Tips on factory fighting

[Monwar]

Getting in seems to be the real problem. Also, reducing them to rubble makes life tougher. Any tips on factory fighting would be very helpful.

[Slappy]

I find that not getting in is the best way. Factories seem to be shockingly porous to enemy fire in CMBB and the interiors offer relatively little cover. It seems that being in scattered trees generally provides better cover and concealment to me. In fact, I think calling them 'aluminum sided empty warehouses' would probably be a more accurate description of how they play. Ok, I'm exagerating a little, but you get the point.

With that in mind, I recommend getting the units inside to reveal themselves and then massing fire from the outside. If you're shooting in from decent cover, you should be able to dislodge near defenders and enter the factory. From there, it's a straight up shootout due to the open lanes inside.

I entirely agree that rubble is a far better defensive position. The defense will just move into the rubbled portion of the factory and become extremely difficult to dislodge. Try avoiding large artillery and HE.

[JasonC]

Factory fighting is bloody not because the cover is poor but because the range is so close, firepower is on the ceiling. If you get the same range to rubble you kill people even faster. What rubble does do is break up longer lines of sight (at the same elevation anyway), and slow movement enourmously.

I do think HE is the way to get into them in the first place. Demo charges are great, direct fire 75mm or larger also works. Factories are large enough to actually put a whole pattern of heavy artillery on one building, but the payoff is likely to be larger outside or against rubble. This is especially true of long fire missions telegraphed too far in advance, since the enemy can avoid those by using the sewers as a "cellar" for 4-5 minutes.

Once you have a foothold inside the name of the game is differential LOS, which you get by *short*, conservative movements and staying tight. Use "advance", and move in increments of 10m when in contact, under 50m even behind your own lines. Don't just sit, if you sit his guys will kill yours in LOS while many of your men sit it out or only take out the nearest enemy. You want a full squad on each tile at a minimum, and can go as high as 2 full squads at opposite corners of each tile. More than that just multiplies suppression received from each burst.

When people go to yellow morale do not try to push them. Leave them be, and use others to free them by coming into LOS of whoever is shooting at them at the moment. Use 2 lines, one behind the other about 30-40m, sheltering and rallying and acting as reserve and mass of maneuver. The front rank is your "shield", the back one is your "sword" to send at this then that portion of the enemy.

Don't try to tackle them all at once. Bite off a squad or two at a time, with twice as many shooters of your own. If you see him with that sort of match up, withdraw-run out of there. Do not fight the negative odds engagements and hope, it won't work. (SMGs against rifles, maybe). Flame can work inside factories because it gets close enough, but the move into range is very risky and half the time the FT team will die before firing. Demo charges are also effective but hard to place if being shot at.

Rubble tiles tend to be tactically important inside factories because they create LOS blockages. Regions of the factory get broken up by them. Move around them rather than over them - over them is too tiring on "advance" and too vulnerable on "move". Don't cut too tight around them or you send only one squad into LOS at a time. Instead wheel wide enough to come at the new side of the rubble tile from a full 20-30m of width, with 2-3 units. Low ammo guys, rallying guys, HQs, or ragged half squads can cover the rubble itself when you make such a move.

The closest thing, incidentally, is fighting in large stretches of continuous forest. There is the same premium on staying tight, first trigger pull, differential LOS, and being the stationary shooter instead of the mover for most of the actual firefighting minute.

I hope this helps.

[ November 25, 2003, 02:43 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Broken]

Originally posted by Monwar:

Getting in seems to be the real problem. Also, reducing them to rubble makes life tougher. Any tips on factory fighting would be very helpful.

Getting into factories is bit tricky. I have found a few tactics to "ease the pain" of assaulting a factory. The key, as Jason points out, is to make LOS differences work in your favor instead of against you.

Cover and LOS in factories

Typically, the attackers are at a great disadvantage vs the defenders in cover and concealment. Factory edges (5 meter depth or less) give 15% exposure, dropping to 12% in the interior. Rubble gives 23% exposure. Meanwhile the poor attacker is usually stuck with crossing at least some clear terrain at 70% exposure.

The concealment offered by rubble is much better than that offered by factory tiles, although rubble offers only about half the cover. Units more than 10m deep in rubble are very hard to spot, whereas LOS in a factory extends 70 meters.

The crucial LOS distance for units inside a factory is that distance where LOS to points outside the building is blocked. In clear weather, this "LOS boundary" is about 30 meters. A unit 30 meters deep will still have marginal LOS extending 5 meters outside the factory. At 31+ meters LOS is blocked.

The key for an attacker to clear unsuppressed defenders within the "LOS boundary" of the factory wall you wish to assault. It is easiest to do this at factory corner-tiles. The attacker has 50% more area to deliver suppressing fires from and the defender has 50% less area to hide defenders in with LOS to the corner.

"By the Book" Corner Assault

Bearing that in mind, a factory "corner" assault might proceed as follows against a single defending platoon:

1) Position your firebase. This can be direct fire HE, an HMG platoon, and/or a couple infantry platoons if good nearby cover exists. The more the merrier. Cover both sides of the corner.

2) Position the assault team. Get two assault platoons into cover within one turn's "bound" of the corner tile. These should be your double moral-bonus platoons or veterans if you have them.

3) Expose and suppress the defenders. This is the toughest part, a real cat-and-mouse game. Sometimes the defender will blaze away with everything as your assault platoons move into position, making you job easy. Blaze back with your firebase. On the other hand, a crafty defender will hide at least some of his force until you get within 10 meters of the factory. In this case, send a low value "sacrificial lamb" (depleted unit, half-squad, etc) into the factory and see what kills it. Concentrate your firebase on whatever pops up and drive it back from the factory wall. Repeat as necessary.

4) Assault. Have you suppressed everyone? Lets find out. Send your highest-morale squad into the very corner of the building. Send the rest of your assault squads to arrive about 20 seconds later through the walls on either side of the point man, spaced at 10 meter intervals along the wall. The point man should have attracted most of the defenders attention, allowing the rest of the assault group to arrive more-or-less intact.

I often prefer to use the RUN command here instead of ADVANCE or ASSAULT. If the defender is pushed back far enough that his LOS outside the factory is limited to 10 meters or less, a running squad is difficult to target and hit, since he can cross that distance in about three seconds. The slower ADVANCE command, on the other hand, will leave the squad exposed for more than twice as long.

As with any tactic, the defender has a number of countermeasures at his disposal. A "by the book" assault as described above can take six or more turns to develop, giving the defender time to move up reserves to counterattack your assault force. Flamethrowers are excellent assault repellers, especially if they can be hidden in rubble. Barbed wire can be placed across likely factory corners.

"Blow and Go" Assault

A second factory assault technique is the "Blow and Go" method. The idea is to blow up a factory corner tile just before your assault force goes into the new rubble. The collapsing factory creates a 60 meter diameter smokescreen which conveniently hides your assault force. As a bonus, any defending units left in the rubble tile are in very bad condition.

Timing is key. You have to know WHEN the building is going to collapse, so your assaulters don't arrive too early or too late. The disadvantages of arriving too early are obvious. The disadvantage of not arriving the same turn the building collapses is that the defender has time to move into the new rubble before you do. Not good.

You want to collapse the building in the first 30 seconds of the turn so the assaulters have time to run or advance to the rubble. A pair of 75mm HE chuckers gives you good precision in controlling when the factory collapses. Firing non-stop, two Regular 75mm guns will bring a factory down in 90-100 seconds. So blast away for two turns and start your assaulters 30 seconds into the second turn. Build a factory in the scenario editor and practice assaulting it.

Smoke: Caveat Emptor

Be careful of using smoke in factory assaults. An arty-delivered smoke screen will indeed help cover your assault squads. However, a clever defender can use that smoke against you. If he sees a few smoke spotting rounds come in, he might just move his defenders right up to the factory wall, knowing that he will be screened from your firebase. This will allow his defenders enough LOS to trash your assault group.

I hope this was useful.

[Brent Pollock]

My ongoing AAR of Our Backs to the Volga OBttV AAR shows three/four factory assaults in one battle. You can probably see "how to assault/defend" & "how not to assault/defend" all at once

As to your original query, I think the answer really depends on the balance & mix between the opposing sides. For examples of how this plays out, focus on the difference rates for casualties and terrain gain amongst the Left/Centre/Right German sectors.

[GreenAsJade]

Truly excellent question, and truly excellent replies.

I wish I'd asked and had that advice before I set out on the offensive towards the Volga

GaJ.