Infantry Teams

[kostka7]

Is it a bad idea to routinely split your infantry squads into teams (other than the nuisance of keeping track of them)?. For example, do they take a morale hit or lose command and control efficiency?

Thanks.

[Michael Emrys]

I never used to split squads in CMx1, but I do it routinely now in x2. They may experience a morale or leadership hit if the team does not contain the squad leader. On the other hand, either of those factors might actually improve if the squad leader was not very good. In any event, the ability to engage in proper squad level tactics is improved to an extent that probably well outweighs any penalties. You now get to choose exactly what AS a team goes to (assuming they have enough movement to reach it in that turn). Fire and movement (see Bil's blog announcement) are rendered possible on the squad level. One advantage to being able to place teams precisely is that you can spread them out, making them more survivable against artillery or even small arms fire. In short, at least for the armies depicted, splitting squads brings us closer to a true simulation of the Real Thing.

Michael

[Holman]

I almost always split my teams now. It's both useful and realistic to open up a squad over slightly more distance. ("You guys quit bunching up there!" hisses the sergeant.)

I haven't done tests, but this is my impression from play:

Outside of combat, there is no large intrinsic morale hit to split teams, especially when they remain in visual/verbal contact with the rest. The individual soldiers aren't more suddenly weaker or more brittle.

However, when the bullets start flying, I believe a four-man team that takes two casualties will suffer more morale damage than a ten-man squad that takes the same two casualties. On the other hand, the remaining teams from the squad will not suffer morale damage (or as much) from casualties in a separated team.

Has anyone ever tested this?

[Vanir Ausf B]

Scout teams in particular seem to get a lot of -1 and -2 leaders when spit off from their squad, which would have the effect of making them recover from suppression more slowly. But outside of that I don't think there is any moral hit.

[YankeeDog]

The morale thing is definitely true; be careful about how you use split teams like scout teams that lack a Leader or Asst. Leader as they are usually fairly brittle. Not sure about the casualty-morale relationship Martyr mentions. It makes sense, but I've never tested this.

There is another, more subtle drawback of splitting: Soldiers within the same squad share information almost instantly, but once the squad is split, this is no longer true; spotting information has to pass from one team, up through the Plt. HQ, and then back down to the other team.

Net effect is that a split squad may be slower to fully engage an enemy target than a unified squad.

This said, I usually maneuver with my squads split. IMHO, there is a substantial advantage to being able to tweak the positioning of each team within the squad that outweighs any C2 cost.

[kostka7]

Thanks to all for your helpful advice.

kostka7

[Col Deadmarsh]

Has anyone ever done a test to see if split squads always get a leader of equal or lesser value to the original squad leader in both leadership and morale?

[agusto]

The morale thing is definitely true; be careful about how you use split teams like scout teams that lack a Leader or Asst. Leader as they are usually fairly brittle.

I think it is good that important personell ist assigned to teams that are usually tasked with high risk missions. If there was the leader or asst. lead in the scout team you couldnt let them walk up a road until fired upon, for example.

[A Canadian Cat]

However, when the bullets start flying, I believe a four-man team that takes two casualties will suffer more morale damage than a ten-man squad that takes the same two casualties. On the other hand, the remaining teams from the squad will not suffer morale damage (or as much) from casualties in a separated team.

I also have not done tests but my impression is that all this comes out as a wash. Yes, sometimes teams get really messed up but it is not worse than the effect on the whole squad - if you consider the squad as a whole. What I mean is as long as your split teams are all in contact and in command I do not think it makes much difference - overall.

So, taking as a starting point that the split teams are not running around away off doing dangerous things by themselves but are still acting as part of the squad and in contact with their squad leader and platoon leader. If that four man team takes lots of fire and two casualties and ends up broken if you combine the teams back into a squad the squad might end up rattled. And if you took that squad and had them take some fire and loose two guys they also would end up rattled.

Again that is my impression. I have seen a broken team rejoin their squad and the squad did not itself become broken but was rattled.

The advantage is that many times if you have a squad intact and the take the kind of fire that would break a four man team and cause two casualties a full squad often suffers more casualties because of bunching. In the end they are worse off.

[Wodin]

I never used to split..I always do it now aswell.

[Erwin]

I recall from the manual that CM1 teams took a morale hit and functioned at one level lower than rated and never recovered that hit if recombined. There was also a small firepower penalty for two teams vs the unsplit squad. However, the benefits of having two units firing at an enemy more than compensated for that since in CM1, a unit could only fire at one target at a time.

I read the CM2 manual carefully when it first came out and IIRC there was no similar morale hit or other penalty for CM2 split squads. So, unless something has changed in the upgrades and patches...

IMO to play CM2 well, you have to split squads so they can function a bit more realistically and effectively.

[Holman]

Splitting teams without an artificial penalty makes more sense at the much more granular CMx2 scale.

The first Combat Mission was a game of battalion-to-regiment-level actions, while the new games are company-to-battalion level. In the first games, individuals were just abstract fractions of a team or squad, but CMx2 tracks behavior and status at the level of individual soldiers.

[womble]

IME, split teams take less morale and suppression effect overall than the same teams combined into a squad. This seems to be for a number of reasons:

First, the teams are physically separated, so suppressive fire on one of them doesn't affect the other at all. An intact squad can be pinned if just one of its teams is taking heavy enough fire to pin it, whereas if the squad is split, that fire will only pin one of the teams.

Second, the teams that haven't taken casualties don't suffer as much effect from casualties to split teams of their squad; it seems to me that they only take as much as other squads of the same platoon...

That's all I can think of for effect mitigation at the moment, but the advantages of extra control, keeping "special" weapons for their intended purposes and additional stealthiness available to split teams means that pretty much the first thing I do is turn each platoon into a swarm of teams rather than three squads...

[agusto]

A great advantage of splitting squads is that you can order only those teams to lay down surpressive fire that dont have SMGs and have the SMG team save its ammo for later.

[Michael Emrys]

There was also a small firepower penalty for two teams vs the unsplit squad.

That was the main reason I practically never split squads in x1.

However, the benefits of having two units firing at an enemy more than compensated for that since in CM1, a unit could only fire at one target at a time.

I never tested for this, but it always seemed to me in play that the firepower of a half squad was so small as to make it almost negligible. So firing at two targets meant that two targets received an ineffective amount of fire. I preferred to get a maximum amount of firepower on one target and at least put it in a suppressed state. But that could be up to no more than a difference in play style. As I say, I never did rigorous comparison testing.

Michael

[A co]

One advantage of splitting up a squad is that the men can observe and screen a lot better. e.g. cover three alleys instead of one, watch several lanes of view in complex terrain, etc. The increased detail of the terrain in CMx2 pretty much requires the ability split up squads.

Also a squad can do an authentic drill of crossing a danger area, which requires splitting up and putting out security elements, rather than running across all at once. If you keep them split up they can be doing a loose version of this all the time they're moving.

[Michael Emrys]

Also a squad can do an authentic drill of crossing a danger area, which requires splitting up and putting out security elements, rather than running across all at once. If you keep them split up they can be doing a loose version of this all the time they're moving.

That's pretty much what I have done starting with the first time I played the BN demo. I break a squad into (typically) three teams if crossing an area where they might come under fire. While one is moving, the other two are providing observation and if necessary covering fire. I move them in short, quick bounds hoping that if they do draw fire, it won't be effective in that short time. About the time the first team goes to ground, the second begins to move, and so forth in rotation. Usually during the course of a minute, each team moves two bounds and covers 50-100 m, depending on the terrain. Most often, they also don't get tired moving this way.

Michael

[Erwin]

That was the main reason I practically never split squads in x1.

I never tested for this, but it always seemed to me in play that the firepower of a half squad was so small as to make it almost negligible.

Michael

The advantage came from the fact that one of your teams would receive no fire at all from the target unit and so could maneuver to flank the target unit. This would make it easier to pin the enemy, and close in for the kill.

[Michael Emrys]

The advantage came from the fact that one of your teams would receive no fire at all from the target unit and so could maneuver to flank the target unit. This would make it easier to pin the enemy, and close in for the kill.

Glad to hear that worked for you. My own experience was that my half squads got gunned down by unsuppressed enemy squads. I guess it was all in how you did it. Anyway, I always did very well with whole squads, so I seldom had any reason to change once I had settled on a technique.

Michael

[db_zero]

With the new urban rules taking place it going to be a good idea to split up your squads if you plan on placing AT teams using AT weapons with backblasts in buildings. A whole squad in a building could suffer from an AT weapon firing from the confines of the building.

I would guess that if the AT weapon was fired on a different floor other units on different floors would not suffer.

[Freyberg]

Once or twice I've kept squads together for firepower reasons. I usually seem to regret it though - they become awfully vulnerable to well-aimed mortar fire.