How to proceed in battle ?!

[Ultradave]

16 hours ago, AdamPraha said:

Enemies just keep popping out of the bushes and there's nothing you can do about it. There's no technique for that...

 

Shoot them?  Seriously though, that's the time to hit pause, and issue some new orders. Cancel the current orders and take care of the unexpected threat. 

What you are describing is not unique. It's what's going to happen. Remember the old maxim "No plan survives first contact with the enemy" This is true in CM, and it's true in real life. Prepare to be flexible to meet new threats. 

Maybe look up movement techniques. Traveling, Traveling Overwatch, and Bounding Overwatch.  Some variations on that will serve you well in any situation where you are advancing. Bounding overwatch mostly because we know contact is expected if it hasn't already happened. One element covers from a good position while the second element moves. Then they cover while the first moves past them. It's basic tactics. One acts as a base of fire while the other moves either to contact or to flank.

Dave

[Erwin]

FWIW: The primary tactic that works for all CM games (unless your units are all armor) is to send several 2-man scouts ahead to spot enemy positions - especially the most dangerous: ATGM's and ATG's (and tanks of course).  The best approach is to kill those asap with arty or mass fire from tanks etc.  Once the ATGM's and/or ATG's are dead, then one can maneuver with more "safety" vs enemy units.  

[chuckdyke]

Two men scout teams on Hunt. Press H after the first waypoint all subsequent waypoints also have Hide on them. I found the usually expendables have a much higher survival rate. Two rifles are not much use, unless your name is Clint Eastwood and order he locals to get off his lawn after the war. 

Edited April 4 by chuckdyke

[AdamPraha]

19 hours ago, Vacillator said:

From which side? 

I played it in a PBEM as Soviet (and won, for what it's worth). 

The idea of 'box formations' doesn't register with me.  I keep tanks in units in close proximity to each other if possible (within reason), and do things like set up for over-watch where I can, but I don't form 'boxes' as their positions are dictated by cover such as treelines, hills, etc.  'Boxes' reminds me of Waterloo, a different type of battle.

I might be missing your point though, apologies if so.

The box formation is not dead! It's far from dead!

It is the most used formation in history since the Ancient Wars. (Falangs)

Balbo formation -Tight aircraft formation.

Combat box - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_box

Tank battle at Prokhorovka where tanks drove into each other in a huge rectangular formation.

Battle boxes are far from dead. I saw them recently in the current battle on the eastern front.

 

 

 

Edited April 4 by AdamPraha

[Vacillator]

1 minute ago, AdamPraha said:

The box formation is not dead!

It's not something I've used in CM.  I take your point though, except for

2 minutes ago, AdamPraha said:

Tank battle at Prokhorovka where tanks drove into each other in a huge rectangular formation.

I think this has been largely debunked as a myth promoted by the Soviets?

[AdamPraha]

20 hours ago, Vacillator said:

It's not something I've used in CM.  I take your point though, except for

I think this has been largely debunked as a myth promoted by the Soviets?

That's very interesting.

In all the films and testimonies of Soviet tankers this is described. There are pictures of tanks wedged inside each other.

As far as I know the German side complained that the tankers drove into them deliberately.

 

There's a logic to it. These Soviet kamikazes can damage an enemy tank and cause its entire loss!

Not a single tank damaged in battle can ever be repaired. I believe the Soviet tankers in their testimony.

Have a nice day.

Edited April 5 by AdamPraha

[AdamPraha]

On 4/4/2024 at 2:30 PM, chuckdyke said:

Two men scout teams on Hunt. Press H after the first waypoint all subsequent waypoints also have Hide on them. I found the usually expendables have a much higher survival rate. Two rifles are not much use, unless your name is Clint Eastwood and order he locals to get off his lawn after the war. 

This "technique (H) is fun when clearing trenches.
It's really fun.

[landser]

I use the box formation extensively in Combat Mission. But in order to do so you need lavish tank strength on hand. Here's a shot of the final mission in Blunting the Spear, and you can see the four Panthers in the foreground set up in a box. It's a beautiful formation because it puts two barrels in line, anything the lead tank can see and shoot the one behind can too. Mutually supporting. And it is flexible, as the box can rotate in any direction and maintain its integrity.

 

Edited April 5 by landser

[Vacillator]

2 hours ago, landser said:

I use the box formation extensively in Combat Mission

Okay, I take back what I said about boxes.  I think however I do similar things but hadn't thought of it as a box (or otherwise) formation, more like mutual support / overwatch.

4 hours ago, AdamPraha said:

Not a single tank damaged in battle can ever be repaired. I believe the Soviet tankers in their testimony.

I'm not sure what you mean about repair, but you were referring specifically to Prokhorovka? 

All of the recent research (including OOBs before and after, photographic, testimonies from both sides etc.) has concluded that the 'huge clashing together' of tanks at Prokhorovka did not happen.  For example, only a handful of Tigers were actually present at Prokhorovka, and from what I remember from the research 1 or perhaps 2 were knocked out.  A lot of T34s did come to a sticky end, largely as a result of forgetting about their own rather extensive anti-tank ditch.  It is thought that the one-sided Soviet losses led to artificial reports of a more balanced battle in an attempt to excuse the losses to higher command (aka Stalin).  In addition, the Germans held the field for several days after the battle before withdrawing, so they did have the chance to recover and repair while the Soviets did not until days later, by which time I imagine their wrecks would have been attended to in a different way by the Germans. 

Do I know the above is correct? No.  Is the original Soviet version correct?  I very much doubt it.

Of course having said all of this, the Kursk offensive as a whole obviously failed, whatever happened at Prokhorovka.

 

Edited April 5 by Vacillator

[AdamPraha]

On 4/5/2024 at 6:49 PM, Vacillator said:

Okay, I take back what I said about boxes.  I think however I do similar things but hadn't thought of it as a box (or otherwise) formation, more like mutual support / overwatch.

I'm not sure what you mean about repair, but you were referring specifically to Prokhorovka? 

All of the recent research (including OOBs before and after, photographic, testimonies from both sides etc.) has concluded that the 'huge clashing together' of tanks at Prokhorovka did not happen.  For example, only a handful of Tigers were actually present at Prokhorovka, and from what I remember from the research 1 or perhaps 2 were knocked out.  A lot of T34s did come to a sticky end, largely as a result of forgetting about their own rather extensive anti-tank ditch.  It is thought that the one-sided Soviet losses led to artificial reports of a more balanced battle in an attempt to excuse the losses to higher command (aka Stalin).  In addition, the Germans held the field for several days after the battle before withdrawing, so they did have the chance to recover and repair while the Soviets did not until days later, by which time I imagine their wrecks would have been attended to in a different way by the Germans. 

Do I know the above is correct? No.  Is the original Soviet version correct?  I very much doubt it.

Of course having said all of this, the Kursk offensive as a whole obviously failed, whatever happened at Prokhorovka.

 

 That's right. They say 30 tanks destroyed about 300 enemy tanks. On top of that, they fell into their own anti-tank ditch.

I'm not familiar with these new studies. My latest information is from the Cold War. Tank collisions happened mainly at Kursk.

Edited April 12 by AdamPraha

[AdamPraha]

I calculated that there are 90 units in one particular mission.
In order to give them the command to "surge forward...

But the command from cover to cover... I'd have to do it manually. That's 90x50=4500

On average there are 50 manual commands per 1 unit which makes a total of 4500 commands per game. The game is unplayable on offense.

Switching to turn-based game mode solves absolutely NOTHING.
Because you still have to enter those 4500 commands.

 

That's where M.F. is better. Because they have automatic commands for everyone. Move by covering up.

 

Edited April 13 by AdamPraha

[AdamPraha]

I am talking about mission : 

Panzergrenadiere Im Hauptkampffeld

Really beautiful mission. So it's a defensive mission first and also an offensive mission.

 

Edited April 13 by AdamPraha

[Ultradave]

17 hours ago, AdamPraha said:

Panzergrenadiere Im Hauptkampffeld

Well, maybe I see part of your problem here. Or maybe a few problems.

1. It sounds from your posts like you don't have a lot of CM experience. Both scenarios you are "complaining" about are from BP1, all of which were designed by @George MC, who is known for creating challenging and difficult scenarios, with excellent maps, and usually with ugly surprises somewhere when and where you least expect (maybe that's just me, but he's a devil, and I mean that with the utmost liking and respect)   They are great, however, they are not the best to cut your teeth on. That one in particular requires a lot of movement to get to a jumping off point for attack, and yes, it can be a bit tedious, and it's a very poor candidate for a real-time scenario. It's not by any means unplayable, or that would have come out in play testing. The guys who play tested that one are knowledgeable CM players. I'd recommend sorting scenarios by size when selecting one and working on some of the smaller ones first. Smaller does not equal trivial. There are good tactical challenges in them all. Same goes for "Cat and Mouse". It doesn't have that many units but reading the briefing will tell you it's a scenario that requires some finesse, and not a shootout. It's a poor one for RTS IMO because you need to literally play cat and mouse, and do a lot of sneaking around. The map is very large, so things can be happening "over there" while you are attending something and the first you'll know of it is a loud boom and smoke.

2. Someone else suggested @Bil Hardenberger's tactical series. These are excellent, small scale, so they are easy to control.  They are here:

https://battledrill.blogspot.com

3. If you like that BP, then start with the 3 PzGr lessons. They are manageable size. Lesson 1 is even a pretty good candidate for RTS, I think. Small number of units. I just wouldn't plot too far ahead, so that they pause and give *you* a chance to catch up.

4. Speaking of which, if you really like RTS, then don't plot too far ahead. Plot relatively short moves, not all the way to an objective (that's just death waiting anyway - you have no idea what will happen and it will happen so fast you can't react). The units will pause, you can hit ESC and pause and issue some more orders. Make it manageable on yourself.

5. There isn't "Nothing you can do about it"  You can pause, change orders, the units themselves will react on the spot to, say, taking fire from the flank. The will shoot back, go to ground, etc, giving you a chance to pause, issue new orders, and then continue. This isn't CoD where you can't ever stop. Even if you don't pause, you can select a unit, cancel its order (just backspace), and then quickly give it a new order. Yeah, takes practice, so again, start small, work your way to more complex.

Just seems like you are diving into more than you are ready for, from your posts. Good luck.

Dave

Edited April 14 by Ultradave

[AdamPraha]

Hi Dave 

Thanks for your insight into the mechanism.

Unless the scenario is for real-time playability it doesn't matter. Because even if I stop the game the player still has to use a total of 4500 manual instructions.

It is not necessary to play the game turn-based.
 Because in preset 1 minute moves it doesn't solve anything anyway. There will never be a reduction of 4500 movement actions to a total of 90 playable units.

You still have to control them manually even with a reconfigured firing arc. It doesn't matter if it's a huge battle.

This is simply where Mius Front has an advantage, because these tasks are "automated.

But they have all the other disadvantages...for example they don't have weapons or different maps. Just one over and over again. They have a tiny amount of equipment.

 

However, any trick to reduce roughly 50 commands per game to 1 unit simply cannot be reduced in any way. There's not much to learn from it. By the way, this mission is really the best I've ever seen.

I really enjoyed adjusting the defensive position during my inspection. But that doesn't fix the need to use a total of 4500 manual commands per game on this map.

The game can be manually saved and paused.
 But even that doesn't solve the need for 4500 manual commands to units to make the battle real.

[Ultradave]

14 hours ago, AdamPraha said:

However, any trick to reduce roughly 50 commands per game to 1 unit simply cannot be reduced in any way.

You do not need to issue 50 separate movement commands per unit to get to the objective. No way.

15 hours ago, AdamPraha said:

There will never be a reduction of 4500 movement actions to a total of 90 playable units.

Well, read on here and you'll find some ways.

Have you tried issuing movement commands to higher level units? Double click on member of a platoon, for example, and give the unit you click on a movement order, or a movement order with legs, that ends in the cover you want to be at. All the other platoon members will have the same order - parallel lines. Then just move the endpoints of the rest of the units so that they end at good cover spots. That cuts down the workload A LOT. Yeah, you have to adjust, some, but that's less work than plotting every unit from scratch. This is a great scenario to use that on, as you are going to spend the first part moving to a jump off point, probably out of contact with the enemy.

90 units: A bunch are riding, so you only select the vehicle to move and the riders go along for the ride. You only need one movement command per unit to get that attack force over to the middle-ish on the map, moving to the left. Use the method above. The units in the middle aren't doing anything for a while, so that's less to move.

But try all this on smaller more manageable scenarios to get the hang of movement commands. Then you'll find larger ones easier to handle. I recommend again Bil's Battle Drills. 

If you think this scenario is unplayable then you are going to think that 75% of the available scenarios are unplayable. There are many scenarios with large maps and many units but you don't need 50 movement commands per unit to get from your start point to the middle of a map or to an objective. Not even close. That's where your real issue is. Your first turn may be a bit tedious plotting all that movement to the middle where your defensive ring is, but once you do that you can sit back and watch for about 10 minutes or so. Then plot the next set of moves. And I'll emphasize again, you should not be charging the objective with every unit you've got. This isn't Guadalcanal and a Japanese Banzai attack. You need to have a base of fire established to keep the enemy's heads down and hopefully pick off a few, and a maneuver element to assault the objective. Again, that cuts down on the "50 commands" because a number of units are going to be sitting in place and firing, not moving. 

Again, Bil's Battle Drills. 

Dave

 

[chuckdyke]

Good tiny scenario in FB Trouble with Siegfried Imo. It teaches how to clear mines, how to clear a building and finally capture pillboxes. After that little but challenging scenario you can tackle Campaigns of the Capture of Aachen. Blow them all up.