New to game - tactics

[Ultradave]

Go slow! You have time to find them, fix them, flank them and finish them...

Bobo

This is good advice that is sometimes hard to follow psychologically. We want to get on with it :-) The time limits on scenarios generally are generous enough to approach, scout a bit, support with some artillery if available to suppress or smoke, and attack (assuming of course you are on the attack, but I guess going slow on defense isn't really a problem).

Take your time to ensure your troops/vehicles arrive at where you want them to assault from using the advantage of whatever cover, or folds in the ground are available. Not always easy in RT compared to BN, where the hedgerows block a lot of LOS. RT is more open, even where there are trees.

[bobo]

I play RT against the AI mainly, but in a WEGO manner ie I issue a lot of orders during Pause, and then watch a few minutes play out. I find the movie review process a bit tedious when I am playing the AI and want to get through a scenario in a couple of hours.

I do think WEGO is the soul of the game, and I would use it in multiplayer, but ultimately I would like to see a few additions to increase the allure:

- A dedicated server executable for hosting WEGO games on your PC, which your client game and opponent connect to. Playback movies created by the server which all players pull down at turn end. Server defineable options such as time window length for turn submissions.

- 2v2, 3v3 etc - scenarios where one player commands allied armour, one commands allied infantry etc. Even in small scenarios where everyone is a platoon commander I think it could be a lot of a fun. Combined with C2 so that each player only gets spotting contacts from their own command and other players' contacts are dripped through via C2 (or not).

- Friendly AI forces and friendly AI plans

- Some tidying up of some of the processes in WEGO which require workarounds at the moment eg stopping vehicles for disembarkation but not being able to plot subsequent moves until disembarkation has taken place

- Not specific to WEGO: enabling the AI to use suppression, new AI SOPs for assaulting occupied buildings etc

- Force compositions in XML which can be imported into Quick Battles. Would allow player to create eg a 1300 point Wermacht July 44 NWTO combined arms force which could be downloaded by others.

- Add ability to give elements of the AI's QB force a % chance to appear, so you don't know exactly what you are facing

There is much that is very good about CM but I long for a paradigm shift of the kind that we got when we went from CMX1 to CMX2.

Posted in the wrong thread?

[Apocal]

JasonC made a pretty good tactical principles post:

The decision is achieved by fire.

Firepower kills.

Firepower is delivered by effective forces continually. The longer they last in contact with the enemy, the more firepower they deliver.

In order to deliver their fire effectively, your forces must survive.

To survive, your forces must be protected from enemy fire while still being able to deliver their own.

The main thing protecting your forces from enemy fire is not terrain or their own armor, but their fire.

The fire of your whole force protects each separate element of your force.

Fire protects your forces by making it deadly-dangerous for enemies to remain in positions that your forces can reach with their fire.

Enemies that challenge your main forces are melted by the firepower of your main forces, so rapidly that they can inflict little loss on your own force.

The protective function of the firepower of friends is called "overwatch", and friendly forces whose specific mission is to protect others by firing at anything that challenges those others, are called an "overwatch" force or component.

The effect you want from overwatch is that even a previously unknown or unseen enemy, challenging your maneuvering forces, is shot to pieces in seconds as soon as it challenges them.

Powerful overwatch can only be achieved by massing of firepower. To mass firepower means to arrange your forces so that nearly all their weapons "bear" on points from which you expect danger - whether there are any enemy spotted there yet, or not.

To mass firepower it is not necessary to physically mass your forces into a tight bundle - it suffices if they can all *see* the same locations.

The reason to avoid physically massing is enemy "area effect" weapons, especially artillery. But forces largely immune to such weapons can mass together - e.g. a tank platoon staying in a tight "fist", buttoned up. You can occasionally risk it with other forces when the danger from enemy area effect weapons is low.

The single most important tactic used to defeat enemies without loss yourself, is *differential LOS*. Differential LOS means most of your force can see a few of the enemy, while only those few enemy can see any of your force, and most of the rest of the enemy force cannot see anything and so cannot (yet) engage.

We say such an enemy force is "disarticulated". Divided to be conquered.

In contrast, when a force can all see the locations where enemies can appear, we say they possess "firepower integration". They are effectively united into one massive weapon that can shoot anything that threatens any portion of that integrated force.

An integrated force fighting disarticulated pieces a few at a time, can smash them lopsidedly, in sequence, with minimal losses to itself. We call this effect when achieved, getting a "many on few". Differential LOS from choice of positions and formations strives to achieve "many on few" firefights with the enemy, while denying him the same.

If you are the underdog in a given firefight, don't commit to it. Get out. Maneuver. Live to fight later on more favorable terms. So e.g. do not commit weak forces into a firefight you are losing, and just lose them too. Instead, break contact, and set up a better firefight against only the leading enemy units when they try to follow up. That is the place to use your weak reinforcements - there they might be enough, and will help your losing force break contact cleanly.

Combat is the art of not fighting fair.

Besides many on fews, there are also specific types of weapons that "trump" specific types of enemies. We call these "combined arms relationships". Like paper beating rock which beats scissors, these offer lopsided victories without loss to the side using the proper weapon against the proper target.

Examples are tanks fighting located infantry that lacks heavy anti tank weapons. Or artillery fire called down on infantry in woods. Or a mortar, spotted for remotely, firing on a located enemy gun position. Or a gun firing from hiding and from a flank on a tank that it can reliably penetrate. Or a tank with particularly thick front armor dueling tanks inferior to it, that cannot harm it from the front. There are lots more. Pretty much every weapon on the field has some specific "counter" that deals with it efficiently.

When fighting is conducted by meeting the enemy arm with the same from your side, tanks on tanks, infantry on infantry, and without a major edge in odds or similar advantages, we have "mindless mashing of like on like". It results at best in even attrition to both sides, and it is to be avoided unless no other means of dealing with a given enemy is available.

It is preferable to instead search for lopsided match ups and achieve them - while denying them to the enemy by avoiding contact when he has such an edge.

Battle is about "not fighting" fair. and that includes flat out not fighting when the enemy has the edge. To avoid the enemy, to deny him battle, is an entirely valid and necessary tactic.

When forces by a short movement break LOS to the enemy (so that neither can see or harm each other anymore), we say they have "skulked". They are waiting for a superior match up. They are drawing the enemy in, closer, to where other parts of the force can be brought to bear against him.

Notice, the emphasis throughout is on fire and survival. Terrain is used to enhance survival and to disarticulate the enemy force, and to "skulk" away from his firepower where he is too dangerous to challenge.

Movement is used to change these match ups. It is not an end in itself. You will win nothing by scoring a touchdown in the enemy backfield, or crossing that open field successfully. The problem is not one of movement, or one of surviving while moving. Movement is used to shape the firefights, not the other way around. That is what it means to say "the decision is achieved by fire".

Not movement, but firepower, takes ground. Any piece of ground that you can saturate with so much firepower that the enemy cannot stand there and live, you own. Where you are standing yourself, is irrelevant to that - it matters only because many forces have great firepower at close range (notably infantry in numbers and in good shape).

To seize ground means to establish fire dominance of that ground, so that nothing enemy can live there, then to send a very small component of your force to that location. This will spot any enemy hiding there, and scout the route to determine its safety from enemy fire. You only occupy the spot with major forces after any enemy discovered this way has been located and destroyed by firepower. And even then, you only go there if it helps you to put firepower on the next target.

A key tactic in achieving disarticulation is "keyholing". To keyhole means to peek through a narrow gap between LOS blockages, so that only a thin pencil of ground is visible across the battlefield from your location. At the end of the pencil there should be one and only one enemy you want to kill. You can only shoot one enemy at a time, and there is no sense in taking reply fire from the whole enemy force to deliver it. So for example, when one of your tanks wants to murder an enemy infantry unit, find a "keyhole" to do it from - that way, every hidden antitank gun on the enemy side of the field won't be able to open up on your tank in reply.

The weakness of a single keyholed position is that it can be safely approached by the enemy, if he sticks to the "shadows" created by the LOS blockages. The remedy for this problem is to *cross more than one keyhole "fire lane"*. This creates a "network" of dangerous strips of ground - preferably including open ground with no cover - that the enemy would have to cross to approach any of your keyholed forces. The approach to position A is stopped by fire from position B. And vice versa.

Teamwork is everything in combat, as you may be beginning to appreciate. Every isolated element, even the heaviest tank, is powerless against the whole enemy army, without the protection provided by the firepower of other friendly forces.

Anything isolated, the enemy just picks the perfect "counter" from his combined arms "kit bag", avoids presenting any target vulnerable to your isolated element by "skulking", and waits until he has the perfect "counter" in position. Then he springs it, "hunting" your isolated element with its "natural bane". He can do that all day without loss or breaking a sweat. Moral - nothing stands alone.

All of this would be relatively straightforward if you always knew where the enemy was, exactly. But you don't. Nor does he know where you are. The vulnerability of any isolated and known element has a contrary, that the enemy is never really ready for something he didn't know was there.

Surprise is thus one of the fundamental principles of all combat. Everything is five times as effective when the enemy doesn't see it coming than when he does. Conversely, if your own force announce themselves, so that the enemy clearly sees them coming with plenty of time to adapt, we say you are "telegraphing" your blows. Telegraphed blows are weak blows, and die in ambush, often as not, or "hit air" if the enemy prefers to "skulk" away instead.

You want to be inside the other commander's mind, thinking his thoughts as he thinks them, and acting 3 moves ahead - that is how surprise is achieved, at bottom. Terrain and arrangement of forces are just implementation details that can help bring that about.

Formation is another fundamental principle of combat, that follows from the previous. Formation is the arrangement of your own forces on the ground in relation to each other.

You control the placement of your own forces. You know it. You do not control the placement of the enemy's forces, and often do not know it, either. But you can arrange the match ups that *can* occur, *whatever* the enemy does, by controlling just the formation of your own.

To see this, consider that fundamental tactical measure, an advanced screen. This means a small portion of your force - 10%, 20% at most - is detached somewhat ahead of the rest, in an arc around them, toward the enemy. Now the enemy cannot get close to your main body without disclosing himself to this screen, somewhere.

Or consider that equally fundamental tactical measure, a reserve. In an otherwise linear fight matching the deployment of the enemy, you have a quarter or a third of your whole force behind your own line, roughly centered, with LOS to the enemy blocked completely. Now this element can maneuver, free from enemy fire, interference, and above all enemy knowledge, to any point behind your formation you select, when you select, and intervene there.

The enemy cannot interact with your force without "entering" your formation in some sense. But that means you control where he must come to achieve anything, and you can ensure the rest of your force will be ready for him if he reaches those places. If he does not, he cannot hurt your force very much.

These measures work because they manipulate solely the configuration of your own forces, over which you have complete control, and do not require perfect knowledge of the enemy's dispositions or plans. We say, they are "flexible". Flexibility multiples effective combat power. Any force that could be in two places depending on what is learned next, is twice as powerful as a force committed to one place based on one perhaps mistaken assessment of the enemy. They give you "moves" in response to the enemy, that he may not be able to see beforehand. That gets him out of your head (you are less predictable) and helps get you inside of his (you can act as though you had predicted him correctly, whether he did A or .

Those are some of the basic principles of tactical combat. I hope they help.

[z1812]

Patience is very much important.

When I first started playing I wanted to do everything quickly and at once. The result was my suffering many crushing defeats.

[Pewpewchewchew]

One big "lump" I think some people run into is accepting that losses will occur. Don't qive up the when your initial force runs into the enemy and takes a few hits or even routs. Sometimes that drive for a perfect match bogs you down in the idea that an expert player won't lose anything during the match.

[ridethe415]

Patience is very much important.

When I first started playing I wanted to do everything quickly and at once. The result was my suffering many crushing defeats.

This has been my main problem. After playing only the AI for several years, I have just started PBEM. Watching the clock, rushing moves, thinking I have to hurry. I plan on changing that.

[Atago]

I get into the fix where the enemy has AT guns supported by machine guns. The AT guns trump my tanks, the m-guns trump my infantry so I'm often very stuck. Going around is often not an option. Even trying to find the AT gun is hard as my scouts get mowed down. Enemy has good eyes, slow sneaking still frequently does not work

My biggest foible is enemy artillery. I end up running everywhere with my troops because if I try to be patient a rain of fire lights them up. This forces me to either run ahead or retreat or just otherwise not be where I expect the aunty Arty is going to fall. HATE how quick and accurate the AI is, I still need practice to return the favor. Is the Arty slower in other levels? I am still playing in 'baby steps' mode.

[A Canadian Cat]

HATE how quick and accurate the AI is, I still need practice to return the favor. Is the Arty slower in other levels? I am still playing in 'baby steps' mode.

Yes, at one point in the skill level ladder the artillery goes from fast to more realistic timing. I forget exactly which level that happens at but it is spelled out in the manual.

[JasonC]

Atago - when facing ATGs plus MGs, the item you need in your kit bag is indirect fire. On map mortars for fastest response time, off board if you don't have those (then spend the time). Then pick apart the enemy fire scheme. Usually there will not be any uncovered spots initially, but not a lot of redundancy once shooters go down.

If you pick the right 1-2 enemy shooters to silence, you can create a hole in his fire plan that your squad infantry can advance through to close with the others. Or you can create a safe spot for your tanks to kill his machineguns, and get the squads forward that way in two steps rather than one. You don't need the indirect fire to destroy the whole defense, just to make that opening for the rest of your force.

On rushing due to enemy arty, just skulk instead. Meaning break contact rearward, not forward or laterally, to avoid artillery fire. Rearward should be safe - you cleared it already. Avoid cul de sac locations where you can get in but can't get out - those are perfect artillery targets for the enemy side. Also, if enemy artillery is giving you fits it is likely your infantry are bunching up too much, especially packing in to try to all see the enemy at once from limited available cover. Just don't do that - the cover available dictates the size force you can engage with. Never exceed its safe capacity. The rest of your men can wait farther back, out of sight and thus safe, and replace your losses to outlast the enemy on the same frontage, or they can try a different avenue. It doesn't help to "overstack" them instead. It just make each enemy shot too effective.

[bobo]

OK. I am going to do all that stuff that JasonC suggests. I hope...

Slowing down is about the best I can do at the moment...

[womble]

...if enemy artillery is giving you fits it is likely your infantry are bunching up too much, especially packing in to try to all see the enemy at once from limited available cover. Just don't do that - the cover available dictates the size force you can engage with. Never exceed its safe capacity...

Spreading out your split squads helps make that "safe capacity" a bit safer, as does putting the poor pTruppen who're going to get caught in the bombardment on "Hide" (makes their target cross section smaller for the shrapnel).

[Pewpewchewchew]

Is that Battledrill blog still being updated? Looks as if nothing has been changed for quite some time.