Throwing grenades over a wall ...How ??

[womble]

If you have some intel about where the enemy actually are, breaching directly into their location can be even more effective, since the suppression is greater. Seems the "vertical" suppression spread would be enough to make the team on the ground floor less of a concern. If you only know which building they're in, going in at the top is best, naturally.

[A Canadian Cat]

Indeed he did not know exactly where I was but he knew I was there because the left and right sides (from the perspective of the shot) were the "normal" avenues approach and I had those covered as well as having a surprise ready for the expected breach on the ground floor - no help there when he went in from above.

[A Canadian Cat]

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.

Excellent good to know.  Modular buildings automatically get adjoining walls with no doors or windows by default now.  I used to be that you had to go into each building and turn off any doors or windows for each building on each floor.  Now you no longer have to do that - but you do have to add doors in the case where you do want the buildings to behave as a single building.

[slysniper]

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.

 

I have to smile every time I see you post this thing. Your bad day, was a good day for me.

The reason I do it like this was back from my marine days.

It struck home when I was watching some fighting in Iraq and they commented on the fact that Marines had started making major efforts to clear structures from the top down. Thus avoiding many ambushes and it gives the defender a perceived means of escape.

So part of the tactic should be to cover the exits of the structure so that the enemy cannot flee.

All of which I did in this situation. So even the Germans that ran out of the building, most were shot quickly. I do recall a few did manage to escape though.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 1, 2015 by slysniper

[A Canadian Cat]

I have to smile every time I see you post this thing. Your bad day, was a good day for me.

It was one of those amazing moments in this game.  I like to say if you cannot have fun while you are loosing you shouldn't be playing - because you *are* going to loose.

The reason I do it like this was back from my marine days.

It struck home when I was watching some fighting in Iraq and they commented on the fact that Marines had started making major efforts to clear structures from the top down. Thus avoiding many ambushes and it gives the defender a perceived means of escape.

So part of the tactic should be to cover the exits of the structure so that the enemy cannot flee.

And walk into ambushes set by the attacker...

This is a great example of real world tactics being applied in game - and working.

All of which I did in this situation. So even the Germans that ran out of the building, most were shot quickly. I do recall a few did manage to escape though.

They were Italians but yes one or two of my escape routes were firmly in my control but that was why this building was so important - I could make you pay heavily for taking other routes and this building offered some protected avenues towards the main objective.

[Bulletpoint]

Is this technique workable when playing one minute turns, or is it only in realtime that you can manage to call back the breach team by moving their waypoint, and then immediately give the fire order to the other team? Since they can only be given the order when the wall is gone.

[womble]

A Regular engineer/breach team takes a predictable 15s to execute the Blasting, time spent lying still on their bellies, status "Hiding". So for "split-second timing" use of Blast orders in WeGo, you make sure the Blast order starts at 45s, either by expert judgement of elapsed time for previous movements, or, more mundanely, getting them adjacent to the obstacle they're Blasting at the end of the previous turn and giving them a 45s Pause and a Blast movement leg. This will result in a detonation as the :00 ticks up at the end of the turn, with the demo users starting to get to their feet. In the subsequent orders phase you can cancel their forward movement and have them hightail it out of the danger zone; use Evade if you want/need to.

Different soft factors change the length of time it takes for the Blast part of the Blast movement leg to be executed. Veteran engineers take 2-3 seconds less to do their thing, so will have gotten to their feet and advanced a metre or two along their (now Quick or Fast, not sure) movement leg, but that's not usually a problem that prevents calling them back before they've gotten too exposed. Green and worse Engineers are a bit more of a problem to time, because they take a little longer than 15s to detonate their packs, and the next shortest Pause is 30s, so they'll often have had plenty of time (Pause of 30s, 20s of Blast execution, leaves 10s) to wander into danger before you get the chance to grab them by the scruff and sit them back in cover. If they're not originally equipped with demo charges, they take longer, much longer. Or they did. Might've changed; haven't had non-engineers use demo packs for a long time.

The longest time I've seen an element take to set off their charge was a Green Italian HQ unit with poor Leadership; they'd buddy-aided a demo charge off a fallen Engineer, and it took them more than a minute and a half to blow a hole in a wall. Fortunately, the target obligingly stayed put so the blast did immobilise the half track outside the building... Tense couple of turn reviews there...

Edited October 1, 2015 by womble

[Bulletpoint]

A Regular engineer/breach team takes a predictable 15s to execute the Blasting, time spent lying still on their bellies, status "Hiding". So for "split-second timing" use of Blast orders in WeGo, you make sure the Blast order starts at 45s, either by expert judgement of elapsed time for previous movements, or, more mundanely, getting them adjacent to the obstacle they're Blasting at the end of the previous turn and giving them a 45s Pause and a Blast movement leg. This will result in a detonation as the :00 ticks up at the end of the turn, with the demo users starting to get to their feet. In the subsequent orders phase you can cancel their forward movement and have them hightail it out of the danger zone; use Evade if you want/need to.

Different soft factors change the length of time it takes for the Blast part of the Blast movement leg to be executed. Veteran engineers take 2-3 seconds less to do their thing, so will have gotten to their feet and advanced a metre or two along their (now Quick or Fast, not sure) movement leg, but that's not usually a problem that prevents calling them back before they've gotten too exposed. Green and worse Engineers are a bit more of a problem to time, because they take a little longer than 15s to detonate their packs, and the next shortest Pause is 30s, so they'll often have had plenty of time (Pause of 30s, 20s of Blast execution, leaves 10s) to wander into danger before you get the chance to grab them by the scruff and sit them back in cover. If they're not originally equipped with demo charges, they take longer, much longer. Or they did. Might've changed; haven't had non-engineers use demo packs for a long time.

The longest time I've seen an element take to set off their charge was a Green Italian HQ unit with poor Leadership; they'd buddy-aided a demo charge off a fallen Engineer, and it took them more than a minute and a half to blow a hole in a wall. Fortunately, the target obligingly stayed put so the blast did immobilise the half track outside the building... Tense couple of turn reviews there...

Well that made sense, but can't help wishing they would decouple the movement from the demolition. Making the blast command simply blow up the upstacle right in front of the unit, depending on facing like with pop smoke... then let the player add a movement order if that's what he needs.

[womble]

Yeah, making it a "special" order rather than a move might make sense. It would, however, rely on the user putting a "long enough" Pause order at the waypoint they want the team to Blast from to allow the demo work to be done. It would also mean they couldn't Pop Smoke themselves. Making it a Combat order would be another option, but that would preclude the team providing their own covering fire until the next waypoint.

[Bulletpoint]

Yeah, making it a "special" order rather than a move might make sense. It would, however, rely on the user putting a "long enough" Pause order at the waypoint they want the team to Blast from to allow the demo work to be done. 

Maybe the game could make them wait until the order was carried out, before letting them continue to move. A bit like packing up a mortar.

It would also mean they couldn't Pop Smoke themselves. Making it a Combat order would be another option, but that would preclude the team providing their own covering fire until the next waypoint.

That might be reasonable, given that they'd be busy preparing the demolition charges ?

[womble]

 

Maybe the game could make them wait until the order was carried out, before letting them continue to move. A bit like packing up a mortar.

Yeah. Though more like a "Deploy" time (no need to pack up the bits, and it happens before the weapon fires  ).

That might be reasonable, given that they'd be busy preparing the demolition charges ?

'Cept the restriction would also persist until the next waypoint. Making it a Special order would be "better", IMO, though still you'd have to have someone else make the smoke if smoke was needed. As it stands, you can micro it so that they pop smoke to protect themselves, blast a hole and move through it while firing. Some portion of that would have to go if you changed it to either a Combat or a Special order. Unless "Pop Smoke" and "Deploy" aren't exclusive... Though what would happen then if your MG team buddy-aided a demo pack off someone? And Deploy doesn't have a directionality to it; I don't think just having that as the thing you press would quite suffiice; it'd have to be something very like Pop Smoke, which would probably preclude that going off simultaneously.

[Bulletpoint]

Though what would happen then if your MG team buddy-aided a demo pack off someone? 

Well, would a machinegunner even know how to use a demolition charge? I don't know how sophisticated those things were, or if your average grunt had any demolition training in WW2...

[RockinHarry]

Checked the older CMX2 manuals with regard to "blast" and it was a "move" sort of command right from the start (had to recheck it since I failed to remember how it was 5 years ago). My guess is that the move portion was needed to get it to work for the AIP as well, as otherwise there would´ve been either no use for blast at all, or the AIP would´ve blasted things at every opportunity. However, it would be one the features I´d wish to be changed without regard to the AIP. Getting things to work equally for the AIP and human players could be a tight self restriction and the AIP already lags far behind any human opponents in these regards. Other topic...

I did the vertical area fire test with US vs germans as previously reported and figured there might be a problem with US squad capabilities under these same conditions (blast, breach and diagonal area fire into neighbouring building). The blast/breach makes quite a big dust cloud in the immediate vicinity and it wasn´t a problem for german squad to target area fire through that cloud at earliest opportunity. It´s different for US squad and so far it can only start diagonal area fire once the cloud dissipates which is usually about a minute later. Can someone help testing this? Otherwise there could be a problem with US squads beeing at disadvantage in certain circumstances, although from logical POV that shouldn´t actually be the case. I´ll do start some further tests with UK units to see if there are differences too.

Here´s the test battle file to be played from US:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vmj2tg228cknffe/!0RoomDown_US.btt?dl=0

Further observations:

Diagonal area fire is not equally effective, if the defender is aligned on different walls of a room, i.e if the defending team/squad faces towards the wall adjoining the other building (side wall). In this situation, less small arms fire can actually hit the defenders individual soldiers, as opposed to when the defending unit faces away, beeing right at the end of the diagonal direct fire paths of the attacker above. Beeing at (actually below) the breach, puts a number of soldiers in an dead angle, resulting in less casualties from the diagonal area fire. There´s no increased safety from hand grenades though. I tested with 1 AS size buildings only. Results may vary further for bigger buildings/rooms, with a defender having more opportunities to "face" along walls and windows.

Beside that, US squads can equally wreck havoc on german infantry by use of diagonal area fire through a breached wall. There´s always the random factor imposed to area fire with it´s random direct fire dispersal and random use of hand grenades. One time I only get 2-3 germans killed, at other times half a squad gets wiped out, after one turn of area fire. As said, the german squad can start area fire immediately after the breach, while the US squad needs to wait until the dust cloud dissipates. Needs confirmation.

Another tacAI behavior that needs to be taken into account is when an attacking infantry unit moves through the breach into a neighbouring building and its morale breaks, it will start to retreat out of the building beeing currently in. I.e if an infantry moves though a breach into the 3rd story of a buildings and breaks, it won´t move back through the breach to where it came from, instead it will move all the way down through the enemy building to leave. Sort of nasty running the gauntlet.

Edited October 2, 2015 by RockinHarry
test file added and further comments

[Bulletpoint]

There is also another problem with the blast command: After blasting, the squad moves using 'FAST' order movement.

This means prioritising movement over firing at enemies. Ideal when you just want to blow a hole in bocage and then move quickly to cover. But not quite so ideal when storming into a building to clear it of enemy forces.

Sometimes, the breach team runs past several enemies to get to the other side of the room, then get shot in the back.

I know that building interiors are abstracted, but we are talking about clearly spotted enemies in this case. It would work better if the squad moved using QUICK.

[RockinHarry]

There is also another problem with the blast command: After blasting, the squad moves using 'FAST' order movement.

This means prioritising movement over firing at enemies. Ideal when you just want to blow a hole in bocage and then move quickly to cover. But not quite so ideal when storming into a building to clear it of enemy forces.

Sometimes, the breach team runs past several enemies to get to the other side of the room, then get shot in the back.

I know that building interiors are abstracted, but we are talking about clearly spotted enemies in this case. It would work better if the squad moved using QUICK.

A breach team isn´t quite that suited to deal with superior numbers, even if the enemy is currently stunned (from the blast) and has taken losses, the more if soft factors are equal. A crack and high morale breach team might accomplish more vs. lower morale regular or green troops, but I wouldn´t count on it. A full engineer squad would be better suited, or a breach team well timed with an assault team (preferably with lots of SMG), storming in right after the blast with no delay.

From some more testing I figured that diagonal area fire opportunities for germans are not more than for US units after a blast. In the meantime I´d also germans not beeing capable targeting through the dust clouds after a blast, so there appear to be some other (random) factors and likely micro positioning of squad members that either enable the whole squad to shoot somewhere, or not.

I also figured that floors within buildings (staircase abstraction left aside) are one-way so to say, where you can plot area fire down, but not up, WITHIN the same building. Needs more testing and confirmation from other players though.

I now have it happen that a defending US squad acquired LOF/LOS through a breached wall in the same story, to shoot a german 1 floor higher in the neighboring building. It´s hard to describe what happens here....I made a save game. Watch a US retreating soldier now beeing capable to shoot at germans, where it previously wasn´t possible, due to the missing breach on 2nd story: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jb6ea7o1ok2tb30/!0RoomDown 001.bts?dl=0

 

[Bulletpoint]

 

A breach team isn´t quite that suited to deal with superior numbers, even if the enemy is currently stunned (from the blast) and has taken losses, the more if soft factors are equal. A crack and high morale breach team might accomplish more vs. lower morale regular or green troops, but I wouldn´t count on it. A full engineer squad would be better suited, or a breach team well timed with an assault team (preferably with lots of SMG), storming in right after the blast with no delay.

 

Surely a whole squad of veteran combat engineers would have been better, but even that little 3-man breach team could have done the job just fine, if they had stopped to shoot at the defenders.

They had 4-5 seconds to do it, quite a long time for three Garand rifles at 5 metre distance. But they preferred to run past and turn their backs. I know it's off topic, just wanted to explain what I meant. Carry on

[RockinHarry]

Surely a whole squad of veteran combat engineers would have been better, but even that little 3-man breach team could have done the job just fine, if they had stopped to shoot at the defenders.

They had 4-5 seconds to do it, quite a long time for three Garand rifles at 5 metre distance. But they preferred to run past and turn their backs. I know it's off topic, just wanted to explain what I meant. Carry on

Yes, fast and quick move is partly of disadvantage when moving into a room after a breach, but OTOH the dust cloud covers both attacker and defender for the time beeing and in combo with abstracted room layouts makes spotting each other always a difficult affair. Moving in slowly (hunt) would give the stunned defender time to recover and the attacker an even more difficult time. Think only a veteran+ breach team can also act the same time as partly effective close asault team, but at last numbers count and amount of automatic weapons. Teaming up a breach team with a scout team timed to move in together might be an alternative. Next comes room/building sizes and small teams have a more difficult time seeing and finding any enemies in the room. My examples above deal with 1 AS size buildings only and larger ones IMO provide also larger problems and tactical thought to get them cleared out. Think this topic deserves it´s own thread (MOUT), as complex as it is.

[Bulletpoint]

Yes, fast and quick move is partly of disadvantage when moving into a room after a breach, but OTOH the dust cloud covers both attacker and defender for the time beeing and in combo with abstracted room layouts makes spotting each other always a difficult affair. Moving in slowly (hunt) would give the stunned defender time to recover and the attacker an even more difficult time. 

The problem here is not the spotting inside buildings, because my guys spotted the enemy just fine.  In the example I talk about, my troops had clearly spotted the enemy. The enemy soldiers were stunned and in plain view of the assault unit. I clicked on my unit to make sure it was that unit spotting the enemy, and it clearly was. 

The problem is the FAST move order, because it prioritises getting to the destination. Sometimes, troops using FAST will stop to shoot back, but it's quite rare. Using QUICK means much bigger chance of stopping to fire. It's the same when storming a building without blowing a hole in the wall first. You should always use QUICK, never FAST. (In some situations, you can use SLOW too, but that's another story).

But it all comes down to what the blast command is supposed to be doing. If it's an attack command, then it should use a QUICK move order after the blast. If it's an evasive action after the blast, then FAST is the right choice. I think the problem with the blast command is that it's supposed to be both at the same time.

Edited October 3, 2015 by Bulletpoint

[RockinHarry]

The problem here is not the spotting inside buildings, because my guys spotted the enemy just fine.  In the example I talk about, my troops had clearly spotted the enemy. The enemy soldiers were stunned and in plain view of the assault unit. I clicked on my unit to make sure it was that unit spotting the enemy, and it clearly was. 

The problem is the FAST move order, because it prioritises getting to the destination. Sometimes, troops using FAST will stop to shoot back, but it's quite rare. Using QUICK means much bigger chance of stopping to fire. It's the same when storming a building without blowing a hole in the wall first. You should always use QUICK, never FAST. (In some situations, you can use SLOW too, but that's another story).

But it all comes down to what the blast command is supposed to be doing. If it's an attack command, then it should use a QUICK move order after the blast. If it's an evasive action after the blast, then FAST is the right choice. I think the problem with the blast command is that it's supposed to be both at the same time.

I agree that it would come handy for the automatic move to be selectable, incl. not to move (after the blast) at all. Beside any other influencing factors that might come into play, would be the workaround timed blast move (in WEGO), pausing the breach teams blast/move (30 to 45 sec), so you can change the still active (fast) move order into another more appropiate one in the following game turn, while that move is still beeing executed.

[A Canadian Cat]

 I think the problem with the blast command is that it's supposed to be both at the same time.

That I would agree with. When I am blasting walls and bocage I always blast along the obstacle or up to it. That way there is no issue of my breach team going through the hole they just made. I realize that is no help in buildings. It would be nice if there was a way to control it. 

[MOS:96B2P]

 

<Snip> I also figured that floors within buildings (staircase abstraction left aside) are one-way so to say, where you can plot area fire down, but not up, WITHIN the same building. Needs more testing and confirmation from other players though.  <Snip> 

If this one way downward fire is true it would make clearing buildings from the top down (when possible) the MOUT TACSOP of the game imitating RL.   Of course the problem is the buildings must share common walls so you can fight your way to the top of the first building on the block and then advance down the street clearing the remaining buildings from top to bottom.     

<Snip> the workaround timed blast move (in WEGO), pausing the breach teams blast/move (30 to 45 sec), so you can change the still active (fast) move order into another more appropriate one in the following game turn, while that move is still being executed.

This.  I try to never have my demo teams make the entry.  They make the breach and an assault team goes in while at least one other unit targets light into the building.    

 

[RockinHarry]

If this one way downward fire is true it would make clearing buildings from the top down (when possible) the MOUT TACSOP of the game imitating RL.   Of course the problem is the buildings must share common walls so you can fight your way to the top of the first building on the block and then advance down the street clearing the remaining buildings from top to bottom.     

This.  I try to never have my demo teams make the entry.  They make the breach and an assault team goes in while at least one other unit targets light into the building.    

 

 

As said, one way downward fire was observed for "area fire" only and 1 AS size buildings. Need to make some more tests. Breaching a wall within buildings (toward adjoining buildings) opens new LOS/LOF opportunities at various angles up- and downwards. Hard to describe what actually happens, but most the time it´s pretty much unexpected.

I too find it a waste sending breach teams anywhere after the blast command. Way to valuable to be used as close assault teams and too vulnerable as well.

An additional test intended to attempt multistory, simultaneous blast moves into a neighboring building revealed, that when the blasts are not closely coordinated, very strange things can happen. There were 3 german engineer units in a building, each in its own story (1-2-3), ordered to blast move into exactly the opposite story of a neighboring building. One the german squad was crack experience, the remaining 2 veterans. The crack squad executed its blast/breach after 8 seconds. I expected to see the veterans execute their blast after the normal 15 seconds, but that was not to happen. Instead they canceled their actual blast, but kept their (blast) movement order waypoint active and started their movement through the newly created breach (the one made from the crack para engineers). One blast yet was executed by one the remaining german squads, but it didn´t went through the intended wall, but right into the enemy building, one story lower.

Here´s the save file. Just check the 3 german units (para engineer, Heer engineer and breach team) and their blast order, then hit Go and see what happens:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8ynhcqnpurebx7o/!0RoomDown_GE_LB 001.bts?dl=0

If all german units were of veteran type, they would´ve executed the blast command simultaneously (after 15 seconds) and at/through the intended walls.

I also figured another diagonal area fire variant: Works for flamethrower teams as well.

Edited October 3, 2015 by RockinHarry
typos