coordinated attacks

[mbarbaric]

i only have FI: GL, but that part of forum seems lonely and dump place for a while so i will just post here as it is about all CM games anyway.

what i wanted to ask is this: how do you coordinate your attacks?

well coordinated attack is much more effective than a bunch of troops going on their own, especially against well organized defense.

I was recently playing Borgo Cascino in FI and the map consists of two tits like hills in the middle while the rest is fairly plain ground. the bigger hill is the main objective. small valley separates it from the smaller hill to the east which isn't an objective but seems good overwatch position for the attack on the main objective.

of course, the nazis know it as well so they probably occupied few hoses on top of it.

now, i am attacking with an understrength company and am sending two platoons on the smaller hill while one is positioning itself against the main objective waiting for rest of company to do their part and join.

i have huge difficulty to coordinate my mortar fire (specially as i do not have TRP on smaller hill) as i have no eyes on top of the hill (besides, shouldn't my FO be able to direct mortar fire even if he doesn't see the top of the hill? i mean he sees the bloody hill in front of him and can see if the shells are falling on top of it or on my troops hiding in vineyard)

i have already made it longer than needed, so, is there any easy way to make your troops come together (apart the scouting team and it's platoon which go ahead looking for threats to main force) on top of the hill 10 seconds after the mortars have done their work?

at the moment i am calculating time taking two platoons to move, mortar fire to end, scouts to move... i was thinking maybe i am just new to the game and have no clue about an easy solution.

[Bil Hardenberger]

As it was in reality it is damned hard to get perfect synchronization in these games.

I try to coordinate my maneuver and fire as much as possible.. see my AARs (linked below) for how I handle this. I am not always successful as the enemy usually has some input into how coordinated your attack actually ends up being and can throw off your timing.

I would suggest you start small.. split a squad and work with them to fine tune your coordination, then move to platoon level or a couple squads, then get even more complex with trying to coordinate a full company attack. Whatever you do, keep it simple.

Coordinating your indirect fire assets with your maneuver forces can be especially frustrating. There is a reason I love going with on map mortars if I have a choice. Otherwise, you move your maneuver elements into their jump off spots and wait for the indirect fire to do its business and be close enough to capitalize on its effects as it starts to peter out.

Battlefield synchronization is the holy grail of combat.. good luck and let us know how you get on.

[womble]

Coordination on that scale tends to involve one lot sitting waiting for another lot to do their thing, then moving off themselves triggered by the other element's actions. If you break cover with A Coy before B Coy has got into overwatch position, just because a plan says they should have done so now, then you're doing the planning wrong. A Coy should be staying out of trouble until they can see (perhaps by effective fires, or by radio comms, or a putative flare or other signal) that B Coy has reached their overwatch position and is able to support them.

So you coordinate by finding safe places to wait.

[sburke]

and then if you are me, your first spotting round hits the FO.....

A Company then takes the resulting scream as an order to charge. B company sees some guys running in the open and knowing the battle plan says no attack till the arty has finished decides those must be the enemy and opens fire. B Co commander then quietly starts writing up his thank you letter for the award he is sure his coming his way for decimating that enemy unit that was displacing in front of him.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

and then if you are me, your first spotting round hits the FO.....

A Company then takes the resulting scream as an order to charge. B company sees some guys running in the open and knowing the battle plan says no attack till the arty has finished decides those must be the enemy and opens fire. B Co commander then quietly starts writing up his thank you letter for the award he is sure his coming his way for decimating that enemy unit that was displacing in front of him.

I love it when a plan comes together.

[SteveP]

I happen to be in the middle of that scenario right now myself. My plan was somewhat different from yours.

My view was that any Germans in the buildings would not be affected by mortar fire. Any Germans out in the open on the approach to Borgo could be knocked out by my onboard mortars. So I decided to save my off-board mortars for the second phase of the battle, after capturing Borgo.

I did use the off-board to fire smoke rounds on the approach. I did this as a pre-planned bombardment, with a five minute delay. Probably a waste of good smoke rounds.

Where I think coordination is necessary in this first phase of the scenario is getting all the fire power in your platoons working together at the same time to knock out each component of the defense (at close quarters), so that you dominate the fire fight at each point. At some point, your MMGs can help with this. I think this may be a better way to focus your thinking rather than relying on the mortars to help you win this part of the battle.

Just my thoughts.

[Badger73]

<snipped>

i have huge difficulty to coordinate my mortar fire (specially as i do not have TRP on smaller hill) as i have no eyes on top of the hill (besides, shouldn't my FO be able to direct mortar fire even if he doesn't see the top of the hill? i mean he sees the bloody hill in front of him and can see if the shells are falling on top of it or on my troops hiding in vineyard)

<snipped>

Mostly what Bill already said above.

Specific to indirect artillery, the game does allow you to pre-plot fires anywhere on the map before the scenario begins. You can also set a time delay on when those rounds arrive. They will fall where directed. The game reflects that reality well enough in that regard.

The other reality is that FO's do not adjust fires they where they cannot see either the impact nor the target. Lots of real life reasons for that too. The challenge is to position your FO where he can see such objectives but that creates a different problem; the very short life expectancy of FO's in real life too.

You're asking the right questions. The satisfaction in this game is learning how to find the solutions. And somehow those solutions change from situation to situation . . . Good luck and good gaming!

[mbarbaric]

thanks for all the answers, it sure is challenging game. another problem i find is that after i play for more than an hour (and i'm only 20 mins into the battle) i start to get sloppy and rush things. need to know when to quit i guess.

@SteveP

idea of attacking the smaller hill before going for borgo was that i will be able to support the main attack and shelling the hill was just to keep the nazis' heads down before i position my troops on the walls surrounding the compound. however, despite my ingenious plan, i didn't count on shells falling ON the stone wall completely destroying it so once my pTruppen got there some of them had no cover and got hit badly by nazis.

the real mess came when attacking the borgo hill itself. again, my ingenious plan was to keep zee germanz heads down by shelling the first row of houses. however, while my pTruppen were approaching the place from where they were able to shoot, the bombardment suddenly stopped due to lack of shells. needless to say, two platoons turned back and ran for their lives after zee germanz took a look from the windows and started spraying those HMG's...

[Badger73]

thanks for all the answers, it sure is challenging game. another problem i find is that after i play for more than an hour (and i'm only 20 mins into the battle) i start to get sloppy and rush things. need to know when to quit i guess.

<snipped>

Shades of Combat Fatigue!

See how well the game simulates reality

"More PT, Drill Sergeant! More PT."

"Yes, sir! Need to get these slackers into shape for some real man's fightin'!"

[womble]

thanks for all the answers, it sure is challenging game. another problem i find is that after i play for more than an hour (and i'm only 20 mins into the battle) i start to get sloppy and rush things. need to know when to quit i guess.

Y'see, getting 20 mins into the battle in an hour's play time seems like you're already rushing things, to me. I'm lucky if I've hit the "go" button after setup within the first hour of staring at the screen... I suppose if it's very quiet to start with, I might get ten turns done in an hour, but mostly I'll be creeping forward expecting an enemy behind the next hedge, then the next, then the next... and I've learned that the moment I say "Sod it, he must have just set up in the village" he's actually behind the very next hedge and guns down my now incautiously-advancing pTruppen... So I've managed to stop giving up on the cautious movement to contact, and those first ten minutes can take nearly as long each as a full-on combat turn... [sigh].

[SteveP]

@SteveP

idea of attacking the smaller hill before going for borgo was that i will be able to support the main attack and shelling the hill was just to keep the nazis' heads down before i position my troops on the walls surrounding the compound. however, despite my ingenious plan, i didn't count on shells falling ON the stone wall completely destroying it so once my pTruppen got there some of them had no cover and got hit badly by nazis.

the real mess came when attacking the borgo hill itself. again, my ingenious plan was to keep zee germanz heads down by shelling the first row of houses. however, while my pTruppen were approaching the place from where they were able to shoot, the bombardment suddenly stopped due to lack of shells. needless to say, two platoons turned back and ran for their lives after zee germanz took a look from the windows and started spraying those HMG's...

It certainly looks a little scary trying to get your guys into a position to drive out the Germans. But your troops have the fire power to do it without relying on the off-board mortars. I'm no tactical guru, but I try to organize my assault so that I can get 3-1 odds (e.g., three squads vs one squad), and try to hit the defender from 2 or more directions (they hate that!), and also try not to get so close initially that the Germans can make effective use of their submachine guns (I hate that!). I did use one of my MMGs at a certain point to shake up a German squad so my guys could get into a better position. I also made sure my guys were in good morale and rested.

It's a good situation to practice on. Just save your turns and try them over again with a different approach. Also, don't worry about the scenario time limits. You have more than enough time to accomplish the mission.

[Bulletpoint]

The difficulty of making a coordinated attack is possibly this game's greatest frustration - but also its greatest strength. I find that I always bungle something, but that's realistic. Nothing ever goes totally according to plan.

There's always the dream of doing "the perfect assault", and that's one of the things that make me come back time after time

[mbarbaric]

indeed,. but what would be helpful is some kind of indicator for how long the troops will reach end point when you give them move command. something similar to time left for artillery strikes where you can check the approximate time left till the end of shelling.