Changing Formations from Column to Line Abreast

[Peter Dunkin]

I am thinking in particular of simulating for example a Russian motor rifle company, or battalion, attack, with units - say BTRs and  tanks - in columns, then changing to line abreast formation before closing with the enemy.

I can see nothing in the manual about changing formations of units or any simple command that might accomplish this.

Is it possible?

However as 

As a very new player I may well have missed something and if this is a very simple question, which is well covered, then I do apologise. But any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks. 

[chuckdyke]

43 minutes ago, Peter Dunkin said:

I am thinking in particular of simulating for example a Russian motor rifle company, or battalion, attack, with units - say BTRs and  tanks - in columns, then changing to line abreast formation before closing with the enemy.

I can see nothing in the manual about changing formations of units or any simple command that might accomplish this.

Is it possible?

However as 

As a very new player I may well have missed something and if this is a very simple question, which is well covered, then I do apologise. But any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks. 

Need to do reading to find the right references and do it manually doing micro management. Which is testing and more testing to find the right solutions. Involves combining fire orders blend with all of the move orders etc. Anything can be solved by just playing the game's scenarios which are more sandbox exercises. Save often so you can go back if something didn't work out.

[Peter Dunkin]

Thank you Chuckdyke for reply. Much appreciated. 

[chuckdyke]

9 minutes ago, Peter Dunkin said:

Thank you Chuckdyke for reply. Much appreciated. 

In the game go to any AFV HQ and double click which selects every vehicle in the formation. Make two or more waypoints which you can highlight to modify and drag anywhere and even plot fire orders. That is how you can change formations. Read up how different nations execute their doctrines. Happy Gaming.

[Artkin]

Yeah so units cannot just make formations. Every unit has to be individually moved into their place. However, you are able to select all units under a command (By double clicking the platoon, company, battalion commander) and you can give them all a movement order at the same time.

There are a couple downsides to this. First: your troops cannot change the angle of the formation when it was originally made (Think if you were following a forest line in parallel and then the forest had a 90 degree angle to the right). You will have to plot out orders one by one, or plot the entire formations orders then manually adjust them.

The second: over distance the formation gets kind of distorted, you can see this easily on larger maps. I'm not sure what causes it exactly, or if some angles (Camera perpendicular to grid squares for instance) will prevent this from happening.

The larger scenarios can be a bit of a pain (especially in real time mode) when plotting moves. This is part of the CM suffering we all go through.

Edited January 23, 2023 by Artkin

[chuckdyke]

8 minutes ago, Artkin said:

First: your troops cannot change the angle of the formation when it was originally made (

You can drag waypoints to new positions impose pause orders or change the speed of traveling. Just by highlighting on the waypoint or between two waypoints. If you select Hunt the vehicle will cancels all waypoints upon full contact with the enemy unit. Tbh I find large scenarios unplayable on RT.

Edited January 23, 2023 by chuckdyke

[Artkin]

15 minutes ago, Artkin said:

or plot the entire formations orders then manually adjust them.

I said that.

[chuckdyke]

5 minutes ago, Artkin said:

I said that.

Ok as long as we are on the same page. Just tried to help the man.

[Peter Dunkin]

Thanks so much guys. 

I will experiment with all that. 

Edited January 23, 2023 by Peter Dunkin

[Erwin]

It's long been requested to have various formation commands to make this much easier, but alas...

[womble]

4 hours ago, Erwin said:

It's long been requested to have various formation commands to make this much easier, but alas...

Given the difficulties that even a simple "follow" command throws in the face of the programmer, it's hardly surprising that formations haven't been cracked. It's easy to see how they'd cause at least as many problems as they solve, given the complexities of CMx2 terrain.

[Erwin]

It's certainly easier to appreciate the difficulties of a "follow along a road" command.  One would think that a formation command would be easier as it's been done in other games.  It all depends on BF's programming priorities.  I think we all hoped that with the MOD contracts that BF would be able to hire more staff for such improvements.