domfluff

I'll start it off with a bang! Long range BMP smack down, courtesy of Germany and the milan.
 

 
Mord.

Big Game Developers? To be fair, I've never seen Steve in the flesh, he might be *huge*.

Distance is really about communication, and thus depends on terrain.

You can see the C2 connection in the UI - LOS, spoken, far, etc. 

Generally speaking, you want all of a unit to be able to see each other, or at least all of them being able to see their HQ - otherwise when (for example) your forward scouts come under fire, you won't have the ability to respond, and they'll just get isolated. The closer they are (the better the C2 link), the faster they'll share spotting information, and the better they'll react to threats.

This means that distance is terrain dependant - in close woods they may have to be very close indeed, whereas open terrain allows them to spread out a little.

The best guide on how C2 works in Combat Mission:
 
In terms of how much space a unit can be reasonably expected to command, that comes down to "frontage"

 
That gives you a very rough idea of the amount of space a given unit was expected to be responsible for - it's not necessarily how far apart they're spaced, since that's more terrain dependant than anything.

Distance is really about communication, and thus depends on terrain.

You can see the C2 connection in the UI - LOS, spoken, far, etc. 

Generally speaking, you want all of a unit to be able to see each other, or at least all of them being able to see their HQ - otherwise when (for example) your forward scouts come under fire, you won't have the ability to respond, and they'll just get isolated. The closer they are (the better the C2 link), the faster they'll share spotting information, and the better they'll react to threats.

This means that distance is terrain dependant - in close woods they may have to be very close indeed, whereas open terrain allows them to spread out a little.

The best guide on how C2 works in Combat Mission:
 
In terms of how much space a unit can be reasonably expected to command, that comes down to "frontage"

 
That gives you a very rough idea of the amount of space a given unit was expected to be responsible for - it's not necessarily how far apart they're spaced, since that's more terrain dependant than anything.

Indeed: 
 

Okay. Cool. I've read all this and this is my takeaway: pre-orders will ship next September with just empty boxes.
Or did I misunderstand something?

This one in particular, since it's quick and simple, yet directly relevant to Combat Mission.
http://kepler.pratt.duke.edu/NROTC/gazetteOLD/tdg97_1.html
Came across this, and thought this was pretty interesting - in particular how all three of the solutions differed - my solution was identical to A (differing on where I placed the MG - my placement was probably worse), but it was interesting to see the alternative points of view.

Some of the other TDG's on this page include the idea of a "Premortem" - "Assume that you can see into the future and can see that your plan was a complete failure. Try to anticipate what would likely have gone wrong and why." That seems like a useful tool in general - anticipating failure, so you can work to counteract it.

There are suggested solutions with maps to the top right (A, B and C). "Solutions", really, since there's no one right answer, but the process is the thing.

Solution A http://kepler.pratt.duke.edu/NROTC/gazetteOLD/tds97_1a.html
Solution B http://kepler.pratt.duke.edu/NROTC/gazetteOLD/tds97_1b.html
Solution C http://kepler.pratt.duke.edu/NROTC/gazetteOLD/tds97_1c.html

For what it's worth, I don't like the look of Solution B. Solution A was the same as what I sketched out, and Solution C is the most similar to yours, since it's similarly defensive (but possibly from a stronger position?)

It didn't actually occur to me to not attack(!) here - I'd be more than happy to probe cautiously and cancel the movement on contact, but I've come to realise that I have a strong bias towards manoeuvre in general, which doesn't mean it's always the best fit for the job.

Incidentally, other games on this page are include the same scenario from the opposite perspective:
http://kepler.pratt.duke.edu/NROTC/gazetteOLD/tdg97_3.html

And the same scenario from the perspective of the platoon commander:
http://kepler.pratt.duke.edu/NROTC/gazetteOLD/tdg97_5.html
 

This one in particular, since it's quick and simple, yet directly relevant to Combat Mission.
http://kepler.pratt.duke.edu/NROTC/gazetteOLD/tdg97_1.html
Came across this, and thought this was pretty interesting - in particular how all three of the solutions differed - my solution was identical to A (differing on where I placed the MG - my placement was probably worse), but it was interesting to see the alternative points of view.

Some of the other TDG's on this page include the idea of a "Premortem" - "Assume that you can see into the future and can see that your plan was a complete failure. Try to anticipate what would likely have gone wrong and why." That seems like a useful tool in general - anticipating failure, so you can work to counteract it.

Distance is really about communication, and thus depends on terrain.

You can see the C2 connection in the UI - LOS, spoken, far, etc. 

Generally speaking, you want all of a unit to be able to see each other, or at least all of them being able to see their HQ - otherwise when (for example) your forward scouts come under fire, you won't have the ability to respond, and they'll just get isolated. The closer they are (the better the C2 link), the faster they'll share spotting information, and the better they'll react to threats.

This means that distance is terrain dependant - in close woods they may have to be very close indeed, whereas open terrain allows them to spread out a little.

The best guide on how C2 works in Combat Mission:
 
In terms of how much space a unit can be reasonably expected to command, that comes down to "frontage"

 
That gives you a very rough idea of the amount of space a given unit was expected to be responsible for - it's not necessarily how far apart they're spaced, since that's more terrain dependant than anything.

Small unit actions are often far more parsable than larger ones - Company and Battalion level fights often (should) break down into Platoon actions in any case, so just sticking to a platoon lets you focus on the details, which also gives more to discuss. Tactical problems, etc.

For what it's worth - I do agree with Bil, the main concern is whether you're sufficiently mutually supporting, and that does seem doubtful at this point - you don't really want one of your squads to run into two or three of theirs, isolated. Now, on the other hand, if the Germans were all-in on a frontal attack, then the weak centre and strong flanks could let you pull off a nice double envelopment, so we'll see.

 

I will say that I do like the house rules being used in this AAR and might need to try a game using them (maybe with some modifications).  Perhaps @IanL is up for a challenge.  PM me if so.

The fact that it makes a decent attempt at doing asymmetry is notable by itself, and obviously applicable to CMSF.

This was my attempt to recreate the first scenario from Force on Force: Road to Baghdad in CMSF 1 a while ago:
 
 

There's even one of the stock CMBN scenarios, where a US company is attacking a town in France. For some reason, the US company has a massively disproportionate amount of indirect firepower - you can actually just sit back and level the entire town for a victory.

This is one of those things where the "game" part of CM comes to the fore - not that the capacity shouldn't be modelled, but how it actually fits into scenario design is really important.

 

It's pretty cool, I'm tempted to put together some similar problems in CM really (different scale and context, obviously).
You can have a read here for free, I ordered one of those out of copyright reprint jobs on Amazon for a couple of quid.
https://archive.org/details/moltkestacticalp00moltrich/page/n7

It's pretty cool, I'm tempted to put together some similar problems in CM really (different scale and context, obviously).
You can have a read here for free, I ordered one of those out of copyright reprint jobs on Amazon for a couple of quid.
https://archive.org/details/moltkestacticalp00moltrich/page/n7

It's pretty cool, I'm tempted to put together some similar problems in CM really (different scale and context, obviously).
You can have a read here for free, I ordered one of those out of copyright reprint jobs on Amazon for a couple of quid.
https://archive.org/details/moltkestacticalp00moltrich/page/n7

After reading this excellent thread I realized that no other sniper discussions ended up in the tactics section of the FAQ. Now there is - directly linking to @slysniper's post.
 

Snipers in CM are, first and foremost, recon units. They are small teams, often with organic transport, equipped with powerful optics. They are ideal for sitting in an isolated, covered position, spotting the enemy and calling down indirect fires. Usually I'll have my snipers on shorted covered arcs to hold fire, and might not fire a shot for the entire battle.
If you want to use them to actually pick off key targets, they can, but you have to be careful. They probably need to have boosted leadership and experience, and you must have a plan for extraction.
Getting a single kill, then relocating is the idea. They can have a disproportionate effect in combat mission - kills affect morale permanently, so a two man team giving accurate ranged fire can pin down a squad or weapons team.
Two or more squads might be too much for the sniper team to deal with, so the recon first, call in indirect fire second, kill things third is basic sop.
 

But @Warts 'n' allby his own admission 'My tanks, and infantry in, or near the church, got slaughtered within a few minutes. And it wasn't too much longer before my outflanking troops followed a similar fate. I hit "Cease Fire" once I'd lost all my tanks.' indicates that he did not do overly brilliantly. Not really fair to have a pop at the designer for that is it?

This thread has some great, fundamental questions that don't have easy answers.

The ones I will chime in on are reconnaissance and scouting. The approach march and how you start an engagement.
 

First rule is to put circular or short covered arcs on your scouting units, this is to stop them shooting and revealing their position.
Second is to move them forward, in cover, slowly - normal Move, Slow or Hunt are good for this.

On the approach, what I'll usually do is to march the platoon in column (using the appropriate movement techniques - Bil's Battle Drill Blog outlines these well), then try to reform at a safe location, near to the expected contact, but out of sight.

The HQ unit (who has radio and binos) will typically be tasked with doing the actual scouting. This unit sneaks forward into LOS to the expected enemy position, and waits. And waits. 

The main reason to use the HQ for this is that the spotting information will be handed down faster from HQ to their squads than it will from scout team to squad to HQ to other squads. Being on the radio will help as well. The HQ unit also has the option of starting to call down indirect fires, if appropriate.

The HQ unit will either leave the line and head back to the platoon, or the platoon will move up to the HQ. Either way the spotting info will be transferred before the squads hit the line of contact, to give them the best possible chance of seeing the enemy before they're seen in turn.

Whether to attack with Fire + Manoeuvre (i.e., a base of fire, and a flanking group offset by 45 or 90 degrees), or Fire and Movement (attacking frontally, with bounding rushes) is a situational call. In either case, the base of fire is established in as much concealment as possible.

If you're reasonably confident that there is enemy present, but you can't spot them, you can advance the platoon onto the line, holding fire, then open up with one of the units briefly, hoping to spark an exchange - if the enemy reveal themselves by firing, you're likely to have more firepower than they do, and will start at an advantage.


Now - this is assuming you have a good idea where the enemy is already, If you do not, that's when you have to think about scouting in terms of "go down that road until you blow up". Ideally, you should be able to consider several likely approach marches, and send your scouts into the less likely ones, therefore working out their position by process of elimination. In practice though, making contact is still a dangerous job.
 

Buildings offer some good cover and concealment. They're not bad spots for scouts, but they can be pretty exposed fighting positions. It might be better to scout from buildings, but fight from surrounding cover, depending.
 

Forward observers are valuable units, that are hard to replace. They make good scouts, in that they have radios and binoculars, but bad ones in that they are definitely not expendable.

There's an unsolved question here about the appropriate use of FO's - the default option would be to station them at a safe distance, with a  commanding view of the battlefield. This is great for calling fires down on a large area, but doesn't leave them as flexible as the alternative - which is embedding them with a unit. The latter brings with them a lot more risk, but allows them to bring fires down onto immediate targets much more effectively.

Engineer Squads are 6 men - you can select MOUT for a couple formations to also get demo charges and then you'd have normal squad sizes.

Inspired by this, I set up a near best-case scenario against the AI to play around with panzergrenadiers in detail. Using CMRT, a platoon of halftracks against a Soviet rifle platoon, with a couple of HMG's, on an Open map.

The halftracks, perhaps unsurprisingly, dominated. I did find that they were best used buttoned up, minimising gunner exposure time (I did lose two gunners, but one was due to wandering into SMG range, and the other from some sneaky enfilade fire, so I'd be happy claiming both as my fault). Keeping the halftrack's nose pointing towards the enemy made them pretty much invulnerable. The tighter cone of incoming fire was evident, alongside the immediate reaction times of the enemy, but it didn't make a huge amount of difference.

Mostly the engagement was from 300-500m away, and the three HMG and one sdkfz/17 - the 2cm variant. This has all-around armour protection for the gunner, and was extremely effective.

"Assault" orders from the back of the halftrack are interesting - they'll all jump out, and half of them will take up positions next to the vehicle, whilst the other half sprint forward. That's probably the best way to dismount in general.

Knowing that there were not AT weapons on the other side made bolder moves possible. Charging directly in spraying fire would still have been daft, but this is probably the best I've ever seen halftracks operate.
 

Inspired by this, I set up a near best-case scenario against the AI to play around with panzergrenadiers in detail. Using CMRT, a platoon of halftracks against a Soviet rifle platoon, with a couple of HMG's, on an Open map.

The halftracks, perhaps unsurprisingly, dominated. I did find that they were best used buttoned up, minimising gunner exposure time (I did lose two gunners, but one was due to wandering into SMG range, and the other from some sneaky enfilade fire, so I'd be happy claiming both as my fault). Keeping the halftrack's nose pointing towards the enemy made them pretty much invulnerable. The tighter cone of incoming fire was evident, alongside the immediate reaction times of the enemy, but it didn't make a huge amount of difference.

Mostly the engagement was from 300-500m away, and the three HMG and one sdkfz/17 - the 2cm variant. This has all-around armour protection for the gunner, and was extremely effective.

"Assault" orders from the back of the halftrack are interesting - they'll all jump out, and half of them will take up positions next to the vehicle, whilst the other half sprint forward. That's probably the best way to dismount in general.

Knowing that there were not AT weapons on the other side made bolder moves possible. Charging directly in spraying fire would still have been daft, but this is probably the best I've ever seen halftracks operate.
 

I use Assault quite a bit, but in the wrong situation it's risky - the problem is that it only represents bounding overwatch, so you're losing a degree of control. Often it's better to take things a lot slower and do the same thing manually.

The situations where it's most useful is when you absolutely need the security to fire+movement onto a target, *and* speed is paramount - manually adjusting orders and wait times can quickly get yourself into difficulties, since errors can accumulate.

From previous testing, I believe you can throw smoke grenades whilst mounted in halftracks as well, which is well worth doing (i.e., Smoke, let the smoke develop, then Assault)