Infantry useless?

[Artkin]

3 hours ago, DLaurier said:

I just want you to please go back and correct the attribution.

Guy please? 

Really?

What happened is indeed a mix up. Enough. 

[Vacillator]

2 hours ago, BornGinger said:

Who cares what faults we make while writing our posts. We're all friends here.

+1 to this, well said.

[Pelican Pal]

On 4/4/2021 at 10:10 PM, chuckdyke said:

Graviteam is robotic, no fear, skill levels or motivation.

Graviteam actually has all of those things - its just easier to miss because you are giving orders at a scale up from CM. You need far less micro and the infantry is generally better able to handle itself given vague directions.

Whereas in CM vague directions will get everyone killed.

[chuckdyke]

1 hour ago, Pelican Pal said:

Whereas in CM vague directions will get everyone killed.

Indeed. CM you can command up to a battalion and if you play WeGo replay and examine every single trooper. The replay feature is missing in Graviteam. If you ignore the pyramid stress level, you get that unit killed. I appreciate you bought your PC for the same reason I did that's to enjoy ourselves. In CM you can't ignore anything not even a wounded trooper on the battlefield. I wish for a dedicated medic in updated engines. Large scenarios against my friend on Hotseat makes us happy like a pig in mud. 

[dbsapp]

On 4/16/2021 at 12:23 PM, chuckdyke said:

I don't find any problems with Soviet infantry in RT. They are anything but impotent, just share some screenshots of the tactics you employed. 

In my experience it depends on the mission type. Unfortunately, the stock campaigns in Red Thunder don't provide best experience of infantry usage. Mainly, with some exceptions,  they deal with slow and painful fighting with superior forces well hidden in the bushes or buildings. 

There are several good single scenarios though.  

When I wrote opening post I was struggling with Bunkers Burning scenario. Despite it being quite challenging and interesting, I find it rather unbalanced. Finally, I achieved victory after numerous save and load attempts. 

I downloaded several community-made battles, and they are far better. 

[MikeyD]

A helpful thing for newbies to do would be to go on Youtube and do a word search for Usually Hapless. His Youtube site has been producing some really good basic tutorials on such topics a mines, machine gun theory, buddy aid, infantry movement, splitting squads, firefighting basics...

Awh, heck. Here's where you can find him

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9egpHJiRis89uHkeyJiEug

[chuckdyke]

30 minutes ago, dbsapp said:

Bunkers Burning

I had a look at it. Problem with the Soviet Troops. Here is a Scout unit, experience green, it means he is bad as a spotter. Not much good if you're a scout. Motivation is good you need them as a runner as his platoon doesn't have a radio and has no connection with its company. The scouting unit is not much good no radio if they get contact nobody will know about it. You need to split the green units and make them runners, so their company gets the intel. Things Russians can do HQ can call in artillery there are more means to communicate. It is the generic nature of CM. Bunkers Burning shows a mix of Soviet units, some very experience but their C2 is not on Par with a US unit which were the best supplied with radios. Soviet units need Soviet tactics if you try to apply modern Russian tactics it ends up badly. 

 

[MikeyD]

It should be noted that the Russians made PPSh by literally sawing a Mosin Nagant rifle barrel in half to make two smg barrels out of it. That should give you an indication of the reduced effective range of these smgs. They fire a 7.62 pistol round but its a pretty respectable round with about twice the muzzle velocity of a .45 Colt round (according to distant unconfirmed memory).

[chuckdyke]

It comes close to the US M1 Carbine Round 1600ft/sec vs 1800/sec. I had a look at his scenario and to set up the C2 is challenging his AFV's all have radios of his infantry only the Regimental HQ and an Observer has radios. He has less than an hour to break through. Plenty of obstacles so the Russians will be channeled through 2 chokepoints. Arty is 2X81 mm mortars with 140 HE each plus Smoke. You need the smoke to negotiate the chokepoints.  A Set piece assault and it must be perfectly timed. I would go for destruction of German forces and the exit on the other side of the map. Which gives you the points required. 

[Freyberg]

On 4/18/2021 at 3:07 PM, dbsapp said:

When I wrote opening post I was struggling with Bunkers Burning scenario.

I remember that one - it was a hell of a game, lots of fun

[Lethaface]

On 4/18/2021 at 5:07 AM, dbsapp said:

In my experience it depends on the mission type. Unfortunately, the stock campaigns in Red Thunder don't provide best experience of infantry usage. Mainly, with some exceptions,  they deal with slow and painful fighting with superior forces well hidden in the bushes or buildings. 

There are several good single scenarios though.  

When I wrote opening post I was struggling with Bunkers Burning scenario. Despite it being quite challenging and interesting, I find it rather unbalanced. Finally, I achieved victory after numerous save and load attempts. 

I downloaded several community-made battles, and they are far better. 

My response to your original post 'infantry is useless in CM' would be 'than you didn't learn how to play CM yet'.

Anyway regarding the stock campaigns of CMRT, imo sometimes the point of a mission is to show the strengths and weaknesses of the depicted forces. And or maybe force you to still use them in suboptimal conditions (resembling SNAFUBAR 'Real Life' a little bit), perhaps in creative ways, to achieve objectives.

For example if you throw enough infantry into the fray you can overcome very sturdy defenses, however you will take heavy casualties. The USSR campaign in CMRT has a couple of scenario's which represent that. I enjoyed them, although I can understand they're not everybody's cup o tea.

Still most often the infantry is key (especially in complex terrain) and they are the main tool in dismantling defenses, other assets provide support.
In more tank friendly terrain tanks can be the main asset, but they still need infantry to support them for various tasks. 

But yes in general the infantry task is to do the dirty work: finding the enemy and endure the artillery, dying. There is a reason they called infantry 'cannon fodder', their job is to do or die not to question why

And obviously infantry are squishy, especially compared to armored vehicles and usually they don't stand a chance against them 1-1 in the open or at distance. However, go into close quarter combat in complex terrain and the infantry will dominate unsupported tanks.

CM has a rather long learning curve, I guess it's reasonable easy to get into the game (although harder than the average RTS), but it takes a long time to master. 

The finesses of infantry combat are among the more complicated affairs in CM, imo.

Edited April 19, 2021 by Lethaface

[Artkin]

Holy crap. That pistol round may have a little more than half the diameter of that .45, but with the speed, it's hitting twice as hard... 

[z1812]

On 4/17/2021 at 11:07 PM, dbsapp said:

In my experience it depends on the mission type. Unfortunately, the stock campaigns in Red Thunder don't provide best experience of infantry usage. Mainly, with some exceptions,  they deal with slow and painful fighting with superior forces well hidden in the bushes or buildings. 

I presume, by your comment above, that you have not done much reading about feet on the ground in World War 2. The difficult job of rooting out defenders from entrenched positions fell to the infantry. Yes it can be slow and difficult, just like it was in reality. Combat Mission is not a Real Time Click Fest. It is much more simulation than game. That is why some countries use it for training purposes with their Military. 

[Erwin]

6 hours ago, Lethaface said:

their job is to do or die not to question why

It's even worse than that:  "Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die." 

[Bozowans]

On 4/4/2021 at 9:42 PM, dbsapp said:

Burning bunkers mission is the great example of infantry negligible role in the game. You have hundreds of soldiers, but the only things you need are the tanks with flametowers, which you have to direct manually, because they don't see German machine guns firing under their nose. Infantry can't make it even close to German positions. For the whole time playing the game I saw my men firing at the enemy maybe twice, despite I tried to place them at the locations with line of sight on their foe.

A very, very long time ago I made a video about that Burning Bunkers mission. It doesn't show half the battle but it showed my big final human wave infantry assault. My infantry got quite a few kills in there.

 

We are the Soviets here, comrade. We don't have time for any silly bourgeois niceties like "tactics" or "finesse". We just have to throw ourselves at them. The courage and indomitable spirit of the working class shall always prevail!

[mjkerner]

Enjoyed watching that one every so often over the years, Bozowans.

[dbsapp]

8 hours ago, Bozowans said:

We are the Soviets here, comrade. We don't have time for any silly bourgeois niceties like "tactics" or "finesse". We just have to throw ourselves at them. The courage and indomitable spirit of the working class shall always prevail!

I've already watched your video. It's more cinematic than instructing, but I got the idea. 

I accomplished this mission in a different way: concentrated the forces on the left side and went through under smoke cover. It produced good results. 

Overall this mission is a massive joykiller. Terrain is constructed specially to dump attackers field of view. The most awful part is the scripted Stug, coming from cover when your tanks (which can't penetrate it from the front) are going into attack, and flak, hidden in the trees. 

Unfortunately, even game manual promotes strange idea that Soviet troops were some sort of brainless numerically highly superior  hordes that fought by simply throwing at the enemy as much human bodies as necessary. This twisted image came from Hollywood movies, like "Enemy at the gates", and memoirs of German generals, who blamed weather, Hitler and "hordes" for their defeat. This notion is very far from reality.

 

[BornGinger]

On 4/19/2021 at 9:27 PM, z1812 said:

The difficult job of rooting out defenders from entrenched positions fell to the infantry. Yes it can be slow and difficult, just like it was in reality.

When doing this it would have been more intetesting if the trenches were deeper than they are in the games to make it harder to know what's behind the corners. But to make it more "real" there would have to be the option to choose to chuck a grenade before moving forward in case there were enemies there.

[Lethaface]

7 hours ago, dbsapp said:

I've already watched your video. It's more cinematic than instructing, but I got the idea. 

I accomplished this mission in a different way: concentrated the forces on the left side and went through under smoke cover. It produced good results. 

Overall this mission is a massive joykiller. Terrain is constructed specially to dump attackers field of view. The most awful part is the scripted Stug, coming from cover when your tanks (which can't penetrate it from the front) are going into attack, and flak, hidden in the trees. 

Unfortunately, even game manual promotes strange idea that Soviet troops were some sort of brainless numerically highly superior  hordes that fought by simply throwing at the enemy as much human bodies as necessary. This twisted image came from Hollywood movies, like "Enemy at the gates", and memoirs of German generals, who blamed weather, Hitler and "hordes" for their defeat. This notion is very far from reality.

 

And TIK is the prophet who knows it all 

Try playing against a human opponent. They might even do 'worse' tricks than the AI, like hiding on the reverse slope with Pz Schrecks that shoot your tanks as soon as they get over the ridge. Somehow you seem to prefer an AI who would just sit in the open allowing you to take them out at your leisure, instead of giving you some challenge to overcome.

[dbsapp]

3 hours ago, Lethaface said:

And TIK is the prophet who knows it all 

Wow, you do hold him at high esteem

[Lethaface]

5 minutes ago, dbsapp said:

Wow, you do hold him at high esteem

Not really lol.

[Bozowans]

58 minutes ago, dbsapp said:

I've already watched your video. It's more cinematic than instructing, but I got the idea. 

I accomplished this mission in a different way: concentrated the forces on the left side and went through under smoke cover. It produced good results. 

Overall this mission is a massive joykiller. Terrain is constructed specially to dump attackers field of view. The most awful part is the scripted Stug, coming from cover when your tanks (which can't penetrate it from the front) are going into attack, and flak, hidden in the trees. 

Yes it's just a cinematic video with no commentary or anything, but it does show that it's possible to get large numbers of infantry right up into the enemy's faces in that scenario, and that infantry is not useless. Soviet infantry can be difficult to use though.

Of course I do agree that Hollywood visions of human wave attacks and brainless hordes of Soviets is silly, but honestly, massed attacks DO work. I find it hard to imagine that they never would have happened in reality. They work in the game even. It's not just a Soviet thing either. I've done stuff like that with the other armies as well. The circumstances and the timing have to be right, but the results can be devastating when you have massed infantry, tanks, and artillery all smashing the same target all at once.

The Soviets do lend themselves well to massed attacks though, not because they are brainless, but because of their weapons. IMO, bolt-action rifles are kind of useless in CM. If a German squad gets its MG taken out, that squad is effectively decapitated. Taking bolt-action rifle fire feels like I'm taking little mosquito bites or something. They might hit someone here and there, but it just isn't effective.

The Germans can't afford to take a lot of casualties, not because they care so much about the sanctity of human life, but because if they lose just a few of their MGs, their firepower is dramatically reduced and they will lose the fight if they don't pull back. How many players get frustrated in CM when the first guy that gets shot is their German MG guy?

As for the Soviets, the material conditions of their armies are set up in such a way where they can take heavy losses and continue fighting effectively. The Soviets are gonna have a hard time gaining total fire superiority by plinking away at the Germans at a distance. Soviet MGs can suppress, but they are not gonna out-shoot the Germans, so they might need to overwhelm the Germans with massed attacks to get in close with those brutally effective SMGs. 

[Lethaface]

Hollywood being Hollywood, the difference in the early war was that Germany had been building their army around a cadre of 100K (Versailles) of their best WW1 officers since the 20s. The German army in 1941 was relatively very well trained, with plenty of experienced officers/nco's, got recent experience in the 39-41 period and because of the success well motivated.

Inside the military low level leadership was encouraged and part of doctrine.

While in 1941 the Red Army was still dealing with the consequences of the purge of the officer corps and while they had some experience in the Winter War that wasn't as successful. On average their troops weren't as well trained. Overall you could say the Red Army wasn't as prepared and motivated to fight in 1941. Over the course of the war the situation reversed, sort of.

Inside the Red Army there was also less of a culture of low level leadership and initiative. 

They were two different armies, organized in different ways. With different 'strengths and weaknesses'. Addressing those and concluding Army X did better in such and such fashion, doesn't automatically mean that person is saying that Army Y soldiers were brainless. Anyone in their right mind knows they were all human and in many cases probably (very) distant relatives.

[BletchleyGeek]

@dbsapp has a point: which is that the Red Army has been very often depicted in very unfair ways. If the same standard would have been applied uniformly across WW2 combatants... which is now starting to be the case.

A good recent book which I recommend everyone here reading is David Stahel's "Retreat from Moscow" which takes a 360 degrees view of one of they key campaigns of the Eastern Front: that of the Red Army counteroffensives in the winter of 1941 and 1942. There are many things to take home from that book, but one that struck me deeply and is 100% relevant to this thread was the analysis that the Red Army offensives were not very successful when comparing the gains made versus the cost.

In particular, it is noted that while the Red Army of December 1941 had more or less the "right brains" at the top (Saposhnikov, Zhukov and Vassilevsky) and a good chunk of the chaff had been weeded out from the army level command (which is basically like the German Korps level), division, regiment and battalion officers and staff were in general as green as anything can be. Which meant that tactics or competent employment of combined arms were rare, and often limited to units that had came from far away Military Districts (like the Transcaucasus or Far East). If you are forced to improvise an army  - because the one you had was already destroyed in 6 months - the results will be apparent. The difference between an armed mob and a military unit is discipline, training, command and control. If any of those four factors are not up to snuff, bad things will happen.

The best kept secret of the Eastern Front is that for most German setbacks in 1941 and 1942, the usual explanation is that they came across a "veteran" (i.e. an outfit that had been active for a few years) Red Army unit which was well supported and sensibly deployed in good terrain.

What made and broke armies in World War 2 was having intelligent, well-trained officers at the division, regiment and battalion levels that were able to work in positive ways with their peers and with their superiors. In my opinion that factor alone trumps almost everything else.

And still, in some situations, mass will be right answer. For an example, consider the battles for the Anzio beachhead in January 1944. There you had plenty of examples of German (German!) armed forces using "human waves" to try and overrun the allied fortified lines (there's even one CM scenario about that, see "Lancing the Abcess").  We talk a lot about trying to hit the enemy where he is weak, and so on, but if the enemy is competent, there may not be weak points to exploit, unless you create them by firepower and attrition. While the German Army bled at Anzio very badly, the US, Polish, Indian and Free French armies bled profusely over the Rapido and the mountains around Cassino. 

So you can find examples of using infantry as "cannon fodder" pretty much across every WW2 combatants. Some of those examples have become ingrained in popular culture more strongly than others.

Are these examples of military genius? I wouldn't say so. But I think that even Napoleon - a military genius and one-man-staff for the Grande Armee - would have had a hard time to overcome reliably and any given Sunday problems like having to crack the Anzio perimeter or breaking out of the Korsun pocket.

[Artkin]

22 hours ago, dbsapp said:

I've already watched your video. It's more cinematic than instructing, but I got the idea. 

I accomplished this mission in a different way: concentrated the forces on the left side and went through under smoke cover. It produced good results. 

Overall this mission is a massive joykiller. Terrain is constructed specially to dump attackers field of view. The most awful part is the scripted Stug, coming from cover when your tanks (which can't penetrate it from the front) are going into attack, and flak, hidden in the trees. 

Unfortunately, even game manual promotes strange idea that Soviet troops were some sort of brainless numerically highly superior  hordes that fought by simply throwing at the enemy as much human bodies as necessary. This twisted image came from Hollywood movies, like "Enemy at the gates", and memoirs of German generals, who blamed weather, Hitler and "hordes" for their defeat. This notion is very far from reality.

 

This guy is beast. You could make a whole CM game on both his Crusader (9hrs long) and Stalingrad (still going...) series... He has a video on Market Garden which I've yet to watch. All of this could be applied to CM..........
 

I think his videos are superior to everyone elses, because they're direct, informative, and everything is depicted for you. Also having a sense of humor makes things much easier to learn from. Not sure why @Lethaface has a grudge... There are other youtubers out there too that are good, but TIK has relevant content atm...

Edited April 23, 2021 by Artkin