Infantry tactics

[Hilts]

What's the best way of clearing out a forest with infantry against a hidden enemy? I have split squads moving through on a search and destroy mission but no matter how I order them they just get nailed, most times without me even seeing who's firing at them. So then I have to start all over again! I have tried hunt command and slow move command both with and without cover arcs but I am incurring a lot of casualties with minimum success.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I suggest artillery.

Absent that there probably isn't any good way of doing this, but maybe try advancing your infantry only a single action spot per turn. You will need to have a very significant local advantage in mass (numbers), like 2x-3x. Expect heavy loses.

[JonS]

Multiple axes of advance might help too, to split the defenders fire.

But definitley HE is your best bet. Even direct fire HE will have a reasonable effect a reasonable distance into the woods. The tricky bit (as it always is) is coordinating HE fire with movement so that your troops come across the enemy while they're still cowering.

Best case: you're going to take a lot of casualties.

Worst case: you're going to take a lot of casualties.

[Crushingleeek]

flanking manuvers, split your squads; if you are able to converge on the same enemy position together, one squad may take casualties, but hopefully the other(s) will take out the offender.

its harder when the flanks are all covered. if its not windy, smoke can sometimes help neutralize the enemies covering flanks. any type of artillery is always helpful to generate suppression or reduce morale.

[Wreck]

I'll second or third the idea to use artillery on the woods as a whole, before moving in. Of course, that relies on having the ammo to expend.

Since the OP doesn't mention it: be sure to use area fire a lot. It helps to have lots of ammunition and grenades. Basically, you creep forward one or two action spots with a scout team -- it will probably be killed. But it spots where the enemies are; then you move up several teams at once just into range and area fire into the spot where you detected the enemy.

One other thing other guys have not mentioned yet is attempting suppression ahead of your men even without knowing where the enemy is. You can also get some suppression from infantry fire even beyond where you can see. Some of the bullets keep going, even though most of them are wasted on the targeted action spot. Don't want to do that with normal infantry teams at short ranges because they'll use/waste valuable grenades. Also don't do it with teams that are low on ammo and cannot replenish it. But with MG teams which have large amounts of ammo, or any infantry at greater than grenade range (typically, grazing into the edge of the wood), it can be worthwhile.

[Bradley Dick]

If you have the ammo, Wreck gives some good advice. Advance through the trees behind a wall of lead. If you can support from stationary units, even inaccurately, all the better.

[Sakai007]

Fire is your only friend here. The more the better. Pretty much just repeating everything said before, but it's good advice. When you are able to have an approximate location on them, plaster the area until your troops are almost there. Split an assault team to use for this, while every weapon in the area keeps their heads down. Once you are in grenade range, stop and area fire where you want to attack. Once the frags are out, rush in and kill the dazed defenders with small arms.

That's the ideal scenario, your own results may vary.

[womble]

Split your squads into teams, too. Stops an entire squad being suppressed by just a part of it coming under fire. Use Slow movement. Keep your Platoon HQs near, but to the rear. If you have armed vehicles, don't be afraid to use them, just behind your infantry screen, using area fire with their rifle-calibre weapons

I like to split my squads into Assault and fire support elements, with separate AT teams too. Assault teams get given most of the grenades. The Assault team won't be given any area fire orders, so your grenades will get used on seen targets for the most part. You're going to need extra ammo, as has been said; don't grab that ammo until your teams have been split off. That way the rifle calibre bullets get given to your support teams and the pistol calibre ones go to your assault teams. I think the best movement mode for the platoon is caterpillar overwatch. The assault teams move forward one or two AS while the support teams pour lead downrange past them at either identified targets or in area fire mode. Then the support teams move up level with the assault teams once all identified threats have been neutralised.

[simmox]

dangerous business clearing forrest with no arty

ive had a 4 man AB team,with the assistance of a nearby TRP,take out 45 men,approaching through the forrest

a well placed platoon,can quite easily decimated a whole company in this manner

id suggest avoiding the forrest's if possible,maybe forcing the troops stationed in them to relocate to other positions to remain in the fight.

otherwise expect alot of casualities

[~Viajero]

I found this quite useful:

Woods fighting is all about differential LOS.

Differential LOS means not everyone can see everyone else (obviously), and managing it is all about keeping more of your people able to see a subset of the enemy, while others on the enemy side of the field can't see anyone and are thus temporarily useless in the front line firefight.

You just want a few friendly shooters not being shot at, because your own in LOS of the foremost enemy outnumber that enemy (not in total men, in the number of separate physical locations occupied). Those unsuppressed own-side shooters keep the foremost enemies pinned. Once pinned they are rapidly eliminated outright. With no rushing -fire dominance not movement takes ground. The foremost friendlies are farthest into enemy LOS and thus move the least - if already taking fire they never, ever move forward. Their only job is to fire back. The rearward guys move enough to get LOS - using move to contact or very short, rapid movements - then go stationary and just fire.

If you lose a particular firefight you pull back, fresh men make the next attempt while the survivors of the previous just rally. The available terrain is never overloaded. That available terrain area - frontage length - not the total number of men available - sets the pace of the fight and the amount of men assigned actual frontage. A longer frontage from wrapping around the enemy is useful, but not overloading is essential.

Then everyone takes their turn at the cutting edge; the enemy faces continual fire from men as fresh as possible along the entire chosen frontage indefinitely. He can only reduce his incoming by backing away from part of the firing line. Gauging when and where that is happening becomes the primary tactical task. It isn't particularly hard; it is just a matter of listening to the morale state of the men and counting men down.

This is all perfectly standard attrition tactics stuff and would have been entirely familiar to a Roman Legion.

The error moderns ignorant of the principles of attrition tactics always make in such situations is to try to substitute mass or speed and rush the job. Instead of waiting for the heat of the firing line to melt the defenders, they try to push into and cut through them. In the process they overload the frontage and give huge and entirely avoidable boosts to the enemy from all his available area fire effects. (In infantry fighting at close quarters, this especially means grenades in real life, but includes unaimed small arms fire by lots of automatics, especially where concealment exceeds hard, bullet-stopping cover).

Properly handled infantry does not require the assistence of other arms to destroy numerically inferior enemy infantry in a woods interior. It is in fact infantry's own strongest suit, that it can inflict lopsided losses on a numerically inferior defender in such situations. At first both sides will bleed about evenly (with the correct approach outlined above), with only a slight edge to the defenders from the moment of initial contact; and even that can be offset by careful many on few small scale tactics. But once the attackers have traded evenly "through" a third to half of the defender's numbers (varying with their cover and morale etc), the rest will be so pinned, low on ammo, separated from supporting units etc, that fire dominance just snowballs, often into a total defender wipe out. Outlast their limited "wind" of good order fire on the frontage, and the rest will go down with a crash.

There is really very little cover differential available in a deep woods interior, and thus practically no defender's edge. If the attacker doesn't make the mistake of pushing too hard, too deep into LOS, or of overloading the frontage to lose more men than he needs to to area fire effects, there is no reason whatever to expect the more numerous side to lose.

[Hilts]

No artillery available! It is a forest, I've taken my tanks in as far as I dare. No HT's for extra ammo either. The forest occupies a victory area so must be cleared in it's entirety to gain victory points. I have been advancing one square at a time. I have found that crawling is probably better than hunt but when I encounter the enemy my men don't seem to return fire, they keep crawling often in circles until they are wiped out. I will try adding area fire as suggested. The other thing of course is that my fit, strong troops can jog up and down the battlefield for two hours without getting tired yet two minutes of crawling/hunting and they need to rest and have a cup of tea! Man, this game can be frustrating!!

[dieseltaylor]

using move to contact or very short, rapid movements

I think this quote of JC comes from CM*1 era. I am not clear if it was a theoretical piece or CM*1 specific. My gut feeling is you need to play the game mechanics! : )

As for attacking in woods - I would go a long way to avoid it if I were the attacker unless artillery was available.

[womble]

I think this quote of JC comes from CM*1 era. I am not clear if it was a theoretical piece or CM*1 specific. My gut feeling is you need to play the game mechanics! : )

It's pretty applicable to the CMx2 mechanics, I reckon. Don't move if you're under fire. Get more of your blokes shooting at his than he has blokes who can shoot at yours. Suppression via area fire. Don't create a target-rich environment.

One thing to be a little wary of in x2 is that small arms calibre "bullet splash" in the same or (to a lesser degree) adjacent action spots will add to a unit's suppression.

...I've taken my tanks in as far as I dare...The forest occupies a victory area so must be cleared in it's entirety...

If the VL is of primary importance, you're not pushing your armour in hard enough... The important thing is to keep them behind your cordon of advancing infantry; while you have infantry in front of them, you can dare as far as you like - it doesn't get inherently more dangerous the deper they go into the woods, so if you've put them in at all, stop quivering and push 'em home. They will mostly be adding to the weight of your suppression fires, not actually getting into LOS of the enemy. Any ATRocket teams that try and 'zook your tanks will be shot to pieces by your infantry screen in the time it takes to kneel up and fire.

...when I encounter the enemy my men don't seem to return fire, they keep crawling often in circles until they are wiped out.

IME you shouldn't be needing to use cover arcs, and certainly shouldn't be using "Hide". Either of those things can cause lack of return fire. There will also be times when your pTruppen just won't spot. If they're in a poor morale state, or suppressed (Cowering), they're not spotting. I just had the three-man remnant of a team broken by an advancing enemy team. One of the three saw the approaching dogfaces and missed with a burst, but his two mates were Cowering and Spotting, and the one Spotting just couldn't see them, in spite of his teamie pointing and shouting. Next grenade got the two oblivious ones and made the reloading one run away.

[~Viajero]

It's pretty applicable to the CMx2 mechanics, I reckon. Don't move if you're under fire. Get more of your blokes shooting at his than he has blokes who can shoot at yours. Suppression via area fire. Don't create a target-rich environment.

One thing to be a little wary of in x2 is that small arms calibre "bullet splash" in the same or (to a lesser degree) adjacent action spots will add to a unit's suppression.

Absolutely. Not sure if JasonC plays CM2 nowadays but that quote was from a post in this very CMBN forum and not that long ago actually (I ll see if I can get the link). We are now somewhat limited by action tiles, but so are our opponents, the principles should be the same.

EDIT: linky here http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=98606&page=27

[Tarquelne]

Advance through the trees behind a wall of lead. If you can support from stationary units, even inaccurately, all the better.

Given some recent experiences I strongly agree.

You can project suppressive fire quite a bit further than you might expect. Or at least further than I'd expected.

Re: Another thread - This can be a good use for a HT or even a MG jeep when you're going after the edge of the woods - you've got a stable platform for MG fire and you don't really care about how accurate it is. You can stay well back. Or get closer and try to flush out some AT rockets.

Called in arty is going to have trouble unless you're really not picky about the area hit, have a lot of time to get the spotting done, or are hitting the edge. Avoid trying to call arty from a spotter in the woods himself. Bad LOS means looong spotting times.

I think the key thing might be not relying on good LOS. Suppression from HMGs, SMGs in the woods, direct fired area-fire HE... stuff like that.

As BD says requires significant ammo. But if you can't at least have some supporting MG fire or mortars you should, if at all possible, find something else to do with your troops.

[Hilts]

If the VL is of primary importance, you're not pushing your armour in hard enough... The important thing is to keep them behind your cordon of advancing infantry; while you have infantry in front of them, you can dare as far as you like - it doesn't get inherently more dangerous the deper they go into the woods, so if you've put them in at all, stop quivering and push 'em home. They will mostly be adding to the weight of your suppression fires, not actually getting into LOS of the enemy. Any ATRocket teams that try and 'zook your tanks will be shot to pieces by your infantry screen in the time it takes to kneel up and fir

IME you shouldn't be needing to use cover arcs, and certainly shouldn't be using "Hide". Either of those things can cause lack of return fire..

My armour is behind my cordon. When I used the word 'dare' I was referring to the risk of the tank becoming bogged more than lost to enemy AT fire. It is difficult to advance a tank in a forest.

Not used hide yet but I was thinking of it in an effort to dive for cover when fired upon as in CMx1. I thought the use of covered arcs meant that the troops did return fire!

[womble]

My armour is behind my cordon. When I used the word 'dare' I was referring to the risk of the tank becoming bogged more than lost to enemy AT fire. It is difficult to advance a tank in a forest.

Use Slow and Normal and Reverse and your tanks won't bog often. And a tank that's not doing anything because you're not pushing it into the woods might as well be bogged at the edge of 'em.

Not used hide yet but I was thinking of it in an effort to dive for cover when fired upon...

It really doesn't work very well for that unless you've got something to dive behind which will stop the incoming fire.

I thought the use of covered arcs meant that the troops did return fire!

Nope. It just means they're less likely to fire on things that are outside the arc (i.e. they won't unless they feel threatened; precisely how threatened they have to feel to break "fire discipline" depends). It's an exclusive thing not a directive thing.

[Hilts]

.... And a tank that's not doing anything because you're not pushing it into the woods might as well be bogged at the edge of 'em.

Good point!

It really doesn't work very well for that unless you've got something to dive behind which will stop the incoming fire.

Well I'm in the forest so I assumed they would dive for cover behind trees and undergrowth.

Nope. It just means they're less likely to fire on things that are outside the arc (i.e. they won't unless they feel threatened; precisely how threatened they have to feel to break "fire discipline" depends). It's an exclusive thing not a directive thing.

That's useful to know, thanks.

[gunnergoz]

Shades of Huertgen! As the real WW2 US Army learned, this is the kind of fighting that can grind down entire armies into dust, let alone divisions, regiments and so on down to squads. My readings about that campaign impressed me to the point that I don't even want to contemplate playing a game about anything remotely like it, to tell the truth.

It is a credit to the CM game engine that we can get a hint of what fights in forested areas can be like, I'll say that.

[Bradley Dick]

Shades of Huertgen! As the real WW2 US Army learned, this is the kind of fighting that can grind down entire armies into dust, let alone divisions, regiments and so on down to squads. My readings about that campaign impressed me to the point that I don't even want to contemplate playing a game about anything remotely like it, to tell the truth.

It is a credit to the CM game engine that we can get a hint of what fights in forested areas can be like, I'll say that.

I've played some pretty faithful recreations of the battle in some fairly realistic first person shooters such as Darkest Hour. They're brutal. It's all smoke and chaos with bodies piling up until someone gets lucky enough to break a defense. Then it's a mad dash to find the next wall of defenders who make you pay for the ground.

[slysniper]

I found a situation in the game where I needed to clear big patches of woods and arty was not going to be available. I started a thread here on it at the time.

What I found out and used that helped was smoke. Once you think you know where the enemy is. The best thing to do is look at what smoke assets you can use.

Laying a smoke screen next to the enemy so you can close in and be in position next to the enemy when it clears, not moving, it does take away some of the advantages to the defenders in woods. Also overwhelming them with numbers is not easy, because you are in grenade country. So keep your men spread out and thin, never have units behind other units (Like the action spot behind). It amazing to see how often a grenade is thrown at a unit but goes a little far and can do more damage to units in the next action square behind.

If you are killing as many as you are losing, you are doing good, expect no better.

In my situation the enemy had the woods with a defensive line from end to end.

But good tactics still need to be used. You need to focus on taking a flank and rollin up on a flank. On the one set of woods I cleared, the enemy flanks were well guarded, so I probed the line, decided on a spot to try and push and punch through the line , which was very costly. But then I sent reserve platoons quickly through that hole and rolled them out both directions to get behind the enemy line. No longer able to pull units back, my area fire on the enemy line starting paying off with easy kills as his units tried to withdrawl.

It is one of the better challenges in this game engine. Like others said, avoid it unless you must.

[StellarRat]

Make sure to use the least number of troops possible to find the enemy. Once you've found them set MGs and any other heavy weapons as far back as you while maintaining LOF then open up with everything and try to pin them while flanking other other troops. Taking a woods is very bloody. Its like a continuous house to house battle. One to one casualties probably is doing pretty well. If you have any mortars even 60mm they will be greatly helpful.

[Vinnart]

Very good thread as without a doubt dense forest is the deadliest terrain in CM. I would love to see some tutorial videos on this perhaps by Armchair General magazine. As so many have said blind area fire in suspected areas is the key beyond using artillery. Here is what I have been experimenting with that has been preserving ammo while keeping fire going. Area fire 5/10 seconds then slow 1action square toward enemy. At the next waypoint you can repeat, finally ending in a face order to stop firing. This has helped in not running through grenades, and 45cal too quick. Better yet I try not to have Thompson SMG guy fire if possible. It is easier with the Germans as there is plenty of 9mm usually available. Also as many have said I recommend splitting teams, and creating a line formation hopefully from edge to edge of the forest. Once the line is set I move the entire line at once as described. This keeps squads from flank attacks, and can also help develop your own flank attacks if you find a hole. No matter what expect to take some casualties. The more one rushes, the more casualties one will take so be patient. I found that out the hard way at first then adopted the current S.O.P., and am doing better in forest battles. Area fire, slow, area fire, slow, area fire ect...

Formation:

-------- (scout)------------- (scout) ------------------ (scout)

(Sqd tm) (Sqd tm) (MG) (Sqd tm) (Sqd tm) (MG) (Sqd tm) (Sqd tm)

-------------------------------- (HQ)

The machine guns, and HQ are given a delay so they stay a little behind the squads and do not make contact first, but stay close enough to give support.

[womble]

...I have been experimenting with...preserving ammo while keeping fire going. Area fire 5/10 seconds...

I'm surprised you get any suppression effect for a 5-10s burst. Are you finding you do?

...not running through grenades, and 45cal too quick. Better yet I try not to have Thompson SMG guy fire if possible...

This is easiest achieved by having your teams split as Assault and Fire teams. Have the Fire teams with rifles and LMGs do the area blindfire heavy lifting and the assault teams do less of that (only AFing on places where you know there are enemy but don't have LOS to, say, or even just being left to the TacAI's devices). Splitting any AT teams off and sticking them way in back so they don't randomly fire off all their AT Rockets is good, too.

Area fire spreads itself one AS either side of its aim point, so if you have

Asslt - Fire - Asslt - Fire - Asslt - Fire

adjacent teams, the fire teams' suppression patterns will overlap to produce a relatively even 'suppresion front'.

[Hilts]

Area fire 5/10 seconds........

I didn't even know that it was possible to set a time limit for area fire! How do you do that?