Cover in the attack

[Flibby]

I just wanted to spitball something here as I improve my play thanks to a lot of the great info on here.

I have been having some success recently by focussing more on placing my supporting squads/weapons where they can best affect the enemy, rather than the way I would usually play which was to maximise the use of cover above all else and use those positions as a supporting position. 

My rationale is thus: when I'm crouching behind a wall or tree, if I am firing my weapon I'm exposing no more of myself than if I am lying prone. Perhaps more. Yes, of course I can duck behind cover. But in the attack where I'm looking to establish fire superiority to enable manoeuvre, I'm being proactive. What therefore is the benefit of cover? Yes rounds will be coming back, but if prone and showing such a small target, cover surely only allows me to hide and increase the risk of losing fire superiority to the enemy. 

To the contrary, I do see the psychological benefit in the real world of being in cover when reloading etc from experience, but game wise I feel less hampered by sticking to physical cover when effectively the fire that I'm putting down is cover in and of itself if it is suppressing the enemy.

[Glubokii Boy]

1 hour ago, Flibby said:

but game wise I feel less hampered by sticking to physical cover when effectively the fire that I'm putting down is cover in and of itself if it is suppressing the enemy.

This is true imo...

Having more shooters and superior firepower compared to the defender is more important then the actual terrain they are in.

 

[domfluff]

...and that's how one starts to arrive at Soviet doctrine.
 

One of the core tenants of the Soviet way of way is a mathematical adherence to firepower-above-all. You can indeed create situations where firepower alone is sufficient to get the job done, but it's a narrow and single-minded point of view. It can certainly be powerful, but it's successful if and only if you can remain in control of the broader variables, and can successfully shape the engagement to your liking.

As soon as you run into situations where things aren't going your way, you'll start running the risk of such an approach being badly exposed. In those situations, you're often better having some more depth to your thinking, and giving yourself more outs.

There's an analogy I like about this kind of thing, about mountain climbing - one school of thought gives the climber a bunch of different backup ropes, so that they can lose half a dozen of them, and it doesn't matter. This is wasteful of resources, sure, but this kind of redundancy can severely reduce the risk you're willing to accept. The other gives the climber just a single rope, but focuses on making it a really good rope. In this situation, you're following the straight line path to the goal, and if you're not hitting anything outside of the parameters you expect, you're doing it with maximum efficiency and economy of effort.

So yes, it's a viable approach, but it's not necessarily uncovering some deeper truth - rather it's one possible way of thinking, which will sometimes be the best (or least-worst) course of action, but not always, or in every situation.

[Glubokii Boy]

17 minutes ago, domfluff said:

 but it's a narrow and single-minded point of view.

I'm not saying that its the only option to considder  but atleast for me it usually works better if i can have something like 3 units engaging an enemy shooter from different directions eventhough they may not be in the best covered terrain compared to having one guy engaging the enemy from good cover.

 

[Flibby]

I think by way of an example I say this. If we have two units, one in a building and one prone in a field overlooked by the building 

The enemy in the building can only fire out of a window and therefore when they are visible to the troops outside. The troops outside can fire as they please. 

Surely the only benefit to the cover also means that you become a prisoner in that building, as enemy weapon systems will be trained waited for you to appear in the window.

If the enemy was on the roof however, they would lack cover, but would have an elevated firing position, able to dominate the prone troops and increase their angle of attack and target size 

[chuckdyke]

1 hour ago, Flibby said:

If the enemy was on the roof however, they would lack cover, but would have an elevated firing position, able to dominate the prone troops and increase their angle of attack and target size 

You need fire positions and observation and don't mix up the two. If you're up high up, you can see and shoot everybody. But you can fire only one at the time while all of the enemy can fire at you. Read the scenario if it says attack or probe. Mobile units attack other members in the team cover and defend their attacking unit. In the game you peel off the assault unit he gets all the hand grenades and automatic units everybody else defends him. He doesn't defend he does the assaulting. Recon in an attack or assault is ongoing you never know enough intel. 

[Lethaface]

On 9/9/2022 at 10:53 PM, Glubokii Boy said:

I'm not saying that its the only option to considder  but atleast for me it usually works better if i can have something like 3 units engaging an enemy shooter from different directions eventhough they may not be in the best covered terrain compared to having one guy engaging the enemy from good cover.

 

Why not combine them? Troops in good cover but without ability to participate in the battle will probably survive but don't apply any combat power. 
Troops in a good position to apply combat power but without actual cover might get easily suppressed by enemy return fire / mortars / support. 

Normally there will be tradeoffs between various positions and the mission context helps choose. Do you need cover more than wide fields of fire (because you expect artillery working on your positions)?  or are you planning to overwhelm the enemy with firepower in a short bit (ambush plus move out quick), so cover isn't that important? 

[Flibby]

55 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

Why not combine them? Troops in good cover but without ability to participate in the battle will probably survive but don't apply any combat power. 
Troops in a good position to apply combat power but without actual cover might get easily suppressed by enemy return fire / mortars / support. 

Normally there will be tradeoffs between various positions and the mission context helps choose. Do you need cover more than wide fields of fire (because you expect artillery working on your positions)?  or are you planning to overwhelm the enemy with firepower in a short bit (ambush plus move out quick), so cover isn't that important? 

Wouldn't troops without cover be less likely to get pinned, on the basis that they don't have anything to cower behind?

[chuckdyke]

13 minutes ago, Flibby said:

Wouldn't troops without cover be less likely to get pinned,

They don't get pinned, they become casualties. 

[Flibby]

3 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

They don't get pinned, they become casualties. 

Well yes either that or they up their fire and gain fire superiority. Don't get me wrong, I'd be hiding behind a wall/tree...

[chuckdyke]

5 minutes ago, Flibby said:

Well yes either that or they up their fire and gain fire superiority. Don't get me wrong, I'd be hiding behind a wall/tree...

You have ODZ and LDZ Stands for Open Danger Zone and Linear Danger Zones. Areas which are off limits for infantry. Fire superiority with small arms is most of the time a pipe dream. You need at least HMGs. If you played the game for some time you must have discovered that once spotted you are on borrowed time. The reason IFVs were introduced once dismounted infantry makes contact the IFV joins in. 

Edited September 14, 2022 by chuckdyke

[Flibby]

3 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

You have ODZ and LDZ Stands for Open Danger Zone and Linear Danger Zones. Areas which are off limits for infantry. Fire superiority with small arms is most of the time a pipe dream. You need at least HMGs. If you played the game for some time you must have discovered that once spotted you are on borrowed time. The reason IFVs were introduced once dismounted infantry makes contact the IFV joins in. 

Is black sea, of course. It's still more than possible to get fire superiority with platoon weapons in ww2 titles. 

[chuckdyke]

2 minutes ago, Flibby said:

It's still more than possible to get fire superiority with platoon weapons in ww2 titles. 

You meet sooner or later a MG42 in a foxhole and play British Commonwealth. The drill I worked out is. Of a platoon split the three Bren teams which join the HQ with the 50 mm mortar. Here is your fire superiority against a German MG42. From the other three squad you need to peel an assault team to flush him out of his foxhole. It is a matter of mathematics He shoots 1200rpm Three Brens is 3X 600 RPM is 1800. While he can engage one Bren the other two can pin him down. He needs to stay down so the two Brens have to keep up the suppression. So a typical WW2 attack scenario is 1.25 vs 1. Against a human player you need your wits. Against the AI it is a sandbox exercise.

[Lethaface]

2 hours ago, Flibby said:

Wouldn't troops without cover be less likely to get pinned, on the basis that they don't have anything to cower behind?

FWIW in game troops can cower without issue in the open as well as in cover. 

[Flibby]

10 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

FWIW in game troops can cower without issue in the open as well as in cover. 

Absolutely, sorry I wasn't very clear that I was referring to real life. I understand that there is some kind of abstraction of microterrain in-game.

[Artkin]

Are we ready to ceasefire our game?