Platoon deployment

[Enoch]

I've been trying out different ways of deploying infantry in both offensive and defensive situations. Usually you want to deploy two platoons forward with one in reserve if you have the forces available. My question has to do with how close together (under most circumstances) should you deploy your platoons? I find that I often fall victim to getting my platoons to far spread out. It would be nice for me to have some sort of conception of how close platoons should be in order to support one another.

Thanks

[Barticus]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Enoch:

I find that I often fall victim to getting my platoons to far spread out. It would be nice for me to have some sort of conception of how close platoons should be in order to support one another.

Thanks<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, generally speaking I keep my platoons pretty close together. This has the advantage of massed firepower on exposed enemy positions, which is nice, but also has the drawback of providing a nice juicy artillery target. I also like to use the typical 'leapfrog' approach where one platoon stays put and provides covering fire for the other platoon until it reaches cover whereupon the two platoons switch roles. This is all pretty typical stuff but hey, it works. As a side note, if you find that your opponents are buying significant amounts of artillery, a few infantry support vehicles provide a nice mobile firepower platform that is relatively artillery proof. As with anything, though, this too has a drawback in that vehicles cannot enter woods or marsh. I would beware of buying open topped vehicles as they are also vulnerable to artillery fire, although the big .50 Calibre MG on most American vehicles sure is attractive.

hmmmm, Churchill's.

Just my 2 pfarthings worth.

Bart

[Dr. Brian]

Bart's is good.

For me ...Close or apart? It actually depends on the mission. I try to keep them as far apart as possible, in order to accomplish the mission. However, at all times, they are mutually supporting each other. And within that platoon, each squad is mutually supporting the other. This also extends up to companys in the larger scenarios.

Nothing worse than allowing the enema to isolate a platoon, and systematically eliminate, while the rest of the company looks on.

[Pvt. Ryan]

I think it is bad taste to watch while another platoon receives an enema.

On defense I like to keep the squads close together so they can support each other against enemy infantry assaults.

On offense I keep them a bit more spread out until the enemy is located, then I close ranks as I am about to assault an enemy position.

In any case I try to at least keep all the squads under command.

[jshandorf]

On defense try not to setup your infantry so that they are exposed to DF. Set them up so that they either cover a small killing field in front or they are set up to provide enfiladed fire.

Also.. KEEP YOUR PLATOONS TOGETHER. Breaking off squads will only mean a quick death for that squad. Make sure that the squads within a platoon are setup so that they can support each other with fire.

When you are advancing the general rule should be to keep you squads under command control. Also I have found that positioning and spacing doesn't matter as much on the advance as TIMING. If your opponent cannot predict when and at what speed you are going to advance he cannot effectively employ his artillery until you stop.

Jeff

P.S. Oh and NEVER let enemas isolate your squads and destroy them. When squads see friendly squads getting enemas they take a big moral hit.

[ 05-07-2001: Message edited by: jshandorf ]

[boy_Recon]

On attack or defence it all depends on the platoon leader's ratings. At the end of the day, the loss of a squad is generally inconsequential. when attacking with three squads, spread one out in front of the other two and expect to lose it.

[JasonC]

"two platoons forward with one in reserve if you have the forces"

Whale. Sometimes.

Yes, a reserve platoon is useful. Yes, two platoons can maneuver by bounds, one moving another not. But I often use a narrower formation at least at first, more like a column in some respects. Or a wedge rather than a "V".

I usually assign 1 platoon to "point", with few supports so as not to slow it down (1 zook or piat is about it), and sometimes only 2 squads (3rd attached to the company HQ). It goes first and its mission is to find either the enemy or a hole. It somehow manages to do one or the other with remarkable consistency. I give it an HQ with good morale but little else.

Then I make an overwatch platoon, or sometimes 2. It has MGs. It does not need to be so fast. It does need a good combat rating, and command helps too. It follows behind the point platoon about 1-2 minute, ~100 yards or sometimes 200. I don't want it to get hit by the same barrage as the point, or run into an ambush in the same minute. Otherwise it follows as close as it can.

Then there are all sorts of grab bag extras. The company HQ, the weapons, a 4th platoon organized as a second overwatch force or assault engineers. They maneuver behind or to the side of the overwatch platoon, or both. Usually they are more spread out, and some details out of them may pause farthe back - e.g. a weapon HQ and a couple mortars. They should be able to move alongside the overwatch platoon quickly (means 1-2 turns), either into the same spot, or on one side of it, or both sides.

Last comes the reserve platoon, which gets the best commander, or the stealthiest if they aren't very good. It will sometimes remain motionless and hiding several hundred yards behind the rest. Sometimes it will stay 100-200 yards back of the HQ-support element but keep moving. Sometimes they will move about level with it but well off to one side. The reserve is suppose to be able to fufill the role of any other part, or to charge a broken enemy "target of opportunity" late, or to change the main axis of advance with its own moves and then be replaced itself by one of the others.

Once in contact, the point and overwatch platoon usually wind up fighting the same enemy, and the HQ-support guys kick in however they can. Whether the reserve comes up, behind or from a new angle, or gets caught by somebody else while trying, or just waits, depends on what happens up front.

When in actual contact, the spacing I use it tight for each platoon with intervals between them. Typically 60 yards for a platoon, side to side. The gaps between (side to side) are usually more like 100 yards, but sometimes there won't be any. LOS stuff dominates.

Ideally you want to be far enough apart that only 1 platoon can ever come under the same artillery barrage (rockets excluded). But you want locations within 100 yards of either of them, to be less than 250 yards from the other, otherwise they cannot give any appreciable fire support to each other's targets. The same distance will generally mean a couple of minutes at most, to get to any useful supporting location - at least, for the fast guys. Sometimes you have to stay tighter, because you can't see from farther away (slopes, etc).

Squads do not operated independently, they only swing around their HQ to present its "face" this way or that, etc. Platoons only operate out of supporting distance from each other as special "details" or as moving reserves, and they try to stay hidden or out of action if seperated. The company is the basic fighting force, the platoons are its maneuver elements.

That's how I do it. For what it is worth.

[Wreck]

Reserves are a good idea. But it is worth noting that in CM you have a lot more flexibility about putting reserve platoons much more forward than they "should" be. ("Should" here meaning, how they should have been used in reality.)

In WWII, putting a reserve unit in the front would be asking for it to be pinned down and unable to move when you need it. In CM, infantry cannot really be pinned for more than a short while (though they can be broken and have that last for a long time). So in CM you can afford to put a lot more up front. The platoons that contact the enemy are fine. The ones that don't are your reserve.

Naturally, you should still keep an eye on terrain, crowding etc. If a reserve unit can only advance into poor cover, or it can advance but cannot move laterally from there, then don't move it up.

[Gen-x87]

I have found at least on the German side that you should place 1 platoon in the forward area with good cover and a second cloe but not close enough for aty to hit it. The second platoon will provide some descent support fire. Bring a MG into each platoon. Then just sit and let them fight. Keep the rest of your troops back while your armor dukes it out.

Most of the time people or the AI will shell the hell out of that first platoon which is fine. I usually have 2 companies so having a platoon or 1.5 platoons shewed up is not that bad. Once the arty is done move the rest of the troops up. By this time the armor battles should be done and you can go about doing your deed of waxing the enemy

Gen

[aka_tom_w]

Maybe I'm crazy and or a Lousy General, (or both) but I figure that I will need one platoon on each flank and one Platoon up the middle. (if I only get a company)

I always like to keep the sqauds in communication with their leader but I rarely have the platoons cover each other instead I use an HMG or a vehicle or a tank.

I see infantry in this game as screens to be send up front so my vechiles and tanks don't get whacked by pesky anti tank teams.

Maybe I play the game wrong, but I largely use platoons of infantry to clear the way for the advance of the vehicles which support the forward advance of the infantry.

But I always keep the squads very close together in front of their leader.

-tom w

[Maastrictian]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

I always like to keep the sqauds in communication with their leader but I rarely have the platoons cover each other instead I use an HMG or a vehicle or a tank.

I see infantry in this game as screens to be send up front so my vechiles and tanks don't get whacked by pesky anti tank teams.

Maybe I play the game wrong, but I largely use platoons of infantry to clear the way for the advance of the vehicles which support the forward advance of the infantry.

But I always keep the squads very close together in front of their leader.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I actually try to spread squads as far apart as possible. It prevents them from getting as hosed by infantry.

The amount of ground given to each platoon is the result of a number of factors.

The most obvious is the amount of ground to cover vs. the number of troops you have. Especially on defense you often can't have troops in self-suporting positions if you have lots of ground to cover. That's why you need a reserve in such situations.

On the offense, even with a relatively low number of troops you can concentrate on attacking in one or two spots, giving you local superiority and having perhaps a full company focusing on the same spot in the lines.

Using infantry to patrol ahead of the tanks is a very good strategy, but when you don't have that many tanks, or when your tanks can't deal with enemy AT assets (guns, especially in bunkers and heavy enemy armor (Allied players will know what I'm talking about )) you need to make an infantry only attack, and such concentration is really valuable (as oposed to an armor suport mission when you want to spread the infantry out so you cover as much ground as possible).

That's just my two cents. In other words, keep platoons as close togeather as possible (idealy I'd want to maintain equal spacing between squads of the same and of different platoons). But that's rarely possible.

--Chris

[imported_WARHAMMER]

YO! Boy_recon,

Not to start anything negative,

but us yanks figured you all were doing just

fine with all our "lend - lease" hardware.

Oh yea, is your check still in the mail?!

It's only been 50+ years.

Respectfully yours

WARHAMMER :cool:

[Redwolf]

Another point to consider is the kind of squads and their firepower. Platoons that should be able to cover each other (usually on the defense) should at least have a firepower rating of 50 at the distance the other platoon is away. That has consequences for SMG-heavy squads, which has consequences for opponent's artillery :-]]]

[Enoch]

some useful suggestions. I played a game last night where I made a very conscious effort to keep the infantry platoons of a company in relatively close support of each other. They seemed to have an easier time advancing and manuvering when contact was made.

I've always tried to supress any opposition I run into and manuver to destroy it. But, it seems with the full firepower of a company I was able to do so much more efficiently.

Anyway, it seems that I learn something from just about every game I play.

[Keith]

Just go to the following web site of a CM gamer who was a platoon leader in real life: http://www.geocities.com/fpd131/index.html

Go to the archives area and he has some great stuff on deployments of infantry on the attack.

[Redwolf]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Enoch:

I've always tried to supress any opposition I run into and manuver to destroy it. But, it seems with the full firepower of a company I was able to do so much more efficiently.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What kind of company?

For almost complete supression of a defender in foxholes, woods or buildings you need a firepower of about 150. For most infantry units, you need more than a platoon at longer ranges to reach that.

[chasd]

there is an another EXCELLENT platoon formations guide at Moons cool site: http://www.gamesofwar.de/

[LTShotgun]

For what it may be worth, I'll put my 2 cents in on this one. From the missions I've played, I have to say that this is an excellent game. My judgement criteria is how well a game performs while using real world tactics. This one does it quite well. With reference to platoon deployement, I use the same line of thinking as real world. Where do you place your forces? The standard answer is; "it depends upon the situation." That's cliche, but nonetheless true. There is an acronymn out there today called METT-T which can help you decide where to deploy. With the 3D nature of this game, it allows you to analyze the terrain as a modern day commander would, or would like to, anyway. It stands for Mission, Enemy, Terrain, Troops, and Time available. What is your mission? Read the briefing, and identify your objectives on the subsequent set-up phase. What enemy forces are you expected to encounter? What is their composition, or what are they made of? What is there disposition, or where are they located, or are they moving toward your assigned objective? Defining whether or not this is a meeting engagement, or an assault on a defended position, or you're being attacked plays a large part in how you will deploy your forces. Terrain. Very key. Taking into account the mission, and the enemy, how can you best utilize your terrain. I get down on troop view level and move forward during the setup phase to analyze possible courses of action, looking at routes for cover and concealment, avenues of enemy approach, possible enemy locations, my view of friendly, and enemy fields of fire. How many hull down postitions are there on your proposed routes of travel? Where are they located? Where can I put my HMG's in support? Will they be able to support my assaulting troops? Primary and alternate firing positions. Analysis of the terrain in the setup phase can be priceless when the heat starts flying. Troops. What do I have? How do they stack up to the enemy? Do I split out MMG's, Anti-tank teams, and mortars to individual platoon commands, or do I consolidate them to form a massive support weapons platoon? Some scenarios account for the latter. I had one platoon leader extra, in addition to the company commander, which allowed me to pull in my MMG's, HMG, and mortars to form one dominating support by fire element that ranged nearly every enemy infantry squad I encountered. That's an option too. But at times, you may want them to tag along with a given platoon also, or several platoons. Time is critical also. This game has a limited amount of turns to achieve your victory conditions. Same holds very true in real life. Resources are limited, and time is no exception. This is a major factor in initial deployment as well. Keeping forces in command is critical. The way this is done is through formations, and movement techniques. Formations are essentially the same for whatever you deploy, vehicles, or troops, and units. For this game, since squads aren't accurately rendered graphically, formations are limited to the platoon, company, and battalion levels, which is good enough for what you're doing in this game. There are many formations, line, vee, wedge, modified wedge, and column are pretty standard. The squads within the platoon are in one of these formation categories, while the platoons within a company can be in the same category, or different. For example, you can deploy your squads within a platoon in a wedge, while the company is in a column. This example provides good fields of fire and security to either flank, while maintaining the flexibility to move a trailing platoon in the column to either flank for an assault should contact be made. Spacing can be dictated by the terrain in which they are travelling, or deployed in. If they are in the open, space them out. Way out. 100 to 200m between squads, and 200 to 300m between platoons of the company. If they are in the woods, close them up, and keep it tight. The platoon in wedge, company in column would look like this from above (hopefully it posts properly, as I envisioned):

SQ1

PL

MMG

SQ2 SQ3

CO

HMG MORT

MORT

SQ1

PL

MMG

SQ2 SQ3

SQ1

PL

MMG

SQ2 SQ3

The movement techniques are dependent upon the terrain traversed, the enemy contact probability, and the speed at which you need to move. There is travelling, where speed is essential, and enemy probability is low. This is basically as I shown with the diagram above, where units are equally spaced, and constantly moving without overwatching elements. There is travelling overwatch, where the lead element is at a much greater distance from the rest of the elements, i.e. the lead squad of the lead platoon is way out front, with the others lagging behind to ensure some survivability during initial enemy contact. The lead platoon is also way out front of the rest of the company element. Then there is bounding overwatch. This is where enemy contact is highly likely. One squad remains in position, ready to fire, while another moves forward to their postition. The key here is that the moving squad does not move farther than the maximum effective range of the weapons in the overwatching element. If you have a infantry and armor task force, where the armor is the overwatching element for the infantry in motion, then, you can go further forward than if you had only an infantry squad acting as the overwatching element. The second key is that the overwatching element does not move forward until the moving element has finished their movement, and assumes the role of the overwatching element. The movement is called bounds. There are successive, and alternating bounds. Successive bounds are where the moving element has taken a position and become the overwatching element. The overwatching element then moves forward as the bounding element up to the same distance across from the unit that just moved forward, but not past it. Alternative bounds are where the unit moving forward takes up a position forward of the forward overwatching element, thus passing it. It all depends upon how likely you are to get shot at, really, and how fast you want to traverse that terrain. Successive bounds are slow, especially in this game. Alternative bounds can be risky. The third squad in all this usually goes diagonally between the old positions of the first two, moving up as the respective squad leaves their position to become the bounding element. It all sounds pretty robotic, but it works. The aim is to make contact with as little of your force as possible, being able to maneuver effectively with your trailing forces. Then it comes to tactics, or what you do with it all. Your squad (or platoon) that makes contact with the enemy becomes your base of fire element. Essentially the ducks that take the enemie's fire, allowing your trailing forces to flank the position. It's all fix and flank. You fix the enemy with the lead element (in most situations) and flank them with the rest. There is a certain amount of survivability you want to maintain, however. If you don't think that one squad will survive, move a second up to one side of it. Then you have two fixing. You may need an entire platoon to fix. You may even need the reinforcement of MG team's. In that case, you'd better have another whole platoon to do the flanking close behind you. Formations, and movement techniques as I described previously, allow you to do that, without spreading your forces too thin, and running willy nilly around the game map when the bullets start flying. Give it a try. Do some reading up on today's tactics. Buy some infantry field manuals from a surplus store, or do some reading online. There's plenty of it. I'm sure after you try it this way, you'll find out that it works quite well. When it comes to deploying for a defend mission, where you won't be moving, but the enemy is moving to you, then terrain analysis is prime. Look at the map in the setup phase extensively. Use your view angles to the fullest. See from ground level in a direction toward the enemy, as well as from the enemy's expected direction of travel to you. When placing units along a line of defense, a lazy W is used. Think of it where you have a long, drawn out "W" where units are positioned at each point between the lines of the "W." This ensures that there are mutually supporting, or interlocking fields of fire. As the enemy closes, several units can fire upon it from several directions. Dot the "W" with MG's and dug in tanks, and you've got a good line. Cover areas of no LOS with mortars. Place TRP's where you think the enemy has to go in order to get to you. Don't ever place units on top of a hill! Place them on the side of the hill so that they are not silhouetted against the skyline as easy targets. Enemy arty targets the hilltops as well, or expects you to be there. Having at least one MG team near the edge of your flanks also is key. This allows them to fire diagonally across your entire front, with each of their fields of fire interlocking as well. This can tear up the enemy. You can conceal Bazooka teams far forward to act as scouts, and hide until enemy armor comes into range, then run like hell back to your line if it gets too thick.

Well, my 2 cents turned into more like 2 dollars...

[JasonC]

To LT Shotgun - mostly a reasonably useful review of well known, successful tactics. There is one point I would revise, however. You recommend very spread deployments in open terrain, as much as 100m between squads. I think you will find that such wide formations aren't worth a darn in CM.

A platoon needs to stay considerable tighter - like, maximum width 80-100 meters for the whole platoon - to do much of anything in CM. More scattered units are targets, with low morale, and unable to coordinate their actions fast enough on contact, when pinned, etc. And seperated squads are easily suppressed, which usually leaves them defenseless, or at best (if far from the enemy) useless.

Regardless of what you think of the realism of that, that is the way I think you will find it works in CM. The primary tactical infantry unit in the game is is really the platoon. Its sub-units allow it to take on different formations and use elementary fire and movement. But the minimum level of combat power needed to survive CM firefights, is higher than widely seperated squads can reach.

[M. Bates]

You are all talking bollocks.

The way to play infantry in CM is to either (1) pin down the enemy infantry, then destroy it, (2) out number the enemy infantry locally then wear it down, (3) pit one infantry squad with superior firepower to another enemy infantry squad.

So really... it all depends on the situation. Just don't run headlong into enemy machine guns, build up and support the attack slowly, and you will be okay.

[LTShotgun]

Ooops...My diagram in the previous post didn't turn out like I had hoped. I agree with chasd in the prior post about gamesofwar website. It has excellent CM representations of formations and plenty of info on how to effectively deploy and employ as I described. It's just standard US Army Infantry Doctrine, of long ago, and today.