SimpleSimon

I agree with Mikey and would like to add a corollary to it, I seriously dislike it when scenario designers make terrain restrictive or unpassable to infantry when really infantry did almost all of their fighting in the places where vehicles couldn't follow them. If im designing a map, I liberally feature foot bridges, terrain folds, unguarded hamlets, and forests going up to the edges of local high ground or the objective area etc to facilitate infantry's maneuver. Tiny impassable streams never make sense to me, it's one thing if it's the Rhine but lots of times I see what are basically creeks in the game give infantry a No-Movement and if I see that im cracking open the editor...

I agree with Mikey and would like to add a corollary to it, I seriously dislike it when scenario designers make terrain restrictive or unpassable to infantry when really infantry did almost all of their fighting in the places where vehicles couldn't follow them. If im designing a map, I liberally feature foot bridges, terrain folds, unguarded hamlets, and forests going up to the edges of local high ground or the objective area etc to facilitate infantry's maneuver. Tiny impassable streams never make sense to me, it's one thing if it's the Rhine but lots of times I see what are basically creeks in the game give infantry a No-Movement and if I see that im cracking open the editor...

Ukraine is (was?) remanufacturing old Mosin Nagants into sniper rifles, replacing the stocks and adding modern optics. US did much the same thing with the M14 early in the Iraq war. They couldn't turn the Garand into a proper sniper rifle because the sight mount was doing unfortunate things to the receiver, reducing accuracy which is something you don't want for a sniper rifle.
We seem to have wandered a bit off topic.

I second the request for 'interesting' rural terrain. I'm a big fan of 'heavy rocks' to impede tanks, often tagged as [rubble] for blocked city streets. I also liberally use 'heavy woods' terrain tiles to create no-go areas for tanks. Lately, for CMRT scenarios, I've gotten into mixing up hedges, bocage, light woods tiles and trees to make strips of dense roadside foliage. And yeh, either slightly raised or depressed roads. You really do need to build in the 'mircoterrain'.

You will feel more at peace with the trees if you (smoke a joint and) consider that their effect on gameplay is not represented 1:1 by their visuals. I find that their leaves conceal less than one would expect, but their trunks more so. 

Who's arguing? You this whole time about nothing.
The best part of it is that nominally I don't even disagree with you, I'm just trying to add a bit of context here to the claim that Dreadnought was "revolutionary". It was, but as anyone can see doing a simple side by side match up of stats it was more than a little overrated.  The myth that HMS Dreadnought sparked an arms race is squashed by the fact that the Germans had already gone through with the Fleet Acts in 1898 years before the ship was launched embarking on the nation's biggest naval armaments program ever. The Germans didn't even know HMS Dreadnought existed when they finished designing the Nassau class of dreadnoughts. All the British did, literally, was beat them to the christening ceremony. 
Sorry about the whole World of Warships goalpost move but hey, you continued down that path. 
That you explain none of these quantities but constantly expect me to quantify every sentence of my own reasoning is exasperating.
U mad bro isn't really an answer man. Pretty sure that even if you are arguing it's in bad faith anyway so I wouldn't make the mistake of engaging in one with you. It turns out even discussing things with you isn't feasible. 
You're very odd. 

There tends a corresponding increase in the amount of vitriol and rhetoric that emerges from America as its slice of world GDP declines and another power's rises. We saw this most recently in the 2000s when China's growth began to takeoff, we saw it in the 1970s as Japan's market power grew rapidly prompting American pundits to launch into vicious and dishonest tirades about a resurgent Empire of the Rising Sun taking over the Pacific through bank accounts and not warships, as if the Americans weren't abandoning the Gold Standard to do precisely that. In the end Japan's growth fizzled out as its population growth capped, and China's was slowing before COVID, but no one was sure it would continue to lose steam and in fact it may be ideally positioning for another growth cycle while our consumer markets are crippled. 
What I have no doubt about is how the growth of China's GDP slice will prompt many, not all, but many American leaders and media pundits to double time their circulation of vicious and contemptible filth anchored on many tired (but clearly effective) entertainment-media industry cliché's. Rise of the Asian menace, oh no the Soviet Union is back, they're just jealous of our freedom, etc and other Great Hits on this Album!  Some Americans have a bizarre perception that the world is some sort of zero-sum game where there's only one winner and everyone else is a loser and while many obviously don't think that way the question in American popular-electorates will be as always how many believe that. Even the more seemingly benign mythology, like the false-equivalency stuff comparing American "liberties" to Chinese "oppression" is loaded but i'm sure we will be seeing more and more of that in the coming decade. American leaders of all backgrounds know that the path to power is never a question of the entire electorate, just the electorate you need to cross the barrier. 
Issue to me now, and here is a big mistake American Social Liberals (and many right wingers) have made. The logic of zero-sum games, of one winner in a world of losers, that only the strong deserve to survive, etc will be an assumption taken for granted by all of that rhetoric. The foundation of all it will be, basically, that either America has to be first, or it's last. This is in fact utterly Hitlerian reasoning and will almost certainly be the grounding for American fascist movements if it isn't already. Unfortunately the last 30 years of Nazi Wolf cries has left everyone a bit tired of the cliche but that's where America's media has genuinely failed it. Not because our media circulates lies, but because it circulates nothing except advertising. By exhausting the meaning behind the term to push ratings up (and ergo profits) Americans are clearly less informed and totally ignorant of what Nazism actually is, which leaves them really defenseless to it. Because they think it's about the superficial items, the flags, the tanks, the rallies, the salute and not the ideology which is totally anchored on (discredited) notions of Social Darwinism, and behind that, Eugenics.
Perhaps I will be proven wrong, but the lessons of history have not reached a sufficient number of people in my view. 
 

There tends a corresponding increase in the amount of vitriol and rhetoric that emerges from America as its slice of world GDP declines and another power's rises. We saw this most recently in the 2000s when China's growth began to takeoff, we saw it in the 1970s as Japan's market power grew rapidly prompting American pundits to launch into vicious and dishonest tirades about a resurgent Empire of the Rising Sun taking over the Pacific through bank accounts and not warships, as if the Americans weren't abandoning the Gold Standard to do precisely that. In the end Japan's growth fizzled out as its population growth capped, and China's was slowing before COVID, but no one was sure it would continue to lose steam and in fact it may be ideally positioning for another growth cycle while our consumer markets are crippled. 
What I have no doubt about is how the growth of China's GDP slice will prompt many, not all, but many American leaders and media pundits to double time their circulation of vicious and contemptible filth anchored on many tired (but clearly effective) entertainment-media industry cliché's. Rise of the Asian menace, oh no the Soviet Union is back, they're just jealous of our freedom, etc and other Great Hits on this Album!  Some Americans have a bizarre perception that the world is some sort of zero-sum game where there's only one winner and everyone else is a loser and while many obviously don't think that way the question in American popular-electorates will be as always how many believe that. Even the more seemingly benign mythology, like the false-equivalency stuff comparing American "liberties" to Chinese "oppression" is loaded but i'm sure we will be seeing more and more of that in the coming decade. American leaders of all backgrounds know that the path to power is never a question of the entire electorate, just the electorate you need to cross the barrier. 
Issue to me now, and here is a big mistake American Social Liberals (and many right wingers) have made. The logic of zero-sum games, of one winner in a world of losers, that only the strong deserve to survive, etc will be an assumption taken for granted by all of that rhetoric. The foundation of all it will be, basically, that either America has to be first, or it's last. This is in fact utterly Hitlerian reasoning and will almost certainly be the grounding for American fascist movements if it isn't already. Unfortunately the last 30 years of Nazi Wolf cries has left everyone a bit tired of the cliche but that's where America's media has genuinely failed it. Not because our media circulates lies, but because it circulates nothing except advertising. By exhausting the meaning behind the term to push ratings up (and ergo profits) Americans are clearly less informed and totally ignorant of what Nazism actually is, which leaves them really defenseless to it. Because they think it's about the superficial items, the flags, the tanks, the rallies, the salute and not the ideology which is totally anchored on (discredited) notions of Social Darwinism, and behind that, Eugenics.
Perhaps I will be proven wrong, but the lessons of history have not reached a sufficient number of people in my view. 
 

Back to the people starving bit - I don't know about this situation so I can't explain what happened, but for those stuck in their apartments in quarantine, a volunteer delivery service for food was established, and given the deserved praise from the public similar to the praise that the NHS in my country and the healthcare services in other countries are getting. 
 
All this defending China haha man I sound like some kind of shill. Seriously though, there are so many wrong perceptions in the west.
 
Chinese are people too. They aren't all communist robots who have no emotion to people dying around them. They do have some totally skewed world views, are really, really nationalistic, view their country as the pinnacle of civilisation, and the centre of the world (the Chinese name for China, 中国, literally means 'Middle Country'), but they still do care. Local police aren't stone faced Stasi waiting to kidnap people off the street, they are just regular people like anyone doing a job.

Just listening to the first few minutes of that reminds me why I never read or watch American news media. So many loaded statements. Just like the Chinese media haha.
'People being bundled into police vans to be taken god knows where' - Ummm probably either to the local police station or taken home, but not before having their ears chewed for breaking quarantine. The 'god knows where' bit is just tapped on the end, as though those people were never seen again.
As for infected people being locked in their homes and left to starve - while I have no doubt that happened, it wasn't exactly policy. More like that person fell through the net. Everyone had a choice if they tested positive for the test - go to the quarantine centre or choose to stay at home, but if you stay at home you must agree not to leave your apartment (most people live in apartments). A paper tag was placed over the door - loose enough to allow the door to open to allow food deliveries, but the deal was if that seal is broken, then you gotta go to the quarantine centre, whether you like it or not.
These measures are awful, but they aren't quite the picture that is painted. Infected people aren't being sent to a field and shot in the back of the head after being picked up by the gestapo.
You may have seen in the news the videos of people being properly barred in their homes, with a metal bar welded over their door. This kind of stuff did go off and its completely disgusting, but the reaction among the public here (this was not some secret that leaked to the west, it was shown on primetime news as evidence that the government is taking care of the situation) was pretty supportive. I don't agree with this, but many people here do as its for the collective good.

Pretty much. Many of CM's maps are often scaled down a size more appropriate for a level battle *below* what the scenario designer was considering. (ie: Pairs of Companies fighting on maps appropriate for a Platoon.) It's been brought it up many times but it's fairly common for the scenario designers to excessively pack maps with units, thus causing nearly every battle to become a set-piece offensive. Putting an infantry gun on a map with most lines of sight measurable to 250m or so is a symptom of this. If fighting was expected at those ranges most (but not all) Commanders would be inclined to just ditch the gun somewhere and find spare rifles and grenades for the crew. 

The Grille is armored though. Not well, but enough to be immune to rifle or machine gun fire. Even a PTRD would struggle against its protection from the front. I think the idea with it is to get it much closer to enemy positions and since the Russians didn't have the Bazooka it wasn't unreasonable to push something with 15mm of armor close enough to an enemy position that they start to fill the gun sight. Like 200ish meters. I know the Grille is often labeled as self propelled artillery but I'm unsure it actually was. It only carried 15 rounds in the hull for its gun. The Hummel only carried a few more sure but it would've operated in rear areas as artillery support where it would've been able to provision from an ammo carrier. The sIG 33 was just too short ranged for it to have been a very good self-propelled artillery but that might be why only 200 were built. 

Many Armies during World War 2 were still using regimental guns or infantry guns in a direct fire role to reduce particularly strong or pesky defensive positions. Quite a few light artillery pieces had sights for direct fire too. An entire class of armored vehicle existed to get a set of tracks under a 75mm gun and carry it right up into the thick of the fighting with the infantry ie: Assault Guns. In an age of bolt action rifles and machine guns capable of reaching out 2km it seemed rather insane to actually have big artillery guns still around the frontline firing at clear targets in the Napoleonic tradition. During World War 1 short ranged guns didn't prove to be unreasonably vulnerable to infantry fire as much as counter battery fire, but a pre-war belief that the Next War would be more fluid and mobile than it actually was meant most Armies had large numbers of light field guns that just weren't powerful enough to really defeat entrenchments and were overly reliant on shrapnel and case shot which was literally useless against infantry that had dug in even lightly. Erwin Rommel's troops suffered numerous barrages from French 75mm guns firing shrapnel shot early in the war and as long as they were in foxholes casualties were almost always negligible. (According to his book) 
The sIG 33 for instance is often depicted in most games like an artillery piece...but as far as I know it was actually incapable of indirect fire and had to be laid at a target over open sights. It only had a range of around 4,500 meters so it wouldn't have been a very practical weapon for indirect fire. Generally it was expected that infantry guns would be far away enough from their target so as not to face any acute danger from return fire. However by the 1930s it was being increasingly realized that the guns and their crews were highly exposed to mortar and artillery fire so their usefulness ended up being more circumstantial than mortars would be. Mortars were just becoming increasingly better at delivering stronger and more accurate fire, and were much less vulnerable and lighter. 
Most Armies were trying to replace their cannon companies with mortars but shortages may have precluded this so it didn't always happen. As far as I can tell only the Americans were serious about maintaining their own Regimental Cannon Companies in spite of all the alternatives around...but they had a very good Regimental Gun, the 105mm M3 with an 8,000 yard range making it practical for use behind defilade. It took until the Vietnam War for the Americans to come around to the fact that what they needed for the infantry was a proper Heavy-Mortar like the 120mm mortars the Germans and Soviets had adopted but for some reason nothing too useful for that was found until the Soltam K-6. 
As far as the question for the topic goes, yes, cannons and field artillery are highly valuable in a direct attack. It'll be crucial to both screen them properly and force the enemy to divert as much of his supporting fire as he's got to other parts of the battlefield than where your guns are. This means that you should consider very high minimum ranges for them, like never closer than 800m to  a target and the farther the better. Distance is safety for the crews.... 

Pretty much. Many of CM's maps are often scaled down a size more appropriate for a level battle *below* what the scenario designer was considering. (ie: Pairs of Companies fighting on maps appropriate for a Platoon.) It's been brought it up many times but it's fairly common for the scenario designers to excessively pack maps with units, thus causing nearly every battle to become a set-piece offensive. Putting an infantry gun on a map with most lines of sight measurable to 250m or so is a symptom of this. If fighting was expected at those ranges most (but not all) Commanders would be inclined to just ditch the gun somewhere and find spare rifles and grenades for the crew. 

The Italians had lots of excellent designs for many weapon systems. The issue was they proved utterly unable to produce enough of them to matter frequently. The Italians may have had the best AAA gun of the war for instance, the Cannone da 90/53...but built less than 600 of them. Just about all of the fighters built by Macchi were not only competitive with Allied designs, but lethal to them in the hands of a good pilot. How many were built though? Between all the types of fighter Macchi built they just couldn't build enough of anything. 
One of the issues facing Italian war production was that the more the Italians tried to ramp up production, the more they came into competition over resources with Germany. At first the Germans tried to just pass engines and resources to the Italians but as the war's prospects turned against the Axis Germany began to turn partnership into exploitation. 
The lack of output meant that Italian forces were frequently unable to execute the mostly sound combined-arms theories their forces were constructed around. This imbalance led to lack of flexibility, the lack of flexibility led to lack of realistic force projection, lack of realistic force projection led to defeat on the battlefield which further constrained Italy's options to better balance its forces. Strategic failures caused tactical failures, then tactical failures backfired into the strategy causing its failure. 

The Germans were credibly capable of launching Division-level offensives through the entire timeframe of all the currently offered games. Corp-level offensives were conducted to the very last days of 1945 even. There should be no problem in any of the released games depicting the full capabilities of German forces within the scale of fighting depicted by Combat Mission. The Germans had full combined-arms kits to the very last days of the war. The issue was that they were increasingly unable to apply these kits as the war dragged on. Army and Army Group level offensives were mostly off the table after Kursk and capabilities only decreased from there. 
Fortress Italy has the unique distinction of being the only game released thus far depicting one of Germany's partners, the Italians. An examination of the Italian kits in 1943 will show why they are an example of a nation clearly unable to bear the burden of the war by this stage, making them mostly dependent on German inputs of arms (especially tanks and aircraft). One advantage this gives the Germans in FI is access to a somewhat wider tool kit than usual by allowing them to make use of Italian Forces, who can be very good auxiliary troops in the right circumstances. The Italians were still able to provide wide assortments of infantry and artillery for instance. 
tl:dr All of the released games have the assets necessary to depict the single most important formation available to German forces during the war...the Panzer Division. 

The Italians had lots of excellent designs for many weapon systems. The issue was they proved utterly unable to produce enough of them to matter frequently. The Italians may have had the best AAA gun of the war for instance, the Cannone da 90/53...but built less than 600 of them. Just about all of the fighters built by Macchi were not only competitive with Allied designs, but lethal to them in the hands of a good pilot. How many were built though? Between all the types of fighter Macchi built they just couldn't build enough of anything. 
One of the issues facing Italian war production was that the more the Italians tried to ramp up production, the more they came into competition over resources with Germany. At first the Germans tried to just pass engines and resources to the Italians but as the war's prospects turned against the Axis Germany began to turn partnership into exploitation. 
The lack of output meant that Italian forces were frequently unable to execute the mostly sound combined-arms theories their forces were constructed around. This imbalance led to lack of flexibility, the lack of flexibility led to lack of realistic force projection, lack of realistic force projection led to defeat on the battlefield which further constrained Italy's options to better balance its forces. Strategic failures caused tactical failures, then tactical failures backfired into the strategy causing its failure. 

The Italians had lots of excellent designs for many weapon systems. The issue was they proved utterly unable to produce enough of them to matter frequently. The Italians may have had the best AAA gun of the war for instance, the Cannone da 90/53...but built less than 600 of them. Just about all of the fighters built by Macchi were not only competitive with Allied designs, but lethal to them in the hands of a good pilot. How many were built though? Between all the types of fighter Macchi built they just couldn't build enough of anything. 
One of the issues facing Italian war production was that the more the Italians tried to ramp up production, the more they came into competition over resources with Germany. At first the Germans tried to just pass engines and resources to the Italians but as the war's prospects turned against the Axis Germany began to turn partnership into exploitation. 
The lack of output meant that Italian forces were frequently unable to execute the mostly sound combined-arms theories their forces were constructed around. This imbalance led to lack of flexibility, the lack of flexibility led to lack of realistic force projection, lack of realistic force projection led to defeat on the battlefield which further constrained Italy's options to better balance its forces. Strategic failures caused tactical failures, then tactical failures backfired into the strategy causing its failure. 

An item remaining on the "wish list" for me would be a special grenade assault target line or perhaps issuing an "assault" order within about 50m of the squad makes them lead with a grenade assault. It's rather discouraging to see such timidity from infantry when theyve got grenades and dont use em much. 

One extremely interesting piece I found from 37mm's link
 Civil War armies kept few reserves, and Civil War combat featured little in the way of combined arms cooperation.  Unlike the Napoleonic Wars, and more like the 18th century, reserves were a rarity in the Civil War, and a commander had few options once a battle "developed" to maturity.  Civil War tactics were NOT Napoleonic, at least not in the sense of Napoleon I.
I had never considered this before but in hindsight it's absolutely correct. There were almost no battles during ACW I can think of where Armies on either side just retained a large uncommitted ready reserve of troops.
The author of that website also articulates a really interesting point that I think up until now I had only been grasping at. Why were the Civil War's battles so frequently indecisive? This is really valuable 37mm. 

Many Armies during World War 2 were still using regimental guns or infantry guns in a direct fire role to reduce particularly strong or pesky defensive positions. Quite a few light artillery pieces had sights for direct fire too. An entire class of armored vehicle existed to get a set of tracks under a 75mm gun and carry it right up into the thick of the fighting with the infantry ie: Assault Guns. In an age of bolt action rifles and machine guns capable of reaching out 2km it seemed rather insane to actually have big artillery guns still around the frontline firing at clear targets in the Napoleonic tradition. During World War 1 short ranged guns didn't prove to be unreasonably vulnerable to infantry fire as much as counter battery fire, but a pre-war belief that the Next War would be more fluid and mobile than it actually was meant most Armies had large numbers of light field guns that just weren't powerful enough to really defeat entrenchments and were overly reliant on shrapnel and case shot which was literally useless against infantry that had dug in even lightly. Erwin Rommel's troops suffered numerous barrages from French 75mm guns firing shrapnel shot early in the war and as long as they were in foxholes casualties were almost always negligible. (According to his book) 
The sIG 33 for instance is often depicted in most games like an artillery piece...but as far as I know it was actually incapable of indirect fire and had to be laid at a target over open sights. It only had a range of around 4,500 meters so it wouldn't have been a very practical weapon for indirect fire. Generally it was expected that infantry guns would be far away enough from their target so as not to face any acute danger from return fire. However by the 1930s it was being increasingly realized that the guns and their crews were highly exposed to mortar and artillery fire so their usefulness ended up being more circumstantial than mortars would be. Mortars were just becoming increasingly better at delivering stronger and more accurate fire, and were much less vulnerable and lighter. 
Most Armies were trying to replace their cannon companies with mortars but shortages may have precluded this so it didn't always happen. As far as I can tell only the Americans were serious about maintaining their own Regimental Cannon Companies in spite of all the alternatives around...but they had a very good Regimental Gun, the 105mm M3 with an 8,000 yard range making it practical for use behind defilade. It took until the Vietnam War for the Americans to come around to the fact that what they needed for the infantry was a proper Heavy-Mortar like the 120mm mortars the Germans and Soviets had adopted but for some reason nothing too useful for that was found until the Soltam K-6. 
As far as the question for the topic goes, yes, cannons and field artillery are highly valuable in a direct attack. It'll be crucial to both screen them properly and force the enemy to divert as much of his supporting fire as he's got to other parts of the battlefield than where your guns are. This means that you should consider very high minimum ranges for them, like never closer than 800m to  a target and the farther the better. Distance is safety for the crews.... 

That looks about right actually. You start with a basic screening line, have a second, principle line consisting of outposts and a third line in firm positions behind geographic chokepoints. Supply and HQ elements occupy the back of the map pressed into service as last ditch infantry.
The only note here to me is that your outposts are concentrated on geographic "set pieces". If I was the Russian commander you can bet i'm planning on dropping an avalanche of 122mm and 76mm fire on local high ground, *especially* named hills. The villages with the railway station, hospital, and school overlooking the bridges would get the heaviest fire. Perhaps rockets if I have em. Don't get me wrong this is all good and that's just what I'd do. You might consider eliminating some of your positions entirely and just folding them up into other locations to strengthen those positions and decrease the geographic footprint of your defense. If the Russians are supporting this attack properly you should expect them to just smash some locations while mostly ignoring some others. They might set aside smaller field guns for suppressing or pinning fires against suspect locations. 
Once you get an idea of how AI deployment plans work you can do some seriously diabolical things with randomized AI deployments that can add way more replay value to your scenarios too. You should consider deployment plans that are non-doctrinal or sub-optimal as well to undermine your opponent's expectations a bit. 
 

Chief thing you should consider as you put yourself in the mind of the German commander thinking up his defense arrangement is "what can I do to minimize my own casualties" rather than "what can I do to stop the Russians from winning" if that makes sense. The favorite method, as well known, was the "denuded front" or outpost defense concept which wasn't universal or always desirable. Usually it enabled the Germans to compartmentalize their losses by ensuring most of the Russian's fire support fell on nothing, then hopefully outlying pickets consisting of snipers and machine guns might trick the Russians into deploying prematurely so that the Germans can most efficiently use their own limited fire support assets to inflict a disproportionate weight of casualties on the Russians while they're busy treating a sniper in a treeline like it's your whole force. 
That's the textbook success anyway. Savvy Red Army Officers knew better than to overthink every encounter they might have. Not every pinprick was worth committing an assault against and things could go wrong quickly for the Germans if the Russians had lots of dead ground to maneuver inside of. The Russians proved ridiculously good at infiltrating huge formations, entire Battalions even, in-between German positions and then just collapsing the defense from inside out by overwhelming enough "nodes" in the German defense that the other locations became irrelevant. Once a big enough hole is torn in the line the rest of the Russian's parent formation can just advance inside the gap and the rest of the German defenders are presented with the ugly choice of attempting to hold out being whittled away by starvation and partisans and the even worse choice of trying to withdraw while being enfiladed from multiple directions.
This is a major reason why the Germans had to use "conventional" trench-line tactics on the Leningrad front. Because the forests and swamps were so dense it was impossible for disconnected outposts to protect anything let alone themselves, so the Germans had to use a continuous line of trenches stretched through miles of forest. This is just to give you an idea of what you consider when you look at your map as the German commander. There's times doctrine is right, and times it's very, very wrong. 

Chief thing you should consider as you put yourself in the mind of the German commander thinking up his defense arrangement is "what can I do to minimize my own casualties" rather than "what can I do to stop the Russians from winning" if that makes sense. The favorite method, as well known, was the "denuded front" or outpost defense concept which wasn't universal or always desirable. Usually it enabled the Germans to compartmentalize their losses by ensuring most of the Russian's fire support fell on nothing, then hopefully outlying pickets consisting of snipers and machine guns might trick the Russians into deploying prematurely so that the Germans can most efficiently use their own limited fire support assets to inflict a disproportionate weight of casualties on the Russians while they're busy treating a sniper in a treeline like it's your whole force. 
That's the textbook success anyway. Savvy Red Army Officers knew better than to overthink every encounter they might have. Not every pinprick was worth committing an assault against and things could go wrong quickly for the Germans if the Russians had lots of dead ground to maneuver inside of. The Russians proved ridiculously good at infiltrating huge formations, entire Battalions even, in-between German positions and then just collapsing the defense from inside out by overwhelming enough "nodes" in the German defense that the other locations became irrelevant. Once a big enough hole is torn in the line the rest of the Russian's parent formation can just advance inside the gap and the rest of the German defenders are presented with the ugly choice of attempting to hold out being whittled away by starvation and partisans and the even worse choice of trying to withdraw while being enfiladed from multiple directions.
This is a major reason why the Germans had to use "conventional" trench-line tactics on the Leningrad front. Because the forests and swamps were so dense it was impossible for disconnected outposts to protect anything let alone themselves, so the Germans had to use a continuous line of trenches stretched through miles of forest. This is just to give you an idea of what you consider when you look at your map as the German commander. There's times doctrine is right, and times it's very, very wrong. 

Chief thing you should consider as you put yourself in the mind of the German commander thinking up his defense arrangement is "what can I do to minimize my own casualties" rather than "what can I do to stop the Russians from winning" if that makes sense. The favorite method, as well known, was the "denuded front" or outpost defense concept which wasn't universal or always desirable. Usually it enabled the Germans to compartmentalize their losses by ensuring most of the Russian's fire support fell on nothing, then hopefully outlying pickets consisting of snipers and machine guns might trick the Russians into deploying prematurely so that the Germans can most efficiently use their own limited fire support assets to inflict a disproportionate weight of casualties on the Russians while they're busy treating a sniper in a treeline like it's your whole force. 
That's the textbook success anyway. Savvy Red Army Officers knew better than to overthink every encounter they might have. Not every pinprick was worth committing an assault against and things could go wrong quickly for the Germans if the Russians had lots of dead ground to maneuver inside of. The Russians proved ridiculously good at infiltrating huge formations, entire Battalions even, in-between German positions and then just collapsing the defense from inside out by overwhelming enough "nodes" in the German defense that the other locations became irrelevant. Once a big enough hole is torn in the line the rest of the Russian's parent formation can just advance inside the gap and the rest of the German defenders are presented with the ugly choice of attempting to hold out being whittled away by starvation and partisans and the even worse choice of trying to withdraw while being enfiladed from multiple directions.
This is a major reason why the Germans had to use "conventional" trench-line tactics on the Leningrad front. Because the forests and swamps were so dense it was impossible for disconnected outposts to protect anything let alone themselves, so the Germans had to use a continuous line of trenches stretched through miles of forest. This is just to give you an idea of what you consider when you look at your map as the German commander. There's times doctrine is right, and times it's very, very wrong.