Some Tactical Advice Needed - Rooting out Infantry in a town

[Bud Backer]

All right, so what I read above dovetails with what I thought.

When I went into this battle as the attacker, my purchases and strategy were based on the expectation my opponent would use an elastic, mobile defence. I bought King Tigers because I feared ATGs sniping at me from the woods and knew I could not keep my front to the enemy at all times, so a thick hide was needed. I bought quite a bit of artillery so that I could bombard the various hiding places in those same woods, and of course the town itself. I bought several recon teams so that I could scout the periphery of the map where he might hide in wait and then hit my tanks and other units in their thinner sides or rear. 

I kept my units back for a long time as I scouted, and that was a mistake. There was no reason to delay bombarding the town from a distance. That cost me 20 minutes and almost cost me the battle as I was under time pressure to destroy everything and kill all his units in the objectives. 

My biggest fear was that he would buy a pair of M36s and use them sparingly from the fringes. It would not be insurmountable but would post a serious threat and slow down my operations and limit my ability to maneuver considerably. His ATGs did not cause me much concern once I saw they were 57mm. Yes he had plenty but my recon spotted each one before he ever engaged me with them. When he did it was because I exposed my tanks deliberately to engage them, and progressively took them out one by one. His Hellcats were bottled up in the village, unable to exploit their one asset: speed. I located them with recon and then maneuvered to be able to destroy them one at a time.

Once recon was done and I knew there were no surprises on my flanks it gave me free reign to take his force apart with impunity from long range. He said yesterday “If this is so effective why would I not do it all the time?” We have not had a debrief yet but it seems obvious to me why this worked so easily for me: once I understood that the threats I expected were non existent there was nothing to worry about and he had no capability to slow me or damage me more than incidentally.

What I did not expect and what triggered this thread was his using short target arc range and hide commands to make his infantry quite difficult to spot in town. Once I used the ideas here and my own ideas it was actually shockingly easy to defeat and frankly, a puzzling move as he is actually a very good opponent. 

For my part, I think I could have reduced the KT’s to three and better spent the points on two Brummbärs instead.  

Edited January 28, 2020 by Bud Backer

[Erwin]

2 hours ago, Bud Backer said:

I feared ATGs sniping at me from the woods

 

2 hours ago, Bud Backer said:

...buy a pair of M36s and use them sparingly from the fringes.

Yup.  From looking at the map, those hilly flanks seemed to be where the threat to an attacker would come from.   

[Bud Backer]

That’s what I thought too. I actually preferred to buy less expensive tanks; I almost never use King Tigers but as assault tanks they fit the bill here. 

[Bud Backer]

For the curious, I've enclosed the final screen from the game, and some other tidbits and comments.

As you can see, I destroyed almost everything he had. The remaining men are one intact squad, an HQ team then a collection of singles from mortar teams, ammo bearers, and ATG crews. Had he not surrendered the last objective was going to get hit with a large rocket volley from my Nebelwerfer, and I have 5 intact squads with half-tracks as well as Stummels, autocannon halftracks (20mm) and so on. So all it would do is delay the inevitable. 

In terms of my losses, I think they were mild. I lost a full squad of infantry when a halftrack went over a mine and blew up. I lost an HQ team with the same thing. A few single men here and there killed, and my scouts lost half of the four teams I had doing their work. But they more than anyone made this victory possible because I knew where he wasn't. 

On another note, I saw in a different thread some people discussing the usefulness (or lack thereof) of Stummels. They were an essential part of this battle, pounding enemy buildings relentlessly, causing them to collapse, breaking the enemy squads or killing them in their hiding places. I consider Stummels indispensable. I kept them far back and out of harms way and they were completely worth it. 

The King Tigers turned out to be overkill. But that is a reflection of my opponent's choices. I was prepared for a more powerful AT capability than he had. 

Speaking of the Tigers, one lost the use of it's gun about 1/3 of the way into the battle to an ATG (the only effect of the ATGs my opponent had. And he had 8 ). Nonetheless, it was an amazing mobile MG bunker, and killed an ATG as well as 18 enemy infantry, the second most kills in the entire battle after..

Dora. Meet Dora, she has a lot of kills.

 

Edited January 29, 2020 by Bud Backer

[Bil Hardenberger]

@Bud Backer, next time challenge yourself and take only armored cars.    

Well done, Bil

[Bud Backer]

 @Bil Hardenberger You know I’d be willing to try it!

[Hapless]

Nicely done @Bud Backer

Just trying to get into the defence a bit more: what were the conditions like? It looks pretty snowy in a couple of the screenshots. We're all talking about how the defender should have mutually supporting positions on the flanks, but if you're fighting in poor visibility and those positions can't see far enough to cover one another then despite its drawbacks concentrating in the town might have been the least worst option.

I think one of the things we're glossing over is that your opponent managed to generate so much uncertainty you felt like you needed advice . That's not a trivial achievement: CM is as much about attacking the enemy's decision-making ability as it is about killing his pixeltruppen. Its only a pity that he was unable to exploit it, but without going over the terrain and knowing the exact conditions and points available it feels a little premature to assume that he could.

Not that any of this diminishes your victory at all: there are always things to learn from both sides.

[Bud Backer]

Good questions, @Hapless  

My opponent’s statement after surrendering was that fighting King Tigers when there is good LOS is pointless. He was taking into account the weather. I could see pretty much across 2/3 or more of the map; I was spotting hidden infantry at 400m+ so despite appearances (and frankly, my own expectations that visibility would be bad) there were no difficulties in obtaining longer range LOS.

I really dislike urban combat. I know this is a small village but still, it’s a PITA. His tactic threw me off completely. In another urban battle, in a much larger town, I was able to spot and effectively destroy his forces even though I was outnumbered 2:1. But not seeing them here gave me pause, for sure. I never encountered that sort of defence before. And maybe for good reason as the counter to it is fairly painless so no one uses it. 

Edited January 29, 2020 by Bud Backer

[domfluff]

Quote

Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man

(We'll gloss over Metz here).

Standing directly on an obvious, isolated point is handing the initiative to your opponent. You're giving them all of the time and the space in the world to plan for their attack, and you're making no effort to interfere with their decisions and processes.

There are still reasons to do that sometimes - co-ordinating an attack or a counter-attack is hard, and with low quality troops (e.g., Syrians in CMSF), you may have little option. That's partly why defence in depth is a good idea - if you can replace in-battle manoeuvre with pre-battle positioning, you don't have to worry about your troops pulling off something complex. Instead, if you're creating novel tactical puzzles at each layer, forcing your enemy to adapt and making them work harder than you

It's true that uber-tanks are very powerful (and easy to use). There's a reason why every version of CM ever has had competitive games held with "no tracks" houserules and the like. Certainly elite armour shortens the range of tactical options and limits subtlety. I do continue to reject that the above was impossible for the defender to win - I only have the screenshots to go on, but I do not believe that King Tigers on that map make for an unwinnable situation.

[Bud Backer]

43 minutes ago, domfluff said:

I do continue to reject that the above was impossible for the defender to win - I only have the screenshots to go on, but I do not believe that King Tigers on that map make for an unwinnable situation.

I completely agree. What took me so long in this battle to get to actually attack the town itself was that I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to find the “trap.” The idea that the 95% of the whole enemy force would be within the confines of the village was so inconceivable that I kept looking and looking and looking for an enemy that would actually be a credible threat. And my caution is precisely because I also believe that I could have been in serious trouble here had different deployment and purchase options been chosen.

One of the reasons for this thread was my confusion that I had an enemy I could not see. As it turns out, there really was a lot less to see that I anticipated. 

Edited January 29, 2020 by Bud Backer

[Bulletpoint]

Most of you already know this, but just for the record - You can turn down the amount of powerful tanks a bit by choosing stricter rarity setting.. most of the big German panzers have a pretty steep rarity cost.

Edited January 30, 2020 by Bulletpoint

[Bulletpoint]

On 1/29/2020 at 1:06 AM, Bud Backer said:

The King Tigers turned out to be overkill. But that is a reflection of my opponent's choices. I was prepared for a more powerful AT capability than he had. 

And that's what you got to do. It's the kind of game theory decisions that go on during unit purchase every time .. If the map is open and I bring smaller tanks than you do, I'm almost surely going to lose. Since I don't know what tanks you will bring, I have to assume you're going for the biggest ones available, so I will do the same. I've won several games where the results were sealed by our purchasing decisions.

That being said, I only ever brought heavy tanks to a PBEM once. Most of the games I play are on smaller, more dense maps, and I generally play with very low points costs. I find it gives more interesting situations, because the biggest tanks get left out.

[domfluff]

The extremes definitely narrow tactical options. That's pretty common for most WW2 sims really - if you've a situation where there's an infantry platoon with a supporting tank, the battle is typically going to have two distinct phases, before and after the tank is destroyed.

Losing on the setup screen is something that's common for any kind of points-buy system. It's a (difficult) skill in and of itself, and it can mean that you end up having a battle which is essentially a waste of time. In the case of CM specifically, the time spent is pretty significant, so I do see the value in sensible house rules or some kind of social contract.

[Bulletpoint]

5 hours ago, domfluff said:

Losing on the setup screen is something that's common for any kind of points-buy system.

That's why I would love to have a system that could reliably and randomly choose a decently balanced force for both players. The current auto purchase system in CM is not good enough for this.

If it's too difficult to fix the system, I would like to see a system that chose two random human-designed forces from a big pool of sensible and decently balanced options. That would take away the guessing and counterguessing and arms race to the top we see currently. 

Edited January 30, 2020 by Bulletpoint

[domfluff]

Yup. This is problem with most points-buy systems in general though.

Interesting alternatives include DBA's system, where instead of army lists you have all armies consisting of exactly 12 units, and the composition is what sets them apart.

An easy option you could do alongside CM right now would be to co-opt something like the Combat Commander Random Scenario Generator tables.

For CC, you roll for things like Year and quality of troops, and then can choose from a now-limited selection of formations, one, two or three platoons worth. These formations have attached equipment appropriate for them.

The less you spend, the more likely you are to be the defender (so it's a blind bid, essentially). After choosing, the low bidder can then spend points to make up the difference from period-and-quality appropriate tables (say, artillery support, fortifications and assigned weapon teams). If the lower bidder goes over the high bidder's limit, they get the same opportunity.

There's a little more to it than that, but that's the main thrust of it. It helps with balance that there's no armour in Combat Commander either.

 

 

[Bulletpoint]

7 minutes ago, domfluff said:

For CC, you roll for things like Year and quality of troops, and then can choose from a now-limited selection of formations, one, two or three platoons worth. These formations have attached equipment appropriate for them.

The less you spend, the more likely you are to be the defender (so it's a blind bid, essentially). After choosing, the low bidder can then spend points to make up the difference from period-and-quality appropriate tables (say, artillery support, fortifications and assigned weapon teams). If the lower bidder goes over the high bidder's limit, they get the same opportunity.

Interesting system. There are so many ways to improve on this aspect of CM; I hope somebody picks up on it.

8 minutes ago, domfluff said:

It helps with balance that there's no armour in Combat Commander either.

It would be quite easy to make some sort of optional armour restriction. Letting players choose a limit to how many % of points can be spent on tanks seems quite obvious...

[Erwin]

7 hours ago, domfluff said:

...if you've a situation where there's an infantry platoon with a supporting tank, the battle is typically going to have two distinct phases, before and after the tank is destroyed.

Very true for "conventional" missions.  One could add the other phases:

1)  Send in two man scout suicide teams to get shot and determine enemy positions.

2)  Locate enemy heavy weapons, guns, ATG's, Armor.

3)  Kill or degrade them.

4)  Blast inf with artillery

5)  Assault with one's own armor and inf.

The unfortunate aspect is that once one has become familiar with the phases, all ("conventional") scenarios start to offer pretty much the same gameplay experience - and that gets boring after a few years.  This is why it's been so refreshing to have innovative designers like MOS "reimagining" the CM2 system and designing original and challenging new concept scenarios like Tactical Operations Center (TOC) for CMBS and COUP for CMSF2.  Add Aquila's stunning modding efforts and hopefully this is the future of the CM system.

[Bulletpoint]

On 1/30/2020 at 6:27 PM, Erwin said:

Very true for "conventional" missions.  One could add the other phases:

1)  Send in two man scout suicide teams to get shot and determine enemy positions.

2)  Locate enemy heavy weapons, guns, ATG's, Armor.

3)  Kill or degrade them.

4)  Blast inf with artillery

5)  Assault with one's own armor and inf.

The unfortunate aspect is that once one has become familiar with the phases, all ("conventional") scenarios start to offer pretty much the same gameplay experience - and that gets boring after a few years.  This is why it's been so refreshing to have innovative designers like MOS "reimagining" the CM2 system and designing original and challenging new concept scenarios like Tactical Operations Center (TOC) for CMBS and COUP for CMSF2.  Add Aquila's stunning modding efforts and hopefully this is the future of the CM system.

You're basically saying the same thing as @Domfluff, but with more nuance. I agree that the formula becomes apparent, but there are so many ways I can still make mistakes, even after playing CM for who knows how many years... the devil is in the detail

Edited January 31, 2020 by Bulletpoint

[Erwin]

54 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

I can still make mistakes

You shouldn't put yourself down like that. It's bad for your ego.  And anyway that's your wife's job.

[Bulletpoint]

2 minutes ago, Erwin said:

57 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

I can still make mistakes

You shouldn't put yourself down like that. It's bad for your ego.  And anyway that's your wife's job.

I don't have a wife, so I have to do it myself

[Erwin]

We can interpret that you do everything yourself then? 

 

 

[Bulletpoint]

1 minute ago, Erwin said:

We can interpret that you do everything yourself then? 

 

 

I set you up for that

[Erwin]

Thank you...  Maybe we should go on the road like Laurel & Hardy?  Which one you want to be?  

(Is this OT??)

[General Jack Ripper]

On 1/28/2020 at 7:06 PM, Bud Backer said:

For the curious, I've enclosed the final screen from the game, and some other tidbits and comments.

Congratulations, Bud.

It seems to me all you needed was a little motivation from the gallery in order to get stuck in and win.

[JoMac]

On ‎1‎/‎29‎/‎2020 at 7:44 AM, Bud Backer said:

I could see pretty much across 2/3 or more of the map; I was spotting hidden infantry at 400m+ so despite appearances (and frankly, my own expectations that visibility would be bad) there were no difficulties in obtaining longer range LOS.

That's interesting...you would have thought to only see across 1/3 the map in 'Bad' Weather...I figured you could see maybe 250 meters max (400 meters is way too far in spotting AT/Inf in cover), and spotting enemy Troops hiding in cover to be no more then 100 meters max, and probably less then that.

So,  I'm guessing that the Weather may be only slightly Bad with little snow fall...This, versus Heavy Snow & Winds, etc which would considerably reduce visibility.

*Side Note*...It would also make sense if the 'After Action Report' included 'Field Pieces Lost'...After all, they list 'Other Vehicles Lost, and so why not something important like Field Pieces (which would include AA/Arty/AT, etc).

Edited March 2, 2020 by JoMc67