Tutorial / Assault Team

[Sven]

Hello,

 

After very many years of not playing CM at all I caved in and purchased CM:BN last week. Since it's been awhile, and since I've only played old CM I'm playing my way through the tutorial.

 

Now I'm at the Fauville scenario and they want to teach me how to split squads (First of all they mess up east and west, but that's another matter). When I do as the tutorial reads, my team doesn't split like they say it should at all. I don't get a heavy weapons team and another team.

I get a better division using "Split Team". Am I doing something wrong?

 

[Bud Backer]

It's been a while since I played the tutorial campaign, but in splitting teams you usually have 4 options, Split teams (which gives for US squads) three teams, or you can keep the squad largely intact and split off from it much smaller segments like a two man recon team, or AT team and so on. 

 

I doubt you're doing anything wrong, it's quite simple to do.  

[sburke]

same here been years, but there are some things to note.  A squad can consist of 2 or 3 teams- in the UI you will see that by how many columns there are.  If you select split teams, those columns separate into two or three teams depending on the number of columns.

You can also select specialist teams - assault, AT and scout etc  Assault in CMBN from a cursory look essentially splits off the first team in an american  squad leaving the other two teams still joined.  AT will be a unit with whatever AT weapons they have... a AT rifle grenade, a Baz etc.  Scout just grabs two bait guys.  I have almost never used the assault team.  I either split the squad or I break off the AT or a scout.  Note breaking off a scout and then splitting the remaining squad can sometimes get you better heavy firepower teams as it doesn't adhere to the column teams.

 

In a squad where you have only two teams, breaking off the scout will dump everyone else into a single team with all the squads remaining firepower.  There is a lot of flexibility in the command depending on your force.

[womble]

I use the Split Team - Assault command all the time. It doesn't quite split off the nominal "A" team (the column with the squad leader in it). There are often zooks and M7 Grenade Launcher adapted Garands in the first column, and they aren't included if you split an Assault team off. I always split the Assault team off first because that way they get some (well, nearly all of the) grenades. If you split an AT team off first, they get handed all the grenades (intended as ammo count for expedient AT measures, I presume), leaving the team that will actually getting within chucking range of things which the grenades will really mess up with almost none, which means they are very reluctant to use them. When they get split first, they end up with a dozen and a half grenades between 4 men and are actually pretty keen to reduce their carried load once they get within range.

 

Note that even though the splits (apart from "Split Teams") don't go along TO team lines, the team that contains the SL will usually be the "A team".

 

With german 3-team squads, if you split the AT team first, you get a "B team" AT team, with a rifleman icon, and any subsequent "C team" ends up with the AT team icon, whereas if you split another team (I'd suggest assault, for the grenade reasons above) first, when you split the shreck off, it is assigned to the C team and gets a readily visibly identifiable AT team icon.

[Sven]

Thank you, I do have a pretty good idea how it works and is supposed to work now. However, it does seem that the manual's descripton in the tutorial doesn't match what happens.

 

Also, one more thing: There's now quick undo option should you not be happy with the split?

[womble]

Thank you, I do have a pretty good idea how it works and is supposed to work now. However, it does seem that the manual's descripton in the tutorial doesn't match what happens.

 

Also, one more thing: There's now quick undo option should you not be happy with the split?

No, you can't "undo" it, only put the teams in the same AS and wait for them to recombine. It's one of the reasons I do all my splitting in setup: the ability to reconstitute the squads without wasting any time, if I make a mistake or an unfamiliar squad makeup doesn't split how I thought it would. 

[c3k]

To reconstitute in setup phase: keep the teams adjacent, delete any move orders, and de-select any team. Then they will recombine in just a few seconds.

 

In any non-setup phase, you'll have to do the same as above, but they will not recombine until after you hit the "go" button. That's why it's best to play in the setup phase: you get free recombines without having to hit "go".

[Sven]

OK, I'll try thinking about that.