ADK Posted May 9, 2003 Share Posted May 9, 2003 I am playing "The Bridgeheads". My Soviet infantry are in the open and, when they are fired upon, they become Alert or Cautious. Makes sense. They then automatically plot a move to get to cover. This also makes sense. However, what has me confused is that they plot a move towards the infantry units firing on them. The automatically "sneak" in the open towards the units firing at them. They do not fire back, nor do they try to get there quickly. There is other cover closer by, most notably a ridge they could hide behind. Seems rather "uncautious" to me. Thoughts/comments 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted May 9, 2003 Share Posted May 9, 2003 It is called "cover panic". Infantry shot at in open ground - actually anything with high enough exposure - go into a state intermediate between outright panic (where they won't respond to new orders at all) and good order (where they do, with some delay). Unless they will reach cover within 10m using their "sneak" movement order, they are trying to do the wrong thing and you have to intervene to help them. It is possible to drag the waypoint around and to change its speed of movement, as with an order you give yourself. But be careful - they can go right back into "cover panic" if your new order is too ambitious and just gets them shot again. "Advance" is the best movement type when being shot at in the open. To avoid getting too tired, it helps to keep the length of the bounds to about 100m. Use the pause created by command delay between movement orders as time to rest. You can also switch off which units are "advancing" and which sit still for a minute to rest. Since "closest" and "moving" draw fire, this tends to spread the enemy fire around and give time to rally between hits. When already in "cover panic", though, the best thing is usually to just clear the movement order entirely (using backspace or halt from the menu), and leave the unit stationary for a minute. A "hide" order is optional (only helps much at long range, or in brush-wheat, or both). Basically you should give them a minute to rally, before asking them to move again. A large infantry force still makes progress over open ground under fire by exploiting its "rally power". Lots of units in pinned to altered all recovering at the same time can absorb a lot of long range infantry or MG fire without lasting damage. Does feel a little like herding cats until you get the hang of it. You must estimate how much you can ask of the men at any given time, and you can't push too harder. Watch the morale states and give them time to breath. Pushing harder when some are breaking and many are in "cover panic" will make the men dissolve into a scattered, tired mass of unled men, weakened by panics and routs here and there. The few intact guys will get too close to intact defenders and will be outshot. The effect you want instead is more or less everyone making slow, intermittent progress in small bounds punctuated by minutes of rest, until intact platoons reach cover within sighting range of the defenders (200m or so, to turn sound contacts into exact location IDs). Defenders will waste a lot of ammo during such an approach. The attackers spend a minute or three rallying in cover, and are only slightly worse for all the wear. Then they can outshoot the defenders because as attackers they have numbers, and they have 2-3 times as much ammo remaining. I hope this helps, and good luck with your attack. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joachim Posted May 9, 2003 Share Posted May 9, 2003 Originally posted by ADK: There is other cover closer by, most notably a ridge they could hide behind. Seems rather "uncautious" to me. Thoughts/comments Hiding behind something does not qualify as cover in the CM world. Exposure (as the TacAI defines it) is as if they were in the open. I guess the computational overload for the CPU checking likely hiding places based on terrain height would be just too much to wait for. I remember one movie scene where they ( I guess US cav vs Indians) take cover on one side of a little rinse in the ground, receive incoming from behind, switch to the other side, take cover, again receive incoming from behind, etc. Otherwise breaking LOS to those firing at you - if they are identified and you are sure they are the only ones firing at you - seems a sound tactic to me. Are you sure there are no politcal troops armed with SMGs behind that cover? Gruß Joachim 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ADK Posted May 9, 2003 Author Share Posted May 9, 2003 So in a "cover panic" situation, it is common for the units to plot a sneak movement 100+ meters away towards the enemy through open ground? And in such cases, the players reaction should be to unplot the move and let them rest. Thank you very much for the reply. I am off to give it another try. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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