Establishing fire superiority

[Flibby]

I am having issues at the moment pinning enemy forces, in particular enemy units in covered positions such as buildings and/or trenches.

When going through the planning stages I can identify areas with good observation and fields of fire on the enemy positions to facilitate manoeuvre however building fire superiority usually leads to my fixing troops being engaged by the enemy. Makes sense right? The enemy are sat there watching their front and we are moving up to a ridge with good observation of their positions - we can see them and they can see us but they are already set up for the fight with us in their sights. This means that we start from a great disadvantage.

Is this accurate and is there any way around it being a bit bloody to establish fire superiority early in the fight?

[Erwin]

Ideally one needs to use terrain to cover the assault force while approx 90% of your force force pours supporting fire onto the relatively small area being assaulted to suppress defenders.

If terrain cannot be used, then use smoke to create a safer location for your support force to shoot while the assaulting force moves in.

[Grey_Fox]

There are a couple of ways to approach this.

You can use mortars or artillery to suppress or destroy enemy positions (the former is far easier than the latter), giving you the breathing space to move troops into position.

You can use mortar- or artillery-dropped smoke to break up lines of sight and isolate enemy positions from each other.

While the above are being done, move MG teams and vehicles into position to further increase suppression and destruction, followed by infantry pushing to mop up.

Aggressive scouting is necessary to identify enemy positions.

In the WW2 games in particular on-map mortars in direct-fire mode are excellent at achieving suppression and obscuration in timely manner.

[landser]

For me the ideal showcase for suppression in the series is the first mission in Road to Montebourg for CMBN. When I first opened the scenario I thought no way. No way am I getting across this open ground with nothing but infantry and a bad attitude. But of course suppression is a thing in Combat Mission, and I was able to finish the mission with surprisingly light casualties.

This is the map. Wide open, and enemy dug-in on the far side, hemmed in by mines, and supported by pillboxes and artillery. It's a killing zone of the first order. You have no heavy weapons, vehicles or armor.

 

 

For me, crew-served machine guns are rather ineffective in this game for whatever reason. They rarely contribute the sort of kill numbers I'd expect. So instead of using them as a means to destroy the enemy, I see these weapons as suppression tools. Find the enemy and fix him with machine gun area fire. Just keep pouring bursts in to the position. You're not going to kill anything, usually, with an occasional exception. But you can keep their faces in the dirt.

For the mission above, it was a combination of this area fire from my machine guns, combined with liberal use of smoke and artillery. It takes a long time to move the troops across this much open ground, and so the suppression effort has to be kept up throughout so that you can maneuver the troops forward and avoid having them in turn become pinned down. It's a matter of fire superiority I reckon, and the AI doesn't use area fire much if at all, so the player has this advantage as long as the ammo stocks can support sustained suppression.

My example may not help the OP much, but I'd recommend this scenario for anyone who wants to see a perfect example of how suppression can work in Combat Mission, and how to accomplish it in a scenario which is designed to make it essential to success.

[Flibby]

1 hour ago, Grey_Fox said:

There are a couple of ways to approach this.

You can use mortars or artillery to suppress or destroy enemy positions (the former is far easier than the latter), giving you the breathing space to move troops into position.

You can use mortar- or artillery-dropped smoke to break up lines of sight and isolate enemy positions from each other.

While the above are being done, move MG teams and vehicles into position to further increase suppression and destruction, followed by infantry pushing to mop up.

Aggressive scouting is necessary to identify enemy positions.

In the WW2 games in particular on-map mortars in direct-fire mode are excellent at achieving suppression and obscuration in timely manner.

 

Thanks for the reply - it makes sense to use more off-map artillery with pre-planned barrages, but then problem arises with using artillery after this point - you still need a spotter in LOS to the enemy, and therefore able to be shot are surely?

[Flibby]

1 hour ago, landser said:

For me the ideal showcase for suppression in the series is the first mission in Road to Montebourg for CMBN. When I first opened the scenario I thought no way. No way am I getting across this open ground with nothing but infantry and a bad attitude. But of course suppression is a thing in Combat Mission, and I was able to finish the mission with surprisingly light casualties.

This is the map. Wide open, and enemy dug-in on the far side, hemmed in by mines, and supported by pillboxes and artillery. It's a killing zone of the first order. You have no heavy weapons, vehicles or armor.

 

 

For me, crew-served machine guns are rather ineffective in this game for whatever reason. They rarely contribute the sort of kill numbers I'd expect. So instead of using them as a means to destroy the enemy, I see these weapons as suppression tools. Find the enemy and fix him with machine gun area fire. Just keep pouring bursts in to the position. You're not going to kill anything, usually, with an occasional exception. But you can keep their faces in the dirt.

For the mission above, it was a combination of this area fire from my machine guns, combined with liberal use of smoke and artillery. It takes a long time to move the troops across this much open ground, and so the suppression effort has to be kept up throughout so that you can maneuver the troops forward and avoid having them in turn become pinned down. It's a matter of fire superiority I reckon, and the AI doesn't use area fire much if at all, so the player has this advantage as long as the ammo stocks can support sustained suppression.

My example may not help the OP much, but I'd recommend this scenario for anyone who wants to see a perfect example of how suppression can work in Combat Mission, and how to accomplish it in a scenario which is designed to make it essential to success.

 

I remember doing that mission - it was incredibly difficult to deal with the bunkers which refuse to die to the MG's as you say, and only get whittled down by a few lucky shots - once you get the infantry close enough they can do more damage than the MGs.

 

In that scenario though it sort of does go to my point - whilst you establish the MGs and mortars you get peppered by the enemy.

[Grey_Fox]

17 minutes ago, Flibby said:

 

Thanks for the reply - it makes sense to use more off-map artillery with pre-planned barrages, but then problem arises with using artillery after this point - you still need a spotter in LOS to the enemy, and therefore able to be shot are surely?

Yup, that's what the aggressive scouting is for. Give the FO a short target arc and move him to a position from which he can call for fires. Similarly, you can move on-map mortar teams to positions from which they can engage enemy positions and engage in direct fire.

[domfluff]

Welcome to the concept of Shaping.

Crew served weapons are primarily about suppression (in fact, most weapons are primarily about suppression), so the challenge is how you create conditions such that you can deploy them effectively.

In this particular case, you're advancing across mostly open ground against a dug-in enemy, including trenches and bunkers. This is pretty much a worst-case scenario, and as such there's an expectation of casualties. It also means that this isn't the most interesting or representative of scenarios, and not a great example of this kind of concept, but shrug.

You need to identify your win-states - imagining what an advantaged position might look like, and then work out what conditions are required to construct that. This is neither easy to define or do, and there's an art to this.

In the specific case of that CMBN mission, you might identify that the bunkers are the enemy centre of gravity. You might decide that you can effectively suppress these bunkers if you're able to get sufficient MG and mortar fires onto them, but you have the issue of how you can get your crew-served weapons set up to get that suppression in place.

That means that you're looking for what conditions you can change to shape the battlespace, and give you the freedom of operation you desire. In this case, if the bunkers are the problem, then a smoke mission to blind them should allow you a window of time to get your crew served weapons set up.

This pre-supposes a couple of things:

1) You have determined that the bunkers are the enemy centre of gravity
2) That your solution to the bunkers is setting up crew served weapons
3) You need a solution to give you the time to set these up.

That may or may not be a valid course of action, and that's something which you can debate, or seek out alternatives.


In a more general sense, and to answer the original question, "How to create fire superiority", you're looking to create unfair situations on a local level. To use the terrain and your forces to construct situations where you can bring your strength against a minority of the enemy. If you have a platoon, and the enemy has a platoon, but you manage to attack their platoon one section at a time, with the full weight of your platoon, you're going to have overwhelming fire superiority, three times in a row. 

"But what if they move", yes, so the important thing is to consider the situation from the enemies perspective, and to control your battle-space such that you can deal with this reaction. You might have a section of your platoon dedicated to suppressing the enemy, another section moving for the assault, and a third section providing security, guarding the main line of reinforcement, and isolating the enemy you're focusing on. The entire purpose is to control the space, to give yourself maximum freedom of movement and available options, whilst denying those to your opponent. That's far, far more important than the set-up time of an MG or whatever the kill counter says - if you can shape the battlefield correctly, then you can get yourself in a situation where you've won long before the first shot is fired. 

[fireship4]

On 8/25/2022 at 5:24 PM, domfluff said:

Crew served weapons are primarily about suppression

They suppress well because they kill well.  Doctrines refer to suppression a lot: it's the next best thing to an enemy incapacitated.  Surrendered is even better, with 'not there' at number one.

You suppress an enemy when forcing their decisions away from action you dislike: looking in your direction, shooting at you, fleeing, etc.  They may move to achieve this: as long as you continue to force the decision, they are suppressed.  They become less dangerous and harder to kill.

A machine gun firing at sufficiently trained infantry in the open will not suppress them.  They will lie down and engage it, or die trying.  With available cover, they will use it to the detriment of their abilities to the extent they are forced.

Artillery and machine guns are about killing as effectively as possible.

[domfluff]

So this is an opinion entirely unmatched by the totality of military history, historic doctrine and current practice.

I'm honestly a bit curious where it's pulled from.

[chuckdyke]

On 8/25/2022 at 10:49 PM, landser said:

This is the map. Wide open, and enemy dug-in on the far side,

You need to go on POV so work with Camera Position 1. Base of Fire on the right maneuver on the left. Once the HMGs suppresses the Germans it is game over for the Germans. Your mortars will obscure the German assets which will enable to deploy the HMGs. Road to Mounteburg is an excellent introduction to CM. 

[Vergeltungswaffe]

8 hours ago, domfluff said:

So this is an opinion entirely unmatched by the totality of military history, historic doctrine and current practice.

I'm honestly a bit curious where it's pulled from.

[Bulletpoint]

On 8/25/2022 at 6:05 PM, Flibby said:

I remember doing that mission - it was incredibly difficult to deal with the bunkers which refuse to die to the MG's

Are there any bunkers in this mission? I only remember there being a very small German infantry unit in the hedgerows.

[Flibby]

2 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Are there any bunkers in this mission? I only remember there being a very small German infantry unit in the hedgerows.

Sadly not - loads of these annoying bunkers: