Split Squads - Base of Fire or the Maneuver Units?

[kevinkin]

Well the title says/asks it all.

Rifle platoon vs. Rifle platoon; wooded flat ground; and a meeting engagement.

I am inclined to answer maneuver units.

Kevin

[Apocal]

I don't actually understand what you're asking.

[womble]

The question isn't very clear, especially when you can split squads into a maneuver element and a firebase element. It might have made more sense if it was asking "Assault Team or Split Squad". I am inferring that Kevin is asking whether to split a German 2-MG42 squad into an assault team plus a firebase team (with the MP40 and 2 MG42, respectively) or use the Split Squad 'admin' command to split it into two teams with one MG42 each, one of which has the Ldr's MP40.

 

My SOP is to split by range. Which means I employ the teams appropriately. I tend to pretty much always use what I called "caterpillar overwatch" (cos I thought there was only one sort of Bounding Overwatch) until Bil edumicated me (Bounding Overwatch - Alternate; I should have had more faith in the military being able to produce precise terminology...). In woods, the elements would be much closer together than in Bil's open-ground screen shots. The B team (with the MG42s) would be area firing as far ahead as possible any time it wasn't moving up to just level with the scout/assault team. Platoon moving 2 up, one back, hoping to fix the enemy and then sneak round a flank with the "reserve" squad, and maybe the HQ.

 

But doing that against a competent Russian in woods is going to get you chopped up by the more plentiful Russian SMGs...

[kevinkin]

Sorry ... it was late.

Let's take the 3 squads in a German rifle platoon and split one on the squads. Given the resulting fire power and

maneuverability (or lack thereof) is it best to use the full squads as a base of fire or the split squads?

I ask since I rarely split units but feel I am missing a tactical opportunity. I know the devil is in the details but in thismost simple case it appears the splits move to flank the enemy.

Kevin

[Bil Hardenberger]

Kevin, do whatever you are comfortable with... an unsplit squad will have better cohesion than a split squad (never out of C2), however a split squad will give your opponent more to think about (more UI icons) and will be more resilient (will not be taken out by one mortar round), and IMO is far more flexible. I always split my squads once contact seems probable.

 

Experiment with split squads, make sure you keep the components of the same squad together so they can mutually support one another.. it is very easy to get your platoon all mixed up and have a squad (or squads) spread out and intermixed.. that is not a good situation.  Your base of fire can be one or two teams, but you want the base of fire to be further back than the maneuver element so try to include the team with the LMG in the base of fire.

[kevinkin]

Sounds reasonable Bill Thanks.

It would be interesting to see two guys go at it in a small "test tube" battle where one agrees not to split and other is allowed to split. Then see the result. I would imagine a lot would depend on what the units are ask to orient on and which side can go over to a defense first (stop moving) in a meeting engagement.

Kevin

[Bil Hardenberger]

Kevin, in my Defense in the Bocage AAR (never completed) my opponent attacked without splitting his squads.. while I (on defense) had everything split.  I was able to identify enemy force size very accurately once i realized that he was not splitting his squads... plus his unsplit squads took a beating...  maybe that will do for the test tube battle you are looking for?

Edited April 24, 2015 by Bil Hardenberger

[A co]

Some advantages of splitting squads, as I see it-

A small team can move and get into cover more quickly. A moving full squad ends up like ducks in a shooting gallery once the enemy orients on them.

A team can make better use of small divided areas of cover than a squad.

As mentioned before, divided teams are harder for the enemy to keep track of. 

Divided teams can see more terrain then a full squad, because the eyes are further apart, so to speak. 

Squads bunch up at waypoints too much.

 

Whole squads are of course easier for the player to manage, but the effort of managing teams is worth it.

[womble]

Like Bil, I always split my squads. I do it from start, because it's easier to bomb up that way If you want your Assault teams (eventually) to have any grenades, you have to split them off before the AT team (that you want to split off from the start so they don't waste their rockets on infantry targets as soon as there's a contact within range, so might as well keep 'em split.

 

And A co makes some very good points.

[kevinkin]

Seems as a general rule splitting squads has few downsides and a lot of positives. Thanks.

Kevin

[Melchior]

Boy I'm always the odd one out, but as usual I often do not split squads except for specific circumstances like CQB or defense. On the attack preservation of C2 matters more than anything and men on the maneuver are equally vulnerable whether they are closely spaced on not because threats can emerge from any direction. What will matter more to me is that the control of the advance survives and replies are fast. I can't have long periods of suppression and most definitely cannot afford panic and routs to breakout.

 

On defense yeah splitting is great because you need to compartmentalize your force and split your enemy's attention.

[womble]

Boy I'm always the odd one out, but as usual I often do not split squads except for specific circumstances like CQB or defense. On the attack preservation of C2 matters more than anything and men on the maneuver are equally vulnerable whether they are closely spaced on not because threats can emerge from any direction. What will matter more to me is that the control of the advance survives and replies are fast. I can't have long periods of suppression and most definitely cannot afford panic and routs to breakout.

I have to disagree, and strongly. C3 is nice to maintain at full "voice and sight", but keeping sight or hearing range is fine most of the time and getting weight of fire, and flexibility of movement is more important by far. If incoming can emerge "from any direction", you're doing it wrong And even if that's true, having entire squads suppressed by surprise fire is going to be far more difficult to deal with than having single teams suppressed one at a time, with the other teams all being able to return fire. If you're a german platoon with 6 evenly-split teams, a raking by a previously undiscovered MG, say, is going to pin one MG42, rather than the 2 that would be pinned if you hadn't split. If you split Assault and Fire (with the MG42s in the fire team), you might not get any of your MG42s suppressed at all.

[Melchior]

If incoming can emerge "from any direction", you're doing it wrong And even if that's true, having entire squads suppressed by surprise fire is going to be far more difficult to deal with than having single teams suppressed one at a time, with the other teams all being able to return fire. If you're a german platoon with 6 evenly-split teams, a raking by a previously undiscovered MG, say, is going to pin one MG42, rather than the 2 that would be pinned if you hadn't split. If you split Assault and Fire (with the MG42s in the fire team), you might not get any of your MG42s suppressed at all.

 

If they're all within voice and eye range to begin with it won't be one team that gets suppressed by MG fire. They all will. Luck does not favor the man 20 meters to my right anymore than the man 20 inches.

 

I think you're also referring to a distinctly German approach, in which case yes you'd prefer to split those lavishly equipped infantry teams. Since each one of them are going to wield as much fire as a squad anyway it's low balling the Germans to keep them closely packed. The Germans normally survive command shocks better anyway thanks to typically better leadership. Gefreiter Hans frequently tends to sport that +1/+2.

[womble]

If they're all within voice and eye range to begin with it won't be one team that gets suppressed by MG fire.

 

So don't stick them that close together. It's by no means the most important thing. Just "eye" is fine for advancing.

 

 

Luck does not favor the man 20 meters to my right anymore than the man 20 inches.

Luck has nothing to do with it. It's the reaction of the man 20 inches (more like 100) away that's at issue, compared to the reaction of the man 20 metres away when you get shot. If your squad is unsplit, the suppression will affect both/all three teams. If it's split, the team that hasn't taken a casualty might get a morale status decrement, but they won't necessarily be suppressed.

 

 

I think you're also referring to a distinctly German approach...

Not really. It works the same for split teams in Allied (or Russian) squads. There's just less reason to split evenly, and it's better to split Assault[/AT]/Fire with American squads, most of the time, so your weapons can be kept where they're most effective. A Tommy Gun is no use whatsoever at 200m, whereas a BAR and the Garands are.

 

 

The Germans normally survive command shocks better anyway thanks to typically better leadership. Gefreiter Hans frequently tends to sport that +1/+2.

Whatever. This simply isn't the case in my experience; German troops have comparable performance to any other; I feel no more need to add higher soft factors to German troops than I do to Allied, so I have experience of both sides at similar soft factors; my observation is that when the opponent doesn't split his squads they get pinned and slaughtered and when the squads are split, that task is more difficult because more guns are shooting back for longer. And most of my experience with using (rather than facing) unsplit squads is with Italian infantry, because I can't split those.

 

Even on the offense, what is the point of having a fire base that you're going to advance from contain the short range weapons that will run out of ammo in 2 minutes "Target" firing? They make themselves useless for the close assault on the target for little no effect and increase your cross section to incoming. If you split the Assault squads off and have them back from the "firing step" that the suppression is being generated from, they will remain in better shape for engaging the enemy more closely.

 

Yes, it's entirely possible to do okay with unsplit squads. It's not essential, by any means. But it offers noticeable advantages.