Flibby

I'm a rubbish player to be honest - mainly because I spend more time in the editor than actually playing scenarios.  I am very much like you - I totally get the theory, planning and tactics piece but never seem to be able to convert that into anything other than scraping victories with huge losses if I'm lucky.  What I will say though is that many players from what I see on the forum chats just struggle with the concept that people get killed in combat and get fixed by trying to avoid them altogether.  This leads to a paralysis in both planning and execution.  I think there's an element of that on show here and personally I wouldn't worry too much about it - as you say, sometimes "you just have to get on with it."  There are ways in which you can reduce the risk of course - suppression via direct and indirect fires, covered approaches, feints/deception (which only work when playing a human), obscuration, attacking from an unexpected direction, attacking a weak point or all of them combined.  Which ones you use all depend on the detailed ground and the resources you have available or the resources you are prepared to commit to that particular part of the operation/plan/scheme of manoeuvre. 
In the tutorial, I used suppressive fire on Objective FRITZ to allow my force to cross the gap that I assessed would be covered by fire from that position and the whole scheme of manoeuvre from there on in was to use manoeuvre along a mostly concealed approach in order to attack the position from an unexpected direction.  The close assault piece in the woods was assisted by the concealment provided by the woods and me employing fire and manoeuvre using direct fire from the dismounts leapfrogging forward and their parent half-tracks.  It was one of my few CM triumphs.

I belive that for many the phrase KEY TERRAIN signifies terrain features that are likely to impact the succesful completion of the mission as a whole and not something that relates to each individual squad...
Smoke could be helpful if you have it to blind enemy held key terrain or to section of an area you're attacking in to allow you to achive fire supperiority.

Key Terrain is relative depending on the unit. It is a spot which provides cover and concealment for the task at hand. For a scout it is different than from his Regimental HQ. For the scout the KT is his commander's intent his KT is to carry out his commander's intent and staying alive.

I do identify key terrain first, then determine what I have to do to get to that KT and then hold the KT.  Often holding the KT does NOT mean sitting a lot of units on it, because artillery, etc.

Covered avenues of approach or avenues out of LOS are essential.  Usually the overwatch for the units approaching are along different LOS lanes than the maneuver units.

 

If you're able to knock down or suppress anyone who pops up to shoot at you you'll be able to make progress, if you can't you won't. The reason why flank attacks are preferred is you've theoretically got fewer enemy units to suppress at any one time.

Frontal attack the Soviet method not 3:1 but 6:1 at least. Only massive fire superiority will succeed without communications. Funny the Germans attempted something similar in 1940. North of the country at a place called Kornwerderzand. They didn't get further than a probing attack, only place in Western Europe where the Wehrmacht was stopped. No way they could flank there, the Dutch Navy supported the defenders in the bunkers which were very strong defensive positions. 

I'm not sure I agree but it's a finely balanced point. 
Chemical agents are terrible but we're not about to start sending those to Ukraine.
We need to keep as much of the moral high ground as possible, and moreover keep the Allied nations together. Rightly or wrongly this has the potential to be to tip of a wedge being driven between those allies.
If it's genuinely such a desperate situation that cluster weapons are required, the Rus must be putting up a better fight than the evidence I have suggests.

I'm not sure I agree but it's a finely balanced point. 
Chemical agents are terrible but we're not about to start sending those to Ukraine.
We need to keep as much of the moral high ground as possible, and moreover keep the Allied nations together. Rightly or wrongly this has the potential to be to tip of a wedge being driven between those allies.
If it's genuinely such a desperate situation that cluster weapons are required, the Rus must be putting up a better fight than the evidence I have suggests.

Well said, Flibby.  I am torn on this but I keep thinking about the pro/con of shortening the war vs the negatives of cluster munitions and I keep coming up w shortening the war on top.  Totally up to debate, and I won't criticize anyone that says this is a step too far.  I don't like these weapons but fear more what happens if UKR fails.

I'm not sure I agree but it's a finely balanced point. 
Chemical agents are terrible but we're not about to start sending those to Ukraine.
We need to keep as much of the moral high ground as possible, and moreover keep the Allied nations together. Rightly or wrongly this has the potential to be to tip of a wedge being driven between those allies.
If it's genuinely such a desperate situation that cluster weapons are required, the Rus must be putting up a better fight than the evidence I have suggests.

I agree with your findings, but would like to add that real life mortars are even more deadly, since they can easily be hidden and then you can put an unseen spotter a couple of metres in front of it to spot and call out adjustments very quickly. In the game, if you place the mortar out of sight, then you need to call in fire missions through the interface, which takes a very long time.
As for HMGs I find them quite undermodelled in the game in terms of accuracy, reaction times, and ability to suppress and control ground.

In many ways JasonC is not wrong (as much a it pains me to admit it).  I never really got the western cult of manoeuvre once I got out of my 30s and really looked at how many times it was effectively used.  I am more convinced that during the Cold War, and definitely after the Cold War, Manoeuvre warfare doctrine was more about military funding and procurement than actual battlefield experience.  A small high speed low drag (read cheap) force able to “out tempo” on an opponents “schwerpunkt” sounds really good…but how many times did we actually do it?  Everyone points to Gulf War ‘91 but after that air campaign of complete supremacy I am not sure this is a good data point.  I think manoeuvre warfare can work but it is part of a larger tactical system that includes attrition (and now corrosion) warfare, layered over even more obscure stuff like subversive warfare.
A good book I read quite sometime ago on the myths around the Blitzkrieg was The Blitzkrieg Legend by Karl Hans Frieser - https://www.amazon.ca/Blitzkrieg-Legend-1940-Campaign-West/dp/1591142954/ref=asc_df_1591142954/?tag=googleshopc0c-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=292929366843&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=18155534866616673969&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9000683&hvtargid=pla-459632923113&psc=1
He challenges the entire notion of a German grand plan and makes a solid argument that a lot of May-Jun 1940 was accidental or at least a surprise to a large part of the German military.

It was certainly an experimental time for the Wehrmacht. 

The absolute best book for this kind of thing, especially on a tactical level, is Closing With The Enemy. This is about the US army in WW2, and each chapter is essentially "This is the doctrine for X we started the war with, this is how it developed, and this is where we ended up".

I just wanted to weigh in to strongly support the viewing of Spencer Jones's talks from the western front association.
Secondly, was there any difference tactically between an attack in 1917 and the Second battle of El Alamein?
My reading suggests that the tactics were almost identical to post 1916 ww1 attacks, creeping barrage included.
 
 

JasonC made a whole bunch of postings on CM tactics back in the CM1 days...It might have been him.
I belive he got thrown out the CM forum a few years ago...For what reason i don't know.
His posts are still intresting readings though for anyone intrested. 
I remember he had lenthy discussions about fire and movement...among other things.
 

I do not remember which poster used to espouse these ideas, some years ago now, but what really helped me was to think of firepower and how best to implement that firepower. Rather than just moving men around, what you are actually doing is moving men in order to position somewhere else to deploy more firepower.
In practice that took me away from forlorn infantry attacks to rather congregating firepower effects on a single area, overwhelming the enemy, and then moving in thereafter. Infantry attacks without significant fire superiority, even through covered areas, seldom work out for me.

I hope that this is taken in the spirit in which it is meant - CM may just need a reasonable competitor in order to push the series forward.
We all enjoy and appreciate the effort that is put in by BF. We would not be here otherwise. It is unfortunate however that CM is resigned to years of semi-releases and updates rather than the great leaps forward that I think we would all appreciate.
The gulf in the trajectory between OpenGL and DirectX have been there for all to see for decades now. Unfortunately it doesn't really hold water to say that it's a surprise that development is limited by not taking a decision to re-engineer the engine in DirectX years ago.
The new modules, battle packs etc are all well and good, as are the steam releases, but I can't think that I am in a minority who would sacrifice significant releases for a period for the knowledge that a new engine was being created, with current technology, which would allow an even more realistic experience. Much less talented game designers are out there creating games which, given the 'CM Treatment' would solve a lot of the on-going issues which cause issues with the current experience.  I realise BF aren't a tripe A developer, but it's not as though we see a new release every year anyway. And they have moved to a different engine before.
At the moment the competition is either too 'gamey' such a Regiments for example; or like Mius Front, has a UI which is totally unintuitive. Both things which CM excels at. Then we have Squad Battles by John Tiller for example which are great games but very abstracted given they are trying to emulate Squad Leader. Even Second Front which I had high hopes for looks like a cartoon and I can't take it seriously. 
Anyway - I'm going to keep playing the games because there's nothing better, and therefore little incentive to update the system. Perhaps I'm part of the problem.

Combat Mission isn't special, old software breaking in APIs that offer backwards compatibility because they cut corners is a tale as old as Microsoft.
 
This is absolutely not the case and any first year software engineer could explain why. Hell, just look at all the games that broke when Windows Vista released. Microsoft had been telling developers since 95 how to save user data, and when Vista finally started enforcing basic security in the Program Files folder, **** broke. Just because the games used to work does NOT mean they were "properly coded" as you say. 
 
Yes, AMD has been pretty famous for **** drivers, but they really seem to have put the effort into turning it around.
 
I don't think you'll find that many people have a big issue with how Combat Mission looks. I mean, some chuds online will certainly ****can it for not looking like CoD, but I think you'll find a lot more people interested in getting the tiny view distance for textures fixed, or the seeming 25fps cap even on extremely high-end hardware, or the input lag.
 
I don't think anyone here is expecting AAA production values, but I think seeing some progress on some of the problems Combat Mission has isn't the same as comparing you guys to EA. When it takes 9 months (and counting) to fix an issue like the T-90 not having front armour, or a year and a half to fix infantry units retreating forward into the fire they are supposed to retreat from, or the game lagging and stuttering just as much now as it did in 2011... that's a problem, and you have to expect that people will be frustrated by it.
 
But hey, if you are happy with how you are performing, then who cares what us suckers think, right?

I hope that this is taken in the spirit in which it is meant - CM may just need a reasonable competitor in order to push the series forward.
We all enjoy and appreciate the effort that is put in by BF. We would not be here otherwise. It is unfortunate however that CM is resigned to years of semi-releases and updates rather than the great leaps forward that I think we would all appreciate.
The gulf in the trajectory between OpenGL and DirectX have been there for all to see for decades now. Unfortunately it doesn't really hold water to say that it's a surprise that development is limited by not taking a decision to re-engineer the engine in DirectX years ago.
The new modules, battle packs etc are all well and good, as are the steam releases, but I can't think that I am in a minority who would sacrifice significant releases for a period for the knowledge that a new engine was being created, with current technology, which would allow an even more realistic experience. Much less talented game designers are out there creating games which, given the 'CM Treatment' would solve a lot of the on-going issues which cause issues with the current experience.  I realise BF aren't a tripe A developer, but it's not as though we see a new release every year anyway. And they have moved to a different engine before.
At the moment the competition is either too 'gamey' such a Regiments for example; or like Mius Front, has a UI which is totally unintuitive. Both things which CM excels at. Then we have Squad Battles by John Tiller for example which are great games but very abstracted given they are trying to emulate Squad Leader. Even Second Front which I had high hopes for looks like a cartoon and I can't take it seriously. 
Anyway - I'm going to keep playing the games because there's nothing better, and therefore little incentive to update the system. Perhaps I'm part of the problem.

I hope that this is taken in the spirit in which it is meant - CM may just need a reasonable competitor in order to push the series forward.
We all enjoy and appreciate the effort that is put in by BF. We would not be here otherwise. It is unfortunate however that CM is resigned to years of semi-releases and updates rather than the great leaps forward that I think we would all appreciate.
The gulf in the trajectory between OpenGL and DirectX have been there for all to see for decades now. Unfortunately it doesn't really hold water to say that it's a surprise that development is limited by not taking a decision to re-engineer the engine in DirectX years ago.
The new modules, battle packs etc are all well and good, as are the steam releases, but I can't think that I am in a minority who would sacrifice significant releases for a period for the knowledge that a new engine was being created, with current technology, which would allow an even more realistic experience. Much less talented game designers are out there creating games which, given the 'CM Treatment' would solve a lot of the on-going issues which cause issues with the current experience.  I realise BF aren't a tripe A developer, but it's not as though we see a new release every year anyway. And they have moved to a different engine before.
At the moment the competition is either too 'gamey' such a Regiments for example; or like Mius Front, has a UI which is totally unintuitive. Both things which CM excels at. Then we have Squad Battles by John Tiller for example which are great games but very abstracted given they are trying to emulate Squad Leader. Even Second Front which I had high hopes for looks like a cartoon and I can't take it seriously. 
Anyway - I'm going to keep playing the games because there's nothing better, and therefore little incentive to update the system. Perhaps I'm part of the problem.

I hope that this is taken in the spirit in which it is meant - CM may just need a reasonable competitor in order to push the series forward.
We all enjoy and appreciate the effort that is put in by BF. We would not be here otherwise. It is unfortunate however that CM is resigned to years of semi-releases and updates rather than the great leaps forward that I think we would all appreciate.
The gulf in the trajectory between OpenGL and DirectX have been there for all to see for decades now. Unfortunately it doesn't really hold water to say that it's a surprise that development is limited by not taking a decision to re-engineer the engine in DirectX years ago.
The new modules, battle packs etc are all well and good, as are the steam releases, but I can't think that I am in a minority who would sacrifice significant releases for a period for the knowledge that a new engine was being created, with current technology, which would allow an even more realistic experience. Much less talented game designers are out there creating games which, given the 'CM Treatment' would solve a lot of the on-going issues which cause issues with the current experience.  I realise BF aren't a tripe A developer, but it's not as though we see a new release every year anyway. And they have moved to a different engine before.
At the moment the competition is either too 'gamey' such a Regiments for example; or like Mius Front, has a UI which is totally unintuitive. Both things which CM excels at. Then we have Squad Battles by John Tiller for example which are great games but very abstracted given they are trying to emulate Squad Leader. Even Second Front which I had high hopes for looks like a cartoon and I can't take it seriously. 
Anyway - I'm going to keep playing the games because there's nothing better, and therefore little incentive to update the system. Perhaps I'm part of the problem.

I hope that this is taken in the spirit in which it is meant - CM may just need a reasonable competitor in order to push the series forward.
We all enjoy and appreciate the effort that is put in by BF. We would not be here otherwise. It is unfortunate however that CM is resigned to years of semi-releases and updates rather than the great leaps forward that I think we would all appreciate.
The gulf in the trajectory between OpenGL and DirectX have been there for all to see for decades now. Unfortunately it doesn't really hold water to say that it's a surprise that development is limited by not taking a decision to re-engineer the engine in DirectX years ago.
The new modules, battle packs etc are all well and good, as are the steam releases, but I can't think that I am in a minority who would sacrifice significant releases for a period for the knowledge that a new engine was being created, with current technology, which would allow an even more realistic experience. Much less talented game designers are out there creating games which, given the 'CM Treatment' would solve a lot of the on-going issues which cause issues with the current experience.  I realise BF aren't a tripe A developer, but it's not as though we see a new release every year anyway. And they have moved to a different engine before.
At the moment the competition is either too 'gamey' such a Regiments for example; or like Mius Front, has a UI which is totally unintuitive. Both things which CM excels at. Then we have Squad Battles by John Tiller for example which are great games but very abstracted given they are trying to emulate Squad Leader. Even Second Front which I had high hopes for looks like a cartoon and I can't take it seriously. 
Anyway - I'm going to keep playing the games because there's nothing better, and therefore little incentive to update the system. Perhaps I'm part of the problem.

I hope that this is taken in the spirit in which it is meant - CM may just need a reasonable competitor in order to push the series forward.
We all enjoy and appreciate the effort that is put in by BF. We would not be here otherwise. It is unfortunate however that CM is resigned to years of semi-releases and updates rather than the great leaps forward that I think we would all appreciate.
The gulf in the trajectory between OpenGL and DirectX have been there for all to see for decades now. Unfortunately it doesn't really hold water to say that it's a surprise that development is limited by not taking a decision to re-engineer the engine in DirectX years ago.
The new modules, battle packs etc are all well and good, as are the steam releases, but I can't think that I am in a minority who would sacrifice significant releases for a period for the knowledge that a new engine was being created, with current technology, which would allow an even more realistic experience. Much less talented game designers are out there creating games which, given the 'CM Treatment' would solve a lot of the on-going issues which cause issues with the current experience.  I realise BF aren't a tripe A developer, but it's not as though we see a new release every year anyway. And they have moved to a different engine before.
At the moment the competition is either too 'gamey' such a Regiments for example; or like Mius Front, has a UI which is totally unintuitive. Both things which CM excels at. Then we have Squad Battles by John Tiller for example which are great games but very abstracted given they are trying to emulate Squad Leader. Even Second Front which I had high hopes for looks like a cartoon and I can't take it seriously. 
Anyway - I'm going to keep playing the games because there's nothing better, and therefore little incentive to update the system. Perhaps I'm part of the problem.

I wish Battlefront no harm, quite the opposite frankly. But we all saw what a driving force competition can be when AMD finally released competitive CPUs. I am no liberalist when it comes to economics but Jesus did we all prosper from that competition. Just the kick in the *** Intel needed so badly. This only translates roughly to the video game sector, especially the wargaming niche, but a recent example would be the release of Regiments and it seems to have exerted at least some pressure on the developers of Warno. At the end of the day, I can't say if Combat Mission can be rivaled in the foreseeable future. Despite its apparent dated-ness, CM still has a 25 year long headstart.
All that being said, I remembered a post from Reddit from last year. Apparently the guy is still working on it. And apparently the it's also a guy working from his garage, hahaha.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZZi3x8VdKE