Friendly Fire

[seamountanda]

i am new to CM, so i need some tips on "friendly fire".

i suppose AI take care not to kill fried units, but:

a) if one or two infantry squads or a machine gun teram are doing covering fire (command TARGET AREA) to a building or trenches to suppress the enemy, and the third squad is assaulting to conquer the building (command ASSAULT or FAST), should i worry of friendly fire ? or not ? If Yes, should i take steps to avoid it ?

the same question with tanks making covering fire, should i make micromanagement of the waypoints of the infantry squad assaulting or not ?

[Michael Emrys]

Yes, area fire is apt to hit anybody who enters its zone, friendly or not. So you want to coordinate your attacks so that the area fire ends before your assaulting troops make their move into the targeted area.

Michael

[Vencini]

Mmmmm... I think that If you use light fire command (yellow line) with your infantry or your tanks, you will not have loses. Hight explosive ammunition will cause friendly loses, but if you use light fire command you will not have this problem.

Sorry if this have been fixed or I'm wrong Mr. Emrys...

So "Seamountanda" use light fire (yellow fire line order) and your troops will be more secure that with the fiere command (red line)order.

Hope that helps and sorry if I'm wron, but I think I read this on this forum! Sorry for not post too the messages! If anyone can verify this, tahnks!

Oh...I use this post too to ask for an AAR from the future Gustav Line, or new photos or somenthig...

Regards and have a good week end all of you sirs! ;-)

[Ranger33]

Explosives are always a danger (except breaching charges it seems) but bullets will only cause friendly casualties above a certain caliber. I don't remember exactly what it is at the moment though . Definitely heavier than anything you will find in a rifle squad.

[c3k]

^^^

The .50 cal. and other heavy machineguns will, at a minimum, cause suppression for friendly troops in/near the impact zone.

All other SMALL ARMS will NOT cause friendly casualties. * (Exception, below.)

All HE (high explosive) CAN and WILL cause friendly casualties.

Area Target/Target Light is useful. Target Light only uses small arms (when infantry squads/teams are using it), so that would be the order to give if you have other units entering that action spot (or nearby). Otherwise, the firing unit may use grenades, rifle grenades, bazookas, etc., all of which have HE filler and can thus cause casualties. ("Target" means use everything you've got as rapidly as you can.)

* Exception to the above: at NIGHT friendly units can misidentify other friendlies and create fratricide accidents. In that case, friendly small arms will cause casualties.

Ken

[YankeeDog]

Explosives are always a danger (except breaching charges it seems) but bullets will only cause friendly casualties above a certain caliber. I don't remember exactly what it is at the moment though . Definitely heavier than anything you will find in a rifle squad.

12.7mm/.50 cal. Anything from this up can potentially cause friendly casualties. Projectiles below this do not.

HOWEVER, small arms fire below 12.7mm can cause suppression on friendly units. So it's a good idea to avoid exposing units to friendly fire for any length of time. Quickly passing through a fire lane or target spot is OK. Leaving a unit in the lane of fire of another unit for any length of time is likely to have substantial negative morale consequences.

AIUI, this is an intentional game feature because it would be very difficult to program the AI to properly execute close suppressive fire properly -- "lift and shift", etc. So it's abstracted somewhat.

EDIT: Ninja'd by c3k. Sigh.

[Holien]

Also be careful of trees in way of Tank HE rounds and have friendly men near the trees. I had a HMG team wiped out by a friendly Panther when the HE round exploded in tree above their heads.

Very annoying and happens quite often if you are not careful, so you need to really watch the LOS for the Tanks and what they might hit before hand.

[agusto]

Also be careful of trees in way of Tank HE rounds and have friendly men near the trees. I had a HMG team wiped out by a friendly Panther when the HE round exploded in tree above their heads.

Oh yeah, those tree bursts can be real killers...something i learned the hard way too!

[Ranger33]

^^^

* Exception to the above: at NIGHT friendly units can misidentify other friendlies and create fratricide accidents. In that case, friendly small arms will cause casualties.

Ken

Really? I've never seen that happen. Makes things more interesting for sure.

Will they directly target a friendly (misidentified) unit, or do you just mean going into the line of fire (like a building under target light) is more dangerous?

[womble]

Leaving a unit in the lane of fire of another unit for any length of time is likely to have substantial negative morale consequences.

IME, the substantial negative morale consequences do go away very rapidly once the cause of the suppression is removed. Much more quickly than similar consequences incurred from enemy suppression.