IICptMillerII

Is it possible that this is a new feature/fix that will be introduced to the rest of the games with the upcoming engine 4 patch? The upcoming features/fixes are already included with SF2 is my line of reasoning.

Oh I forgot to mention, hit alt + I to hide unit icons. You can also hit alt + H to turn off the vehicle penetration text.

No, there is no in-game way to hide the interface. However, you can easily crop the interface out of a screenshot after you take it with any number of free or paid software. For example, the Photos software that comes with Windows 10 allows you to crop pictures. Photoshop or its free alternative GIMP also allow cropping.

Congrats to BFC for the release! Very excited to get my hands on it this evening.

Great idea Bil! Looks like a great way for people to practically apply many of the principles detailed on your blog. I especially like the idea of having the objectives hidden. Really focuses the player on properly reading the terrain, instead of only paying attention to a highlighted area. Are these scenarios all made for engine 4? Looking forward to people sharing their experiences with this and the upcoming scenarios.

@slippy ignore the fluff. The fact is, Combat mission simulates tactical level warfare exceptionally well. Bil’s Battle Drill blog linked earlier is an excellent resource. I highly recommend reading through or at least skimming it. If you want to see a former infantry officer, using real life tactics in Combat Mission to great effect, watch the Jeffrey Paulding Armchair General videos: There are 6 episodes in total, covering everything from the basics, attack and defense, with the last two episodes combining everything. Further, Paulding tends to play from the disadvantaged side to show how dramatically beneficial using real world tactics are. As a quick spoiler, his final videos depict him attacking a US defense as the Italians, and then defending against a US counter attack. There are plenty of other good YouTube videos out there as well, many put together by active forum members.

Yes. In the real world US Army infantry squads are made up of two fire teams. When split, it is split into these two fire teams.

Wet blanket alert. I think the remark Steve made was more a general comment on how far computing capabilities have come. There are some pretty powerful CPU's out there that are pretty affordable, as well as some workstation CPU's that have insane processing power. (64 cores!) When Shock Force 1 came out, I think the standard CPU was still the Pentium line. Even if it was past Pentium, the advancement in processor power in the past 10 years has been substantial. Further, I'm likely in the minority here who is not looking forward to a possible CMx3. The reason is simple. CMx3 will be a restart. Just like CMx2 was a restart from CMx1. Imagine it taking another 5-10 years just to get back to Normandy, let alone the other theaters of WWII. There are so many other conflicts CM could do as well, but those conflicts are only profitable/practical after the big selling theaters are made (Normandy). Personally, I would rather see more improvements made to the CMx2 engine as well as more games/modules covering more of the Eastern Front in WWII as well as other historical conflicts, such as Korea 1950 to name one of many. Doing those 2 things alone would likely take another 5 or so years. I would rather wait 5 years on the current engine than wait 10+ years just to get back to the same theaters we already have but in a new engine.

This made me chuckle. I agree with you in some ways. Particularly in CMSF1 there were a handful of scenario's that had time limits that were very restrictive, especially when dealing with urban warfare. The good news is, the more recently released games like CMFB and CMBS tend to have more appropriate time limits in my experience. Plus, you can always load up the scenario in question in the editor and increase the amount of time. I do sympathize with some of the time limits. In many cases, they are the only real thing that gives the defender a chance at winning. It's a debate that's been had more than a few times here.

Took a quick break from the modern setting to throw this together: Artwork comes from the old but gold Medal of Honor Allied Assault Spearhead. Inspired by @Mord and other's who have created some great main menu screens. Not sure if I'll end up releasing this though. It's a bit rough around the edges and I put it together just for fun.

In my limited experiences with Hinds in CMSF2 I haven't noticed any friendly fire incidents or other issues that caused me concern. I haven't tested it thoroughly, or used Hinds a lot, but what I have seen appears to look good. Tentative good news, perhaps?

It was a battalion of tanks supported by a company of mechanized infantry. I was going for a microcosm of a Soviet-style tank regiment conducting a stereotypical Soviet armored assault. Partly because the Syrians can pull it off when given the right equipment and training, and partly because I've always loved large scale eastern bloc equipment/formations. It was a lot of fun to play through and make! I thought about including Hinds, but ended up omitting them. They would have attacked during the opening artillery barrage (which was also cut from the final edit) and their fire would have been indistinguishable from the larger artillery bombardment. Hope you enjoyed it!

These look great! Personally I prefer your WWII specific icons for the WWII titles. I like to keep my era's of warfare compartmentalized. However, the US markings in this look really good. I might try combining these friendly US markers with your WWII specific OpFor markers. My absurd personal preferences aside, I'm glad to see you putting out more stuff and hope you continue. Great stuff!

@37mm Nicely done! I'm always a fan of the cinematic approach to CM vids.

Split off the anti-tank team in a squad. That separates the Javelin and his assistant. Then you have the rest of the squad free to fire AT-4s into buildings and more.

For infantry, use the Target Light command, and they will not use Javelins/RPGs/etc.

The short answer is yes. As an example, if you pit Republican Guard T-72AV's crewed by well trained/led/motivated crews, then you can actually take on US M1A1HC's and Leopard 2A4's head on and win. Syria will be a much more capable nation now thanks to engine and TO&E improvements. They will be more potent in QB's as well due to being able to choose their gear and stats. However, most scenario's will still realistically depict the Syrian army as it was in 2008, which is to say you will be facing a lot of conscripts/green troops with poor motivation. That said though, there are a number of existing scenario's out there that depict force on force engagements against a more generic OpFor instead of the Syrian army proper, such as @George MC's excellent Forging Steel campaign. Hopefully once SF2 is released we will get more of these force on force engagements from George and other community scenario makers. Tons of new potential in SF2.

Put simply, don't enter buildings occupied by the enemy. If you know the building is occupied, level it with fires first. Don't charge into point blank rifle fire.

This is one of the many reasons why one needs to split their squads and ensure good spacing. An RPG that hits 4 men is not as bad as an RPG that hits 9. As a general rule of thumb, this is 100% true in real warfare. Small arms fire accounts for only a small amount of total casualties inflicted on the battlefield. This is as true in WWII as it is in modern day, in general. Artillery, to include mortars, accounts for the single largest percentage of kills. This is followed by large caliber weapons such as tank cannons/IFV guns. Below that are crew served weapons, such as general purpose machine guns. While one example does not prove a rule, this is a pretty good glimpse of small arms fire against targets moving in the open at pretty close range. You'll notice the target is not put down until after he moves through the open and becomes stationary in a small structure easily fired at, and that later in the video you see just how much firepower was focused against the targets. Fair warning, this video is NSFW as it shows people being shot at, and later wounded men being tended to. Hopefully this gives you some insight into the real world effects of small arms fire, and may help to explain some of what you are seeing in game.

There is a text file included with the demo that highlights many (though not all) of the changes between Shock Force 1 and 2. Copied below is the text: ******************************** WHAT IS NEW SINCE SHOCK FORCE 1: ******************************** Combat Mission: Shock Force 2 includes the following new or enhanced features that have accumulated during the evolution of the Combat Mission Engine since Shock Force 1. The following list only contains major new features and adjustments. The list of tweaks and smaller changes to the simulation of modern equipment are too numerous to list here. ***AMPHIBIOUS VEHICLES*** Water is no longer an obstacle! Many Syrian and USMC vehicles are now capable of swimming across the surface of water obstacles, giving them enhanced tactical utility. Amphibious vehicles are capable of moving through Water, Ford Deep, and Reeds terrain. Marsh and Deep Marsh ground types remain impassable to amphibious vehicles. Ordering a vehicle to move through water is as simple as issuing any normal movement command onto or across water. When it reaches the water, the vehicle will begin swimming. Amphibious movement speed is capped at a relatively slow maximum swimming speed. In addition, passengers and crew cannot dismount or bail out if the vehicle is in deep water (not a Ford); if the vehicle is destroyed while in deep water, all passengers and crew are lost. ***ELECTRONIC WARFARE*** Don't want modern radio and satellite communications nets for your scenario? Shut them down! A new scenario environmental setting that can be independently set for either side simulates electronic warfare attacks allows you to degrade or completely disable electronic communications, forcing even Information Age forces to communicate without the benefit of modern technology. Electronic warfare is represented in the game through a Data editor setting. (it is also available in the QB setup window). There are two settings: Blue Electronic Warfare Strength, and Red. The setting for one side will negatively affect the enemy systems. So for example, if Blue EW strength is set to Strong, then the Red player will feel the effects of Strong EW. These settings do NOT cancel each other out! So you could theoretically set both to Medium and both sides would have seriously degraded comms. Once in battle, you can see what the EW strength is for both sides by checking the Conditions panel. The available EW strengths are None, Light, Medium, and Strong. NONE: * No EW assets are deployed against the enemy. Systems are unaffected. LIGHT: * Hand-held "walkie-talkie" radio communications are degraded. Manpack radios (as carried by "radio operator" soldiers), and vehicle-mounted radios are unaffected. * Hand-held satellite communications links via PDA devices are degraded. Vehicle-mounted satellite stations such as FBCB2 are unaffected. MEDIUM: * Hand-held radio equipment no longer functions. * Manpack radio and vehicle-mounted radios still function but are degraded. * Hand-held satellite communications links via PDA devices no longer function. * Vehicle-mounted satellite stations such as FBCB2 are degraded. * Delivery times for artillery and air support Missions are much longer due to comms interference. * Precision artillery missions of all types are not available. * The ability of on-map Surface to Air Missiles (SAMs) to detect and engage enemy aircraft is degraded. STRONG: * All radio and satellite communications links are disabled. Units must maintain C3 links via verbal face-to-face communications or visual hand signals. * Artillery and air support missions now have an extreme delay, often over 20 minutes. * On-map SAM ability to detect and engage enemy aircraft is highly degraded. ***SURFACE-TO-AIR MISSILES (SAMs)*** Combat Mission: Red Thunder introduced anti-air capability to the game. This feature continues in Combat Mission: Shock Force 2 with the addition of Anti-Aircraft (AA) assets that will attack air support that is currently performing Strike missions on the battlefield. The degree to which the AA fire is effective will depend on the AA platform and the air asset involved. AA fire can miss the aircraft, drive it away and force it to abort the attack, or hit and damage or destroy the aircraft. ***PRECISION ARTILLERY*** A few fire support assets, namely American and British 155 mm artillery support, have access to precision artillery shells. These special support missions fire only one artillery shell per gun, but they are guided shells with much higher accuracy and precision. Precision missions do not have a spotting phase; the shells arrive (hopefully) on target with no warning. Precision missions are very useful for attacking enemy armored vehicles that typically need a direct or near-direct hit to knock them out of the fight, or for targeting a specific building or location while trying to avoid collateral damage. Other important notes for precision artillery missions: * Precision missions must use a Point target. * Precision missions do not have a duration. The maximum number of shells that can be dropped during a mission is one shell per gun. ***MULTIPLAYER*** * WeGo TCP/IP with the ability to save but not the ability to replay combat action. * Pausable RealTime TCP/IP option. A player can request a Pause and, if the other player agrees, the game is Paused until both players are ready to continue play. Quick Battles * Redesigned Quick Battle Generator that includes the ability for players to purchase formations, units and support, for their own force and for the computer AI. By deleting subformations/units, setting experience, motivation, fitness, and leadership levels, and attaching Specialist Teams and individual vehicles, the player can custom-tailor their force for the mission. * Automatically purchased force options are still available for the player and opponent, as well as a "Suggestion" button in the unit purchase screen that will quickly buy a force that the player can then modify. * Players can now choose their own maps, and preview maps before playing. ***USER INTERFACE*** * Two new camera control modes have been introduced in addition to the traditional Combat Mission controls: First Person Shooter (FPS), and Real Time Strategy (RTS). These new camera controls allow a player the choice to control the in-game camera in a way that is more familiar to other game genres. * Hotkey Unit Groups. Select units and assign them to number keys for quick navigation during gameplay. * New Load New Game dialog screen. The list of scenarios can now be sorted by size, length, or alphabetically. * Improved Saved Game dialog screen. The list of scenarios can now be sorted by newest file, oldest file, or alphabetically, or filter between single player and PBEM saves. Save games can be deleted in the game. * Visual Hotkey binding. A new dialog in the Options menu allows you to specify and view key assignments. * KIAs are shown in the Soldier/Crew Panels to track soldiers lost during the game. * The Ammo Panel has been redesigned: Ammunition is now listed by name and in discrete quantities instead of icons and depleting bars. * Option to disable music separate from other game sounds. * Combat Victories (Kill Stats) for individual units showing how many and what types of units the soldier or vehicle has eliminated in the mission (totals tracked for campaigns). ***UNITS*** * FoW floating icons. FoW floating icons. Instead of getting a general area "?" icon and then immediately progressing to an accurate 3D representation, there is now an in-between stage where you get an icon that represents the general category of enemy unit without 3D representation. This tells the player "you know roughly what the unit is, but nothing more specific than that." * Command lines are back! Command and Control (C3) links can now be shown on the battlefield, allowing you to quickly determine whether subordinate units are in contact with their headquarters. Use the Alt-Z Hotkey to toggle the feature. * Expanded floating icon categories. New unique floating icons have been added for Ammo Bearer, Recon, Engineer, MANPADS, LMG, Light Truck (Antitank), SPAA. * Dismounted vehicles function as Ammo Dumps, allowing formations to have reserve ammo stored separately on map (automatically distributed for certain Skill Levels). * Player-placeable static defenses and fortifications such as trenches, barbed wire, and mines. ***COMBAT SIMULATION*** * Ground units are now able to fire at attacking aircraft using self-propelled anti-aircraft vehicles, emplaced anti-aircraft guns, or shoulder-launched MANPADS units. Aircraft that are fired upon may have their combat effectiveness diminished, be forced to abort the mission, or even be shot down. * Soldiers with assault rifles are more likely to use aimed semi-automatic fire at distant targets instead of burst fire. Soldiers fire weapons faster at short ranges. Machine guns fire longer, more accurate bursts. More realistic and varied Rate Of Fire (ROF) of automatic weapons. Ammo bearers and heavy weapon assistant soldiers generally use their weapons only at shorter ranges. * Soldiers can surrender to nearby enemy units and possibly be "rescued" by nearby friendly units. This replaces the old "routing" behavior, which has been removed from the game. * Wide range of weather types and environmental effects, including rain, fog, heavy winds (with ballistic effects), different types of ground conditions, animated water effects, and more. * Vehicles and soldiers equipped with night vision and thermal vision have a significantly improved boost to spotting abilities in low visibility conditions such as night. * Buttoned-up armored vehicles spot enemies to their flanks far less effectively. * Improved UI display for timing of pre-planned artillery missions also indicates what delay would be after the battle begins. * Small arms fire causes more suppression than before. ***MAPS AND ENVIRONMENT*** * Game performance and load times for large maps have been improved. * Maps can now be up to 8 kilometers long or wide (up from 4 kilometers). However, total map size is still restricted to 16 square kilometers. This means that you can make a 2 kilometer wide map that is 8 kilometers long! * Expanded environmental assets mean that you can conduct combat operations in lush rural landscapes, dense urban settings, or anywhere in between. * Water terrain types added: Water, Reeds, Deep Ford, and Shallow Ford. Infantry can cross Deep Ford and Shallow Ford, while non-amphibious vehicles can only cross Shallow Ford. * Bridges are now available as a terrain type. Bridges come in multiple varieties, including wooden foot bridges, small rural stone bridges, large concrete traffic bridges, and even railroad bridges. * Improved tree and bush models. Forest ground tiles can accompany them for proper forest terrain. * Generic buildings can now be up to 14 stories high (up from 8). ***SOLDIERS*** * Dynamic, context sensitive equipment loadouts for individual soldiers depending on what weapon and equipment are carried. * Expanded soldier details. A completely new way of assigning models and textures allows greater flexibility and variety of how Soldiers look in the game. It also allows for more flexible modding possibilities. * Night vision equipment will be automatically and visually equipped in scenarios with low-light conditions. * Many new soldier animations, stances and positions, including kneeling and sitting positions for crew served weapons, pistol firing animations, hand grenade throwing, crew functions, first aid, and much more... * Soldiers will automatically share ammo with other nearby units if needed. ***FIRE SUPPORT*** * On-map mortars, both dismounted and vehicle-mounted, are now available. On-map assets such as mortars are able to fire in both direct and indirect modes, using their own spotters or separate forward observers. * Spotters are now restricted to directing only one artillery or air support mission at a time. Assets can now be group fired by shift-left-clicking them, allowing more than one Asset to be assigned to the same Mission. * Player-placeable Target Reference Points (TRPs) allow simulating prepared support strikes and ambushes. Support missions aimed at TRPs do not require LOS from the spotter, or any spotting phase. * Precision artillery missions are available for Point targets. These missions are only available for certain artillery assets. * Helicopter support no longer requires Line of Sight (LOS) for the spotter to call in a mission. In other words, the mission can be called anywhere on the map. ***COMMANDS*** * Scout Team Command splits off 2 men to act as scouts. * Target Armor Arc Command. Instructs units to engage only armored units within the specified arc. As with most Commands, outcome varies greatly depending on unit quality and battlefield conditions. * Target Briefly Command. Tells a unit to fire all its guns on a designated spot for 15 seconds, then cease fire. Issuing the command repeatedly increases the duration in increments of 15 seconds. * Mark Mines Command for Engineer teams and squads. * Waypoint dragging. A waypoint can be clicked on and moved by dragging it to a new location. * Grouped Spacebar Command system. Instead of getting all of the commands in a big list when the Spacebar is used, you get four groups of commands: Movement, Combat, Special, and Administrative. Selecting one of these presents the Commands specific to that Commands Group. * For vehicles with more than two weapons systems, such as an IFV armed with ATGMs, cannon, and MGs, the Target Light Command will fire only MGs on the target, while the Target Command will allow all weapon systems to be fired. ***GRAPHICS AND PERFORMANCE*** * Faster graphics, including FPS improvements, especially for infantry-heavy maps and faster video cards. * Possible speed improvements depending on video card hardware and drivers. * Movie Mode. * Bright Night Mode. * Hit impacts to vehicles and bunkers now shown graphically ("hit decals"). * Improved rendering. Normal and Bump mapping allows for more texture detail while using less system resources and improving the pressure on framerates. ***EDITOR*** * Single vehicles and specialist teams can be purchased and attached to any formation in the editor or Quick Battle purchase window, allowing players to custom-tailor their formations. * Exit objectives. * Improved scenario briefing format, including a new Designer Notes subsection. * "Reduced headcount" option to simulate previously depleted formations. * "Ditch Contours" feature. Map editor elevation changes can be "sharp" by holding the control key when clicking tile elevations. This allows the creation of realistic ditch contours. * Ability to create AI Triggers that execute actions based on other units or interaction with Objectives. * Improved responsiveness of 2D editing, especially for large maps. * Improved load time for 3D Preview, especially large maps. * Customized "Mod Tags" for most graphics. This allows for multiple mods for the same item without the need to move items in/out of the mod folder. * Ability to specify specific mods be used for a specific Scenario. If CM fails to find the specified mod it will use the default graphics. * Auto-Assemble linear terrain tool. Roads, walls, fences, and hedges can now be automatically drawn across the map instead of placing them one tile at a time. The old manual selection interface still exists to allow tweaking specific Action Spots. * BMP map overlay. Instead of having to create game maps by freehand you can now trace over a real world map within the Editor. Four different levels of transparency make the process easier by adjusting for different needs as work progresses. * More AI Groups. The number of AI Groups available has been increased from 8 to 16. This allows for greater fidelity of AI Plans and their assigned units. * Copy and paste AI Plans. Create a solid AI Plan, copy it, and paste it into an unused AI Plan slot. Once done the copied Plan can be modified to make a unique variant without having to build the Plan up from scratch. ************************************************************************************************************ The scenario's and campaigns that came with the base game and modules are being reworked to the 4.0 standard. However as Steve stated, not all of the scenario's and campaigns will be reworked for the release of Shock Force 2, but will be worked on and released as they become available. To start, I believe SF2 will have reworked scenario's and campaigns from the base game and the Marines module.

You misunderstand. My main point was that being able to edit maps in 3D would help speed up the process of making maps, which would help speed up the process of creating scenario's and campaigns.

Agreed on both points. I personally have thrown together a few operational layers for CM that I've played mostly solitare or with a friend. In my experience doing that, the single most limiting factor is maps. Specifically, making a map for every battle. It takes a long time to do, and if you want to recreate historical terrain it takes even longer. If there was an easier way to either make new maps or generate new maps, it would go a long way to making operational layers much more accessible. My understanding is that money isn't so much an issue as the actual physical workload. Steve said in one of his updates a few months back that they were hiring a new programmer who would be starting with them in September if I remember correctly. The fact is, there is only so much that can possibly be done by BFC. Further, making BFC larger would not yield nearly as much as some think. Making organizations larger does not make them more productive, in fact it's the opposite. There comes a point where there are diminishing returns. Making a massive rocket that's extremely powerful makes it harder to get into space, not easier. Companies, organisations, etc are the same way. All that said, there are certainly ways to contribute. The campaigns in the Battlepacks were produced by a community member I believe, and some of the texture work that is done for the more recent titles have also been helped along by community members. There are certainly ways to help out BFC and increase what they are able to do, I just don't think throwing money or random computer scientists at them would be as helpful as some think.

I too would love to see more campaigns for all CM titles. Having played around with the scenario editor a fair bit, I understand how much time and effort goes into making a quality scenario/campaign, and that this is a primary limiting factor in more people making more scenarios/campaigns. That said, I think there are two solutions that would largely mitigate this: 1) Battlepacks 2) Map Editor improvements Battlepacks are already a thing. I don't know the ins and outs of how they are directed and built, but I do know that the feedback on the two that have been made was positive and a solid proof of concept. Hopefully we start to see more of these in the near future, after the next upcoming releases are pumped out. Map editor improvements: The scenario editor that comes with the game is an extremely powerful tool and is one of my favorite features of CM. However, building maps takes a lot of time, effort, trial and error. As far as creating scenario's go, it is my opinion that building the maps for each battle is the single largest time sink. I think a lot of that could be alleviated by allowing for 3D objects such as buildings, trees/foliage, roads and other such objects being placed in 3D, not the 2D map. Being able to build in 3D would go a long way to shorten the total amount of time required to build a map in my opinion. The other scenario editor improvement I would like to see is some way of quickly organizing units. As it is now, when you add units to the map, they appear all clumped up and facing one direction. It can take a long time to arrange all of them properly, especially on larger maps. I think if those two improvements were made to the scenario editor, they alone would significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to compile a scenario, which in turn would hopefully lead to more scenario's being made. I'm not sure if the improvements I mentioned are currently possible in the engine though, which could be a limiting factor.

I agree, if you are trying to take down a building that you know is occupied, and you have to clear it, you want to dump as much fire into the building as possible without causing damage/suppression to your own men. This is some of the nuance I mentioned. The main reason MOUT is so complicated is because there are literally hundreds of specific factors per building. In my example it is assumed that other known threats are being suppressed, or unknown threats are being looked out for. Perhaps imagine that the other buildings in the area are being observed by other squads. My example also assumes that the target building is not known to be occupied, hence the Hunt command. In my example it is assumed that the flanks are in fact 100% secure. Again this is just for simplicity sake. I very much agree with this. If a building is occupied by the enemy, the last thing I want to do is try to enter that building. It is much safer to attempt to destroy the building, or at least the enemy within, before attempting entry. Ideally, room clearing is the act of confirming that a room is in fact empty.

Don't do that. This is a mistake that I see a lot by many different people. The Assault command is just a bounding overwatch drill (leap frog). Very useful in many situations, but room clearing is not one of them. For room clearing, you want to have as much firepower directed at the target building as possible, and when you enter the building you do not want to do it piecemeal. Here is a very simplified example of how I conduct MOUT: For simplicity sake, this will only be a 1 squad demonstration using the US Army, but you can scale this up to multiple squads, to platoons, etc, as well as other nations. First thing is to split off an Assault Team: This results in a team of 4 men with rifles and a lot of handheld grenades. The squad leader, a Staff Sergeant, leads the section. This is important as his leadership will help give you an edge in morale in a close firefight: The second team is the remainder of the squad, 5 men, led by the assistant squad leader, a Sergeant. They have both of the squads SAWs and lots of ammo. This makes them an ideal base of fire element, which is exactly how I am using them in this example: As you can see, they are on the second floor of a building overlooking the target building, and they have a target arc covering only the target building and the immediate surroundings. This way, they won't get distracted by engaging other targets that appear elsewhere, and will instantly engage any threats that appear in the target building. The assault team is given a series of movement points and pauses for its movement to, and entrance into the target building: First, the assault team will wait 20 seconds before moving into the open. That way, the entire squad has time to orient themselves on the target building and see if there is any initial activity. If you've already had the target building under observation you can skip the first pause. The first movement order is a Quick move to cover, the low wall. The reason I use a Quick move here is so that if the assault team does take fire from the building, they can return fire as they move to cover. When they get to the wall, they will pause for 10 seconds. This allows them to both catch their breath and observe the building from a closer position. If they were engaged during the run to the wall, this will allow them to put more fire into the threat. Then, I use a Hunt command on the movement to the outside of the building. This will allow the team to spot better as it approaches, and immediately hit the ground and return fire if they are engaged. When they reach the outside of the target building, they pause again for 10 seconds to look in the windows/doors for any bad guys that might be hiding inside. This pause can be longer, but I recommend at least 10 seconds. 5 tends to be too short. Finally, the final command is a Quick move order into the target building. This part is very important. It is imperative that once you commit to entering a building, you do it quickly and with the entire assaulting element entering the building. The Quick command is used because the team will run into the building, but will still pause momentarily to engage targets before continuing on. Others may have a different way of doing this, there is plenty of nuance to MOUT. There are also many situational factors that influence which specific technique is best. I'm using the above as an example of a template you can always fall back on and build from. For example, if you had two squads available you could use one squad as the base of fire element and the second as the assault element. If the target building was occupied and you knew that, you could use the base of fire element to put suppressing fire into the building before the assaulting element moves, and while the assaulting element is moving to the building. Do not Hunt into a building. All this will do is get your men stuck in a fatal funnel. The second they take fire, they will immediately stop and go prone. Many times, they will do this in the direct line of fire of the enemy at point blank range, and will get slaughtered in short order. Avoid rooftops when possible. You are much more exposed on a rooftop, and can be much more easily spotted by the enemy. That said, sometimes the roof provides the best vantage point, or the only vantage point and you have to take a risk. All that said, the single best way to clear out a house (or a town for that matter) is to destroy it with indirect or direct fires from heavy weapons, and prod the rubble with a bayonet afterwards, but this is not always possible/practical. Hopefully this helps!