Throwing grenades over a wall ...How ??

[Bulletpoint]

Squads tend to decide for themselves when to lob grenades. They tend to do it when storming positions, often when on an Assault order.

I've actually been wondering lately if they feel more inclined to throw grenades when on an assault order... would make a lot of sense if it works like that. 

[LukeFF]

Squads tend to decide for themselves when to lob grenades. They tend to do it when storming positions, often when on an Assault order.

I've actually been wondering lately if they feel more inclined to throw grenades when on an assault order... would make a lot of sense if it works like that. 

Grenade throwing doesn't have anything to do with having given the Assault order. 

[weapon2010]

yes tried all of those suggestions and they do work, although with about a 25% ammo reduction, a simple throw grenades might work too, like pop smoke

[womble]

It's really important people don't get hung up on the deceptively named Assault order. It really isn't for assaulting onto a hard objective. It's for moving during the assault phase of the battle, when you want bounding overwatch by elements smaller than a squad and can't spare the time to manage split squads. Even if they have a slightly increased chance of throwing grenades while they're static, splitting squads is still more effective if you absolutely have to enter a defended location. The biggest factor I've found is how many grenades the element has.

[LUCASWILLEN05]

 

Grenade throwing doesn't have anything to do with having given the Assault order. 

My impression is that grende throwing seems more likely if the assault order has been given. I could of course be wrong. 

[Bulletpoint]

It's really important people don't get hung up on the deceptively named Assault order. It really isn't for assaulting onto a hard objective. It's for moving during the assault phase of the battle, when you want bounding overwatch by elements smaller than a squad and can't spare the time to manage split squads. Even if they have a slightly increased chance of throwing grenades while they're static, splitting squads is still more effective if you absolutely have to enter a defended location. The biggest factor I've found is how many grenades the element has.

I think there might actually be some truth to it, in a roundabout way. The main factor is amount of grenades, as you say. But if you split a squad into three teams, then each team gets its own share of the squad's total grenades. So, each team will likely be stingy with them (unless one of them is an assault team, which gets nearly all of the squad's grenades).

But if you keep the squad together and advance by the assault command, then each team will count the squad's total grenades when it comes to deciding whether to throw them. At least that's my theory...

Edited September 30, 2015 by Bulletpoint

[womble]

Aye, that may be so, but with split squads you can guarantee your Assault squad has the lion's share of the grenades, and that the SMG is involved in the assault, with the LMG providing covering fire. So you don't have to worry about whether it counts "grenades per man" or just "grenades per element".

[MOS:96B2P]

I think there might actually be some truth to it, in a roundabout way. The main factor is amount of grenades, as you say. But if you split a squad into three teams, then each team gets its own share of the squad's total grenades. So, each team will likely be stingy with them (unless one of them is an assault team, which gets nearly all of the squad's grenades).

But if you keep the squad together and advance by the assault command, then each team will count the squad's total grenades when it comes to deciding whether to throw them. At least that's my theory...

This is why I split the Assault team (A Team) off first from the squad.  They get most of the grenades and all the SMGs.  The remaining base team (B Team) has the BAR and rifles etc for suppression work.  B Team provides the suppression while A Team closes and hoses.   The teams have a more specialized better controlled and equipped mission.

Ninja'ed by womble.        

Edited September 30, 2015 by MOS:96B2P

[RockinHarry]

It's really important people don't get hung up on the deceptively named Assault order. It really isn't for assaulting onto a hard objective. It's for moving during the assault phase of the battle, when you want bounding overwatch by elements smaller than a squad and can't spare the time to manage split squads. Even if they have a slightly increased chance of throwing grenades while they're static, splitting squads is still more effective if you absolutely have to enter a defended location. The biggest factor I've found is how many grenades the element has.

Yup, it´s generally amount of initial ammo that influence it´s usage most, particularly grenades. I also couldn´t find any particular situation, where grenades are more likely to be used than not. If it´s within grenade range and both attacking and defending units are unsuppressed, or don´t get suppressed too quickly, grenades will be used. There might also be the experience and morale factor involved and I´d suspect higher experience/morale infantry will make more use of grenades. Needs confirmation.

With regard to split teams I figured that i.e a US bazooka AT team split off from a squad, will not use grenades for indirect fire plotting, even if they have some at hand. Maybe there apply some special rules for AT teams?

[womble]

With regard to split teams I figured that i.e a US bazooka AT team split off from a squad, will not use grenades for indirect fire plotting, even if they have some at hand. Maybe there apply some special rules for AT teams?

Now that's something I'd tend not to see, since I don't let my AT teams have many grenades at all. If the zook team is close enough to throw grenades and hasn't got any rockets left, I've done something wrong, so I make sure the Assault team gets the grenades.

[RockinHarry]

Now that's something I'd tend not to see, since I don't let my AT teams have many grenades at all. If the zook team is close enough to throw grenades and hasn't got any rockets left, I've done something wrong, so I make sure the Assault team gets the grenades.

Ah...I understand you split teams off in certain order to achieve a desired hand grenade distribution. I just did a normal "split teams" for the testing and worked with what the game distributed among teams by default. I have one automatic split off AT team which is just composed of 2 men, one having a zook and the other a rifle grenade launcher, but also carrying 6 hand grenades. I can´t get this particular team to area fire (no direct LOS) over that embankment, while other differently composed teams can, when moved into the same AS. I need to make some more testing to figure out if it has something to do with certain team configurations, individual team member positions within an AS or terrain that is to be targeted. In practice I´d also just make sure the assault team gets all the grenades and don´t bother with the AT team.

[RockinHarry]

While on the topic, I figured that there do exist some more opportunities for area fire target tactics in MOUT, which are maybe not widely known. Vertical area fire within buildings (i.e a story up or down), or through breached walls from one building into another (adjacent one), from and into different stories. The background for this was a read about US tactics applied during the Aachen city battle. Best method figured by the US during this battle was the mouseholing and working top-down combo, which can just be normally applied with difficulties in CMX2 (moving into a neighboring building after blasting through a wall, dangerously exposes the attacker to possible enemy units in stories above or below). It also reveals that the abstracted nature of floors/interiors in CMX2 multi story buildings can either be somewhat exploited in gamey ways (AIP in particular), or with some imagination be used to recreate the mentioned RL battle technique, by use of indoor area fire on the vertical axis.

[Lt Bull]

You could aim the area fire high on a building....

Looks like you know something I don't.  I have never done anything to adjust the default area fire command when targeting a multi-story building.  I assumed that it just sucked how the game didn't seem to allow you to select which building level to target, unless infantry was spotted on each level.

How do you target area fire different levels of a building?

Also I don't quite understand how you are targeting an AS spot on the other side of a tall wall to get infantry to lob grenades over.  Wouldn't the LOS be blocked and therefore prevent an area fire order marker from being placed there by infantry on the opposite side of the high wall?

Edited October 1, 2015 by Lt Bull

[A Canadian Cat]

Just point with the target command.  If you can see a particular floor it should allow you to target that floor (with in the limitations we currently have regarding buildings).  Once your men are inside they can target the floor above (or below).  That is very handy if they have to clear a building that has enemy inside.

[womble]

Yeah, it matters where you click. It matters a lot for suppression purposes, since the suppression on the floors above and below the strike height (which will largely be the aimed-at-height) is greatly diminished. My gut feeling is that suppression does not carry between floors (as it does to adjacent AS, at a reduced level), and that the only suppression imposed on floors other than the one you're aiming at will be from the shots that go high or low. So if you hit the ground floor of a building where there's an enemy on level 2, it'll take a lot of incoming to suppress them.

The floor that's being targeted is visible: the targeting line clicks to it. Try it on a tall tower to see obvious differences, so you can see the kind of thing you're looking for on shorter buildings.

[RockinHarry]

Here´s a sequence of pics showing the area fire actions and its results. The setup situation is somewhat artificial, but it might be taken from a base, where it´s either known or suspected enemies in the left hand building. Intended sequence is making the breach from upper story into the next adjoining building, but keep the breach team from moving in. With the breach openend, pour area fire into the 2nd story to suppress likely enemy units down there and later follow up through the breach with another team or the squad, that just distributed the area fire. Unengaged units in the 3rd story, can keep up area fire, while the assault team/squad moves in. This would be roughly the mentioned "mousehole - working top down method", with some higher possible success opportunity for the attacker. This situation surely is an isolated example, not taking into account other possible factors, like more yet unseen enemies outside the building or nearby, as well as different soft factors. For the situation I´d used high morale veterans for both sides and full ammo loads. The US has 1 squad in the 2nd story and its HQ section in the 1st of the left hand building. Germans have 1 breach team, 1 squad and HQ in the 3rd story of the right hand building. It´s a 2 player hotseat game in iron mode.

1. Initial GE situation. Breach team gets blast order into 3rd story of neighbouring building, paused at 45 seconds.

2. Initial US situation.

3. US situation after 1st turn, with the blast executed into story above. Suppression is moderate for the high morale veteran squad and maintained COC to the HQ section.

4. German squad now enabled to target area fire into 2nd story through the breach, while the breach team is ordered back by pulling the waypoint and thus interrupting the just started movement.

5. Area fire effect on the US squad after 1 turn. Half the losses are from small arms fire, obviously going through the floor above. Even the HQ section on 1st floor gets a higher amount of suppression, although not taking losses or injuries.

6. View from US side after 1 turn area fire. The current situation offers neither direct nor indirect return fire opportunities at this time, yet I need to test some more if this always is the case.

7. End situation after one additional turn of area fire, with possible next actions for both sides left open.

 

Next test run will have the situation reversed, with US attacking and germans beeing the attacked. It could possibly reveal, that the germans have a likely edge, when it comes to short range firepower by use of area fire in this particular situation (highly increased ROF for german MG and maybe higher blast effects for the stick grenades). We´ll see...

[RockinHarry]

Looks like you know something I don't.  I have never done anything to adjust the default area fire command when targeting a multi-story building.  I assumed that it just sucked how the game didn't seem to allow you to select which building level to target, unless infantry was spotted on each level.

How do you target area fire different levels of a building?

Also I don't quite understand how you are targeting an AS spot on the other side of a tall wall to get infantry to lob grenades over.  Wouldn't the LOS be blocked and therefore prevent an area fire order marker from being placed there by infantry on the opposite side of the high wall?

Like the other posters said. Try the target, as well as face command from camera ground level (non birds eye) view, to get all of the vertical axes of terrain objects (buildings, trees,...) into sight. Oftentimes just point and click does the purpose, sometimes you need to zoom in, or carefully position your camera by "moving into" a building with W-A-S-D keys. Target commands "stick" when applicable as mentioned above. "Face" works in similar fashion and you can lock the face command on an objects vertical axis as well, i.e on the Nth story of a building, upper part of a tree trunk and such. There´s little to none practical application though.

[Bulletpoint]

Thanks for testing this out, Rockinharry. I notice 5 casualties were caused by the first turn of area fire, but only 1 additional casualty was cause by the following turn. Is this due to most casualties being caused by grenades?

 

Also, what would have happened if you had just let the engineers run into the breach? I'm thinking that maybe with the suppression caused by the breaching charge, they might have cleared out the building on their own?

[RockinHarry]

Thanks for testing this out, Rockinharry. I notice 5 casualties were caused by the first turn of area fire, but only 1 additional casualty was cause by the following turn. Is this due to most casualties being caused by grenades?

 

Also, what would have happened if you had just let the engineers run into the breach? I'm thinking that maybe with the suppression caused by the breaching charge, they might have cleared out the building on their own?

I had tested this situation before and ended with the 3 men breach team (not an engineer squad) moving in after the blast, would be rather quickly finished off by the US squad below. Suppression level doesn´t matter enough for the US squad. It´s still better prepared for the breach team moving in above, to react more quickly and with more FP, while the breach team moves one team member after the other through the breach, needing time to deploy and finally get into direct contact with the US in order to engage. A lower morale and experience defender might be more at a disadvantage, so that a breach team (or full assault squad) might be sufficient to rout the defender out, before it can react violently. And there´s always the random factor and no guarantee for success, which is good. The whole affair remains bloody, with bits of an advatage to the attacker, which was the purpose for testing this.

I haven´t closely followed cause of losses for the US squad, but surely a number of these were from grenades. Germans still had enough left after the first turn volley, but the quick successive bursts from the german MG42 at that close range also took their toll. After the first turn the US were also heavily suppressed and thinned out (half the squad was killed already) and thus providing a smaller target density for the next round of area fire volleys. The random factor remains as well, as area fire even at close combat range has a wide dispersal.

A rather "funny" occurance one time was the germans with one squad member attempting to area fire with a Panzerfaust, which failed miserably. The warhead struck the room wall right in front of the soldier and thus killing half his squad members and routing the remainder in sequence. Might be a good idea to split off the AT guys and thus have more of the hand grenades and small arms concentrated in the remaining squad.

Here the little test battle that I made the tests with (2 player hotseat, iron). I noticed I made this with MG module active for the map. Change to France in editor should fix that for non MG users.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8sgxoqaq7ne9ikk/!0RoomDown.btt?dl=0

 

[MOS:96B2P]

 

4. German squad now enabled to target area fire into 2nd story through the breach, while the breach team is ordered back by pulling the waypoint and thus interrupting the just started movement.

 

6. View from US side after 1 turn area fire. The current situation offers neither direct nor indirect return fire opportunities at this time, yet I need to test some more if this always is the case.

 

Rock, this is interesting stuff.  Thanks for doing it.

If I understand the screenshots, the German team, 3rd floor right building was able to fire diagonally into the second floor left building.  Was the US team kept on a short target arc and unable to return fire for test purposes?  Or was the US team suppressed so badly they were not able to effectively return fire?  Did the demo charge into the floor above the US team cause any suppression to the US team?  Did the Germans also throw grenades diagonally into the the second floor left building? 

[RockinHarry]

Rock, this is interesting stuff.  Thanks for doing it.

If I understand the screenshots, the German team, 3rd floor right building was able to fire diagonally into the second floor left building.  Was the US team kept on a short target arc and unable to return fire for test purposes?  Or was the US team suppressed so badly they were not able to effectively return fire?  Did the demo charge into the floor above the US team cause any suppression to the US team?  Did the Germans also throw grenades diagonally into the the second floor left building? 

Yes, diagonally.

I´d not given the US squad any orders at all and left it at that for all of the testing. Just did check LOS/LOF by use of target tool  in situational screenshot 6. (game turn 2)

US squad suppression just caused by the blast was moderate (see pic 3, suppression meter)

I´ve yet to test repeatedly if the US squad can´t aquire LOS/LOF diagonally back to the german floor in general, or if it´s suppression, or something else.

[A Canadian Cat]

Rock, this is interesting stuff.  Thanks for doing it.

Yes, very interesting.

If I understand the screenshots, the German team, 3rd floor right building was able to fire diagonally into the second floor left building. 

Yes, diagonally.

I have a question about that actually.  It occurred to me while reading this that we are assuming that the german squad on the third floor are unable to fire on the other building's second floor until the third floor connecting wall is breached.  But is that actually true?  Can the German squad fire on the US position without breaching at all?  I will not be able to check myself until much later today but wondered if you might have already checked this.

[A Canadian Cat]

BTW this test scenario was done to me a while back.  I was so impressed at the time I shared it on video.  It is still one of my favorite disasters in PBEM.  Thanks to @slysniper for schooling me on this technique.

 

[RockinHarry]

But is that actually true?  Can the German squad fire on the US position without breaching at all?  I will not be able to check myself until much later today but wondered if you might have already checked this.

Quick answer: No, they can´t and vice versa. And in this modular building map setup, which is side by side, where walls are always closed by default when adjoining. Didn´t test any other setup so far. One could turn the buildings face to face, close the walls in the editor and check if there is any inconsistencies.

[RockinHarry]

BTW this test scenario was done to me a while back.  I was so impressed at the time I shared it on video.  It is still one of my favorite disasters in PBEM.  Thanks to @slysniper for schooling me on this technique.

 

Ouch! That´s very similar to what has been discussed so far. This shows another variation with regard to building sizes and that it could matter for a larger building, that you can "surprise" a defender if he´s positioned on one side of a (larger) buildings floor, while the entry and abstracted stairway, possibly on the other side. A breach and follow up assault on the floor with the defender would´ve been possibly even more devastating, but this presupposes that you know where the defender actually is.