Proper employment of CMBB commands?

[markshot]

I played CMBO for a couple of years (99.9% SP) and just got CMBB. I am finished reading the manual and am almost finished with the strategy guide. I did not play the demo or follow the forum discussions too much.

I would like to use this post to confirm my understanding of the proper employment of a number of commands and also raise some questions, before I embark on WWII in the East. So, here goes. (I've left out some commands whose semantics are unchanged since CMBO.)

MOVE (INFANTRY) - Use this when you need to reposition your troops and have time to do that without unduly tiring them out. The route taken should already be secured or known to be safe.

CONTACT (INFANTRY) - Use this when you want to probe for enemy positions and are moving through cover. Upon achieving contact, you can then evaluate the situation.

CONTACT+HIDE (INFANTRY) - Use this when when you want to probe for enemy positions, but do not want to give away your presence.

ADVANCE (INFANTRY) - Use this when you have been engaged by the enemy, but need to reposition your forces while taking fire. If you need to move your men over open ground while under fire, is it better to ADVANCE or to RUN?

SNEAK (INFANTRY) - Use this when you have made contact with the enemy but they are still unaware of your presence and you want to reposition your forces with as much stealth as possible.

SNEAK+HIDE (INFANTRY) - Use this when following a stealthy repositioning, you are still not ready to give away your position.

RUN (INFANTRY) - Use this when you need to move your forces as quickly as possible when not under fire. What about if they are under fire across open ground?

ASSAULT (INFANTRY) - Use this to cover the final distance of overrunning an enemy position which is already supressed.

HUMAN WAVE (INFANTY) - Use this to take advantage of more numerous poor quality Soviet troops attempting to overrun an enemy position which is already supressed.

MOVE (ARMOR) - Use this to keep an AFV moving while being moderately prepared to engage targets. For example, the AFV must expose its full silohuette, but you want it to continue on to the next out of LOS or hull down position rather than stopping while completely exposed. This a good command to use in a bounding overwatch situation.

CONTACT (ARMOR) - Use this to keep an AFV from closing on enemy infantry which might foolishly engage it at range. In practice is this command that commonly used? Would you want to use it for recon with light vehicles or is it better to keep moving to cover with FAST? How is this command different from HUNT?

CONTACT+HIDE (ARMOR) - Is this of any practical use? In CMBO, AFVs had little sucess in hiding in a combined arms environment.

HUNT (ARMOR) - Use this to probe with an AFV (medium or heavy) for enemy AFVs and or reposition in a hostile environment. If traveling along a non-open route, then local security should have first been achieved by infantry. FAST is better used for light and fast AFVs performing recon. How is this command different from CONTACT?

FAST (ARMOR) - Use this for recon with light and fast AFVs to speeding from one covered location to another. Use this for all AFVs repositioning rapidly while traveling over secure terrain. Use this for fast turret/stabilized AFVs for flanking attacks on more heavily armored enemy AFVs with slow turrets and vulnerable flank/rear armor.

SEEK HULL DOWN (ARMOR) - Use this for pre-positioning AFVs to target enemy AFVs in an identified kill zone when setting up static firing positions.

SHOOT AND SCOOT (ARMOR) - Use this to engage enemy AFVs and pull back out of LOS before they can return fire. This is good to use when your AFV cannot simply slug it out with the enemy frontally from a hull down position. This is good for getting flank/rear shoots when the enemy AFV is distracted by other targets/activities. Is this command the equivalent of HUNT+REVERSE or is it the equivalent of MOVE+REVERSE (the manual seems to imply the later)?

COVER ARC (INFANTRY) - Use this to focus infantry attention on particular areas of the battlefield. This is particularly good for MG teams so that they are used to maximum effect as opposed to firing at anything which moves. Use this to maintain fire discipline when ammo is important to avoid wasteful/futile long range shootouts across long open spaces.

COVER ARC+HIDE (INFANTRY) - Use this to set up ambushes. Does infantry fire on anything which enters the arc or must the target be in the arc and in the maximum lethality zone for their weapons?

COVER ARMOR (INFANTRY) - Use for anti-tank teams to only engage AFVs where there is a high-kill probability a kill. Is this really useful without HIDE? For anti-tank teams is this really superior to simply using HIDE, since HIDE meant in CMBO, "don't engage until the AFV is real close"? Use for rifle squads to focus their attention on AFVs when you want to button them so that they can be killed by another AFV or ATG? Use this for sharpshooters to only target AFVs?

COVER ARMOR+HIDE (INFANTRY) - Use for anti-tank teams to ambush AFVs?

COVER ARMOR+HIDE (ATG) - Use this to define firing lanes for ATGs so that they only engage and expose their position when they have flank shots. Use this to prevent ATGs from exposing themselves to engage non-AFV targets.

COVER ARC (ARMOR) - Use this to keep AFVs from widely switching between various targets. The AFV can focus on using its weapons at range while supporting infantry can engage short range targets. Use this when AFVs which are traveling in formation so that good protective coverage is maintained such that a single enemy target does not draw the entire attention of the formation.

COVER ARC+HIDE (ARMOR) - Use this for setting up a combined arms ambush of enemy infantry entering a kill zone.

COVER ARMOR (ARMOR) - Use this to keep AFVs focused on particular lanes of fire and to prevent distraction by non-AFV targets. Will AFV MGs which are non-coaxial still engage non-AFV targets? Use this when AFVs which are traveling in formation so that good protective coverage is maintained such that a single enemy target does not draw the entire attention of the formation.

COVER ARC+HIDE (ARMOR) - Use this for setting up an ambush of enemy AFVs. Will the AFV given this order cease to hide if non-enemy AFVs engage it?

---

Thanks for taking the time to read this and clarifying or adding to my understanding!

[ May 10, 2003, 06:13 PM: Message edited by: markshot ]

[nevermind]

Contact(armor) and Hunt(armor)

While hunting,an afv will stop to engage AT assets that it can destroy,it will keep moving or "cower" if it cant.I believe it will keep moving even if it spots infantry and will engage unless you are using arcs.

While moving to contact,it will stop regardless as soon as it has LOS to any enemy unit(unless it "cowers" and moves away),and unlike hunt,if the spotted target is destroyed or LOS to it is broken,it WILL NOT continue moving.

Thats all i got,and there are more details to my above statement,but i am tired and lazy

[markshot]

Bump

[YankeeDog]

I almost never RUN intentionally while under fire. RUN leaves your men the most exposed and therefore the most likely to take casualties if they take fire. They also spot like crap while running, so if they get fired upon, they probably won't even see where the fire is coming from.

It is sometimes possible to use RUN to zip across small patches of open ground on the theory that then you can get across the 'danger zone' before the enemy can get a shot off. This works best when the targeting enemy is distracted elsewhere, or has a really slow rotation rate/ROF, like a big gun. This is risky, though, as if the gun does get a shot off, your running squad is likely to take serious casualties.

One thing to add to your CONTACT drill for infantry: CONTACT works really well when used with a covered arc - the unit will stop only if it either (1) actually gets fired upon, or (2) sees and enemy unit actually within its covered arc. This way, you can order a scout unit to, say, ignore the enemy tank on the hill 1km away, but keep its eyes out for enemy infantry in the scattered trees right in front of it.

Cheers,

YD

[Bone_Vulture]

Originally posted by YankeeDog:

I almost never RUN intentionally while under fire. RUN leaves your men the most exposed and therefore the most likely to take casualties if they take fire. They also spot like crap while running, so if they get fired upon, they probably won't even see where the fire is coming from.

Since it takes several seconds for troops to aim at new targets, using run to cross short open spaces can been a lot less hazardous than using slower movement commands. The "run" command should be combined with a pause delay, so your other forces have time to lay down heavy fire for some half a minute, in order to suppress the enemies before your troops dash out.

[Holman]

IIRC, there is no COVER ARMOR command for infantry. They can only COVER ARC. (I don't know if this is true of tank hunters and panzerschrecks.)

Likewise, I don't think vehicles can set a HIDE at the end of a move--they can only HIDE while already stationary. So there's no CONTACT + HIDE for them.

I tend to ADVANCE rather than RUN whenever there's a chance of being shot at on the move. While ADVANCING troops can fire while moving, the more important advantage is a defensive one: they are considered to be using all available cover en route.

SHOOT & SCOOT is like MOVE & REVERSE (rather than HUNT & REVERSE), so you need to be careful about where you set the SHOOT position.

I think troops with a COVER ARC will still hold fire until they have a good chance of doing damage. In other words, SMG infantry with a 1000m arc still won't fire at something 990m far away.

MOVE TO CONTACT offers some tactical possibilities of its own. You can set different types of movement commands after a CONTACT waypoint, so that if your unit sees no one during the CONTACT step it will then go on to execute the next part of the plan. This can be used to set up a rapid bounding overwatch.

[ May 11, 2003, 01:49 PM: Message edited by: Martyr ]

[SFJaykey]

Originally posted by markshot:

....MOVE (ARMOR) - Use this to keep an AFV moving while being moderately prepared to engage targets. For example, the AFV must expose its full silohuette, but you want it to continue on to the next out of LOS or hull down position rather than stopping while completely exposed. This a good command to use in a bounding overwatch situation....

Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but after playing several dozen games of CMBB (zero CMBO) I never use MOVE for armor anymore, with one exception: AFVs with high ground pressure over questionable terrain. MOVE _seems_ to have a lower chance of bogging for the same distance covered than FAST. Otherwise, either HUNT or FAST always seem to get better results: either you are willing to stand and slug it out, or if not you want to get into the next patch of cover pronto!

A few other comments on points you raised....please keep in mind I am not the most experienced on this board:

SHOOT & SCOOT is like MOVE + REVERSE. I like the notion of it but it doesn't seem to work as well as it should. For one thing, my AFVs don't like to pause at the firing point, but reverse immediately, so their shots are taken while the AFV is in motion which hurts accuracy. Sometimes it is the right command but I more often use PAUSE + HUNT and try to time my AFV's emergence from cover so it will get a shot or two off before end of turn, and I can reverse at the start of next turn. Riskier than S&S, but offers a better chance of scoring.

COVER ARC and ARMOR for AFVs are great commands that I use heavily. Two situations where they are vital for AFVs is for assault guns like the Stug, and when driving tanks on town maps and in other heavy cover situations. I almost always set a narrow arc for my AGs, after losing too many of them as they rotated, soooo slooowwwllyyy, to engage enemies on the flank, exposing their own vulnerable sides to enemy guns. And turreted tanks moving in and out of cover, amongst buildings for example are more effective if you set an arc centered where you expect the enemy to be: the turret rotates to face the arc, so when you gain LOS you are already lined up for the shot. Big help in getting the first shot off...if you guessed right on enemy location.

That's all I have really strong opinions on....have fun figuring out the rest!

- Matt

[ May 11, 2003, 09:22 PM: Message edited by: SFJaykey ]

[Holman]

[my first double post in more than a year!]

[ May 11, 2003, 09:51 PM: Message edited by: Martyr ]

[Holman]

I've sometimes found MOVE (ARMOR) helpful precisely *because* of the tank's tendency to fire while moving. Sure, you don't want to be shooting AP this way, but sometimes you want to move your tanks while hosing down a particular group of soft targets with MG fire. MOVE with a covered arc is especially good for this.

I'm not sure if HUNT will achieve the same effect--it's possible that HUNT makes tanks ignore infantry entirely unless they're a threat.

It takes practice to use SHOOT & SCOOT effectively. (I'm not very good at it.) Some of the heavy tanks have such long reloading times that you have to be careful. Don't run your IS-2 up to a SHOOT point while the loader is still struggling with the ammunition.

[Cpl Carrot]

Note that the scoot part of S&S can be a forward movement instead of reverse. Just put the Scoot leg in front of the tank and away you go.

[SFJaykey]

Originally posted by Martyr:

I've sometimes found MOVE (ARMOR) helpful precisely *because* of the tank's tendency to fire while moving. Sure, you don't want to be shooting AP this way, but sometimes you want to move your tanks while hosing down a particular group of soft targets with MG fire. MOVE with a covered arc is especially good for this.

I'm not sure if HUNT will achieve the same effect--it's possible that HUNT makes tanks ignore infantry entirely unless they're a threat.

It takes practice to use SHOOT & SCOOT effectively. (I'm not very good at it.) Some of the heavy tanks have such long reloading times that you have to be careful. Don't run your IS-2 up to a SHOOT point while the loader is still struggling with the ammunition.

I could see using MOVE for AFVs against infantry only, good suggestion. But if there is any chance they will face an enemy AFV or ATG that turn, I think they are far batter off HUNTing, or else move FAST for half a turn, to a place from where they can splatter the soft targets, then move FAST again next turn. Under MOVE orders they seem to pay a high price in gunnery, but are still too easy to hit, much easier (it seems to me) than when moving FAST.

What kind of success have others had with S&S? Are vehicles supposed to pause at the firing position, long enough loose one round? Mine seem to, rarely, but usually reverse immediately. Could this be tweaked in v1.03 or CMAK?

- Matt

[CombinedArms]

I've never had much luck with shoot and scoot--I'd say about an 80% death rate for those AFV's who try it, with about a 5% kill rate. I may be exaggerating, but not by much. There seems to be a knack to it, but it's one I haven't been able to learn. I keep trying it--and keep losing tanks. The problem for me is that the AFV is locked into firing at a specific point and fast moves, w/o firing, to that point. If you miscalculate the location of the point, your unit doesn't shoot when it should, gets too far out, and gets killed either before it can fire or before it can get away.

I find I much prefer a combined Hunt-Reverse order, which seems to work better and more flexibly than shoot-and-scoot (and is improved, it seems, over CMB0). With Hunt-Reverse, your AFV tends to stop when it finds a hulldown position relative to enemy armor--it doesn't go too far. It will fire when it finds a good target--it isn't locked in to reaching an arbitrarily set point. It will stay in position as long as it finds targets it can kill. And it will back away if it finds no targets or finds targets that are too dangerous.

Since pivoting a tank takes a LOT of time in CMBB, I always make my reverse order go directly back over the track of the hunt order. That speeds the getaway if one is needed.

And like some posters above, I hardly ever use MOVE. HUNT, FAST and REVERSE are my big three.

[ May 12, 2003, 09:19 AM: Message edited by: CombinedArms ]

[Holman]

Just a note that perhaps goes without saying: vehicles have a higher chance of bogging when moving FAST.

[Other Means]

IFAIK "move" is to allow a tank to move at the same speed as covering infantry. i've read on this forum that "fast" actually covers more ground than "move" before bogging. give that what credance you will.