Ok how shall i win ??

[Uedel]

i think large scale inf. Battles in WWII where more comon then the ones with Tanks.

For me the fun of Games lies in the tactics of inf. battle, Tank battles anyes me, because 1 well placed 88 can rule the whole game, even so a good placed platoon of KVII´s in the early days.

As for Tanks they are never well Balanced, there is allways a Hangover to on or the other side (most times are in favor Axis, because they usualy get the far better Tanks for a little value of more points, whereas the Allied Tanks all suck at range above 1km etc etc etc).

But infantry is IMO well balanced and good for getting out who is the smarter player........

[Uedel]

double tap

[ January 28, 2003, 11:47 AM: Message edited by: Uedel ]

[JasonC]

Uedel is right that infantry force type vs. infantry force type battles were quite common in WW II. That doesn't mean "infantry only", literally, but them and their support weapons. It was also quite common that the attacker had only modest amounts of armor (a few StuG or SU-76s, or a few medium tanks) while the defender had enough ATGs to make their use less than aggressive.

And these happened in poor terrain for infantry, not just in cities or forests. It was a simple byproduct of the fact that most of both armies (German and Russian) were infantry, that the Germans were very low on tanks overall while the Russians concentrated theirs in important areas, etc.

Where these "Somme re-enactments"? No, that was an outlier of a day, as I've talked about many times before. Most of WW I didn't look like the first day of the Somme. And plenty of WW II looked like the later portions of WW I.

But there were serious differences. Support weapons had improved - LMGs were everywhere. Defenders were typically less prepared, since fronts moved. The ratio of force to space was much lower, particularly in the wide spaces of southern Russia, or after troops spread over 2 dimensions rather than just 1 in breakthrough fighting, or both. Defender reserves were much scarcer - shoestring and purely local affairs, rather than whole formations the size of those in the line or larger ready to relieve the men hit hardest. Odds were often much higher in favor of the attackers, created by operational maneuver, thinner fronts, etc.

There were still any number of cases where the attackers put too much force on too little space against an intact defense, pressed too hard, without tank support, where the artillery prep was screwed up, etc. And many of these were bloody shambles for the attackers, certainly - even at 5 to 1 odds and upward. The main considerations were how experienced or smart the attackers were (all arms coordination, etc), and how depleted or hasty the defense was - more so than odds. A clumsy attack against well-prepared, reasonably fresh defenders always failed.

Infantry only does not lead to "greater balance", however. It tends to defense dominance, it just doesn't ensure that outcome. Generally the attacker deserves to have an "armor level" one above the defender (armor vs. combined arms, combined arms vs. infantry). If he isn't, he deserves some other advantage - decent terrain, better skill levels, higher quality of armor available at that date, big maps for the force size engaged, whatever. With none of them, the point odds should probably be higher, to at least put the defender on budget.

A typical company defense had to cover 700 yards at a minimum, and often the Germans had only a company per mile. In defensive steppe fighting against infantry, the Germans used strongpoints because heavy weapons can pin the surrounding areas pretty well, even at long range - and they didn't have the infantry manpower to line frontages. The Russians responded by "encirclement and suppression" - picking a few key strongpoints, lapping around them, shelling them, then trying to hit just the ones they needed to remove with more than the defenders could handle. Didn't always work, but often did.

Are infantry attacks vastly different than in CMBO, and far slower? Definitely. MGs are much more powerful, pinning much quicker, there is typically less cover and it is needed more, defenders are much harder to spot under "extreme" fog of war, and thus to take out with overwatch fires, attacking artillery is less responsive, and fortifications have improved dramatically and are cheaper as well.

There was too much offense dominance in CMBO, particularly in infantry fighting (from the "knife edge" and "snowball" effects of fire ascendency, etc). Now if is the other way, the attack is harder. Which is more realistic, but player's techniques, game conditions, etc, may not have adjusted to it yet.

[ January 28, 2003, 12:18 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[MikeyD]

About pure infantry battles, I'm reminded that you can find documents of the weekly (daily?) lists of working armor for some Panzer units. They start a campaign with two dozen tanks and end with two. Imagine yourself as a German infantryman facing an assault, the battalion's only working tank is thirteen miles away.

[ January 28, 2003, 05:04 PM: Message edited by: MikeyD ]

[manchildstein (ii)]

--From what i read the Typical infantry battle must be planned over more turns then maybe was usefull in CMBO ?--

yes that seems to be the consensus and it matches my own experience.

for one thing, the MGs in CMBB will pin, rout, and break your troops much easier than they did in CMBO... in CMBB it's not so much that the MGs inflict actual casualties, just that the MGs tend to easily disrupt troop movements...

if you go by JasonC's postings here you should be in good shape.

without going into so many words (i have 'a-d-d') my experience matches what he wrote...

in short, i usually 'command' between 4 platoons (company) and a battalion ('10 platoons')... so my basic elements are platoons, then crew weapons such as MGs and mortars. in the attack, my MGs and mortars are always looking to get into firing position without themselves being shot at.

meanwhile my infantry platoons are 'leapfrogging' one another toward the objective. for the infantry i mostly use a combination of 'move' and 'advance'

generally i'll leapfrog using 'move' then when contact is made by the 'lead' platoon, the other platoons will 'advance' around the lead platoon, which is itself by then laying down covering suppressive fire, along with any MGs or mortars i've managed to get into position.

even though mention platoons as the manuever elements, i am giving each squad and hq an individual order... i did a lot more group movement in cmbo... i think cmbb demands a bit more precision in orders...

one thing to keep in mind is that, if you have to cross open ground with infantry, you must suppress or otherwise destroy the potentially interdicting defensive positions... particularly nasty are the 75mm (axis) or 76mm 'short' guns in a direct fire role... in my experience those will break up an infantry movement, even to a greater extent than HMG fire.

[OG_Gleep]

Jason, I remember you giving me excellent advice with tactics, particularly infantry tactics in CMBO. Is there any difference between the two games as far as the general theories in Tactics? Is there any difference in practical application of those theories? Gonna order the game when stocks come in, and have been warming up with CMBO, and am wondering how many threads I am going to have to go through to re-learn the game.

[White Phosphorus]

Why do people always bring up Somme, but not the Ardenes offensive. Both were all infantry battles.

[Grisha]

What needs to be emphasized is that regardless of the ratio of support arms to rifle forces, what Jason is describing is common to any main assault or attack of prepared enemy positions. A scenario depicting the main assault sector for the Vistula-Oder operation would've basically been no different, except for the wide array of support arms (artillery, armor, air, sappers) cooperating with Soviet rifle forces. In the end, when it comes to taking and holding an established enemy position you need infantry to get the job done.

[Das Reich]

Originally posted by White Phosphorus:

Why do people always bring up Somme, but not the Ardenes offensive. Both were all infantry battles.

As in Wacht Am Rhein? The Battle of the Bulge?

All infantry?

What about the 1st SS Panzer Korps?

Or are you speaking of another Ardennes offensive?

[JasonC]

"Is there any difference between the two games as far as the general theories in Tactics? Is there any difference in practical application of those theories?"

And how. Yes, there are large differences in tactics in CMBB, compared to CMBO. Some things - combined arms principles e.g. - remain in the abstract, but all of the different "arms" have seen serious changes and their interrelations change as a result of it. Tactics are much more realistic now, and infantry is much less the dominant "suit" that it was in CMBO.

You can't adopt some simple scheme of infantry maneuver and expect it to run the defender off his feet by achieving local odds before he can react. (In 9 out of 10 cases, cover and force mix wise, anyway. There are exceptions to every such generalization of course). In CMBO, you could.

Since many more things can now break infantry, heavy artillery is not the irreplacable "ace" it once was. And since tank MGs can realistically deny open ground to infantry, winning the armor war matters more than ever.

Tanks are much more important in CMBB. Infantry delivers its strongest punch much later, outlasting enemies rather than running them over with local odds. Ranged heavy weapons are much more important, much harder to spot.

CMBO often focused on heavy artillery and occasionally HE-heavy AFVs doing what they could to help infantry odds, which once large enough could prove decisive without too much effort. Fire ascendency was achieved by putting 2-3 times as many infantry near an important point, without arty KOing them.

In CMBB, the tanks and their duel with the heavy weapons is the critical factor. *Ranged* fire ascendency, or overwatch ascendency, determines whether the infantry can move forward decisively, or creeps along. The biggest single reason for this is that infantry pins under fire much more rapidly. Particularly while moving and in the open, but even defenders. Successful movement is more tied to prior success with fire.

What do these changes mean for the old stand by strategies, attrition and maneuver? Both remain possible, but maneuver is much harder, and relies more on tanks for the bulk of the razzling and dazzling. They are better at it, though - not as impotent on their own as before, unless the terrain is tight. Their MGs work.

Attrition does not focus so exclusively on remaining infantry odds, because that is no longer a decisive factor in itself. It focuses on live or dead, effective or ineffective, ranged weapons. Run the enemy out of ATGs and unsuppressed HMGs, and you can move and achieve local odds and wield fire ascendency here and there, to paralyze parts of his force, descend upon them, and dispatch them.

While he still has functioning ones, you can't, and premature attempts to do so disorder the infantry and lose tanks. There is more defense dominance early. The harder you press, the worse the buzz-sawing you will receive. Haste is very dangerous in CMBB. It often paid off in CMBO, getting many on fews that could be won cleanly.

As for practical applications, it is a large subject. LOL.

[White Phosphorus]

Originally posted by Das Reich:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by White Phosphorus:

Why do people always bring up Somme, but not the Ardenes offensive. Both were all infantry battles.

As in Wacht Am Rhein? The Battle of the Bulge?

All infantry?

What about the 1st SS Panzer Korps?

Or are you speaking of another Ardennes offensive? </font>

[JasonC]

That would be the "Ludendorf offensives" (plural), not the "Ardennes offensive", in that case.