Tactics for CM

[Darstand]

Some basic strategies that I learned from Chain Of Command (the closest thing to a war game I have ever played) that I hope will apply to CM.

Flank!: Getting to the side or better yet even rear of your opponent is the most effective method of swiftly destroying them. How to do this is very situational dependent, and must be learned the hard way. Notice this tactic is first. It is the most fundamental military tactic

Be Proactive: "I am a hunter of men" This is my Mantra when playing CoC. I set up ambushes. I get one or two kills then move. I do not fear pulling back. Stick and move. My objective is to kill, not seize flags. Side note my old objective used to be seizing flags but since this change in philosophy my EFF has gone up quite nicely.

Outnumber and Overwhelm: if you can outnumber your foe in a situation by 2 or 3 or 1. He becomes pinned. Advance and Destroy!

Maneuver: Don't stay in one place to long!

To my fellow CoC players my handle at 2 am is Darstand (of course ). I am a Sgt. with the JFL. Hope to see you on the field of battle.

I have almost no experience with "true" wargames, but I actually consider that an advantage. I have no preconceived Ideas about what I can and cannot do. I am not wedded to any favorite stratigy. I have nothing to unlearn, I need only to learn. Can't wait to see you all on the battlefield.

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"Armchair Generals never lose any men"-Darstand

[Los]

Well a lot of that is again situation specific.(scenario specific)

Regarding Security:

If you are moving to contact against an unknown enemy, your formation should be such that you can react to surprises from any direction (mostly flanks and front). That's a matter of your formation, say if you are advancing your company in a wedge of platoon (1 up and 2 back). As a flank becomes threatened, then that platoon comes the base of fire and pivot for the company. Or it serves to keep the enemy back while the company shifts it's axis of advance slightly to continue the mission.

If you are preparing for an attack you still have to position some units (even just fire teams heavy weapons teams or squads) to observe enemy avenues of approach into your flank or rear. Even a squad or a team can provide early warning and some stopping power that will allow you time to switch some of that reserve you should always be keeping to meet the threat. Remember the enemy probably knows as much about you as you know about him so for all he knows, that one HW team is the spearhead for a whole defensive line.

Regarding Recon:

Me personally I try to lead off with a smaller element (i.e. Spilt a squad in two). If you have a large force you should have some scouts or recon units out clearing your avenue of approach so that your main body does not stumble upon the enemy's main line of resistance by accident. Some units should be on overwatch covering your units if necessary. BTW once you recon has done their job, they are usually pulled out to let the big boys do their thing. At that point the recon elements normally will assume the role of screening a vulnerable flank-again thinking security.

One other thing regarding recon, it's always good to have a counter reconnassaince plan in mind too. The defender is always trying to mask his dispositions until the time when opening up will have the greatest effect on the enemy. Giving away positions too early is exactly what the enemy recon is trying to get you to do. Have in mind which vehicle, gun or squad is going to engage enemy recon elements. (maybe even position them forward of your MLR.) After they do engage move your men to a new position. Especially if they're lavishly equipped with arty. If you have 4 AT guns fire on the same enemy scout vehicle he's just earned his pay even if he does get hit.

No point in getting too specific since anything can always be "what-iffed" to death. When you are under fire and you have taken every precaution and you want to execute your plan, there are still many possibilities, permutatinos, and potentialities which could end in disaster, but in the end you stil have to say "f**k it", and just go for it. Nothing is ever a sure thing. That's the business your (simulated) troops are in.

cheers...

Los

[Colin]

Can you set up different types of ambushes? I know the 'L' shaped ambust used frequently in Vietnam. Just wondering.

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"I'm tired of quotes, tell me what you know"

-Mark Twain

[Pixman]

A few posts up, Fionn warns against being predictable. There is a corrolary to this. Do not get too fixated on your plan. Rigidity might be the word I am looking for.

The key to winning is knowing (not assuming you know) what your opponent is doing and developing a flexible plan to beat him. I have played many very good wargamers who are perplexed after they lose the battle. It always goes something like, "I thought you were concentrated over here", or "I didn't think you could get there that quickly." Or they will build a plan that they assume will force me to respond a certain way and get blasted when I don't.

The FOW in CM prevents you having perfect knowledge. However, you can proactively seek information. Then, act BOLDLY on what you KNOW and CAUTIOUSLY on what you DON'T KNOW. You will have to make assumptions. It is unavoidable. Just make sure they are conservative assumptions and you will be okay. Fionn's opening moves are a perfect case study in this approach. As painstakingly slow as it was, he showed remarkable patience in pushing his skirmish line through the snowy woods ahead of his vehicles. He did not know what Martin had waiting for him in ambush, so he assumed it was nasty and acted accordingly. The discipline was first rate. But, notice that Fionn got on his own case when he lost a little of this discipline when his Volksgrenadiers in the north finally got to the edge of the woods. He got hasty there and got smashed. Should have stayed with caution until he could confirm that faster movement was safe.

Conversely, if your opponent starts acting on assumptions that are overly optimistic, you will paste him.

As the game progresses, the information for both sides steadily improves. It is like lifting a veil. Distances close and blind spots disappear. By the end of their game, Martin and Fionn had almost perfect information on where every one of the other player's units were, if not the composition (in the contact area, i.e. the town). At key points through the game (any game), things were revealed to them that proved one of their assumptions wrong. These are the key points where a commander must adjust. For example, one of Fionn's assumptions at the start of the game was that Martin would resist his relief force strongly rather than with token pockets of bazooka ambush and machine gun positions. This was the right assumption to make, even though it proved to be wrong. Fionn could afford to move cautiously with a token force in front of him, but he could not afford to move boldly with a strong force in front of him. By doing what he did, he controlled the worst case outcome, rather than Martin. But here's the point. As Fionn moved out of the woods and started to press the wall line and south hill, he realized that Martin had very little in front of him. He acted boldly and decisively at this point and pressed hard up the south and center roads. This put instant and tremendous pressure on Martin's defenders and they all surrendered or died -- to a man. Only the appearance of the Jabo at this point prevented Fionn from mopping the rest of the board. That is no slight on Martin, but his arty was depleted and his AFVs had fallen to some chancy code and lucky shots.

Many commanders would not switch gears as quickly as Fionn did. Consequently, they would squander opportunities to put overbearing pressure on the enemy. This was Lincoln's frustration with McClellan after Antietam and Meade after Gettysburg (sorry for mixing wars, but these are classic and well known examples).

To summarize:

1. Seek as much information as possible. This must be done early and often. This will reduce the number of assumptions you must make.

2. Deny your opponent information. This will increase the number of assumptions he must make.

3. Develop bold plans that will give you a decisive advantage in areas where you have good information.

4. Take a cautious, worst case scenario approach in areas where you must make assumptions about the enemy.

5. Preplan as much as possible what your response will be when one of your assumptions is proven false. This is critical. If you do not have a viable response in your head, then you are setting yourself up for severe pain.

6. Be flexible. Respond quickly and decisively to new information. Every minute counts. Falling in love with a plan is the first cardinal sin of wargaming. It's like falling in love with a car -- you'll end up paying too much. Fixing on a plan violates a basic truth about a balanced scenario, namely that either side can win it. If that is true, then neither side can develop an unbeatable plan. Logically, if one side CAN develop an unbeatable plan, then the scenario is unbalanced and needs fixing. A plan, necessarily builds off of the expected. Assuming your exectations are the most likely (mean) outcomes, reality then is some normal distribution of variance around that mean. I assert that the better player will be the one who responds more quickly and appropriately to this variance. Of course, he is also likely to be the one who's opening expectations are closest to the mean as well.

My opening plan is my plan for turn one and that's about it. My goal is to have more information going into turn two than I had in turn one and respond accordingly.

This may all sound like common sense. But my experience tells me that we have all been guilty of violating any one of the above and paid dearly for it. Like Los said in his Planning/Recon/Security/etc. post, following these basics will keep your men alive and fighting. Lastly, I put little stock in what I call "cute" tactics. Any game that rewards them is not worth playing. I seriously doubt that CM is going to reward them.

My $.02. Sorry it is disjointed and lacks flow. I am very tired today (sat up all night clicking endlessly on this site to see if the demo came up )

Los, your posts are excellent. No slight on others, but I can really dig what you are saying.

Pixman

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Fact is the enemy of truth. - Don Quixote

[guachi]

When I play a game like one of the Talonsoft Battleground series of games, or TAO, or one of the V4V games, I use what I call the amoeba attack. Which basically means engage the enemy and then slowly encircle him.

I try my damndest not to let units escape.

I do this for several reasons. If encircled or flanked, I'm in a great position to inflict casualities. And if the unit is destroyed I don't have to worry about it later. If it retreats and then returns to combat, I will have to identify it all over again. And I don't want to spend precious time and resources wondering if the unit is a full strength reinforcement or not. Once I've made contact I try to keep contact with those units.

Another thing I like to do is use whatever will give me an advantage in combat that doesn't involve extra troops. Things like '-2 for firing on a units flank', '+50% defensinve strength for being in a forest hex', or 'my unit has an advantage when firing at range X so I will try not to get too far/too close to the enemy unit'. Sometimes, I don't even have any hard information to go on. In Jagged Alliance, which I am playing right now, There is no hard data on how proficient my men are, what the ranges on the weapons are, or how much damage they cause. But now that most of my squad has scoped rifles I logically try to engage at longer ranges than when my guys were all armed with pistols.

The other thing I try to do is make the opponent react to my actions. There is far less to worry about if the opponent is reacting to you rather than the other way around.

Capitalize on the opponent's mistakes. I am a cautious player so doing this is an important tactic for me. Of course, I have to recognize his mistake first.

Jason

[Rick]

Los,

Thanks again. I think it is your "real thing" status that puts an extra interest in your posts. That and the fact that your statement are extensions of what I've read elsewhere. Namely in Into the Storm and Armored Cav.

BTW, I've been trying to find a source that really describes the differences between Special Forces, Navy SEALS, Rangers, etc. Do you have any idea on something I could read that would describe why the governmeny might send Delta Force to do one job and SEALS to do the next? I do have some ideas but would like to read more information on the topic. I've been more interested in this since my cousin became a SEAL.

[Herr Oberst]

IIRC "No plan survives first contact."

What I have heard called an "amoeba" offense, I tend to call "sticky". Same idea, "Grab em in the nose, and kick em in the rear." Find em, fix em, finish em.

Defending a town for me generally means *trying* to funnel opponents units into the "chinks" in my defense which actually routes those units into a kill zone. Adequate firepower can isolate city blocks, look for the long lanes of fire down streets. And try to keep your units off the outer perimeter where they are vulnerable to long range direct fire of a heavy nature. City fighting is nasty stuff, general practice is to go punch holes through walls, and stay the h$ll out of the streets.

Where else can this post wander... aah, mutually supporting positions. Look where one position could start taking it on the nose, and make sure that other units in your defense can assist with flanking/oblique fire.

[Fionn]

NEVER assume your MLR will hold..

NEVER EVER !!!! (I can't overstate that).

If your infantry MLR doesn't have covered terrain within 50 or 60 metres that you can run to whilst being relatively obscured from enemy fire then YOU picked the wrong place to set up your MLR.

Remember that YOU can bleed any enemy infantry assault until it gets to within 50 metres or so BUT at that stage you are likely to take as many casualties as you cause.

The key is to make sure only a few enemy soldier get within 50 metres so you can sustain the losses you incur. However, if the enemy looks like he's going to make it to your MLR by hitting the 50 metre line in strength THEN I would suggest running the hell out of there and towards your secondary line of resistance. Hide your men and with any luck the enemy won';t know you've gone to ground so close to his new positions and will advance into the open.. At a range of 50 or so metres (the MAXIMUM distance you can run to another position without being totally clobbered) you should be able to ambush him and wipe out his attack forces.

Remember that if the enemy takes your MLR and immediately pushes onwards you will be able ambush and destroy his assault force.

Once that's done fall back to the tertiary line (the hold and die line). When the enemy artillery and combined arms assaul goes in on your second line (50 metres behind your first line) AND the enemy commits his reserves (as he must since u've caused him massive casualties) it will hit empty air and form a huge wastage of resources.

The tertiary line should be a few hundred metres back if at all possible and covered from enemy view. By falling back in this manner you will ahve destroyed the enemy's first and second echelon assault troops, forced him to commit his reserves AND now be in a position he has not spotted ready to unleash an ambush which will maul his reserve forces (hopefully so severely he will call of the assault).

Of course, it takes experience to make this work and know when to break off a fight so as to avoid close-range combat and it takes experience to conduct a retreat whilst remaining hidden from an enemy but it can be done and if it is done it will destroy most forces AND sap most player's morale..

Most players will accept huge losses so long as they get into your MLR since they expect you to stand fast and fight. Once they are in your MLR they can cause massive casualties to you, split your forces and basically eliminate them and pour in reinforcements.

Accept all the sacrificial units an aggressive player will launch at you in the hope of getting a few into your MLR but just before he manages to get some into your MLR pull back.

He will take meaningless terrain but have suffered massive casualties. A quick ambush from the SLR will bleed him more and then an organised defence from the TLR should stop even the most determined of foes.

Obviously this tactics works best in cityfighting and close terrain and worst in relatively open terrain.

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Fionn Kelly

Manager of Historical Research,

The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers

[guachi]

The V4V games Velikiye Luki and Gold, Juno, Sword were the first wargames I played extensively (mostly because I finally had an opponent, the computer). As the Germans, thinking in terms of multiple lines of defense was a must because your forces were way too weak to hold the initial line. I was in for a rude shock when I tried to do this the first time in Velikiye Luki.

Sure, those games are on a completely different scale, but it did get me thinking about setting up multiple lines of defense.

Jason

Actually, I should say that the first game that got me thinking in terms of multiple lines of defense was Stratego.

[Los]

Rick, unless some job has a specicfic need for a specific skill like it's hitting an oil rig (a job notrmally for SEALs) or hitting some place on top of a mountain (might me a specialty team from army specops), then it's more to do with who has the geographic specialty (teams are normally often oriented towards specific parts of eth world) or who's got teams available to do the job or who's twisting whos arm to get work up at JSOC. (Joint Special operations Command) That being said there is a tremendous amount fo overlap between all the organizations.

The fact is there's so much work to go around that everyone's pretty much doing everything right now. US Specops are terribly overtaxed at this point. For instance, in Kosovo/Bosnia, you have both SEALs and DELTA participating in the project to apprehend War Criminals as well as SAS and Norwegian SF etc. etc.

Despite what anyone tells you, outside of certain specialties (ala scuba, water ops) both Delta and SEALs are equally capable, so it comes down to I need a job done, who's on deck?

Perhaps check out www.specialoperations.com for a good online resource to specops units of the world. Hope that helps.

Los