Clearing buildings

[puje]

Having played a lot of Shock Force, and just a little bit of Black Sea so far, I'm still not sure I understand how the AI works when clearing buildings.

 

Let's say you have a plain 2 story building.

If I send my men to occupy the first floor, will they (ever) spot enemies on the second floor?

Can fire be exchanges between floors?

If I send my forces to occupy the roof of a building, will they clear floors as they climb the building?

 

What about buildings that join through a door, can they fire between room?

 

Finally, what order do you use, when changing floors in a building that might contain hostiles?

 

[MikeyD]

A simple question that volumes can be written on. 

 

Building interiors are (obviously) abstracted. Walls without openings (doors or windows) are usually considered safe from AI-directed LOS fire. If there's a connecting door that changes things. Its considered a wall open and the chance of AI-directed LOS fire rises sharply. Human-directed area fire is especially lethal because they're firing wildly into a room without needing a LOS contact.

 

If your men are on a lower floor and the enemy is *hiding* the next floor up it may take them awhile to notice their presence. If the men on the upper floor are active then it doesn't take long before they start exchanging grenades and rifle fire.

 

About what order to use when changing floors containing hostiles - it depends on the hostiles. If they're broken and cowering just go up and shoot 'em. If they're highly motivated veterans then you have a problem. A good place to use 'area fire' into a suspected room before bursting in, hoping to catch' em while they're suppressed.

[Imperial Grunt]

I'll jump in on this one.

First of all, keep in mind that the AI does not treat MOUT any different than normal field operations, so you cannot expect urban tactics from the AI.

Secondly, realize that with buildings and houses, what you see is not completely representative of the architecture. The walls and floors and whether there are windows or doors are the only hard facts. The doors are the most exact but windows are fairly representative. Interior rooms, walls, furniture, etc is all abstracted. When modular buildings are put together to make larger buildings you will get actual interior walls to work with however.

To answer your questions:

1) Troops on a floor can spot one floor above (and below) them. Doesn't always make sense so just imagine a stairway firefight or some kind of interior open ceiling, etc.

2) If you send troops up to the roof they will move to the roof directly and not spend much time spotting on each particular floor. Could obviously lead to a disaster. If a adjoining walls have a door or windows then troops may spot and fire into the next structure through that wall. You can also order them to fire there as well.

With that said, there are many things you can do as a player, although it will require more supervision on your part to make it happen. The following basic CM procedures really help for urban warfare tactics.

1) Don't send troops anywhere you think an enemy may be. If you think a building is occupied, send steel first. 120mm main gun rounds excel for this task but you use what is available. I can't stress effective suppression enough. As your troops are actually getting close to entering a building, switch to small arms/LMG fire only. The game assumes that detailed small unit fire coordination is taking place but HE rounds, if not lifted, will cause fratricide.

2) Use breaching charges as much as possible. Blind walls without any doors and windows are perfect for this. You can breach between floors and adjoining walls as well. Breaching charges not only make entry points, but they suppress enemy troops on the opposite side.

3) Use smoke screens to help screen movement. It won't block thermal sights but not every weapon system uses thermal sights.

Never just move entire squads at once into possibly hostile buildings. Use the fire teams, approach using suppressive fire and quick bounds to get close. You can move a team right up to a wall and stop them there and sometimes they will spot and engage enemies inside...but not always. When they go in through the door, usually any unsuppressed enemies will shoot first. Urban combat is dangerous!

Don't get frustrated when you see your guys run past enemies inside a building. Like I said above, interiors are all abstracted.

The tough part is not the MOUT itself but deciding which buildings you want to expend resources on and which you can assume to not be occupied. A bad decision or assumption on your part could mean many deaths for your valiant troops. It's your call commander.

Edited February 12, 2015 by Imperial Grunt

[Melchior]

People are really obsessed with finding a "right answer" to CQC and I think the reality is you can't. It's an abstraction because that's just not what the game is focused on. If it's what someone wants to handle down to minutia then Red Orchestra and Forgotten Hope are really what you're interested in playing. Shooters, not strategy. Which their nothing wrong with. 

 

CM is a game about letting you control the circumstances of an engagement, not the engagement. That's the troops' job. 

[MikeyD]

One thing you might want to note when firing on a building is *bullet bounce*. If you've got light arms and you're firing on a stout building your fire might be barely penetrating and barely suppressing the occupants. If your fire is all bouncing away from the façade that's a bad sign. Time to bring up the .50 Cal or DShK (or whatever's in the game) to put some proper holes in the building. Even 7.62 mmg might do the trick.

[agusto]

One thing you might want to note when firing on a building is *bullet bounce*. If you've got light arms and you're firing on a stout building your fire might be barely penetrating and barely suppressing the occupants. If your fire is all bouncing away from the façade that's a bad sign. Time to bring up the .50 Cal or DShK (or whatever's in the game) to put some proper holes in the building. Even 7.62 mmg might do the trick.

 

 

With the abundance of IFVs on the modern battlefield, 20 to 30mm autocannon fire is my tool of choice for clearing rooms from the outside. Bradleys have them, BTRs have them, BMPs have them, and they are all lethal against infantry in buildings. 120mm tank gun fire is nice, but not as readily available as the autocannons. The most effective MOUT vehicle is the Tunguska IMO. Its extremely fast rotating turret, combind with the lethal high rate firepower of its multiple barrels is absolutely devastating on any soft target inside a building. Usually a single burst is sufficient to kill everything in a room. IRL the Tunguska also has the important ability to hit the upper floors, something most tanks and IFVs cant due to gun elevation limits.

[Sulman]

The most wicked in CMSF are buildings with an interior dividing wall that is basically an exterior type wall with a window. Essentially two buildings joined as one. Troops walking into the adjacent room can get torn to pieces, even if they greatly outnumber defenders. It only takes one occupant with an AK.

The only way of dealing with them is to indirect fire them into dust, or take a vehicle or squad outside to suppress.

Edited February 12, 2015 by Sulman

[Jock Tamson]

Actively target floors with one team, pause the other team to allow suppression to take effect then move them up.

[wee]

With the abundance of IFVs on the modern battlefield, 20 to 30mm autocannon fire is my tool of choice for clearing rooms from the outside. Bradleys have them, BTRs have them, BMPs have them, and they are all lethal against infantry in buildings. 120mm tank gun fire is nice, but not as readily available as the autocannons. The most effective MOUT vehicle is the Tunguska IMO. Its extremely fast rotating turret, combind with the lethal high rate firepower of its multiple barrels is absolutely devastating on any soft target inside a building. Usually a single burst is sufficient to kill everything in a room. IRL the Tunguska also has the important ability to hit the upper floors, something most tanks and IFVs cant due to gun elevation limits.

 

+1

 

Couldn't agree more.

 

Single IFVs cheving a light building in to the pieces for few turns or entire platoon for one turn is my most used MOUT tactic. Doing it from distance to avoid LAW/RPG fire. After the wall collapses, I fire few more salvos into the building and after that my infantry enters. Usually they encounter only littered corpses of enemy soldiers.

 

My tactic is also quite "russian" in advance or assault. I avoid MOUT as long as possible, trying to skirt and flank, and destroy the enemy outside urban areas. I also seek for multiple directions to fire urban inside areas and use streets and avenues as "fire corridors" to restrict enemy movement inside the town and finally destroy them when opportunities arise during my overwatch. But whenever I'm forced to attack a building, I do it with masses of firepower from distance, using MBTs, IFVs and artillery (saving mortars for open ground targets). 

Edited February 12, 2015 by wee

[Sulman]

My tactic is also quite "russian" in advance or assault. I avoid MOUT as long as possible, trying to skirt and flank, and destroy the enemy outside urban areas. I also seek for multiple directions to fire urban inside areas and use streets and avenues as "fire corridors" to restrict enemy movement inside the town and finally destroy them when opportunities arise during my overwatch. But whenever I'm forced to attack a building, I do it with masses of firepower from distance, using MBTs, IFVs and artillery (saving mortars for open ground targets). 

 

CMSF onwards taught me one thing about urban war - I finally understood why it is so savage. Any directive about preservation of buildings usually had me biting my lip, as I knew I was in for a hard time if I couldn't simply pulverise them rather than risk taking squads in. 

[wee]

If infantry company or platoon have tools, supplies, time, knowledge and expertise to fortify larger apartment house, they will turn it to hellhole and meat grinder to anybody trying to assault it.

 

Couple dozen well placed 122-155mm shells with stiff fuzes will do the trick a lot of more faster and cheaper and saving precious men and material. 

Edited February 12, 2015 by wee

[A Canadian Cat]

I'll jump in on this one.

<snip>

The tough part is not the MOUT itself but deciding which buildings you want to expend resources on and which you can assume to not be occupied. A bad decision or assumption on your part could mean many deaths for your valiant troops. It's your call commander.

Excellent summary. All I have to add is for those buildings that I think are empty my usual clearing procedure is to have a team move floor to floor with 20s pauses on each floor and another team on the floor below them with off kilter pauses. That way the really only clear two floors a turn and someone is always near by not moving in case thing go south. This works pretty well in that buildings get cleared and if things do go sideways badness is limited to a single team and they have a covering team right there.

 

 

I avoid MOUT as long as possible, trying to skirt and flank, and destroy the enemy outside urban areas. I also seek for multiple directions to fire urban inside areas and use streets and avenues as "fire corridors" to restrict enemy movement inside the town and finally destroy them when opportunities arise during my overwatch.

+1 there this is excellent advice. A starting point might be to ask your self "do I really need to clear that occupied building right now"? Try to answer no

[Melchior]

Yeah much of the game is about accomplishing what you can with what you've got. Some of the really great scenarios in my mind explicitly make it very tough to accomplish every objective and attack every point. Impossible sometimes. Bypassing or attacking a point is a major role of the player because ultimately you are "the brass" and you are now in that situation making that decision. 

[agusto]

I avoid MOUT as long as possible, trying to skirt and flank, and destroy the enemy outside urban areas. I also seek for multiple directions to fire urban inside areas and use streets and avenues as "fire corridors" to restrict enemy movement inside the town and finally destroy them when opportunities arise during my overwatch. But whenever I'm forced to attack a building, I do it with masses of firepower from distance, using MBTs, IFVs and artillery (saving mortars for open ground targets). 

 

Recently a scenario forced me to make an interesting decision. There were two possible avenues of approach towards the obejctives: through a dense forrest on the right half of the or alternativey through urban terrain on the left half. I decided to move through the urban area because i thought that fighting the suspected enemy infantry in the forrest would result in more casualties than moving through the urban area. After the battle it turned out the forrest was unocupied.

[womble]

Recently a scenario forced me to make an interesting decision. There were two possible avenues of approach towards the obejctives: through a dense forrest on the right half of the or alternativey through urban terrain on the left half. I decided to move through the urban area because i thought that fighting the suspected enemy infantry in the forrest would result in more casualties than moving through the urban area. After the battle it turned out the forrest was unocupied.

Naturally. Murphy always takes his pound of flesh. Had you chosen the forest path, the town would have been a ghost town...