Rethinking the assault command

[Peregrine]

I've certainly had cases where (before I realised the futility of the assault command in wego) I used assault around a corner. The 'overwatch' team were in a small courtyard. The 'bounding' team were around the corner in side a house, when they got ambushed by automatic weapons from infantry behind the house. There was a whole house and a high stone wall between the overwatch and the firing enemy units. The advancing team for slaughtered and the overwatch team immediately started panicking and crawling for cover. There is absolutely no way that the overwatch element were subject to any incoming fire at all, it was purely the effect of shared suppression with the advance team.

That was when I realised that the assault command was fundamentally flawed as far as I was concerned (even if 'working as intended'). (And even though my use of it in that particular situation was notably pointless; this was back in CMSF days and I was still thinking of assault as the default 'advance under potential fire' command).

They probably weren't suppressed because of fire, they probably broke because of casualties and definitely the better result. This still happens and sometimes makes assault better than running a split squad separately into the same situation. If half a squad is cowering (not casualties) then if somehow (remember I am saying that it is pretty hard for one element not to share the same impact as the other since the 2.12 suppression boost) than can shoot back. But as my post above, units is close combat trouble rarely shoot themselves out of trouble. They need friends to the side to do that.

[sburke]

I don't think it really matters that bullets "travel a long way" unless the maneuver element is bounding right in front of the overwatch element, which wouldn't make much sense, since then the overwatch element couldn't fire on the enemy without firing through the maneuver element.

Sorry, I don't understand what you're saying here...

That unfortunately is the case. I was looking in the CMSF archive for this bit a member had written on assaulting houses. Didn't find it, but came across some interesting stuff by combatinfman about different MOUT techniques. In one thread they discussed the issue of fire lanes. Part of the drill for an assaulting unit is specifically about knowing how to avoid the firelanes of your overwatch element. Trying to get the TAC AI to understand firelanes would be really really hard and prone to all sorts of odd behavior. Net result is we don't have them and small arms do not hurt friendly units, that in turn means an assault command doesn't have to separate the direction of the assaulting unit from the overwatch element. I am not sure however that is the root of the issue.

What would be an interesting test would be to have split teams perform the same setup the assault unit does and see if the behavior is the same, if not that would be worth posting and asking for clarification.

If under the same conditions a split team and a united team using assault get totally different results and the assault team is unable to actually assault, I think BF would be interested. Whether there is an easy remedy is a whole other issue. I think part of the problem may be that as long as they are considered a "unit" they share suppression factors. Splitting them allows the game to make a distinction.

I tend to split my squads whenever feasible and honestly can't say I have used the assault command very often. I'll play around tonight with it and see what kind of behavior I can mess with.

I've certainly had cases where (before I realised the futility of the assault command in wego) I used assault around a corner. The 'overwatch' team were in a small courtyard. The 'bounding' team were around the corner in side a house, when they got ambushed by automatic weapons from infantry behind the house. There was a whole house and a high stone wall between the overwatch and the firing enemy units. The advancing team for slaughtered and the overwatch team immediately started panicking and crawling for cover. There is absolutely no way that the overwatch element were subject to any incoming fire at all, it was purely the effect of shared suppression with the advance team.

That was when I realised that the assault command was fundamentally flawed as far as I was concerned (even if 'working as intended'). (And even though my use of it in that particular situation was notably pointless; this was back in CMSF days and I was still thinking of assault as the default 'advance under potential fire' command).

LOL that might actually have been the subject of one of the threads. Recon work around a corner. If you go into the archive there are 3 screens worth of threads under tactics. Look for Urban or MOUT in the subject.

[Pelican Pal]

Peregrine:

1) Assault isn't close assault. Assault is move in bounds. At one point as someone said above it may have given a slight morale boost. I am not sure if this is still applicable but I feel like this occurs. This command isn't for close combat anymore than any other command. Fast, quick and assault when charging an enemy position often yield similar results although they tend to play out different how they get there. The definitive factor in charging close and surviving was how suppressed the enemy was first, not the command that actually brought you close.

The morale boost was a feature of the assault command in the CMX1 games. While I agree that the success of a close assault depends more heavily on the degree of suppression on the assaulted enemy than the movement type. A specific close assault movement would help alleviate some problems that occur because of the use of QUICK. It isn't going to single handedly do an assault for you, but it would be nice if assaulting squads were more likely to fire on spotted enemies and go to ground rather than run FAST at the enemy if they take heavy fire.

Peregrine:

2) In general when units get close to each other the TAC doesn't look as good as it normally does. Also the TAC AI will NEVER area fire. This can hurt attacking formations when new enemies appear but aren't spotted by everyone.

Which is why I think a close assault movement command would be beneficial. Close combat is easily one of the weakest parts of the game, and if anything deserves its own movement type I think it does.

Also the static element being panicked by things happening to the maneuver element doesn't seem to be a result of any actual combat feedback. I've seen the static element panic when the maneuver element was wiped out to a man. Importantly the maneuver element was totally out of LOS of the static element, and the static element had not had a single bullet fly by them.

JonS:

When one element comes under fire the other is going to notice and take the appropriate action.

And the appropriate action for the static element is to consistently panic and cower while the maneuver element is torn to shreds? I could understand if it was a green squad but this happens to regular and veteran troops, and in the exact same situation but with split squads this behavior does not occur.

[Childress]

LOL, you're a pit bull on this subject, PP. The Assault option was, as others have pointed out, included as a player aid for use in hectic real time battles. Battlefront, in their collective wisdom, has always resisted burdening the player with additional commands or SOPs.

[cool breeze]

I never done any tests but I use the assault order often and like it a lot. It's aso improved a lot since CMSF as the tac ai has improved. My swag is that the sharing of suppression is a bonus if you use it in the right circumstances. It is not a good command when the lead element is going to be wiped out. Then it should be a scout team that is getting wiped out. You can break off a scout team and still assault behind it (often at a faster pace too from reducing the squad from 3 to 2 assaulting elements).

I think the shared moral/supression help tho when the command is used advantagously because the whole squad has more leaders and assistant leaders in it so it recovers all together back to fighting strength faster. Its good when the lead element is gonna get shot at an amount that would supress a leaderless team to uselessness but would allow a full squad to fight at reduced effectiveness.

It would be cool getting a new order like you describe but I use all the orders as is. I think they'd have to find room on the ui for one more button.

I finally finished the first mission of the russian campaign (whoohoo!!) and it took me all the movement orders from the tanks and infantry to do it.

[Peregrine]

A new movement command won't necessarily help and I would be surprised if we were one were included.

There was a thread recently about fighting in forest which touched on many of these points.

I think that the short comings you are experiencing are probably short comings with the TAC AI rather than a specific movement command.

While this comment is more pertinent to forest combat it applies to close combat to a degree as well. In CM if a unit has not specifically spotted a unit it won't fire. This results in many units not blazing away in front of them which can result in the attacker while having a big advantage in firepower not actually shooting enough. If you are moving into these situations then area fire with every unit possible. Not doing this is relying on the TAC AI to shoot the minimum amount of bullets at possibly questionable targets. You will use a lot more ammo but this is better than hoping that overwatch units open fire on the biggest threats if they appear.

I personally would also like units to use grenades a bit faster (my own, not theirs). But I have no idea how close or far off to reality grenade use actual is. Sometimes it happens fast, sometimes extraordinarily slow. Don't fully understand what is happening there.

[Bulletpoint]

I personally would also like units to use grenades a bit faster (my own, not theirs). But I have no idea how close or far off to reality grenade use actual is. Sometimes it happens fast, sometimes extraordinarily slow. Don't fully understand what is happening there.

I'm wondering the same thing. Could it be that if there's an old contact marker, it counts as a "suspected enemy position", and they will throw grenades more readily? Even if there are in fact no enemy left there.

I find that if I order area fire at a close location, the squad will throw only 1-2 grenades at best (and miss by 20 metres), unless they actively spot an enemy.

[Frederico]

As mentioned previously, suppression is probably more important than the type of movement order. However, suppression is often difficult because you are prevented from firing at some locations because you do not have a LOS to the base in that terrain. (Ex: You can see the building, but just do not have LOS to the floor of that building). It seems that scenario designers often take advantage of this when preparing defensive positions. I do agree that a better movement order might help, but I think it is more important to improve this LOS issue.

[Peregrine]

As mentioned previously, suppression is probably more important than the type of movement order. However, suppression is often difficult because you are prevented from firing at some locations because you do not have a LOS to the base in that terrain. (Ex: You can see the building, but just do not have LOS to the floor of that building).

This does make it awkward but do not underestimate how effective fire in the general area can be. With buildings shooting the floor above or below should help (haven't tested this though) but from other things I have seen I would expect it to be more useful than doing nothing at all. From lots of tests I have done in woodland firing 40m in front of you (LOS limit) will impact units at 80m (didn't test for longer because I didn't think it necessarily) in a slightly expending cone that is 3 action squares wide.