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Best way to assault


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I would like to read views re the way you have found best for conducting the actual infantry assault. I am not referring here to the need for suppressive fire etc but the most effective ways of ordering the assault itself-----eg do you use the "Assault" command where the section advances in three spaced successive groups or use a "Quick" move order to the objective to the whole section together---or some other approach.

Would appreciate your views and opinions about this. Thanks

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It depends on the specific situation. If I use the quick move when assaulting a defended area, I rarely send the whole squad. The assault command works great because the overwatch team will fire without orders. It works badly when you're crossing a lot of ground because they pause in the open to let the overwatch team move up. If you've achieved fire superiority through other units and you're just trying to clear an area, then I tend to move the whole unit in at once just to have a bigger impact.

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As noted, it varies a lot with the situation. But in general, I use staggered QUICK orders issued to individual teams rather than the ASSAULT command. This is because I want control over who closes first, from what angle, where exactly the individual teams end up, etc.

For example, if I'm using a generic U.S. rifle infantry squad to close on and finish off an enemy team such as an (already suppressed) HMG, I usually organize the squad for Assault by splitting off two Assault teams -- this will give me a 4-4-4 split. Then I'll place the BAR team in a good covering fire position, probably issuing them an Area Fire order to ensure they maintain suppressive fire. Meanwhile, the team with just rifles will move first, ideally closing to a position within 50m that offers at least some cover, and preferably at an angle offset from the fire vector of the BAR team. Finally, the last team with the team leader and Thompson SMG will close to grenade range and finish off any surviving enemy.

Also worth noting: I only finish the enemy at grenade range if I think this is absolutely necessary -- for example, it's very hard to tell if an enemy behind tall bocage is completely finished off unless you get very close, because the enemy goes "heads down" behind the berm when they get suppressed, almost always disappearing from sight. So in this situation, you do have to get very close (and/or flank the bocage line) to be sure all of the enemy are out of the fight.

So if I think I can finish off the enemy by volume of fire from a distance, then I will almost always prefer this to close assault, even if it takes an extra minute or two. Even against a well suppressed enemy team, close assault is inherently a high risk maneuver. It only takes one enemy soldier rallying just long enough to let loose a burst of SMG fire or toss a grenade to cause multiple casualties to the assaulting force. There are ways to mitigate this risk, but you can never completely eliminate it.

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So if I think I can finish off the enemy by volume of fire from a distance, then I will almost always prefer this to close assault, even if it takes an extra minute or two. Even against a well suppressed enemy team, close assault is inherently a high risk maneuver. It only takes one enemy soldier rallying just long enough to let loose a burst of SMG fire or toss a grenade to cause multiple casualties to the assaulting force.

I fully agree with this. Close assault seems to always come with a price in blood. Dealing with the abstractions in clearing houses means that you can lose someone quite easily. I lost three men in one SMG burst trying to root out a stubborn German who just wouldn't give up a victory objective.

I like YankeeDog's method of splitting the teams and I use it a great deal unless I'm using conscripts. Conscripts are pretty damn useless and doubly so when you start splitting them up.

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Why so? I didn't think teams suffered any additional morale penalties.

Good question. There's been no definitive answer. In CM1, iirc, one couldn't split squads below a certain experience level.

Personally, I'd prefer that there was a mild penalty. Especially when on offense. If only to save labor on the part of the player.

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Scout teams definitely suffer a morale penalty when split. The mechanics of this seems to be that the Morale team almost always as a lower leadership rating than the parent squad, and this definitely affects their durability under fire.

Not sure about other types of split teams. And I'm not sure a morale penalty is always justified. For example, I often use split teams simply to tweak the exact deployment of the squad teams into action spots and also do control things like volume of fire (by splitting, you can set one team to a short cover arc so it doesn't fire), not to actually separate them by any great distance. So often, while the squad may be split in terms of game mechanics, it will still be close enough together to function as a coherent unit.

But regardless, conscripts are a lot more brittle and they react and shoot more slowly even when in good morale state. So generally you want to use larger groups of them for any given task. Where you might use one split Regular squad to finish off an enemy MG, you'd probably want to use 2 Conscript squads -- one whole squad for overwatch & covering fire, one whole squad for assault.

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And I'm not sure a morale penalty is always justified. For example.... So often, while the squad may be split in terms of game mechanics, it will still be close enough together to function as a coherent unit.

Your reasoning is sound. But who *wants* to divide up every squad in a massive battle in order to enhance his chances? Talk about micro-management hell....

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Your reasoning is sound. But who *wants* to divide up every squad in a massive battle in order to enhance his chances? Talk about micro-management hell....

Certainly true that in an ideal world, I would love it if AI could handle this stuff.

However, this is probably simply too tall an order for the AI in many situations, and I am not willing to watch my pixeltruppen bumble through unrealistic, poorly executed squad-level drill simply because I don't feel like micromanaging (except maybe if they're conscript, in which case poor squad-level drill is perhaps realistic).

To cite just one example, when I am using German Squads in a stationary overwatch or defensive position, I often split off the Assault team and keep them somewhere nearby out of the immediate line of fire while I put the reminder of the squad with the MG(s) up "on the line" as a fire element. This doesn't reduce the effective fire of the squad very much, but it substantially reduces exposure. It would be very difficult for the AI to "know" when this is appropriate, and when it isn't.

Another example: When occupying a multi-story building with a squad, I will usually split the teams onto different floors. But which team goes on which floor is highly contextual. Often, just a Scout team or the Leader team with binocs. goes on the upper floor with a short cover arc as an OP. But if I think I already have superiority in the area, I may put the SAW team on the upper floor, in hopes of gunning down any retreating enemy. Both are realistic deployments, depending on the context, but it's going to be very difficult to program an AI that knows which is appropriate for a given situation.

In general, I'm in favor of improvements to the squad-level AI that reduce the need for player micromanagement to execute realistic tactics. But it's an area where I'm only expecting modest, incremental improvements for the foreseeable future.

This is also one of the reasons why I don't generally favor "massive battles" in CMx2.

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No problem splitting squads in a modest sized battle. On defense, it's almost mandatory. But once your units start piling up.....

One not too onerous enhancement that BFC could add is color coding the disparate teams so they're instantly recognizable on the map. A color, that is, other than the default orange. I still favor mild morale hits, especially on lower quality troops. Not just scouts.

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I live the "massive" battles, but yes they are time-consuming.

ASSAULT is great when you are learning the game or playing at a lower experience level.

But, there are some drawbacks - especially in WEGO where you can't change orders every few seconds. The most effective and less dangerous (to your own men) technique is to almost always break squads into teams. But, yes you need to keep your eye on whether the teams have lower values than the squad. But, hey that's what the HQ is for (altho' its effect is so subtle in CM2 vs CM1 that I find it impossible to actually detect what benefit an HQ provides).

+1 to color coding for squads and teams. Would be very helpful.

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But, yes you need to keep your eye on whether the teams have lower values than the squad. But, hey that's what the HQ is for (altho' its effect is so subtle in CM2 vs CM1 that I find it impossible to actually detect what benefit an HQ provides).

Anecdotal observation shows that the 'hit' effects only Scouts. Of course, it may exist as an undocumented feature that doesn't show up in ratings.

Good tip,YD, on the reverse Assault tactic. Remember having resorted to it in CM1 but had forgotten.

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Even against a well suppressed enemy team, close assault is inherently a high risk maneuver. It only takes one enemy soldier rallying just long enough to let loose a burst of SMG fire or toss a grenade to cause multiple casualties to the assaulting force. There are ways to mitigate this risk, but you can never completely eliminate it.

I have learned this the hard way too often.

One lucky grenade and you have lost more men than you will ever want to.

But I also like to risk my pixel mens lives.

All fine and good as long as you have them to lose. But if you are playing a tournament and only have a platoon of men to start with. Very bad habit that made me look very foolish.

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The main difference between the assault command and splitting squads and micro-managing buy hand (apart from the amount of time demanded of the player) is that with the assault command leaves the men as a single squad, which means they share suppression states and spotting information. Which can be good or bad. I've had cases in the past where the leading team takes very heavy short range fire (run in to a house and take a lot of fire from a very near by enemy that is out of LoS of the overwatch) - and the overwatch (clearly out of LoS of the enemy) end up suppressed and crawling for cover, despite not being targetted at all, because they share the morale state of the lead team that has just taken a beating. Obviously this can lead to cases where your overwatch is rendered useless by the simple act of the point team taking fire - exactly the case where the overwatch is meant to be useful. (Although in these cases you are in a pretty bad situation anyway). Splitting can avoid that problem.

Splitting carries its own drawback of not sharing spotting information. One one man in a squad spots an enemy, all men in that that have LoS to that enemy spot it too (or so it seems to me - can't say I've tested it precisely). So if your split squad takes fire, you may end up with the case that the point team spots the enemy shooting at it, but the overwatch doesn't and hence does nothing. Using the assault command rather than splitting manually leads to improved spotting. Possibly. There is the complication of how well one 10 man squad using an assault command spots versus how three 3-4 man squads, two stationary and one on 'quick', spot. Conceivably it could be worse, and sufficiently worse that the improved information sharing between the 10 man squad doesn't make up for it.

All I can say is that when splitting teams I have seen overwatch unable to spot enemy units that the point team has seen and taken fire from, and when using the assault command I have seen overwatch neutralised despite taking no fire due to suppression of the point team. And I no longer use the assault command for anything, since I always prefer to split teams if that is the kind of behaviour I want. (And I never play realtime, which may have some bearing on that decision).

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When you think about, there's really no reason ever to split off scouts. They suffer, as far as we can determine, the morale penalty that other half teams don't. So you're better off simply splitting the squad into equal parts and sending those fractions off to recon.

They're useful to me as scouts and nothing more. They're a pair of eyes somewhere that I don't necessarily want to send a whole, or even half, squad to. They're two guys I can probe with that I won't be upset about losing. Using scouts as anything but is a bad idea.

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They're useful to me as scouts and nothing more. They're a pair of eyes somewhere that I don't necessarily want to send a whole, or even half, squad to. They're two guys I can probe with that I won't be upset about losing. Using scouts as anything but is a bad idea.

I used to hold your point of view. But participating in this thread made be wonder if we aren't better off sending 3-4 guys with (apparently) full morale on recon than than 2 guys with impaired morale.

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It depends on what type of recon you need. If it's just a pair of eyes and ears to watch a flank or creep up to locate the enemy unseen and avoid contact, then a scout team can do that just fine. Even broken troops can do that (although not as well). But if you're sending a patrol out where contact is likely, or you want a more aggressive recon to, say, find and destroy AT tems ahead of your advancing tanks, then the 3-4 man team "armed to the teeth" is of course the better choice.

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I use 2-man scouts all the time. But never to deliberately start combat, only to see what is out there - so with very restricted arcs.

Their big, perhaps only advantage is that 2 guys can find good hiding spots easier, and are harder for the enemy to see and shoot at than 3 or 4+.

Whether a higher morale scout is better is a good question. CM2 is so subtle that unless one is comparing Elites with Regulars or worse I find it impossible to determine any difference.

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As noted, 2-man scout teams are generally not for fighting. On offense, they're mostly for minimizing potential casualties while you're poking round, trying to figure out what ground the enemy is going to let you have, and what ground he's going to fight you for. On defense, they're for putting two pairs of eyes in a location you don't actually plan to fight from, to get intel on enemy positions and movements.

Sometimes, though, I will use 2-man scout teams as pickets/skirmishers -- to put harassing fire onto enemy units, confusing the enemy as to the actual location of my main body/MLR, and to slow the enemy down by drawing their attention. But there are better units for this if you have them -- small, 2-3 man LMG/MMG teams and snipers usually make much better pickets than scout teams because they have better ranged fire. And American scout teams are better for this than German ones -- 2 Garands have a fair bit more bite than 2 Kar. 98s.

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And American scout teams are better for this than German ones -- 2 Garands have a fair bit more bite than 2 Kar. 98s.

I've noticed that the German units will peel off automatic weapons when assigning scout teams. Frequently, I will end up with a smg and a rifle or a stg and a rifle. That could just be something I'm noticing lately on the Engel campaign that is related to that order of battle.

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