 50% losses, with no remaining SLs or platoon commander, continue to be able to successfully take home an assault. However, at this point the attrition rate tends to increase dramatically as the individual squads begin to momentarily break more often and the overall amount of firepower drops off.

With scenarios increasingly becoming 1-2 hour affairs the question of time and phrases like "heat of battle" really don't fully apply anymore. Scenarios are now long enough to require reorganization of attacking companies, large ammunition resupply, the possibility of multiple jump off attacks against multiple prepared lines of defense. It is entirely possible for a scenario to have screening positions, MLR, and a reserve line or two for the attacker to capture. Each of these positions could be hundreds of meters apart. The distance between the first encountered positions and the final reserve lines could be a kilometer or more. There is definitely time in such scenarios and the opportunity to remount COs to undamaged tanks in non-combat conditions.

Even if doctrine kept all squad control under the squad leader it makes no sense to not allow squad splitting. For example, to cover both sides of a road as the Italians I would need 20 men. While in reality I'm sure that half of a squad wouldn't be petrified to have their SL 10-15 meters away. It is even more absurd in the Syrian case because you have an attached RPG in the squad, and god forbid he goes to the second floor of a building to engage targets while the rest of the squad takes cover on the first. A much better and more realistic approach would be to give the me not with the SL a morale penalty. It would still allow the player to intelligently split their forces but the morale penalty would penalize them for giving elements not with the SL too much to do.