Rambo Russians

[Sgt Joch]

an oldie, but a goodie:

http://www.2ndbn5thmar.com/CoTTP/Suppression%20McBreen%202001.pdf

suppression is the key, whether in real life or the game.

If you own CMBN, a good scenario to practice on is the 1st mission of the "Road to Montebourg" campaign. Get the modded one in the Repository where you have only green troops. You are attacking over 300-400 meters of open terrain directly towards a series of enemy MG nests/bunkers.

If you try to just attack forward, you will lose. The trick is to move shooters into good firing position and fire your MGs/mortars at all suspected enemy strong points. You should then be able to gradually bring your shooters forward taking advantage of the terrain to eventually outflank and capture the enemy position.

Edited November 10, 2015 by Sgt Joch

[Doc844]

Unfortunately i dont own CMBN, yet.  As towards suppression i couldnt agree more, however i would add in the word, ACCURATE, inaccurate suppressive fire is mostly a waste of time and ammo, if the rounds arent hitting the ground around the enemy then they will stick their heads up and fire back.  Also i think this is where i was having problems, in that i was allowing to much time between my suppressive fire stopping and my assault guys actually putting in the assault.  The reason for this is two fold, firstly quite often my assaulting guys would begin to get suppressed by their own friendly fire even though it is coming in perpendicular to their assault route, secondly if i got my timings wrong then the supporting fire would mow down my own assault group, so i naturally erred on the side of caution.  Its a shame there isn't an option to be able to slow the rate of fire in say the last ten seconds and then give a switch fire command to either off to the side or to a more in depth possible enemy position, i imagine that is a lot to ask though.  Mainly i think its just about practising the suggestions that you fine chaps have posted here.  Over and over and over and over and over, you get my drift.  lol.

[JasonC]

Doc844 wrote in relevant part " i couldnt get LOS into the copse until i was pretty much on top of it, 30m i think".

If you don't have LOS into the patch of trees farther than 30 meters, and your halftrack can't see it either, what are the odds that the position actually matters?

Positions that can't see anything don't threaten anything.  You shouldn't be spending time or lives to take them.

Positions that can see things can be seen from a distance, themselves.  This allows heavier overwatch assets to bear on them.

There can be "keyhole" firing positions that you can approach out of LOS using the "shadows" they rely on to mask your overwatch, to get near them safely.  But they still need some long range pencil of field of fire or they just don't matter, they are "defeated" by their own lack of LOS.  If they do have penciled, keyhole LOS, then they need to cross it with some other long thin pencil or you just stay in the shadows.  Overlapping pencils can interdict wide areas, but you only need to "blind" a few to get through them.  The rest can just be left out of position as irrelevant.

The other time a position without long LOS can be something you do have to reduce is a reverse slope situation.  A reverse slope position can have highly relevant LOS, blocking all approach routes in conjunction with others on the same (enemy) side of the hill or LOS break.  Those need to be approached behind fire, or better still turned out of position, if at all possible.  The slope acts as the attacker's shield to pick whether, when, and where to engage.

Fundamentally, you need to create fire and movement problems for your opponent more than focus on ground control yourself.  Especially the fire problem "I can't see anything from right here", leading to the movement problem "I have to move, myself, I can't just wait for him to come to me" - because you never will, because you don't need to.

There can be a need to get close enough to a firing position that matters to get good full spots of stealthy shooters there.  That happens all the time.  But that doesn't require running right on top of them - cover at 200 yards often suffices, 100 yards at the closest.

It is certainly true that you can't kill to the last man, enemy squad infantry forces in solid cover, from 200 meters using just small arms, yourself.  But you can't do it from 5 meters either.  If you have heavier overwatch weapons, the drill is infantry close enough to get full spots, overwatch works them over, infantry leap frogs down to SMG range.  That should make the pin on them permanent, if you have the numbers attackers need to be attacking infantry in solid cover in the first place.  If, after the pin looks permanent, you leapfrog a half squad or three to 30 meters to toss in grenades, that is as much "finishing" as the drill calls for.

Leave bayonet charges to dead Spartans.  They are just unnecessary here, practically always a mistake.  You've already seen why - they hand leftovers who are already defeated and ineffective if not charged to point blank into full squad killers, without any effort of their part.  Just sitting there to exploit your mistakes and your solving their fire and movement problem for them.

To review, the right thing to do about an ATR team in a copse of trees that your armor can't see and that your infantry can't see into until 30 meters range is (1) ignore it.  It is out of position, it might as well be on the moon.  (2) second best, put a squad at 30 meters and first LOS (split), and leave it there.  If they open on anything, they are dead.  if they move, they are dead.  They are in a jail cell, it is cheap, pressing further is as likely to get that many killed as to clear the spot cheaper.  Revert to (1) if you need the squad back, if the enemy doesn't blink first.

Get passive-aggressive with your infantry, is the broader lesson.  Go to a reasonable spot near him, and dare the enemy to move.  You don't need to go into his hole.

I hope this helps.

[Baneman]

... secondly if i got my timings wrong then the supporting fire would mow down my own assault group, so i naturally erred on the side of caution.  ...

A point here - in game, friendly fire needs to be .50 cal or larger in order to cause friendly casualties.

Smaller calibres will only cause suppression, it cannot hurt your men.

[womble]

Apart from ricochets. Once bullets hit a wall, they forget who their "friends" are...

[A co]

There are several types of cases where I find it 'sub-optimal' to leave enemy stragglers bypassed in cover, even if I have a team to try to baby-sit them. 

Where they have several routes to crawl out and cause mischief with special weapons, by spotting my units, by having a radioman I didn't see who can call arty, a bazooka man or Panzerschrek or sniper I didn't see. Even if their start position had no LOS to anyplace, they can crawl away. 

Or where you end up with a network of enemy stragglers in your rear area. Or want to bring up vulnerable units like unarmored Flak, mortars, FO jeeps, etc. 

For reasons like this I feel like there is quite often no choice but to pay the price of clearing copses, houses, etc. And this being a game in which you know everything your most isolated stragglers know, these stay-behinds have value as targets.

[Doc844]

That is partly what I was geting at.  My Batt CO and associated elements were going to park in that field near the copse so for me I had to be 100% sure that the area was clear.  I just didn't do a very good job first time round.

[Lille Fiskerby]

I would never have thought of Bulletpoints idea of slow movement but it does make some sense :

you are a more easy target standing than crawling, I will try it out but there is one thing, your

pixeltruppen gets tired very fast when using slow command vs. using hunt or quick command.

BTW what about using the squads smoke granades in these kind of situations, if the enemy

cant see you, you could move to a better position under the cover of smoke.

[Bulletpoint]

I would never have thought of Bulletpoints idea of slow movement but it does make some sense :

you are a more easy target standing than crawling, I will try it out but there is one thing, your

pixeltruppen gets tired very fast when using slow command vs. using hunt or quick command.

Definitely true they get tired when crawling, but that's why I only use the "crawlsault" when I am pretty sure where the enemy is, within a few squares. If I only suspect an enemy, I will use HUNT. If I don't think there will be any enemy, I send a couple of scout teams through on QUICK. 

[17pounder]

He was probably the political commissar for that unit and he knew what was coming if the enemy caught him alive.