PEB14

I read somewhere (in the manual?) that HIDING units are very poor spotters. Is it correct?

But to be honest, playing 1915-17 wouldn't be THAT interesting. Charging blindlessly in the no man's land hoping for some troops to reach the enemy trench before being completely slaughtered by an off-map artiellery barrage wouldn't make a great game! A 1914 period game would be something completely different. You should have mounted cavalry (with spears and sabres!), THAT woiuld be GREAT! On the other end, 1917-18 would be very interesting. But some CM game mechanics shall be modified, the present trench system is too basic for WW1 stuff IMO, and you would really need some close combat mechanics for any WW1 game (baionets and the like).

Thank you for pointing it out. Especially as I completely forgot this aspect. At the first order, dividing a squad in teams has no positive effect on morale. But anyway, if you split your squad in teams and disperse theese somewhat (2 or 3 tiles from each other, not much more to avoid negative impact on C2), it forces your enemy to divide its fire in multiple directions/on multiple targets and should lessen the impact of his fire (direct casualties and suppression) on at least part of the squad. Espacially when targeted by HE weapons and machineguns. Correct?

You can shoot standard HE shells on the same target?

You clearly lack Leadership!

Agreed. Just it badly translates into the game, as you've got to keep your 3 guys together while in real life they would operate more remotely. Anyway I will use them as standard scout as intended, they will do the job!

Well, in the scenario I'm playing, I've actually got two companies organized along this TOE, plus another one which looks like a heavy company (with 2 HMG teams and 2 smaller (2-teams) assault sections per platoon. And there is this bizarre D Co., with no Weapons (mortar) sections attached to the Co. HQ but two "Scout Sections" of three men (two SMG and one sniper). And also a 3rd Team (2 men) with a BAR gun. And a single Platoon in addition. Maybe this is not a historical TOE...

Yes. Unfortunately in CM you cannot split the team to keep the sniper behind the SMG scouts for the lookout task...

Sorry, but I don't get your point. I mean, you're talking about the Leadership factor and I perfectly understand what you write about it, which makes perfect sense. But my question was aboute Morale, not Leadership. And I don't think that Morale is determined the Team or Squad leader's. Or is it?

That's exactly my point! That's exactly why I don't understand the point to have a sniper in a WW2 Ranger Scout Team (as it is called in the TOE). In your screen capture of the modern game, you show a sniper team. Not a scout team. And you know these units far batter than I do, as you showed already very interesting test results with these units!

In real life??? Really??? You mean the sniper was supposed to do observation job in his eyesight under close protection of the SMG boys? Come on! The other way rounds sounds more reasonable: wasn't the sniper supposed to stay undercover at a distance, to cover the scouting SMG guys?...

As a newbie, I have similar issues to use offboard artillry with 15 minutes + delivery delays. Based on advices I picked here and there (and especially in this forum), if scenario length is less than 1 hour, as an attacker I start an artillery barrage right from the start (0 time delay) in harrass mode and maximum delivery time, all guns, on a likely enemy position. As game processes, I advance my spotters to a place where I can adjust the fire on other targets as required. It works pretty well. In this case, the delay command is pretty useful, when you are not sure to reach a good spotting point in time. On the defense, I think you can pretty much do the same? You set a harrass mission as far away as possible, in direct view of your observer (as you are less prone to move it than on the attack), and you use delay if you estimate that the enemy won't reach this place in time? Anyway, I understand that artillery on the defense is more an interdiction tool than a destruction tool: you fire on places you DON'T want your enemy to go, not necessarily on places he's likely to be. I confirm that I found no way to add (or remove) guns to an artillery mission, nor to change the rate of fire. It is worth to notice that Usually Hapless, an experimented player, mentions in one of his excellent YouTube AAR that, on the attack, the time to get FFE is so long that by the time he gets it he usually has found another way to solve his problem...

Hi, (The question below is a real-life TOE one, not a Combat Mission mechanics one.) I'm starting a scenario as the US side. I've got a battalion(-) of rangers under my command. In D Company, there are two Scout Teams attached directly to Co HQ. I'm somewhat puzzled by the composition of these 3-men teams: 2 SMG and 1 sniper! What is the rationale to mix in a Team a long-range sniper and two short-range SMG? And what is the rationale to put a sniper in a Scout unit? To me, it looks as logical as to mix an AT gun and a mortar in an Artillery battery...

Hello, One common practice of some experienced players is to split squades into teams whenever possible. One of the reasons why to do so, is that it avoids to get a whole squad rattled or broken by a single enemy shot. It makes perfect sense. Hence I've got a question related to game mechanics. When I have a rattled Team and an OK or nervous one, what is the morale status of the squad when they merge? With small teams like Scouts or AT teams, it looks like (based on my very short experience) the merged squad gets the status of the biggest of the teams. Is it a general rule? What about equally sized teams which get merged? And what if the squad is split once again? Do the new teams get the same morale than the previously reformed squad? Or is morale tracked on a soldier by soldier basis (which would make sense and would also avoid cheesy strategies...). Notice that the same question relates to Physical condition, but with much less important implications as Physical condition can always be recovered. Thanks in advance for your answers!

Let's change the texture of the bunkers: if they're made of armored glass, that would be OK, wouldn't it?

That's exactly the point. US Army in WW2 was efficient like no other, and for no small part because of the high level of standardization of weapons and equipements. And that's precisely what makes the US Army boring to play in the long run… At least with a Tunisian Campaign module one could add the Grant and Lee tanks to the meager US AFV zoo…

I agree I would have more interest into it with the CW forces included. Tsss... With a Barbarossa game you would devastate a full Panzer Regiment with a single KV-I, or, the other way round, wreck havoc amongst a mix of T-26, T-27, T-28 and BT tanks with a couple of Panzer II and Panzer 38(t)... THAT would be fun! And all of this in summertime... Or, if you need to occupy your wintertime, you could assault a 5-turret T-35 with Finns ski-troops! Or storm the Mannerheim line with Soviet green troops in knee-deep snow...

Hi Bil, Thanks for the insight; coincidentally, I found your blog earlier today while following some of the above poster's recommendation. Looks very interersting and relevant !

Thanks to all poster for taking the time to read my long post and to provide interesting advices. By the way, I didn't make all wrong. Incidentally, it happens that I applied (unkowingly, at least until today!) the concept of "keyhole" with some tanks in an urban CMRT scenario. And to great success, as my T-34 totalled nearly as much kills from this keyhole position that all my other units combined! Your reflexion is very interesting. I stopped Squad Leader (SL) a long time ago so I'm not totally blinded by this wargame mechanics. BUT, as a matter of fact, my vision of WW2 tactics was clearly influenced by SL, and for sure I have to un-learn several things. To paraphrase you, I have absolutely no problem to "surrender to the unkown". I absolutely don't miss the god-like omniscience enjoyed by the SL player - not at all. Uncertainty, even it may be a source of frustration, is one of the most exciting part of the CM series. I similarly consider that the TacAI concept, to which one releases some degrees of control of the Pixeltruppen, is an extraordinarily good idea; some similar mechanics already exists to some extent in the SL/ASL series with the concepts of "broken" and "pinned" units, but obviously not to the degree achieved in CM. More frustrating is the lack of knowledge of the relative protection and firepower of the armor; in CM you have no table to rely on. But I agree that knowing to the fourth digit the percentage of chances that you might hit or miss is far worst ! Indeed, there are two aspects that I, the former SL player, have to integrate. The first one is the time factor. In the SL game you play for a dozen of turns. You MUST rush. So I have a tendancy to move my units - letting them stand still, waiting for reco or artillery support, gives me the impression to lose time… That does influence the use of armors as well: in SL they will shoot twenty times in the whole game, so you should not waste an opportunity to fire. So I have to learn patience. Thanks to some advices above, I found the concept of the three times: 1/3 of time dedicated for preparing an attack (scouting and getting into position), 1/3 for the attack proper, and 1/3 to mop-up and deal with counteratacks. In my CHurchill tanks scenarios I got a German surrender only a few minutes before the full time, so I doubt the concept is valid for all scenario; I nevertheles shall give it a try. The other concept that strongly differs from ASL is the treatment of LOS, in particular the influence of elevation. The SL system is primitive (it cannot be otherwise in a 2D game); in CM I have tremendous difficulties to manage LOS on maps with gentle slopes and long LOS (It's a lot easier in the close bocage of CMBN, or in the urban fightings). And a third point is that the relative strengths and weaknesses of the weapons system is not the same in SL and in CM. The fate of my JS-2 and JSU confronted to the StuG would certainly not have been the same in SL. So I have to learn these new scales like any beginner! Anyway, be sure that I won't give up Combat Mission because I lost a few Jagdpanzer. The learning curve is steep, but I'll carry on, and I'm quite convinced that your advices will be helpful. SL belongs to the past, at least as far as I am concerned, and I fully adhere to the concepts of Combat Mission. The only thing that I really miss from SL: early and mid-WW2… Please Steve us, give us the multiturreted T-28, the Finns, the French, even the Rumanian and the Matilda tanks… I need to play Stalingrad's The Factory in Combat Mission 2 !!! Thanks again to all posters for their messages.

Now I do!

Dead link?

"Le Taon" means "The Horsefly". This ones definitely qualifies as a "sad neglected animal"!

Sorry, long post here... This post I write out of frustration, after the mauling of my tanks in my last games of CMRT that I called off yesterday. I started playing Combat Mission a little more than one month ago. I was a Squad Leader player a LONG time ago (more than 25 years!). This is the story of my discovery of the dynamics of tanks in combat mission: tanks vs. tanks and tanks vs. AT guns. A very frustrating one indeed. Chapter I I started with the CMFI training campaign. In the last mission, you get 5 Sherman tanks against 2 Pz III and 2 Pz IV. When my Sherman arrived on map, they only faced one remaining Pz IV. I carefully advanced three of the Sherman to face it, at a distance of about 400 m. Seconds later, one Sherman was ablaze and another one abandoned by its crew after partial penetration. I finally managed to get rid of the Pz IV, blinding him with smoke to allow my remaining tanks to get into firing position, but the surviving Pz IV (Regular rated) crew memeber only abandoned its machine after SIX penetrating (or partially penetrating) shots on targets, plus a 7th boucing on it with no damage. Three Sherman, 7 shots on target to get rid of a Pz IV... Chapter II I decided to play the CMRT training campaign next. In the last mission you have to assault a German village defended by a Tiger and a handful of StuG III, with plenty of armors (including heavy JS and JSU-152) and infantry on your side. In this game I never managed to use my armor properly. The village approaches are heavily channeled by forests and a deep gully whose bridge is not crossable by heavy tanks. Impossible to flank manoeuvre before reaching the village on a relatively narrow front. I lost my first T-34 from a StuG III at about 600 m (first shot, direct kill). I then advanced my heavy armors under the cover of smoke to close on the village. When smoke dissipated, one JS-2, one JSU-152 and another T-34 were blown up at 250 meters by two StuG. No miss, all shots were direct kills. The Tiger didn't have to shoot a single shot. As Russian infantry bears no AT weapon, I honestly still don't know how I can win this one. No idea what to do with those crystal tanks, as they're vulnerable from all distances... Highly frustrating. Chapter III - A story of AT guns. In the meantime I also played the CMBN training campaign. The last mission teaches very well how to flank enemy armors. I make stupid mistakes that cost me 3 Sherman tanks but I manoeuvered the other ones in a satisfactorily way so to flank another Pz IV, killing him in TWO SIDE shots at 200 meters. Last week, I played a CMBN CW scenario where I got 3 Churchill tanks in a bocage countryside with large open spaces. I had to face three 50 mm German AT guns. Two of them were suppressed easily, but the third one... It managed one (front) shot-one kill on one my Churchill at 250 meters. I then pounded him with two light mortars (30 rounds in total)... to no effect!! (British light mortars, what a crap!) So I had to go on it with another Churchill. After blinding him with light mortar smoke to allow me to get into position, he nevertheless got the first shot, which bounced on the front of my Churchill (at last!) and I silenced him for good. And next comes yesterday's game: a CMRT scenario in which I played the German (with its undestructible Pz IV!) In this one I faced several 57mm Soviet AT guns with Pz IV, JPz Iv and one Hetzer among other amors. At the cost of one halftrack I spotted two enemy AT guns. Having no LOS on them from any artillery observer (my bad!), and too long a range to suppress them, I decided to give a go on one of them (the furthest away, emplaced behind sandbags) with a JPzIV. So I sneaked my SP gun in a wood at low speed (open-topped to optimize my chances for an early LOS). Kaboom! One frontal shot at 600 meters and the JPz IV is damaged and abandoned by its crew. What?! I need six Sherman 76 mm shots on target to disable a Pz IV, and at an even longer distance a single shot of 57 mm makes my JpZ crew flee away? What the f**k???? OK, while the Soviet AT gun was still pounding the abandoned JPz IV, I sneaked the Hetzer in another wood tile, opened up and close to an infantry unit with a LOS to the AT gun, trying to get the first shot. And I did. One machine gun burst and one gun shot on target: NO EFFECT. Zero. Nada. One single shot of the 57 mm gun: the Hetzer blows up. Great. In the meantime I tried to outflank another 57 mm AT gun with a Puma, two Pz IV (ya know, the tank which requires 6 front shots on target to get disabled), and screening infantry. I close up under the protection of woods. The AT gun itself is in the open (no foxhole, no trench) on the other side of the wood. Once again, I advance slowly, three tanks against one gun, with infantry support and everybody opened up. The AT gun gets the first shot at 200 meters through the woods. One Pz IV is damaged and backs away. NOBODY on my side gets a LOS to the AT gun. Second shot: the other Pz IV blows up. Great. Neither the remaining Puma nor the infantry gets a LOS to the AT gun. I gave up, completely disgusted. Chapter III - Conclusion and questions So what? I made mistakes (in the last scenario, my HQ were too far behind and couldn't provide mortar suppression on any of the AT guns as required). But seriously, one frontal shot-one kill with a 5-cm PaK on a Churchill? one frontal shot-one kill with a 57 mm gun at 600 meters on a JPZ IV? One frontal shot-one kill with a StUG at 250 meters against a JS-2? What are the odds?? And the other way round, two 76mm side hits to get rid of a Pz IV? SIX 76mm frontal hits for the same effect???? Am I especially unlucky or did I miss a point? In the end, I feel completely helpless against tanks in defense, and against AT guns as well when distance is too long for infantry suppression fire to be efficient. Are the tanks supposed to stay far away at the back of the infantry? Are they supposed to NEVER engage AT guns, even low calibre ones? Shall they charge their targets at high speed and hope for the best, instead of trying to sneak into firing position? US, German and to a lesser extent British infantry have short range AT weapons which can allow them to deal with enemy tanks under the cover of their own ones; but the Russians?! What is disturbing in Combat Mission when compared to Squad Leader is the lack of knowledge of the chances: what are the odds of a JS2 against a StuG III at a given distance? of a Pz IV against a 57 mm AT gun? I take any advice here... (And special thanks to people who had the patience to read all through this post!)

Do you confirm that the SA voices are not working? I started the "First Blood at Celleno" scenario but my Pixeltruppen remained very silent all the way through...

Well, as a matter of fact, to me it sounds like "another 1944-45 WW2 game featuring Sherman tanks". Clearing not the most appealing of the WW2 CM titles... And indeed the only of the 4 WW2 CM titles I haven't bought (yet!). I would gladly pay twice as much for any other WW2 title, either Stalingrad or North Africa or France 1940 or Barbarossa, even Yugoslavian campaign!